Things we love about Hawaii: Waialua Soda Works sodas

The cover feature of the new issue of HAWAII Magazine is all about the “15 Things We Love About Hawaii” right now.

Among them, you’ll find the Big Island-made chocolate we’d fly from our Oahu offices to savor. The Hilo designer whose Hawaii-inspired fashions and prints we’d pick up while we’re there. And the hula dancer whose graceful movements we’d most want to accompany an oceanside mai tai and Waikiki sunset when we return home.

We’ve already clued you in about our love for Lost actor Michael Emerson in a previous “15 Things We Love About Hawaii” post. The love currently quenching our thirst for a carbonated beverage like no other, though? Artisanal sodas from Waialua Soda Works.

Trust us. You haven’t had a great vanilla cream soda until you’ve had a Waialua Soda Works vanilla cream soda. HAWAII editor John Heckathorn and I emptied a small office supply of the stuff in an afternoon binge session. (Our original plan was to share a single bottle.) And I’m still unsure whether associate editor Sherie Char got to enjoy any at all. (Burp.)

Here’s an excerpt:

Waialua Soda Works is all about homegrown Hawaii ingredients. There’s Big Island vanilla and Kauai honey in its vanilla cream soda. Island-grown fruits, when available, infuse its pineapple and mango sodas. Maui sugar cane sweetens its root beer. … The contents are handmade and hand-bottled by Jason and Karen Campbell (who) make old-fashioned artisanal soda in the former plantation village of Waialua on Oahu’s North Shore.

Read the full text of our Waialua Soda Works write-up and the 14 other things we love about Hawaii in the May/June 2008 issue of HAWAII Magazine, on newsstands now.