Drink

Nothing beats a frosty mug of freshly pumped root beer hanging off a car window tray at one of South Jersey's genuinely old-school Weber's Drive-Ins. And few things could make me happier than the resurgence of more artisan renditions of root beer, which has suddenly become the country's hottest liquid flavor du jour. Among the best local examples is a crisp non-alcoholic draft from Downingtown's Victory (on tap now at Varga bar), and an herbaceously homemade brew at Chifa, which gets poured over horchata ice cream for an exotic Nuevo Latino float.

So why has the next logical step in the revolution - root beer with alcohol - not exactly stoked my froth? Root beer-flavored vodka is just one step removed from the blasphemy of a sasperilla-tini. The syrupy new root beer-flavored liqueur called Root has more potential. Conceived in Philadelphia by Art in the Age's Steven Grasse who also created Hendrick's gin and Sailor Jerry spiced rum, Root was inspired by the 18th century Native American "root teas" and the non-alcoholic pharmacist root beers of pre-Prohibition Pennsylvania. It's made from an intriguing swirl of all-organic ingredients such as cardamom, birch bark, spearmint and cloves – just the kind of concoction I'd like. The problem with Root, though, is that it just isn't enough of a team player to be suited for anything more than quirky cameos in the cocktail world. It's such a dominant and distinctive flavor that no matter how you dress it - whether with dark rum, Scotch, or shaken with eggs, apple brandy and stout into a creamy flip - it always tastes like a Brown Cow in a tutu.

The highest calling for Root, it seems, is simply to let it give a good old root-beer float some extra depth and a grown-up kick. It's also an 80-proof reminder that some of the simplest things in life are hard to improve on.

Root liqueur, $32.99 a bottle in Pennsylvania; a mug of root beer, $1.35 (floats are $3) at Weber's Drive-In, 6019 Lexington Ave., Pennsauken, 856-662-6632.

- Craig LaBan