Bière d'épinette

I understand that the more temperate zones of the world are sweltering under a heat wave from Hell. I'll have you know right now we sensible ones are cool, calm, relaxed and sweat-free up here where the outside temperature is a reasonable and sane 12 degrees Celsius, or 54 degrees for you Fahrenheit fans. All the comments over the past few months of "Holy fuck! How could you possible live up in the Arctic?" seem so satisfyingly misguided right now. Suffer.

My favourite summer drink as a youngster was spruce beer, which, like root beer and ginger ale, contains no alcohol. Never mind, it is an amazingly refreshing soda pop with an ironic pedigree. You see, when the original French Canadian settlers had to winter over in Quebec with only salted or brined food, they started to develop scurvy and other diseases which were the result of vitamin C deficiency. The French, unlike English arctic explorers a couple of centuries later, actually had the common sense to listen to the locals how they could best deal with this debilitating condition.

The locals in this instance were Huron, Montagnais or Iroquois, who pointed out that by boiling the bark of conifers they could produce a broth which had amazing curative qualities. Now the French, again like their Anglo counterparts, again had the common sense to add yeast to the concoction, which produced the first alcoholic beverages in North America, much to the detriment of the Huron, Montagnais, Iroquois and a host of other First Nations.

Over the intervening centuries, spruce beer in Quebec lost its alcohol - thank you very much, Catholic Church - and has been a carbonated beverage for almost a century.

Spruce beer can only be described to the uninitiated as like sucking on a liquid 2" x 4". It is heavy - no, that's too weak a term - it is positively overpowered by the flavour of pine. It is like taking a pint of Pine-sol™ and adding a couple of pounds of refined sugar. But for some strange reason, it is incredibly revivifying when the forges of summer incinerate your soul and sap (pardon the pun) all your strength.

Sadly, as in many childhood favourites like real licorice, the homogenizing iron of "modern times" has squeezed out character and uniqueness in favour of the bland and conventional. Quebec is the last place on earth (and I would like to be informed otherwise) of this bizarre soda. A few years ago Crush marketed spruce beer here, but seem to have dropped it. Now it only seems to be a private brand or made and sold in corked bottles in small "Mom and Pop" restaurants, such as those on Notre Dame in the St-Henri district of Montreal.

So, is there any beverage of your youth now regretfully missing from your area? And, Americans, please explain to me the difference between root beer and sasparilla.