Just-opened Mass Street Soda selling sweet, bubbly versions of almost everything

Mass Street Soda popped the cap today and informally opened at 1103 Massachusetts St. Even with most of the shop’s 1,000-plus sodas still in the process of being moved from box to shelf, there are already so many it’s crazy — and really hard to pick just one.

“Basically, if you name a fruit we probably have a soda in that variety,” said Matt Baysinger, who co-owns the store with Luke Thompson. There are sections for all of those fruits, plus sections for other categories including cream sodas, root beers and oddball flavors (such as meat … scroll down).

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The soda counter — where Baysinger said there eventually will be seating and and ice cream to make floats — isn’t set up yet, but you can buy sodas by the bottle ($2 each) or mix your own 12-pack ($22) or case ($42) to take home. Also coming later: A device that can chill a bottle of soda in moments. Even Baysinger has tried only about 200 of the sodas the shop is carrying, noting that if you tried one soda every day it would take three years to get through all their flavors.

I failed at picking just one (OK, I didn’t really try very hard to pick just one) and walked out with these three to taste and share here at Lawrence.com headquarters.

Soda from faraway land: Kazouza 1941 orange soda from Lebanon. It’s actually a “sparkling fruit drink” and actually tastes like oranges (probably because it actually contains orange juice) — nothing at all like that weird orange liquid at McDonald’s.

Soda in very weird flavor: Chocolate Covered Maple Smoked Bacon Soda by Real Soda. Not as strong-tasting as anticipated, and that’s probably a good thing. The bacon flavor is subtle enough that this can actually pass for soda and not just another bacon gimmick.

Soda I just thought sounded good: Ginger Man Soda by Maine Root. Tastes like a spicy gingerbread man dunked in cream soda. Yum, and the label is cute.

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Tips welcome!

Try something unusual or know of something interesting going on at a Lawrence restaurant? Send me an email at sshepherd@ljworld.com or contact me on Twitter @saramarieshep. For more local food and restaurant news, click here.