If only all cans were this beautiful, evoking the fresh driven snows of the Alps via pure white packaging and the fresh-faced grins of two young soda sippers. The colors here actually point back to the flag of Austria, where Almdudler was born in 1957. The name (according to Wikipedia at least) roughly translates to “yodeling in the Alpine pasture," and the taste is pretty much as close to that image as you can get in soda form. Working off an elderflower base tinged with faint herbal notes, it’s refreshing and not too sweet, a sort of fancy spin on the classic lemon-lime cocktail. Found poised among the pates and wursts at Upper East Side stalwart Schaller & Weber, which stocks a variety of products from the Deutschophone regions, from a version of the Swiss hiking snack landjäger to the verdant drink syrup called Waldmeister. Translating to ‘Master of the Woods,’ this sweet liquid seems to have some etymological connection to the similarly viscous Jägermeister, but it’s actually the German name for woodruff, making this a closer cousin to the Georgian tarragon syrup featured a couple of posts back. The Göbber version, however, leaves something to be desired, swapping out the natural herb flavors for food coloring and corn syrup. In Germany, Waldmeister Syrup is often added to beer, alternated with a raspberry version which brings to mind the contrasting eternal/ephemeral color scheme of the Christmas season, with its evergreen wreaths and red holly berries. Drinking at a Berlin dockside café back in 2011, I stumbled into this drinking tradition by blindly pointing at one of two beer selections on the menu. The beer I received wasn’t mixed with anything herbal, instead topped off with a healthy serving of Sprite. Had it been Almdudler I might not have been so perturbed.
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The coded language of snacks, sandwiches and seasonings, in NYC and beyond.
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