I’m just watching an old Columbo episode. By the way, I think Columbo is probably the best television series ever produced, anywhere in the world.
Anyway, in this episode, Columbo asks for a “cream soda”. What on Earth is that? I’ve never come across that in my life.
It was a favorite when I was but a lad. Basically, it’s a vanilla-based soft drink. I decided to check Wiki, and apparently it was drummed up in the States, but over time has found such a worldwide availability that I’m surprised that the UK would be utterly bereft of it. It’s of a comforting flavor, but if you go looking for it, be warned that IMO any colors other than a pale tan are abominations. Blue cream soda - the very idea. It’s probably going to taste just fine, though.
I used to be an avid Columbo watcher, myself. 
As far as I know, it is completely unknown in the UK. I have certainly never come across it.
… however, Columbo is just totally and utterly wonderful.
Oh, there´s just one more thing. . . 
In the UK, google tells me there is a brand, Barr´s with Cream Soda on offer. Naturally, Schweppe´s as well. A US brand, Ben Shaws, is available at The British Cornershop (online).
Bob
Really? Honestly, I’ve never heard of it …
You might have to go out of your way to find some, by the sound of it. Not necessarily impossible though, but the kind of specialty shops to carry it might be few.
It’s where I learned that being purposely underestimated - by cultivating a rumpled appearance and a seemingly absent-minded aspect - posed a valid strategy when getting scofflaws to be hoist with their own petards. And do you know what? I’ve become naturally rumpled and absent-minded, and people do underestimate me, but often when I don’t want them to. Oh, well.
And there you go. It is time for you to be inducted into the fold, Ben. 
I remember it from the 1970s in the UK, but I’m sure it was red or pink. Tasted vile, but we drank it anyway. Not a patch on dandelion and burdock, though.
Columbo was genius. It always reminds me of my late mum, she loved it – she must have known some of the episodes off by heart.
Oh, yes, and Dad’s Army. More genius.
Peter Falk´s book Just One More Thing: Stories from My Life is highly entertaining.
He lost his eye to cancer at 3 years old. Once, playing Little League Baseball, he was called ´Out´. Disagreeing with the umpire, thinking he was ´Safe´, he handed his glass eye to the umpire saying: ¨Here, you need this more than I do!¨.
Bob
Bear in mind that outside the US, “cream soda” is not one thing when it comes to flavor. Some of the variations listed in Wiki wouldn’t be called “cream soda” at all where I come from, no matter what it might say on the bottle; the US concept is generally pretty specific apart from the strange, unnatural colorings given it at times, and I don’t touch those on general principle; a little caramel coloring is all it needs, if it “needs” anything. If you were indeed tasting a US brand, Moof, I have to say that (with eyes closed so you can ignore the weird pink) “vile” isn’t the first word I’d use. Now, Marmite: that’s vile. But from what I understand, ranch dressing (a US favorite, and one of mine, too) is largely detested by the British, and that’s flat-out incomprehensible, so who knows what state your collective taste buds might be in. 
Tell me more.
Nano said ¨Now marmite, that´s vile¨.
Not so! Bearing in mind the original meaning in French is a large soup-pot suitable to make slow cooked soups and stews, such as the famed french onion soup. A dear friend owns and operates a restaurant named ´Marmite´, a remarkable Bistro. It derives its name from an 80 gallon electric marmite he managed to acquire. He is far renouned for his soups and stews.
Now, as to how the Brits managed to contort it to meaning ´a sticky, dark brown paste with a distinctive, salty, powerful flavour and heady aroma.´ is beyond me.
Bob
Cream soda was common in the US in my Childhood, in the Philly area. It was basically vanilla soda. I never liked it. I don’t see it much anymore, but it was really common fifty years ago
See, we’re coming up against another little Transatlantic puzzle: soda. I’m aware that Americans use that word for what we call ‘pop’, but I don’t really understand why, because such products usually don’t actually contain any soda. Soda, in the UK, is what you guys call ‘Club Soda’, except that, for it to be called ‘soda’ at all, it should contain at least some soda, i.e. bicarbonate of soda.
