Rock & Why

 I had to make a supplementary trip to Sobey's before supper and came home with a bottle of pop I hadn't encountered before. When I put it on the table, Audrey looked at it quizzically and asked, "what's that?"

"It's a Faygo Rock & Rye soda," I said. 

She looked at me for a moment, then said, "None of what you said actually means anything to me. Like, at all."

It occurred to me that even though I picked up this innocuous soft drink from a major grocery store that a lot of people might be in the same boat. Hell, I barely knew what a rock & rye was, and so down the rabbit hole I went.

For openers, Faygo is a (mostly regional) pop-maker based in Detroit. Tragically, their claim to fame from a popular culture point of view is repeated references in the song lyrics of Insane Clown Posse and their infamous fanbase, the Juggalos. I have nothing against ICP and find their sentimentally profane anthem "Miracles" to be a pretty solid expression of wonderment, but come on, man -  that is pretty short shrift for a company that has been around since 1907 (just two years younger than Royal Crown, makers of RC Cola!) and whose root beer was ranked as best in America by Bon Appetit magazine in 2009.

Anyhoo, apparently Faygo has been available in Ontario for years but has only started appearing in Western Canada since 2015 or so. Their flavour spectrum is considerable (their number one seller is a strawberry soda called Redpop) and updated periodically, so I can see the appeal for retailers, and had noted them at the nearby Sobey's for a while. Most of the flavours I saw were either conventional or had no appeal, but today I noted rock and rye, and immediately had to try it.

Up to this point, I think my sole exposure to rock and rye as a beverage was seeing one ordered by Boone at the Dexter Lake Club in Animal House: "Double rock and rye and seven Carlings." I think I assumed the "rock" was some kind of local mix reference, or maybe a beer like Rolling Rock, but it turns out this is not the case.

Rock and rye, I am reliably informed by Wikipedia, is a liqueur or cocktail made by combining rye whiskey with rock candy, a.k.a. crystallized sugar. Not too far removed from an Old Fashioned, I suppose, which is bourbon, sugar, orange peel and Angostura bitters. Or even a sazerac, which combines a sugar cube with bourbon, cognac, bitters and an absinthe rinse. 

Rock & rye is a drink whose popularity dates back to the 1920s (and Prohibition!), and is mentioned by one of my favourite writers of the period, Damon Runyon (Guys & Dolls) in his short story "The Three Wise Guys":

"...I step into Good Time Charley's on the afternoon in question, I am feeling as if maybe I have a touch of grippe coming on, and Good Time Charley tells me that there is nothing in this world as good for a touch of grippe as rock candy and rye whisky, as it assassinates the germs at once.

It seems that Good Time Charley always keeps a stock of rock candy and rye whisky on hand for touches of the grippe, and he gives me a few doses immediately, and in fact Charley takes a few doses with me, as he says there is no telling but what I am scattering germs of my touch of the grippe all around the joint, and he must safeguard his health.”

Truly, Runyon was a man after me own liver and kidneys, as the Old Man would have said, and yes - rock & rye was reputed to have health benefits, but I have my doubts as to any actual curative properties or verified instances of germ assassination.

At any rate, I am now very curious about trying a legitimate rock & rye. Bottled varieties are commonplace in the U.S. but less so in Canada, so I will have to console myself with the soda pop variety for the nonce.

So how is a non-alcoholic rock & rye soda? Well, pretty sweet as it turns out, reminding me a little bit of Dr. Pepper and other 'mixed tonics' and striking Fenya and Audrey as being closer to cream soda. Certainly tasty but not much of a quencher, and like many sweet drinks, I thought it might be better if it were enhanced with a touch of spirits.

There was rye in the basement, but brandy in the kitchen for the mushrooms we were cooking, so in a fit of expediency I poured a liberal amount down the neck of the plastic bottle and swished it around. The results? A still sweet but now warming highball that Fenya could not even detect the liquor in - make of that what you will.

Faygo Rock & Rye might be a good soft drink to have on hand for guests that want to try something new (you know, when we are no longer under pandemic restrictions and can actually have guests - sigh) or if you just want to change up your highball game. 

Most of their other flavours don't have a lot of appeal for me, but due to the accolades I do want to test out their root beer now (a product that used to be repped in commercials by cartoon cowboy The Faygo Kid), and given my love of the space program, I wouldn't pass up the opportunity to try something called Moon Mist either, even if it is probably a Mountain Dew knock-off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv0OUmdOZu0