I am posting this here rather than the food and drink forum because homemade root beer was a holiday tradition in my family. My dad would begin making root beer a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, and would keep making it through the New Years, but not again until the following Thanksgiving. This was before the SodaStream products that made the process easier. His root beer would be capped with the same kind of caps that were used on commercial soft drinks, that came in glass bottles. He owned the bottle-capping apparatus and would buy caps each year, while the bottles were regular pop bottles that had been washed and rinsed. At that time, even the commercial bottles were recycled. After bottling the root beer, it would be lined up along the steps leading to the second floor, since that was one of the warmest places in the house. His root beer had about a twenty percent mortality rate. Every now and then, particularly at night, we'd hear a bottle explode. But the stuff that made it through tasted very good indeed. My parents didn't buy a lot of pop for us, so it was quite a treat to have an unending supply of root beer for two months out of the year. Another tradition during the same period was potato sausage. He made his own sausage, also just during the Thanksgiving-Christmas season. I have his old sausage maker, which still works just fine. He would buy the casings for it, and the sausage include venison, pork, potatoes, rutabagas, onion, and I'm not sure what else, but it was terrific. We ate it boiled and it was great but my uncle's family fried potato sausage, and that was very good too, only different. He would make enough potato sausage that we could snack on it anytime we wanted but, again, only in November and December.
Wow, having root beer in stock for 2 months? You kids certainly are lucky to have that tradition. And to think that you were feasting on potato sausage, huh. I don't know what it is but I can guess the taste based on the ingredients you mentioned. Again, you are one lucky boy to have those culinary traditions. But for me, I'm sure I would get tired of the root beer and the potato sausage after a week. When we cook barbecue for the new year, it normally lasts for 2 or 3 more days because my mother would buy the main ingredient in bulk, that's pork and/or beef. On the second day, it's still okay for me but I'd rather eat bread and butter on the 3rd of that leftover barbecue. Truly traditions are amusing and I hope the globalization will not ruin our culture. It is interesting to learn about the cultural traditions of other places particularly the happy holidays like Christmas.
Ken, I think I recall seeing some of your Dad's root beer! I seem to remember my dad making the adult version.
For commercial root beer, Dad's wasn't bad. It's not in any of the stores around here, but I guess Dad's Root Beer is still in business.
I haven't seen one in a while, but I particularly loved the A&W restaurants with the frosty mugs and, of course, the girls on roller skates. The root beer isn't bad in a bottle either. Pop tastes better in a glass bottle than in a can, and way better than in a plastic bottle.