Bowlful of Crickets

reblogged from karion:

Drank: The anti-energy drink.  Slow your roll. This is a carbonated, grape-flavored beverage spiked with melatonin, valerian root and rose hips.

“So, does it make you sleepy? I asked the publicist. Yes, and she hears it’s good with vodka. Oh, something that makes it more likely I’ll fall asleep while drinking? Excellent.”

Reblogging from craig via travors

(Part Four in the series. Jolly Good)

Name: Tango Apple
Alleged Flavor: uh…Apple
Actual Flavor: Cider in soda form, with a touch of artificial sweetner
Color: Cider-y
Tasting sample was from: 330 ml. can, poured into glass

Observations on British/Irish soda thus far:

1) They aren’t all that fizzy. Maybe it’s a freshness issue, but they all fizz out right after the pouring.

2) Most seem to have a mix of sugar and artificial sweetener. What’s the point in that?

3) They wind up tasting a little two sweet and not strong enough in flavor.

So, Tango Apple then. More of the same, I’m afraid to say, but it’s not too bad. A little fruit juice means that it has a strong juice/cider feel to it, reminiscent of one of my all-time favorite sodas, the short-lived Apple Slice. I don’t know if it was ever release nationwide, but they had it where i was, and it was good. So this reminds me of that, but with an overiding artificial sweetener taste. In some ways, this is better than the Jones Green Apple soda, as the flavor here is more "real"- it even has real fruit juice. But Jones has a bit more of a tart bite, so it gets the slight edge.

Not so sure about the can either. Even the top of the can is black. And the puffy green lips? Not sure I understand the appeal, and not sure if it’s because I’m not British or because I’m not 13 years old.

A good soda, but I’m not too sad that i can’t get it in mass quantities here…

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

(Part Three in the British/Irish soda reviews- and it’s all gone pear-shaped)

Name: Tizer (I thought it was It’z Red, too, but guess that’s just a tagline)
Alleged Flavor: "…and it tastes red!"
Actual Flavor: It tastes clear- like Sprite without the Lemon-Lime
Color: Red. Very Red.
Tasting sample was from: 330 ml. can, poured into glass

TIZER- IT’Z RED
A play in one act

Characters: Tim, Debbie
Setting: Modern times, in a family room.

(Tim enters the room with a glass of bright red soda. Debbie is seated)

Debbie: What’s that?

Tim: It’z Red.

Debbie (mildly annoyed): I can see that.

Tim: It’z Red. That’s what it’s called. It’z Red…or Tizer.

Debbie: Weird.

(Tim takes a sniff)

Debbie: What’s it smell like?

Tim: Nothing. It has no smell.

(Tim takes a drink)

Debbie: So what does it tastes like.

Tim (incredulous): Nothing. It tastes like nothing.

Debbie: That’s crazy.

(Tim continues to drink)

Tim: Maybe it tastes like Sprite, if Sprite wasn’t Lemon-Lime. It’s just sweet, no other taste.

(Tim drinks more)

Debbie: Huh.

Tim (sticking out tongue, then excitedly): So , is my tongue red?

Debbie: No.

Tim (sadly): Huh. It says on the can "May stain clothing if spilt."

Debbie: Well, your tongue is different than clothing. And it’s already pink to begin with. So it won’t stain your tongue.

Tim (firmly): What’s the point, then?

-The End-

Rating: 0 out of 10.

(Part Two in the British/Irish soda reviews. Mind the gap.)

Name: Club Rock Shandy
Alleged Flavor: "Orange and Lemon Soft Drink with sugar and sweetener" Also states "real fruit bits"
Actual Flavor: Tart Lemonade with orange peel mixed with seltzer
Color: Polite Description: Murky Tang. Impolite Description: time to see a urologist
Tasting sample was from: 330 ml. can, poured into glass

Shandy is another one of those British things that never quite made it in the states. Simply put, shandy is a beverage made mixing lemonade and beer. Never made it in the states? I know, real shocker. Yet Weiss beer with lemon made it here at least on a limited level, so maybe shandy will still have it’s day.

Club Rock Shandy is a soft drink twist on the traditional shandy, and I guess mixing lemonade with various sodas is popular in Germany and South Africa as well. This one originates from Ireland and contains "real fruit bits", otherwise known as citrus pulp. It’s 5% Orange Juice, 1% Lemon Juice and has both sugar and saccharin in it. Sugar is right behind carbonated water in the ingredients list, but you could’ve fooled me. This stuff is TART. Which in my book is very good. I recently discoverd San Pellegrino’s Limanata and Aranciata, which are sparkling lemon and orange beverages (respectively) from Italy. They are damn tasty- they’d be my soft drink of choice if they cost the same as Coke. But they are darn expensive, as is Club Rock Shandy- which tastes like a half and half mix of Limanata and Aranciata with a splash of artificial color, sweetner and pulp. That might not sound like a high endorsement, but if you combine two of the best soft drinks I ever had and mess it up just slightly, you still have a darn good drink on your hands.

