The Elevation of Soda Pop

Winemanship has long held the status of an art in Europe, and when fine French and German wines began flowing across the Atlantic, the expertise came too. Vines, vineyards and vintages were soberly debated. Wine-tasting sessions became social events and the sniffy phrases of oenology became part of the language. Even plebeian beer has long since acquired its own stout band of connoisseurs. By contrast, little attention has been paid to the fine points of enjoying America's own proud indigenous beverage--ubiquitous, multi-flavored, effervescent soda pop. To remedy that omission, California Novelist Earl Shorris (Boots of the Virgin) has set down some obiter dicta in San Francisco's Sunday Examiner & Chronicle. Tongue firmly in cheek, he sounds a clarion call to those who prefer pop to other drinks but feel that it is socially unacceptable. "Drink what you like," he advises. "Don't be discouraged from indulging your personal preferences by snobbish glances or sly asides."

Pleasing Egg Cream. Shorris, who is passionate for pop, obviously has spent long hours practicing what he preaches. He has elevated the previously ignored and mundane act of soft-drink selection into a fine art. With hors d'oeuvres, for example, he advises Squirt, or a dry cola like Royal Crown; with oysters, Bitter Lemon. "Any white soda pop," he suggests, goes well with chicken. Orange Crush, on the other hand, is "particularly nice with duck or goose." Red meat, of course, demands either Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola. Dr. Pepper is splendid with game. A celery tonic or chocolate phosphate complements corned beef and pastrami, although "for the adventurous, an egg cream may be most pleasing." With cheese, almost anything goes, and for fruit and nuts, root beer is "almost perfect."

Shorris is inflexible on only one point: "Don't serve colas or other dark sodas with fish. The flavor of fish tends to sour them on the palate." Instead, he counsels, try ginger ale, Seven-Up or any other lemon-lime-base beverage.

There are other soft-drink subtleties to be mastered. Bottles, Shorris urges, must be opened at the table just before their contents are consumed (decanting is "unnecessary and even harmful to the beverage"). He acknowledges that neophyte pop enthusiasts prefer their drinks chilled to the freezing point, yet notes that "serious drinkers prefer their soda pop cold in the mouth, but not ice cold." He advises devotees to avoid smoking while sampling, but admits that a mellow root beer enhances the flavor of a good cigar. "To see the delicacy of a light, joyous celery tonic smothered by a cloud of gray smoke," Shorris laments, "is depressing to even the most casual connoisseur."

Respectable Drinking. Tasting the soft-drink sommelier's offering is best done in three stages: "First, take a small sip into the mouth and hold it there; second, move the soda pop about in the mouth, letting it stream backward over the palate; third, swallow slowly, to feel the flavor all the way down the gullet." Shorris anticipates that as pop drinking becomes more respectable, serious tasting sessions will be scheduled, much like those in the world of wine. Naturally, he is prepared for that eventuality. To eliminate aftertaste between samplings of different vintages, he suggests, "the palate is easily prepared by chewing, vigorously, an ordinary chocolate bar between sips."

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