On Friday, Black Bear Bottling will close permanently. The Oak Creek-based soft drink company has been in business for 90 years, and its closure will put more than 70 people out of a job. Black Bear's demise will also leave Wisconsin without the beloved Black Bear Soda brand, as well as a few other beverages the plant was contracted to manufacture.

While the loss of Black Bear is unfortunate, both metro Milwaukee and Wisconsin as a whole still boast a number of delicious soft drinks. In honor of Black Bear, Milwaukee Record's Tyler Maas and Josh Hoppert took a sugar-fueled tour of the state's vast soft drink collection by tasting a bunch of area sodas. Between sips and increasingly-hyper evaluations, they discuss the role soda played in their upbringing, why people call it "pop," and whether they think that rumor about Yellow 5 is true.

This episode is brought to you by Surly, a Minnesota-based brewery and the official beer of On The Record. Music comes courtesy of Piles ("Blue Glue") and Ravi/Lola ("Teach Her").