Best craft-made beverage that isn't beer, ale, or stout
These days there's such a dizzying variety of locally brewed, high-quality, handcrafted beers that it almost would require a deliberate act to wind up with something truly awful. Not so with soda. Sweetened with corn syrup and loaded with artificial ingredients and colors, modern soda doesn't stack up well against even tap water.

Then there's Mercury Premium Soda, made by the Ipswich-based Mercury Brewing Company, whose best-known product is Ipswich Ale. First, Mercury Premium Soda is made with cane sugar rather than corn syrup. So what? Sweet is sweet, right? Well, no. Corn syrup gives soda an icky, heavy quality. Soda made with cane sugar, by contrast, tastes cleaner and somehow feels lighter on the palate.

Second, Mercury comes in a wide array of unusual flavors. There are a few classics, such as cream, root beer, and birch beer. But you also can get orange cream, black cherry, grape, watermelon, and even coconut, among other flavors. All have a remarkably authentic taste. All are caffeine-free, too, if you go for that sort of thing.

Mercury Premium Soda isn't particularly easy to find, but according to the company's Web site, there are a few stores in downtown Boston, Allston, Cambridge, and Somerville that carry it. Get online to find a store near you.

Mercury Premium Soda, www.mercurybrewing.com.