Pop Review Archive
Dr. Pepper Berries and Cream
(4/9/06)
Black Cherry Vanilla Coke
(1/31/06)
7Up Plus Cherry (11/15/05)
Black Cherry Citrus Fresca
(11/9/05)
Mountain Dew Pitch Black II
(8/28/05)
7-11 Apple Ginger Snap
Big Gulp Soda (8/21/05)
Vault (8/10/05)
Coke Zero (6/29/05)
Sprite Remix Aruba Jam (4/6/05)
Coke with Lime (4/3/05)
Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper
(2/13/05)
Pepsi Holiday Spice
(11/24/04)
7Up Plus (9/8/04)
Mountain Dew Pitch Black and
Baja Blast (8/25/04)
C2 and Pepsi Edge (6/18/04)
Mountain Dew Live Wire
(5/24/03)
Sprite Remix (4/29/03)
dnL (3/5/03)
Dr. Pepper Berries and Cream (April 9, 2006)
A vast improvement over the Cherry Vanilla variety, this is easily one of the most interesting flavor variations to date. The flavor of Dr. Pepper is still present, but the raspberry flavor kind of attaches to and mixes with it, generating a sort of "black raspberry" flavor that is simultaneously easy to notice and yet still relatively subtle. I can't say I noticed the cream much, but considering I came in expecting more of the same as Cherry Vanilla - i.e. a complete inability to taste much of anything beyond the regular Dr. Pepper - I'm not about to complain. I'm not sure the world needed a black raspberry soda, but kudos to Dr. Pepper for doing something a little different. This is one of the few of the myriad flavor-combination soda varieties that I can actually recommend, and considering that Dr. Pepper's previous attempts were so mediocre (see: Red Fusion), I'm glad to see they've gotten it right this time.
Black Cherry Vanilla Coke (January 31, 2006)
Not bad. The black cherry is a bit muted - as, really, black cherry flavors tend to be - but the vanilla is pretty good. In other words, it's basically as though Vanilla Coke had never ceased to exist in the first place. I'm not sure why soda manufacturers have started to insist on adding multiple flavors to their base flavors all at once, particularly when I'm not sure I've tasted one yet where all included flavors really stood out. (In Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper, you really can't taste either of them, so at least this is an upgrade over that.) This isn't wine, I don't need to be tasting "subtle hints of vanilla, with a cherry finish." It's fucking Coke; just make the pop and be done with it.
7Up Plus Cherry (November 15, 2005)
I'm sure that my telling you that this flavor has the exact same problem as the original 7Up Plus will come as no surprise to anyone. It's actually not quite as odious - the cherry mixes slightly better with the Splenda than the original berry mix did - but it's still pretty bad. It's funny because Splenda combines fine with cola - Diet Coke with Splenda is a perfectly reasonable alternative to original Diet Coke, with a minimal difference in flavor - but it just doesn't work with fruit. This may be more true of artificial sweeteners as a whole, but aspartame, despite a harsher chemical edge, doesn't have the sickly-sweet issue that Splenda does - letting 7Up Plus linger for more than a couple seconds causes involuntary spasms and a threat from my tongue to secede from my mouth in protest.
Black Cherry Citrus Fresca (November 9, 2005)
I'm not sure what Fresca thinks they're doing. Challenging the Diet Rite monopoly on the "endless flavors of diet soda" market, perhaps? But rather than simply make a straight-up diet black cherry soda, Fresca has chosen to combine the flavor with its standard grapefruit. The result is, well, pretty abominable. Original-recipe Fresca already has one of the strongest aspartame kicks of any diet soda, and the black cherry's clash with the citrus is harsh enough that the chemical punch only becomes more pronounced. It's possible that another flavor - the other one I saw, but did not purchase, was Peach Citrus - would work in such a combination, but black cherry and grapefruit just don't mix, especially when there's no sugar involved. Stay far, far away from this one.
Mountain Dew Pitch Black II (August 28, 2005)
Flashing back to Friday, I sampled a new pop variety:
Mountain Dew Pitch Black II. Apparently unwilling to completely resurrect last year's
grape flavor, the folks at Mountain Dew came up with this version, which comes complete
with a "sour bite," as the bottle describes it. I'm Mr. Sour, as we well know,
so of course I was all over this.
Here's the problem. Sour is all well and good, but it's better when the
sourness is coming along with something sweet. Bafflingly, even though Pitch Black II
contains 75 grams of sugar in a 20-ounce bottle (which, reduced, is something like
emptying four sugar packets into a pony shot glass full of water), it's not especially
sweet. The result of this is that the sourness has a harsh, chemical-like effect rather
than a pleasing tang. Drinking this stuff feels like you're trying to scrub soap scum out
of the back of your throat.