Oh, and as I finish my review, I realized my can has passed it’s best before date about a month ago. So maybe it’s better fresher, before the real fruit bits take a turn south.

Rating: 8 out of 10

(The first in a series of British/Irish Soda Reviews. Cheers!)

Name: Sparkling Ribena or Ribena Spark
Alleged Flavor: "Sparkling Black Currant Flavor Drink"
Actual Flavor: A bit too sweet Sparkling Black Currant Flavor Drink
Color: An unusual pinkish purple
Tasting sample was from: 330 ml. can, poured into glass

Not sure if it’s just due to the lack of exposure in these parts, but I like it when I can get my hands on anything black currant flavored. So when I did raid on the British treats store, I was pleased to walk out with two black currant sodas.

But is Ribena Spark truly a soda? It bills iself as a "sparkling black currant flavour drink", so I say- carbonated + non-alcoholic= soda. You can get all fancy if you want, good people of Ribena, but you’re a soda in my eyes. I’m not about to start a "Jackass Sparkling Fruit Flavour Drink" category.

Interesting notes on the can:

• "Ribena should be enjoyed as part of a healthy diet and active lifestyle" As opposed to all those products geared for an unhealthy and inactive lifestyle
• "This drink is not suitable fobabies and toddlers under 36 months" Um, yeah. It’s a SODA! Do we need to be warned about that? This is like all of those labels on pharmaceuticals…
• "RIBENA and RIBENA SPARK are registered trade marks of the GlaxoSmithKline group of companies" Well, that explains all the warnings…

So…the soda then. Carbonation is slightly above average, color is an unoffensive purplish-pink found only in candies, sodas and doll-sized dream houses. The flavor- well, do you know what black currants taste like. To the unware, I’d roughly say halfway between a purple grape and a blackberry, and very "jammy"- a strong, sweet smell that fills your nose. I found it a little sweet, but overall it was nice, good to have a flavor I like that I don’t see every day.

Gavin Edwards, a person I don’t know but who has written some swell books on misheard lyrics and rock and roll myths, wrote an article on England’s carbonated beverages and had the following to say on Ribena:

"a sickly-sweet abomination that disgraces the whole category of liquids. It tastes vaguely like a melted popsicle combined with some NyQuil that’s been sitting behind the mirror for three and a half years; somehow this concoction manages to provide 100% of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C"

I can’t disagree with him completely- I definitely think we were drinking the same soda, except for him, it was the odd product at the corner store. To me, it’s the nectar of some foreign land. It could be better- a little less sweet would be nice. But "an abomination that discraces the whole category of liquids?" Someone needs to send Mr. Edwards some Faygo…

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

To give you an idea of how backed-up I am on sodas reviews, Mountain Dew has released the reformulated Pitch Black before I got the chance to review the first one. I actually DID review the first one, but my brilliant, poignant post was DELETED befor I could make it live. I will admit, some foul language was involved. When it got deleted, I mean, not in my review.

So let me now kill two grape "infused" citrus beverages with one stone.

Name: Mountain Dew Pitch Black
Alleged Flavor: Mountain Dew "with a blast of Black Grape"
Actual Flavor: Mountain Dew mixed with your average grape soda
Color: The Deepest of Purples
Tasting sample was from: 20 oz. plastic bottle, poured into glass

Following on the heels of their limited edition Code Red (Cherry) and Live Wire (Orange) flavors, the Dew Corporate Brass have introduced Mountain Dew Pitch Black- or Mountain Dew Grape, for those of us who aren’t part of the XTREME snowboarder culture Mountain Dew is obviously targeting.

So how does it taste? Like grape-flavored Mountain Dew. Not sure what’s so "black grape" about this, other than the ton of food coloring they dumped in. So is this a good taste? Well, it’s not a BAD taste. As grape sodas go, I like this better than most, most likely because the Dew’s citrus flavor cuts a little of the grape. Grape sodas generally strike me as too sweet, so this was a bit of a treat. Not an everyday soda for me, but not bad in execution.

Not for the faint of heart related story: I guess that food coloring has to go somewhere.

Review: 5 out of 10.

Name: Mountain Dew Pitch Black- Part II
Alleged Flavor: Mountain Dew "with a blast of grape flavor with a SOUR BITE"
Actual Flavor: Mountain Dew with a blast of grape SWEET TARTS
Color: A nice light purple on the can’s rim, somehow a super dark purple in the glass.
Tasting sample was from: 12 oz. can, poured into glass

About 8 months after Pitch Black, Mountain Dew goes for a sequel. Pitch Black II just hit the shelves (did we learn NOTHING from New Coke? A II after a soda’s name is the kiss of death!). The difference- it’s still grape flavored Mountain Dew, but this time it has a SOUR BITE. Which is something I think Montain Dew itself could use- see my review of Sun Drop.

