If you were lucky enough to go abroad when you were just a pipsqueak, you likely share a charming first experience with many other people who traveled as kids.
Sure, you wanted to see the big landmarks you'd heard about, the towers and castles, but you really, really wanted to taste the sodas and candies of another land, those mystical flavors that seemed so foreign, and so fabulous, in your imagination.
Wanted? Neeeeeded. Right?
Galco's Soda Pop Stop can help you live your early dreams on the international soda front, if you never globe-trotted as a tot. The Highland Park fizz-filled shop is readying its annual Summer Soda Tasting, a queue-up, sip-up fundraiser for the Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition, and the 2015 theme is planet-big: International Sodas.
That means that on Sunday, July 19 you can, if you wish, lift to your lips the fruity flavors of Italy, France, and beyond during Around the World in 80 Sips. Tickets are $12 for adults, a little less for kids, and it is almost guaranteed you'll try something you A) haven't before and/or B) had no idea even existed in the pop universe.
Because pop/soda/carbonated beverage? It's a vast category, even though partakers tend to stick to their favorite one or two brands.
As for the bands? Live entertainment will jam on in the parking lot, with a number of guests, including Don Preston, a former member of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.
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And, yes, lest you were worried, the soda-tasting action shall spill into the historic store's parking lot. Galco's is of good size, as any fan knows, but it bursts a bit when the well-attended Summer Soda Tasting rolls around. (And it bursts already, any day of the year, what with the 500+ sodas inside.)
Will you taste something with rose in it? Cinnamon? A cola that's kind of like a sarsaparilla? That's what makes the Summer Soda Tasting kind of a gas. A great gas, of course, since your ticket money goes to efforts to re-open the Southwest Museum.
We raise our fizzy international soda to that.