So, normally I like sour stuff, but this is just too much. Combined
with the lack of sweetness, the raised level of acidity caused by the sourness just
invites problems. It's not as unpleasant-tasting as regular Mountain Dew, but it sure
doesn't feel very good going down. I can't recommend it.
7-11 Apple Ginger Snap Big Gulp Soda (August 21, 2005)
7-11 has these new "Big Gulp Sodas" that it's putting out. Most are fairly conventional flavors, but one of them is "Apple Ginger Snap," so of course I had to try it out. It's perfectly drinkable but there's nothing especially exciting about it - you really can't taste the supposed ginger and it isn't even all that sweet, making it the functional equivalent of drinking a glass that's been filled with half apple juice and half club soda. You could do a lot worse for 99 cents, but that's about the highest compliment I can really give something so pedestrian.
Coke is test-marketing a new drink called "Vault," their
latest attempt to break Pepsi's stranglehold on the "citrus-flavored,
highly-caffeinated" market, or whatever it is the appeal of Mountain Dew is to
people. Surge, you will recall, fell flat in this attempt some years ago. Vault is not
available everywhere, but one of the places they are testing it is Michigan, where I
happened to be over the weekend. So on Sunday I picked up a bottle.
It's okay. It's probably better-tasting than Mountain Dew, which I
think I would attribute to its smaller bubbles, making it a little less harsh to drink.
Coke was apparently going for a combination of a soda and an energy drink, and they've
probably succeeded; certainly it goes down more or less like a soda, but it does have a
bit of that tang that you really only find in a product that contains stuff like taurine
(though I didn't see any taurine in the ingredients). This attempt at a dual market chase
isn't a terrible idea, though I don't know if Vault is different enough from Mountain Dew
to take away much there (certainly that never helped Mello Yello), and people have gotten
too used to buying the idea of energy drinks in small cans to really be fooled in that
regard. So even though Vault is a better drinking experience than either Mountain Dew or
99% of all energy drinks, I predict it will go the way of Surge within a few months, if it
even hits wide at all. I wouldn't be unhappy to be wrong, though I don't see myself buying
this all that often even if it does find its way nationwide.
I had the joke "because there's zero difference between this and Diet Coke" all set to go, but in fact there is a bit of one: Coke Zero tastes more like regular Coke. So why didn't they just replace Diet Coke? Well, TPTB at Coke obviously learned their lesson from the New Coke fiasco and decided not to replace a product that people were used to. Flaxgirl, for example, prefers the taste of Diet Coke to that of Coke, which she considers "too syrupy" - in other words, she doesn't like this stuff as much as Diet Coke, and would have been annoyed had a straight switch been pulled. I imagine what this will replace, if it hasn't already, is C2, since it tastes better (there's no watery half-Coke-half-Diet taste here, it just tastes closer to Coke, period) and has no calories, instead of C2's "oh, we've got half because that's where the taste was!" However taste gets in there, the Coke people have clearly figured out how to adequately synthesize it.
Sprite Remix Aruba Jam (April 6, 2005)
The box (this doesn't appear to be in 20 oz bottles yet, or at least wasn't at the store, so I was forced to buy a 12-can pack) described it as a "new tropical flavor", which is kind of silly because the first variety of Sprite Remix was "Tropical". That flavor was a lazy combination of strawberry (yeah, tropical?) and pineapple; this tastes more tropical in the sense that its esters resemble those you might find in something calling itself "Tropical Punch", but that doesn't make it a whole lot better. I have no idea what specifically is supposed to be in this because the product is apparently so new the Sprite Remix website doesn't even mention it. The real problem Sprite Remix has is that it combines the one-of-the-least-sweet-sodas flavor of Sprite with flavors that need more sugar to really succeed, and that's the case here. It's okay - I'm not killing myself for buying the 12-pack like I would be if this were dnL or anything - but it's nothing special.
Coke with Lime (April 3, 2005)
I also tried Coke with Lime. At least it doesn't taste like Diet Coke with Lemon did - in other words, the flavor seemed to come directly from the lemon zest - but I was hard-pressed to really taste the lime. It basically tastes like Coke with this just very tiny hint of something citrusy. Certainly not bad but hardly worth the spinoff; might as well get a regular Coke.
Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper (February 13, 2005)
I'm not sure why Dr. Pepper bothers. Red Fusion was pretty crappy and basically just tasted like mediocre Dr. Pepper. Now comes Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper. Well, I don't know what it is about the Dr. Pepper flavor, but I guess it's pretty hard to modify. The end result is that this tastes more or less exactly like the normal stuff. I guess there are vague hints of cherry and vanilla here and there, but nothing worth writing home about.
Pepsi Holiday Spice (November 24, 2004)
There's really not a whole lot to distinguish this from regular Pepsi cola. It basically tastes the same except there's this mildly spicy, kinda cloves-like aftertaste. It's not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be, but that's mostly because it's pretty much just Pepsi. Much like Pepsi and really any cola, I also could barely get through a 20-ounce bottle of it without starting to feel queasy. If you like cola and like to pretend that you're using it to wash down pumpkin pie, I guess this is the cola for you. Otherwise, feh.
Never in history has a product made without sugar actually tasted
like that wasn't the case, and the latest offering from 7Up is no different. When I first
heard that 7Up's new flavor was going to feature actual fruit juice, I was preparing for
something I might actually enjoy - then I got to the store and noticed that the bottle was
touting a lack of carbohydrates.
That's right, kids: this shit is made with Splenda. And while a packet
of Splenda doesn't taste that unlike sugar in a boss comparison, 7Up Plus is really
rather unpleasant. The Splenda manages to combine with the berry flavor to make the taste
sickly sweet, while at the same time it almost isn't sweet enough. It's very hard to
describe how exactly the taste is bad - somehow, it feels like it's doing irreparable harm
to your system by swallowing it.
7Up is 0-for-2 now, after its curiously motivated entry dnL proved to
be the second-worst entry into the recent brand expansion racket, behind only the
singularly heinous Pepsi Blue. Presumably 7Up Plus' competition is both the new low-carb
angle filled by C2 and Pepsi Edge (neither of which is anything to write home about, but
both run rings around this one) and Sprite Remix, which prefers esters to juice but has
the good sense to use sugar, putting it miles ahead in the taste department. Sprite Remix
also doesn't bury the flavor of original Sprite behind all the esters, while 7Up is
nowhere to be found in 7Up Plus. Of course, that may be because 7Up uses sugar.
Mountain Dew Pitch Black and Baja Blast (August 25, 2004)
Big day in new pop. Well, new Mountain Dew flavors.
There's the "limited edition" Pitch Black, which
describes itself as having a "blast of black grape." (I would link to the
official Mountain Dew site for the flavor, but there's far too much annoying pop-punk
music going in the background.) I finally tracked down a 20-ounce bottle at White
Hen. It's not too bad. Similarly not bad is Baja Blast, available only at Taco Bell,
which has a lime flavor.
Both are like the orange-flavored Live Wire in a couple of ways.
First of all, they do a pretty good job of not being too sweet. Most fruit-flavored
sodas are very sweet - orange and grape varieties routinely have 50 grams of sugar in a
12-ounce can, compared to 39 for Coke. Pitch Black contains about 46 grams per 12
ounces, the same as regular Mountain Dew, but it has just enough less than a regular grape
soda to have less of that syrupy sweetness. I don't necessarily mind that myself,
but it's good that this wasn't the same as all the other grape soda varieties.
Equally good is the fact that unlike the first Dew spinoff, Code Red,
Baja Blast and Pitch Black follow in the footsteps of Live Wire by not tasting like
flavored Mountain Dew (which is to say, flavored urine). I can recommend both of
these pop varieties - they're nothing mind-blowing, but they're tasty enough.
C2 and Pepsi Edge (June 18, 2004)
Regarding C2, it's Coke's new "low-carb soda," if you didn't know. Imagine a beverage that's half Coke and half Diet Coke and you've pretty much got it. Pepsi's version, Pepsi Edge, tastes like C2 in about the same way that Pepsi tastes like Coke - it's a little sweeter, or has a little more caffeine in it, or something. You can't quite put your finger on it, but they're different. I would venture to say that Pepsi Edge and C2 taste even more alike than Pepsi and Coke did in the first place.
Mountain Dew Live Wire: Do you like orange soda? Because that's all this is. Code Red still tastes like Mountain Dew somewhat, but there's not even the slightest hint of Dew taste left in Live Wire (though some would say that the predominant Dew taste is horse urine and thus that this is not a bad thing). If you like caffeine in your orange soda and there's just not enough in Sunkist to cut it, I suppose you can drink this. Otherwise, while it is certainly not bad (I'd purchase it again before I'd buy any of the other recent soda variations), it's nothing particularly interesting either. I'd probably get Minute Maid first as it has a better orange taste. (Oh, and the music on their website sucks. Be warned if you're going to click there.)