So, does the newly-sour Pitch Black bite? Not hardly. In fact, it’s a mighty fine tart beverage. The grape flavor is very reminiscent of Sweet Tarts- sweet, but very sour and tangy. Grape is not my favorite flavor, but this is grape done right. A nice showing from the Dew camp. Data on what the sequel does to your…uh, leavings…is not yet available.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

The good people at The Impulsive Buy naturally beat me to this. They like the original better, but are fine with the sequel.

The hard-working folks at 7-11 have decided that it’s not enough to sell America someone else’s soda in obscenely large amounts- at last chek, there was the Big Gulp,the Super Big Gulp, the Mega Big Gulp, the Super Mega Big Gulp, and the DynoMega SuperDeluxe BladderBuster Xtreme. 7-11 is now selling flavors that carry their name, in 20-ounce wide mouth bottles. Get it? Wide-mouth? Big Gulp?

Despite the cheap packaging, I was immediately drawn to these- due to the unusual flavors they chose to enter the soda-producing world with. I didn’t try the diet cola- but I tried the three non-diet varieties. Here then, is my review of all three, in the order I drank them.

Name: Big Gulp Apple Ginger Snap
Alleged Flavor: Apple, I’m guessing, with some sort of ginger, somehow snapped together.
Actual Flavor: Apple Slice, could this be your long lost brother?
Color: An autumnal, apple-juicy amber
Tasting sample was from: Big mouth 20 oz. plastic bottle, poured into glass

Where jackass sodas are concerned, the one that I pine for is Apple Slice, avaible in the late 80’s when everything was getting the Slice treatment- I believe there was even a Lemonade Slice. The Apple variety tasted a lot like carbonated apple juice- and for some reason, this appealed to my taste buds in the way few other sodas have.

I don’t think this is a dead ringer for Apple Slice, but it’s close enough for me that I was elated. A little gingery/spice flavor in there- making it carbonated apple cider to Slice’s juice with fizz flavor, or Jones’ Soda’s sour apple candy flavor. This could very well be the soda equivalent of dating someone that looks like an old flame. But this is soda, we’re talking about, not dating, so I think much of the creepy factor doesn’t exist here. If drinking Big Gulp Apple Ginger Snap Soda is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

Rating: 9.5 out 10. Let me try a few more before giving it a full 10…

Name: Big Gulp Mint Lime Twist
Alleged Flavor: A subtle, refreshing blend of mint and lime, I’m guessing
Actual Flavor: New from Proctor and Gamble- Scope with Lime!
Color: You know that blue automotive window-washing fluid? Picture it in green, only a little murky.
Tasting sample was from: Big mouth 20 oz. plastic bottle, poured into glass

Tim (sitting down with glass of bright green soda): Well, here goes nothing!
Debbie: I can’t believe you’re going to drink that!
Tim: Hey, I have to, it’s for my blog! My readers are counting on me!

Readers, you owe me one. Big time. This stuff was nasty. As I lifed the glass near my face, I could think only one thing- mouthwash. As I drank, it started minty and ended up very lime, and not an unpleasant lime, either. But with mint? Who’s idea was that?

I will say this- it does what it sets out to do- it’s a nice balance of mint and lime flavors. Two flavors which do not belong together. You don’t see chocolate-covered bacon for a reason- some tastes should never meet.

Rating: 2 out of 10

Name: Big Gulp Cola- Made With Cane Sugar
Alleged Flavor: Cola, presumably without any High Fuctose Corn Syrup bite
Actual Flavor: The most Royal of Royal Crown Colas
Color: It’s brown, like cola should be (take that, fading memory of Crystal Pepsi!)
Tasting sample was from: Big mouth 20 oz. plastic bottle.

A few words about cane sugar in soda as opposed to high fructose corn syrup (or HFCS in the soda geek world that I am slowly being sucked into). Cane sugar takes away that sticky-sweet after taste most non-diet sodas have, givng the cane sugar sodas a more well-balanced flavor that’s not too sweet. If you see a soda made with cane sugar, buy it and drink it- it’s a quality beverage. The two best sodas I’ve had are the Boylan Cane Sugar Colar and the Dr. Pepper in the small glass bottles from Dublin, TX (the last place making the Dr. with cane sugar). These two sodas are as close to perfection as you can get in soft drink form. Oh, and apparentlky cane sugar is much more expensive- the two afformentioned sodas will set you back at least $3 for 4 10 oz. glass bottles.

