Your enjoyment of Johnnie Ryan’s is dependent on your enjoyment of France. Sorry, that was a poor joke at the expense of the French. I hold French food in poor regard, save the bread and French pastries. I honestly don’t know why the label is in French. I looked at their website & possibly the original owners were French but that’s the only connection I could truly make. It’s made in Niagara Falls, NY, a place I visited in 2019, but that’s still a little way away from the French speaking Canadian province of Quebec. Regardless, it’s an average root beer. The carbonation is good, it’s very smooth, and slightly sweet. I’m not sure but I think I tasted cinnamon as well. If so, that’s rather unique to a root beer. There’s a light vanilla presence in the aftertaste. However, overall, to me it’s rather forgettable. There’s a French joke somewhere but I’ll let it slide this time.
It’s been years (2019) since I reviewed the original Fitz root beer. I haven’t tried it since largely because with a few exceptions (Sprecher, Barq’s, A&W, & Dang) it’s onward to new root beers I haven’t tried before. It’s been so long since I had Fitz’s, the pride of Missouri, that I had to re-read the review to get my mind set for the diet version. I said the original version was clean, crisp, light tasting with a nice vanilla aftertaste. And honestly, that would be a good description of this one. It’s incredibly light tasting and because it’s diet, it’s not sweet at all. I got a little whiff of aspartame in the aftertaste but unlike a lot of diet drinks, it’s barely noticeable. For a diet drink, this is totally serviceable for those looking to save some calories & considering there wasn’t anything that turned me off and grading on a no sugar curve, it’s an above average drink. If I ever completely run out of root beers to revi. 
Leave a comment