Thomas Kemper Soda

For the past 20 years, the brewers at Portland, Oregon’s Thomas Kemper Soda Company has made Root Beer the old fashioned.

In 2008, Kemper Soda Company changed recipes to include cane sugar. This move eliminated high fructose corn syrup, making things more natural and more delicious. Like many other craft soda companies, the line began with Root Beer (and the company has a history in traditional brewing as well), and has since expanded to include a range of other old fashioned tastes. The addition of Black Cherry, which joined in 1998, is the real kicker.

Thomas Kemper is widely distributed in the West and made its debut in New York City last summer. Seek it out, “because nothing’s sweeter than authenticity.”