I wanted to not like this root beer for a number of reasons. The price of this bottle was 7.99, easily double or triple the amount of an average root beer. Also, it being a much bigger size bottle was another eye roll from me. And the biggest complaint that I had was the dumb wax seal on top which makes it “fancy” I guess but overall, makes it that much harder (and messier) to open. With those three cons going against the drink before I even opened it, I came in with some strong bias against it.

The back label included a note that this root beer is aged in “Quercus Pyrenaica Chesnut” barrels but to me, that’s truly like reading a foreign language. I have no idea what that truly means. The ingredients of this brew include ginger, wild cherry bark, wintergreen, and licorice. And honestly, throughout the entire drink, you can taste every single ingredient. The thing is, there is no jockeying for position among the flavors as they mesh really well. There’s no single flavored aftertaste as well. The craziest thing is, this drink is kind of like if Dr Pepper, a root beer, and a cherry cola had a baby. I love all three of those so of course, this drink hits all the marks for me. But, it truly does taste like a full fledged root beer because it has such a nice herbal bite to it as well.

The thing is, however, will I get it again? The price is a hard sell for me, 7.99 for 1 bottle when I can find one of the greats, Sprecher, at Dollar Tree for 1.25 a bottle. And even other bottles I can buy for around $3 a pop. I love it but I’m not sure if I love it that much. Still, it’s worthy of top tier status & if you’re looking for a complex (dare I say fancy) brew, Special Reserve will hit all the marks for you, even if it takes an extra minute or two to get the dumb wax cap off.

And as an aside, this review is being published on national root beer day. So, cheers!