So, my hopes were high for 7-11’s cane sugar cola- 99 cents for 20 ounces of cane sugared goodness? Well, maybe it wasn’t cold enough, but I just think they spent their cola budget on cane sugar when they need to allocate a little more towards the recipie. The result- the best non-Coke and non-Pepsi cola I’ve had in long time, with exception of Boylan, which is in another league entirely. I hereby crown Big Gulp the King of Cut-Rate Colas- long may he reign! A good alternative for Coke and Pepsi drinkers wanting less aftertaste- but unfortunately, it means less taste as well.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

In my review of Sprite Remix- Aruba Jam, I mentioned that I thought Aruba Jam tasted like a less-sweet version of the Tropical which was out a couple of years ago. I read on BevNet, the soft drink discussion forum, that many thought the two soda were identical. In the comments to my Aruba Jam article, Hastypete, a big fan of Tropical, claimed that Aruba Jam was exactly the same thing and wondered if anyone had some old Tropical lying around to put it to the test.

I was that anyone. I had three cans of Tropical left. Into the fridge they went- a plan for a scientific taste test was hatched.

My lovely wife Debbie would administer the test. To make things more complex, I decided there should be three sample- two of one of the flavors and one of the other. I was confident I could tell which was which. Cathy, my sister in law ("The Awsom 1" ), was in town so she joined me in the tasting.

Glasses were labled A, B and C. Tasting began.

The results?

Cathy said A was different and B and C were the same.

Yours truly quickly and decisively said C was different than A and B- and that C was sweeter, and was therefore Tropical.

I was 100% correct.

The Tropical IS sweeter. It also smells sweeter, sickenenly so to Debbie. I like them both, but the Tropical ranks about a 6, where the Aruba Jam is at a 7.5 or so. Interestingly enough, the ingredient list is slightly different. There’s more sodium in Aruba Jam, and Citric Acid comes before Natural Flavors on the ingredient list. It makes sense- a little more salt and a little more acid = a little less sweet. Tropical and Aruba Jam are close- but if you are a jackass soda lover like me, with a discerning palate and a very deep soda closet, you can tell the difference.

When it comes to Jackass Soda, this may indeed by the golden age. Major beverage producers are not content to rest on their laurels- they are cranking out the special edition products at a steady pace.

Sprite cleverly(?) has been titling their limited edition products "Sprite Remix", presumably to catch the eye of the young consumer who is familiar with the term from the music they listen to. So it came as no surprise when the first two Sprite Remix Products- Tropical and Berryclear- were a bit on the sweet side. Targeting young consumers=make it sweet. The Tropical Remix (I’m pretty sure) came out in 2003. From what I recall, it was tropical tasting all right, it a very sweet way. I remembering it even smelling sweet. It was definitely edible (drinkable?), but only for those occasions when you needed a real jolt of sugar.

The summer of 2004 saw the release of Sprite Remix - Berryclear (like the way, like the Limited Edition Mountain Dew products, they started using code names?). Berryclear tasted like berries, and like all of the Sprite offshoots, was clear. But again, they kicked it into overdrive with the sweeteners. Their berry flavor is basically what you would find in candy- a sugar-coated rendering of the real thing. I think I have a few cans of this left from last year, next to my Faygo Rock N’ Rye…

So when I saw that Sprite had Aruba Jam coming out this year, I knew I would try it, and I expected to dislike it.

First, the codename- Aruba Jam. It’s the type of name marketing execs who think they’re cool and in touch with the youth of today come up with. These are the same guys who put snowboarding grannies in TV commercials. Strike One.

The description of the soda’s flavor was the next warning sign. I don’t remember the actual wording, but it ultimately came down to this one word: Fruit. If you can’t name a particular fruit, the result will most likely be an unidentifiable hodge-podge of a bunch of fruit flavors, ultimately tasting like a sugary mess. Strike Two.

As nervous as I was, I bought a 12 pack (hey, I like soda out of a can better). Thankfully, my fears were for nothing. It’s like a less-sweet(!) version of the Tropical Remix. It has a bit of a fruit punch taste and smell to it. Overall, what I liked about the Tropical Sprite Remix with a lot less sweetness. I may even wind up buying more of this, we’ll see how cans 2 through 12 go…

Name: Sprite Remix - Aruba Jam
Alleged Flavor: something something something Fruit
Actual Flavor: "Bill, we’ve got some Sprite Tropical syrup lying around- want to tone it down a bit and sell it as a new flavor?"
Color: A breathtaking shade of clear
Tasting sample was from: aluminum can, poured into glass

Note that there’s a jackass soda sub culture out there who have discussed this product and its siblings in great detail. I am merely a pretender to their throne when it comes to soda obsession. I did learn a lot about the soda world in a short period of time on that board. Let’s just say there’s a lot of Jackass Soda Gold yet to be mined by yours truly.