CMH Gourmand – Eating in Columbus & Ohio

I get many incredible offers. Most come from people in African countries that will give me millions of dollars just to help transfer some money from their country to ours to cut down on paper work and avoid hassle for the estate of a deceased relative with a horribly misspelled name. Some offers come from Russian mail order brides and maybe related to that, it seems that there are some medications I should be taking, I that I can get cheaply. Maybe I should consider the mail order bride option.

The type of offers I would like to get would include: Hey, you are awesome and resourceful and blindingly creative, here is a job that does not suck; or yes you really should write for us, starting now, because you are not boring or pretentious. These offers don’t come and years of trying for them have not yet been productive.

So when the Rusty Bucket asked if I wanted to drink root beer and get some remuneration for my trouble I was curious. I read further. It seems that said root beer was Rogue Root Beer. That fact changed no thanks to yes, pretty please PDQ. As fate would have it, I had Rogue Root Beer in PDX (Portland) recently which was a highlight of five days that were a low point.

I get an interesting array of offers from the food industry that tempt my wallet and threaten to stretch the scope of my blog and my ethics. I almost always say no. The Rusty Bucket offer was perfect. I knew I liked the root beer. I did not know I could get it in Columbus so that knowledge was a gift to me. Rusty Bucket is a locally owned company and aligned with Cameron Mitchell Restaurants so I could support them without hesitation. I knew I was going to rush out for root beer anyway so for the price of gas and a mug of root beer – game on! Yes, I will write for root beer so here we go.

It seems that if you are planning on going Rogue, Columbus is the place to do it. Rusty Bucket charmed this Portland-centric purveyor of tasty drinks into sending most of it’s product line here for serving. This is unique for Columbus and Ohio and the Midwest and most of the country for that matter. The only other states that have Rogue Root Beer are Oregon and Washington. You can pretend you are in Portland while sitting inside 270.

I am not a big pop drinker (we say pop in Columbus, accept it, move on). I NEED to have a coke with pizza to complete the experience. However, I am an absolute sucker for a good Root Beer. I have invested a good deal of time searching for the perfect root beer experience. I found a few that are worth traveling for – Virgil’s Root Beer and Sioux City Root Beer were my brews of choice.

Why might you want to make the effort to try Rogue Root Beer? Because they make it right and because Rusty Bucket pours it right. Rogue approaches their root beer with the same attention to detail and devotion they invest in their craft beers. Their root beer is made with 100% pure dark brown sugar. It has a nice dose of Sassafras. This is draft root beer, served from a tap into a cold, frosted mug with just a bit of foaming head. It may be the most perfect root beer experience in town. Visions of childhood bike rides to the Clintonville A&W drive-in come to mind when I take a sip. To appeal to the child in you or the child tagging along with you, Rusty Bucket also offers kid sized mugs and root beer floats in both sizes.

If you want to completely go Rogue, Rusty Bucket serves several Rogue beers on draft. You can also sample Rogue’s other roguish spirits including Dead Guy Whiskey, Spruce Gin and White Rum. A daily drink special involves soaking a giant chunk of pineapple with brown sugar, vanilla beans and Rogue white rum, then adding some ice and more rum. Yum.

On Tuesdays, a featured drink is the Rogue Spruce Gin Gimlet. I had not been to Rusty Bucket for a while so I decided to try out multiple locations in my root beer research. For your first Rogue run I suggest trying out the Lane Avenue location and hoping that Katie is tending bar when you walk in. She knows all things Rogue and can talk you through your choices while you enjoy a frosty root beer.