Swedes love their sweets

And their soda, it would seem. There are all sorts of different sodas here, including the julmust I already talked about. Easter is coming up, so with that comes a new 'must', påskmust. I bought this today, and here I'll review it with the other ones I've had, and also tell a story from the weekend.

A lot of the soda here seems to stem from champagne in soda form, sorta like varieties on ginger ale (which they call American ginger ale here). Two like this that I've tried are Champis and Pommac, Pommac actually being from Finland. Of these two, Champis is closer to ginger ale, and Pommac is closer to actually tasting like champagne. I'd have to say Champis is better as far as soft drinks are concerned, but I still like plain old ginger ale the best.



Kinda silly looking eh?

Next up is a drink called Trocadero which looks more like a Mexican or maybe Jamaican drink to me by its name and color, but it's Swedish through and through. I've actually only had a sip of this, so I can't comment too much, but it's pretty good from what I've had, kinda like citrusy carbonated apple juice.

Finally we have the påskmust, which I'm pretty sure is exactly the same as julmust. That said, I still feel the same about it. I prefer Pepsi or Coca-Cola, but I found out what gives the must it's bitterish flavor is actually hops, so I'd imagine if you're big into beer and less into soda, you'd prefer this.

Finally there's the weekend. This past week Bonnier (the company I work at) hosted an awards ceremony for top sellers in different categories. On Saturday, one of the winners took Amy out, and I was invited along as well. We wound up going to an extremely fancy restaurant that I was way under-dressed for called "Pontus!". You can look at a menu there and see for yourself the ridiculous prices (it's about $1 to 7 kronor). Now factor in that three of us ate and had five drinks a piece and you have one hell of an expensive night. After all the mindless gorging and drinking on excellent food and cocktails was finished, we were told that the guy who made the reservation for the winner and the rest of us had also paid for the meal. Wow. After leaving here we went right back to our favorite bar, the Sixth Barrel. This time around we wandered into an area of the bar that usually has a curtain closing it off. Up there some bar patrons had brought their instruments (three violins, a cello, an acoustic guitar, and a mini saxophone) and were playing folk music with other patrons dressed in blond wigs clapping and dancing, it was a good time as usual but we left a little early as a result of drinking and eating a ton just prior.

This weekend I'm going out to the suburbs to have some traditional Swedish food and play some games with my work buddy Joakim, I'm stoked.

-Brandon