If you’ve ever chugged some Canada dry and wondered what the difference between the terms “naturally flavored” and “made from real ginger” was, don’t worry, so has the American and Canadian legal systems.
A fascinating article in the CBC describes the odd parsing of language and how the drink’s ingredients can lead to a whole lot of splitting hairs over the definitions of specific words and phrases. The short version is nobody knows what the hell anything means and we’re all just kind of guessing.
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According to court documents, Canada Dry ginger ale may contain as little as only one single drop of ginger extract in 70 cans worth of ginger ale. The extract is called ginger oleoresin. It’s a highly concentrated form of ginger that packs such a powerful blast of ginger flavor that can only be used in the tiniest quantities. Hence, one drop per 70 cans per court document from a Canadian class action lawsuit. It is derived from actual ginger root, but since it’s a derivative it’s not going to taste exactly like ginger in the way that, say, an all-natural ginger beer might, which is often brewed with actual chunks of ginger.
Most beverage flavorings exist in similar trace amounts. Parts per million is the terminology food scientists tend to use. However, Canada Dry and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency will probably never be able to tell you exactly how much ginger is in a can of Canada Dry, since that’s considered proprietary information. That’s what makes the claim of “made from real ginger” on Canadian cans of Canada Dry a little perplexing.
American cans go the more open-ended and open-for-interpretation version with the nebulous term “natural flavors.” The company says it plans to revise the cans in Canada though it hasn’t done that yet.
