noshing

Noshing Prosciutto-and-provolone-stuffed peppers Noshing Slurpee Triple Splitz-O Artibel’s fig molasses Bread & Circus low-fat guacamole

You know you’re not in Kansas anymore — or McDonald’s, for that matter — when your choice of beverage isn’t Coke or Sprite but rather Grass Jelly, Basil Seed, Pennywort, or Lychee. Where you probably are, feeling curious but hesitant, is in front of the cooler at an Asian grocery like Brookline’s Dok Bua Thai Kitchen. So think of me as your bold Dorothy on this journey, who will guide you through the selection.

Of these Asian sodas, the least startling to Pepsi-generation palates is likely to be Yeo’s Lychee Drink. The flavor of the delicate lychee is intriguingly and famously elusive, but it remains somehow familiar. It hints at watermelon, strawberry, and white grape, and shares their summery flair. Foco’s Pennywort Drink, a simple concoction of herb leaf and sugar, offers a similar teatime-in-the-garden hominess. And then there’s Old Village’s Grass Jelly Drink; not nearly as shocking as it sounds, it actually has a soothing palatability — partly herbal, even minty, and partly honeyed. It tastes, in fact, as though it could cure you of something exotic, such as spotted fever. Finally, at the far end — if not off the deep end — of the non-Pepsi spectrum is Old Village’s Basil Seed Drink with Honey. If you can get past the resemblance between the furry little seeds floating around in your glass and unicellular organisms, you’ll find a complex medley of flavors, including cucumber, honey, banana, and an oddly pleasing finish of must. All in all, such drinks make for a refreshing change from your basic brown cola. Isn’t it good to get out of Dodge now and then?