Now let's get to "Sprite ReMix," a product I was
absolutely confounded to see on the shelves today. It was probably rushed out to
compete with dnL, though the two are
not much alike. For one thing, I might consider drinking Sprite ReMix again (though
I'm in no rush).
The website is just about as
campy as dnL's, featuring such "who the hell
writes this stuff?" advertising language as this tidbit on the front page:
Yo, it takes heart, skills, and vision to remix an original.
You're showing your flava just by moving your mouse right now. Nice instincts.
It's like that with new Sprite ReMix.™
Setting aside how ludicrous it is to see the quasi-word
"flava" actually written down and not part of a rapper's name (I'm thinking here
of Flava Flav, though publicenemy.com
has it as "Flavor Flav," thus making him actually more literate than Sprite's ad
execs), what the hell does that mean? It's like what with new Sprite ReMix?
Are you really giving your marketing guys credit for having the "heart, skills,
and vision" necessary to decide you needed to add a second flavor to your repertoire?
At least under the "What is Sprite ReMix?" section, Sprite
had the decency to tell us. Unlike dnL's mystifying "fruit flavor blast,"
we learn that "the tropical flavor in Sprite ReMix is made up of the original Lymon
flavor from Sprite - lemon and lime" (oh, thanks for clearing up what
"lymon" was short for) "plus strawberry and pineapple."
This wouldn't be so bad if the bottle and everything on the site didn't
tout Sprite ReMix as "tropical." I'll buy pineapple, but strawberry?
I'd almost prefer the "spare esters" route if it actually tasted
tropical. Basically, Sprite ReMix tastes like a rejected Clearly Canadian flavor. In fact, I
wouldn't be surprised if it tasted a lot like this.
Have you seen this new soda called "dnL?" I came
across it at Osco, and of course curiosity got the best of me. "dnL," for
those totally baffled, is "7up" upside down and backwards. Why did they do
that? I would argue it's because no one could come up with a better name, but the
official site (www.dnL-FlipIt.com) has other
ideas. From the FAQ section:
Q: What is the link between dnL and 7 UP?
A: dnL is from the makers of 7 UP, but it is everything 7 UP isn't.
Take 7 UP and flip it upside down and inside out, you get a green beverage in a
clear bottle with a bold, full flavor and a kick of caffeine. That's dnL.
Okay, so 7 UP is clear soda in a green bottle and made a big deal about
having no caffeine - but do they really mean to imply that 7 UP's flavor is weak and, uh,
italicized?
The main page also offers a "What is dnL?" section:
Now, 7 UP is turning itself upside down and inside out to introduce
dnL, the strong, full-flavored soft drink guaranteed to flip your perspective on life and
give you a big kick of green.
If I were the ad guy who wrote that copy, I think I'd be flipping my
perspective on life, but let's break this down.
a) What exactly makes a soft drink "strong," much less
"full-flavored?" And again, doesn't this imply that the weenie taste of 7
UP is only for little girls who can't handle a rough, bold soda like this one?
b) If this is so guaranteed to flip my perspective on life, can I have
my money back now?
c) What in the hell is "a big kick of green?" Unless
that refers to some amount of cash, I don't think I want it.
Truly, though, my favorite section is the FAQ section. I was
trying to find out what flavor this was supposed to be - however full it is, I was not
comfortable enough with the flavor to venture a guess. Here's what I found at the
FAQ section:
Q: Why is dnL green?
A: It represents the fruit flavor blast.
Well, we're halfway there, right? Wrong.
Q: What flavor is dnL?
A: Its a fruit flavor blast.
Lack of apostrophe theirs. So, what flavor is this full-flavored
soda? Apparently "whatever esters we could get our hands on," because
obviously they were so busy coming up with a clever name (uh, yeah) that they couldn't be
bothered to come up with an actual flavor. "What flavor is this new, hip soda
going to be?" "Uh, you know, it'll taste like fruit." "I love
it!"
The final question in the "FAQ" was Q: How do I turn my
thirst upside down?, which I really doubt is frequently asked of them. This
question is apparently code for "How do I purchase dnL?" The answer should
be "It doesn't matter, because it has no distinct flavor and an aftertaste that is
reminding me, for no apparent reason, of swiss cheese."
These recent "watch us put our knowledge of artificial colors to
work" experiments in the field of soda have really got me down. Dr. Pepper's
Red Fusion may be the best of them all, damning testimony if ever there was. Pepsi
Blue sucks big-time, and while dnL is probably better than that, it's not by much.