Hey everyone!

I recently suceeded in getting root beer placed on the Slow Food Ark of Taste and I could use a little bit of help in my research. But first I'll back up a bit...

Slow Food is an international non-profit organization dedicated to preserving food traditions and promoting a sustainable food system. One of their main projects is known as the Ark of Taste. This 'Ark', loosely based on Noah's Ark, is a means by which Slow Food recognizes foods or food production techniques that are either A) in danger of being lost because of modern practices within the realms of food and agriculture or B) foods with a strong heritage that are specifically tied to a particular region of the world. Here in the US, some of these items include Native Wild Rice, Cajun Cream Cheese, and a host of specific varieties of fruits, vegetables, and animals that are close to extinction.

I gave a presentation to the US Ark Committee back in September and they voted to include "Hand-crafted Root Beer" on their list. Through this, they will promote root beer as unique beverage with a long history and a strong tie to North America that continues to this day.

Here's where y'all come in...

As part of my research, Slow Food has asked me to make a list of all the root beers in the US that I can find which fit the standards they've developed for considering a root beer "hand-crafted." These standards are fairly simple: it must be in a glass bottle and it must exclusively use natural sweeterners. Natural sweeteners can include cane sugar, honey, molasses, brown sugar, etc. -- pretty much anything except high fructose corn syrup or any of those bizarre chemicals often utilized to make diet sodas (aspartime, Nutrasweet, etc.).

Now, I'm well aware that there are plenty of great root beers out there that use corn syrup as a sweetener (some of my own favorites do), but the idea here is to promote root beer similar to the stuff made way back in the day and root beer was around long before many of these artificial sweeteners.

So, as it stands, I have about 48 root beers from around the country on my list, but I'm quite sure that this list is not comprehensive. I was hoping that some of you root beer nerds could help me hunt down some that I'm missing. If you're up for the challenge, just let me know and I'll email you the list of those that I have so far and you can see if you know of some that aren't on it but should be.

Thanks much in advance for your help. [By the way, if you want to learn more about Slow Food and their projects, visit their websites at www.slowfood.com (international) or www.slowfoodusa.org (here in the states).]