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For your next holiday soiree, check out the international pop scene

Written by Kim Loop

This story first ran in the Fall 2005 issue of Austin Traveler Magazine.

Want to throw a holiday party that pops? Try a twist on the wine-tasting theme and let your guests sample a different type of bubbly: global sodas.

You can find sodas from all over the world in Austin's international markets, and it's a good bet it will be your guests' first taste of tarragon-flavored soda or experience with a certain malt drink that's very, um, malty.

The premise is simple: Take interesting sodas from around the world and invite your guinea pigs, I mean guests, to try them in a blind taste test. You could cover the labels on the bottles and cans, but I prefer to use clear plastic cups to let the colors show. Pass out the sodas one at a time so people can talk about them. Give partygoers a scoring sheet that lets them rank the drinks' appearance, aroma, texture, taste and finish. Then add up the points.

Before the party, I explored several of Austin's ethnic markets and chose six sodas to try. I labeled them A through F, found a number of test subjects, um, adventurous friends, and the fun began.

The first three we tried had strange and different flavors but were not unpleasant.  Soda D, however, came as a shock. It was so vile that partygoers went back and changed their rankings of the previous sodas so they could rank what became known as "the unholy elixir of pain" relatively lower.

After that, people were afraid of what I was going to give them next. They ranked the last two sodas very well just because they tasted so much better than the aforementioned "elixir." (If you try this party with the same sodas, put this one last, or first, but be prepared for abuse from your possibly former friends.)

In the end, all was forgiven, and everyone enjoyed tasting and talking about their favorites and least favorites.

This is one party that's sure not to fizzle.

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