Exploding with flavor!

My quest for a great sinus-clearing ginger beer continues, especially in light of the fact that I am not allowing myself the use of ibuprofen as an aid to allergy-related sinus headaches. With fall on the way, I anticipate more such attacks, and I want to be ready.

I've mentioned before how I learned that the potent ginger spice in ginger beer -- generally greater than that of ginger ale by an order of magnitude -- can act as an astringent on the tender tissues of the sinuses, relieving pressure. This is what I seek in ginger beer. Not for making Moscow Mules, although if your taste runs to that, go daddy go.

Well, a friend recommended Bundaberg, an Aussie brand. I found it in a local supermarket, and saw the price tag:

What's the word? 
Bundaberg!
What's the price?
Three dollars twice! For a four-pack!

But by now I had become determined to find a ginger beer that would help me in my quest, so I bought it. It was on sale, anyhow.

Craft sodas, like craft beers, usually are worth the money if you want to splurge, and Bundaberg is a fine example. It has a rich taste, more layered and refined than other ginger drinks, and you can tell that the money is spent on production. It tastes good.

The only problems: It does not have that strong astringency that can clear my sinuses, and it has the explosion problem.

The bottles have a strange pop cap; each bottletop has its own pull tab, and you remove it in a two-step method, pulling the tab out and up. Or, if you follow the advice on the label and "invert bottle before opening," as I did, it can go off like a gunshot. It scared my wife and woke the dogs up from where they were keeping razor-sharp watch on the property. My wife was afraid I'd get a throat full of broken glass if I tried to drink it, but the glass was completely intact. When I tried to open the bottle without inverting it first, it was much calmer.

Ultimately, the Bundaberg not spicy enough for medicinal use, but my friend had warned me of that -- she's of Caribbean extraction and also suffers terribly from seasonal allergies.

So the quest continues. As I noted last time, ginger beer is Doctor-recommended! If I make any progress, I'll pull a Bundaberg cap off to alert everybody. You'll hear it.