I'm attempting to write through a fever -- bronchial ashtma, to be exact -- so my apologies if several points get lost in a sea of groggy antibiotics, Theraflu, NyQuil and delicious strawberry Halls cough drops.

Those competing cougars from Coke and Pepsi have unleashed one new beverage a piece onto the world at large, each manifested for a wholly different target demo. Dwurrr.

Pepsi's offering is the most interesting of the two, so it gets top billing. Pepsi Summer Mix blends the taste of Pepsi with indiscernible artificial fruit flavors, and the end result is...subjective. I hate it. You may disagree. Though I admit that I liked the taste a lot better after allowing myself more than a single can, I also admit that I never quite shook the feeling that I had just downed a shot of rancid Southern Comfort and was trying to chase it with Pepsi Cola. That's kind of what it tastes like.

The part of me that doesn't want to be so harsh thinks it's more like Pepsi mixed with tangerine soda. I don't know. It doesn't work for me, but I adore the effort and can totally picture being eleven-years-old and obsessed with making sure I drank nothing but Pepsi Summer Mix from now until September 1st.

And then, the competition! From the sentient polar bears at Coca-Cola, it's Diet Coke Plus, which is essentially Diet Coke with added vitamins and minerals. At first, I was disgusted by what I took to be an aftertaste similar to that of a medicinny vitamin tablet. After a while, I realized that there was no such taste, and that it was a completely psychosomatic reaction to drinking "soda with vitamins." If there is any real flavor difference between Diet Coke and Diet Coke Plus, it's minimal. While I don't think the world should be turning to soda for their daily fix of vitamins and minerals, I definitely dig the silver can.

Posted by Matt on 05/21/2007. E-mail me!