Canada Dry's Ginger Ale And Lemonade Dares To Update A Classic

We ginger ale/beer nerds are lucky to live in such a gilded age, with so many artisans brewing fantastic product (and none, for my money, as good as these folks). Sadly this means Canada Dry, likely our introduction to ginger ale many moons ago, has been relegated to the orthodox, the humdrum, the single cheese-less McDonald's hamburger in a world of Shake Shacks.

Still, there is a place in the world for Canada Dry ginger ale: It remains a great non-alcoholic beverage on commercial flights—unoffensive, drinkable, the slightest notion of "bite" if just to settle my stomach, even if it's a placebo.

I think Canada Dry's new Ginger Ale And Lemonade is slightly better than the original. It reminds me of a tamer version of bitter lemon, a tonic water with lemon juice and peel popular overseas, though somehow not in America. Which means Ginger Ale And Lemonade would make a fine cocktail base with gin or tequila.

By itself, it's a pleasant-enough soda—mostly sweet, but not sickly so, with its already-subtle gingery bite rounded off with a lemonade flavor more juice than tart. My personal preference would be to dilute this with a handful of ice plus 10 minutes.

In a time when soda companies are adding gimmicks to their flagship products, sometimes to incongruous effect, the pairing of ginger ale and lemonade feels organic, I'd even say soothing.