Out of interest, I’ve never come across vanilla pop, either …
Isn’t it that the French dish (meal) is named after the pot it is cooked in, which is called a ‘marmite’? And that’s the picture on the front of a jar of marmite, which is also made to be shaped like a ‘marmite’.
But it does. Or it did. I don’t know about present-day commercial manufacture, but the carbonated water-making process (invented in England, BTW) originally involved the use of “soda powders”, and “soda water” was a logically commonplace term; in the States the term stuck, but in referring to soft drinks, its use is now regional. The details as to whether actual sodas are present in the finished product I will leave to those in the industry, as Wikipedia’s a bit vague for my liking. What I did learn on looking up “soda powders” is that “sherbet” carries a far, far different meaning in the UK than it does in the States. And it blows my mind. Just another reason to stand agape at each other. I find it entertaining.
For my money, once again the Left Pond preserves older locutions. We should remember that there’s going to be history behind usages: We didn’t pull the term “soda” out of our backsides, willy-nilly, in designating carbonated beverages; it was bestowed upon us by British inventiveness, and we simply saw no call to abandon it.
Some places in the US do say “Pop.” In Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, on the western end of the state, says “pop.” Philly, on the eastern end, says “soda.”
The difference between club soda and seltzer and carbonated water is close to negligible. Most commercial seltzer has things added to it to offset the acidity of straight carbon dioxide
Until now, I had not come across the term ‘soda powders’ either.
I agree. I got the notion that there was no soda in American ‘sodas’ from detailed descriptions on various cocktail sites (I’m heavily into me cocktails).
It certainly does. Or at least, it does now. If you read books - particularly humorous books, for some reason - from Britain in the early 20c, you’ll find the term ‘sherbet’ used to mean almost any strong alcoholic drink.
Maybe … It still seems nonsensical to me …
I don’t know how to explain dandelion and burdock if you haven’t tasted it! 
It’s a bit unusual, but not in a way that tends to invite strong dislike. It’s got a hint of liquorice to it, and I wonder if it might be a bit like sarsaparilla. I’ve never tasted that, but it could be in the same ball park. Of course, the pop version of dandelion and burdock doesn’t taste anything like the real stuff, which is an alcoholic drink I’ve only ever had once.
Apparently you can get dandelion and burdock in some places in the US – Fentiman’s brand – though I’ve never tried their version myself. We used to have Corona or Ben Shaw’s, and the bottles were delivered once a week by the pop man. He had a flatbed lorry stacked up with crates and crates of all kids of pop.
Fizzy pop has to be distinguished from let-down pop, of course, which isn’t carbonated and mostly comes concentrated for dilution with water (it might be called cordial elsewhere). However, up until perhaps the 80s, the Co-op milkman used to deliver ready made let-down orange in milk bottles with foil tops.
Oh yes, and in parts of Yorkshire, pop is called beer and beer is called pop. Obviously.
Marmite … nooooo, I can’t bear anything even slightly yeasty. But sherbet has two variants in Yorkshire, one called sherbet (powder, usually plain white) and the other called kali (crystals, often brightly coloured in layers). We used to rot our teeth with both.
Edited to add: if sarsaparilla is fruity, we might have a version here called Vimto. Another huge childhood favourite.
Sarsaparilla isn’t really fruity. I used to love it. There used to be a sarsaparilla bar in one of the arcades in Cardiff city centre. I loved that place. Up until recently, a newer cafe, close to where the old sarsaparilla bar used to be, used to serve sarsaparilla. I don’t think it does any more, sadly.
But I would say that, although sarsaparilla has its own, unique taste, it is, as you suggest, somewhat along the lines of dandelion and burdock. Better, in my opinion, but maybe that’s personal taste. The fact that sarsaparilla doesn’t seem to exist any more in this country - or not so’s you’d notice - leads me to think that my taste may not be universally shared.