IP’s Ginger Ail

While shopping in the soda aisle at the Rockville Pike Giant, IP and I stumbled upon Diet Vernors ginger ale.  For those who don’t know, Vernors is a Michigan ginger ale, dating back to 1866.  It is the best ginger ale, period.  Canada Dry is great, and Shweppes is okay, but Vernors?  Excellent and quintessentially Michigan.  If I had more motivation, I’d make our out of town guests some welcome bags and include Vernors in said bag (along with Faygo, of course).

As a kid growing up in Michigan, if you wanted good ginger ale, you went to get Vernors.  Want a Boston cooler?  Use Vernors because the dry ginger ales pale in comparison (geddit?).

IP seems to have an aversion to Vernors, though.  His nose wrinkled as I gleefully pulled the six-pack from the shelf and placed it in our cart, remarking (and here I’m paraphrasing, but I think I’m close), “If I ate asparagus, drank two gallons of water, and didn’t piss until three days later, the end product would be Vernors.”

What!?

I protested this heartily as Vernors, while darker in color than a typical ginger ale, is a sweet and tasty drink—comparisons to urine are uncalled for!  Since then, IP has been making similar remarks and continuing to wrinkle his nose each time I pour myself a can of this delicious soda.  A stronger ginger flavor with a hint of vanilla—yum!  There’s nothing to be offended by here; even the color is something akin to a darker beer (and not urine).  I finally ask IP what his major malfunction is: did he taste it and the flavor was just so revolting he wanted to hurl?

Nope.  IP’s never, ever tasted it.

What!?

His aversion to and fierce invectives against it stem solely from the color of the drink.  I told him that the most comparable flavor I could think of was a lighter cream soda, but he doesn’t believe me (for the record, I’m not a cream soda fan, but the vanilla in the Vernors hints at cream soda; not exactly, obviously, since I love Vernors, but that’s the best comparison I can think of [and again, urine is not a fair comparison here]).  He refuses to try the drink, simply wrinkling his nose and making snarky comments about the best ginger ale evah.

What gets me is this: IP is forever encouraging me to try new foods and drinks.  It’s fine if I don’t end up liking it, he tells me, but I’ve got to give something a try before dismissing it outright.  And I have tried many things in our 7+ yea—uh, months together, so I have no idea why he won’t reciprocate.  Methinks I smell a food and drink hypocrite!  ;)

So I challenge IP: try a sip of Vernors next time it’s in the house (as I’ve now sadly drained it).  You  might be surprised and wondering when we can try out the drink with some vanilla ice cream.