soda pop central

This place has a lot of products under one roof. They carry all kinds of stuff for wine making, beer brewing, and bottling. They have hundreds of types of pop in every imaginable flavour. They also have a small selection of hard-to-find candy. The place was clean and easy to find but may not be suited for an industrial plaza. The store would likely benefit from a better, more public location. Overall, I had fun and will be returning.

I'm currently taste testing a really light and sweet Ginger Beer from Australia called Bundaberg. My son just taste tested Avery's Zombie Brain Juice from Connecticut. We left with a receipt longer than my arm. We're hosting a family party tomorrow and decided to fill a bucket with different pops from around the world in every flavour imaginable, and obviously some stuff we hadn't imagined. At anywhere from $2-4 a bottle, buying about 30 different bottles got expensive. The cashier joked that the total wasn't as bad as I thought it was, and I replied that it was worse, but worth it. I bought three different celebrity pops (including a trio of Judge Whopner colas). For me personally, I love this place because of the novelty, but also because they have a ton of non-caffinated (as well as regular and super caffeinated) offerings. Also, because these are craft beverages made by smaller and foreign (mostly from across America), many seem to be made from family recipes, or with some measure of care or concern for ingredients, like cane sugar instead of corn syrup.

We stopped in during a road trip. Despite being in a small strip mall in an industrial area, it was awesome inside. The staff were friendly and knowledgeable and the selection was crazy. We stopped in as a novelty and left with a dozen drinks.

I've seen this place go from the owners personal collection of his favourite ginger ale to an entire room filled with tonnes of flavours. It's one of those places that kids of all ages look forward to going.

I'm a soda pop connoisseur. I LOVE it, nurture it, always have plenty in my soda pop and cold drinks fridge, and keep it at a perfect ice-cold temperature where it turns slushly, but ONLY "Very Slightly - 2-3% ice crystals". YES! I am that finicky as I love the burn of carbonated beverages and treat them like an onophile treats vintage wines. Of course, I miss the bottled beverages that were made with REAL CANE SUGAR and no high glucose, low-priced cheap sweeteners, and no tinny taste or differentiating tastes between batches from the same company. Being a Northern Ontario Resident, we are fortunate to get the small bottles of Coke and a couple of other flavours on occasion. The store owners charge you $2 - $2.75 for a loust seven ounce bottle too because they know we soft drink lovers will pay it.BUT THEN I DISCOVERED - S O D A P O P C E N T R A L in Whitby, the ONLY bottled pop specific shoppe/warehouse in Ontario! Since I have to travel to Toronto often for medical treatment, my son and I decided to make a special trip to Whitby to check the place out. It's pretty easy to find. Take the 401 all the way to Whitby, then turn right into the city on Brock St., South, take it to Burns St., East, and go on Burns to 1001 and there it is. It's not the big, beautiful soda pop palace I expected. It's small and on your right and it was still the most beautiful attraction I've ever seen in the whole Toronto area, other than the Rush concert we took in later that night in Hamilton, and I've seen it all.Over 700 flavours of delicious, eye-caressing, throat-tickling, thirst-quenching, gargantuan gorgeous flavoured BOTTLED soda pops I have ever seen, with my estimate of it having 90% + made with REAL cane sugar. The floor area is about 20' by 30' with row after row after row of magnificent flavours of the past and present of every type of bottled pop one would want.OH, and laugh at my description if you wish, but I 100% DO LOVE bottled soda pop THIS MUCH! NO exaggeration here. LOLOLI was like a woman searching through a DeBeers Diamond Jewelry Store with all the money I wanted to spend.Prices? There are a few specials for 50 cents to $1 average, but for the 24 different flavours and brands I chose, it cost me $55 and change. WHAT? My friends said. You spent $55 on 24 bottles of pop? Are you nuts? Ummm...yep, nuts, crazy, gearboxed in the cabasa...about pop, and answered them as to how they can go to a ball game and spend $12 on one 500ml can of urine they call beer, or go to the Toronto bars and pay $6 for a simple bottle of Molson Canadian and/or $4 - $10 for glasses of pourly poured watery draft? They shut up quick. Go to a corner store I told them and you pay $1.50 + tax for a tinney high fructose can of crappy soda, $2.50 + tax for a 591 ml plastic chemical bottle of diet drek or $3 for a quickly flattened 2L plastic bottle of what manufacturers have the nerve to call "Coke" or "Pepsi"So to me, it was decent value for a treat of 24 bottles of throat-charming BOTTLED wonderment.There was a nice young couple who were fun and friendly looking after the store, I spent 2 hours loooking at every brand and ingredients, as did my son who purchased 6 ginger beers of different kinds, 6 scotch(white) cream soda, and 6 others. I bought 24 different and the ONLY one I didn't really care for was a funny labelled soda with a bug-eyed Osama Bin Laden, a brand called "Seal Ya Later". The original flavoured "Kick-A-Poo Joy Juice"(a mountain dew type flavour with actual...ACTUAL carbonation and cane soda brought back memories that put a tear in my eye, LOL, it was THAT Good! The Sarsasparilla(2 different types) was magnificent, all the white cream sodas stood out on their own merits of flavours and quality, the Shirley Temple and Leninade are fantastic, green apple, watermelon, etc...ALL had excellent carbonation and that fresh-bottled taste and I could on forever.I'm sorry I forgot to go back for a tea-shirt the next day as planned. I drank 6 bottles in the hotel room in Toronto after immersing them in a cooler full of ice, and for a man who is so desperately ill and hates the sight of Toronto hospitals, I want to say THANK YOU...THANK YOU...and T H A N K Y O U to the owner and employees of Soda Pop Central for really making my four day stay there a trip down memory lane with a supply of the BEST, yes I said and MEAN "THE BEST" soda pop I have tasted in 35+ years. (as well as the Rush concert LOL don't think SPC minds THAT comparison)I will be back. The two hour trip is worth it. I've told many about the place and hope they visit if they're out Whitby way or even if they're stopping short in T.O. or anywhere along the 401, McDonald-Cartier Hwy.,/Highway of Heroes.Not one word of this is blown out of proportion for a soda pop lover like me.I'm going back to T.O within the month likely and there's only two things I'm looking forward to. Schwarmas and SODA POP CENTRAL in Whitby!