Based in Seattle, DRY Soda Co. makes a re-imagined version of traditional pop. Using only natural ingredients, and minimal cane sugar, DRY allows the fruit and floral flavors to shine. Founder Sharelle Klaus was inspired to create a beverage that tasted great and was healthful. Most importantly, she was inspired to create a non-alcoholic beverage that balanced well with the food… or in the case of Vanilla Bean functions as a superb dessert drink.

DRY Soda is available in seven distinctive flavors – Lavender, Lemongrass, Blood Orange, Rhubarb, Juniper Berry, Vanilla Bean and Cucumber.

More images after the jump.

Labeled Boston, made in Fall River, AJ Stephans makes one hell of a ginger beer. It is one of roughly nine flavors the firm produces… to be honest, the only one we’ve tasted… and enough to suggest their claim of “New England’s Best Tonic” might worry some of the family owned soda brands in Connecticut.

While Dark n’ Stormy season might be ending for some, we recommend a last hurrah and a tango with AJ Stephans.

“About 500 pops line the shelves, sourced lovingly by John from around the world. John has made it his mission to keep small soda-makers afloat and help them find their consumers. Galco’s also acts as a distributor for restaurants and bars along the West Coast, spreading the gospel of soda made with cane sugar (no high-fructose corn syrup if John can avoid it).”

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.”

Kentucky’s second best drink, and the only one appropriate for teetotalers, is “A Late One.” Ale8one has been bottled in Winchester, Kentucky since 1926. Inspired by the ginger driven beverages of Northern Europe, Ale8one was developed by G.L. Wainscott and remains a “closely guarded family secret.”

Along with the original, the company also offers a diet version and a complete line of other foodstuffs – bbq sauce, suckers, etc.

Should you wish to visit the factory, they will happily swing you through at 10:50am on Fridays given some advanced notice.

Since 1912, Hosmer Mountain Bottling Co. of Willimantic, CT, has been in the hands of just four families. The bottling methods have remained much the same. 12oz or 24oz bottles are filled with the over 30 flavors. Its old fashioned American stuff really, the kind of soda you’d expect to be offered by an older chap quite set in his ways. That’s how I was introduced to Hosmer Mountain; after a day of water skiing in Columbia, CT, by my friend’s grandfather. He’d drunk Hosmer since he was a boy, and the local soda provided the perfect refreshment. Since then I’ve tried a few types of sodas, happy enough each time.

Hosmer, after all, is proud to mention that they make either the 4th or 14th best root beer in the land (depending on the poll). Good old fashioned honesty is just part of making good old fashioned soda.