Photo: James Mann
If you haven’t already voted in Garden & Gun‘s Southern soda poll, this is your chance to ensure soft drink supremacy for your favorite regional pop once and for all. Though I admit to being partial to Cheerwine (so boringly mainstream, I know), I learned enough about Kentucky’s Ale-8 One (pronounce “A Late One”) while researching the article to carve out a little corner of my drinking heart for this under-the-radar soft drink. Ordinarily, we Southerners call everything “Coke” and then get more specific from there, as in: “What kind of Coke do you want?” “Mountain Dew. Thanks.” But given the recent fascination with our made-in-the-South sodas, it’s only right we start showing some respect and calling these beverages by their given names.
