Okay, I’m grocery shopping tonight, picking up soda for a video game weekend with my friend, and suddenly my eyes detect a different color scheme in the Pepsi section of the grocery store. I quickly absorb every image and word on the twelve pack carton to make sure it isn’t some stupid repackaging of their flavors to cross-promote with some lame summer blockbuster. I quickly had to re-read. And the re-re-read. Was I really seeing Cherry Vanilla Pepsi??? REALLY???
Yes really. And I just finished drinking my first can. Now let me say, Cherry cola is my absolute favorite cola EVER (okay, next to limited edition Pepsi Holiday Spice from 2004, but I can’t even really talk about it. Too soon.). Based on what is currently on the market, Wild Cherry Pepsi is my favorite–simply delicious, followed by Cherry Coke–not cherry smooth enough, and then Cherry Dr. Pepper–almost tastes like kiddie cough syrup.
About five years ago, Coke released a Black Cherry Vanilla Coke, and I was a fan…until it suddenly disappeared from stores. Damn you limited editions and brand experiments! Then we got Pepsi Jazz Black Cherry French Vanilla, which was pretty good, but almost sickeningly sweet, despite being a diet soda–which I can’t actually drink because they destroy my stomach. Doesn’t matter anyway, because that also went away. After that, we were treated to Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper, and I think that was my favorite cherry vanilla soda so far. So you know what that means…they sent that fucker to Pepsi Holiday Spice land…wherever that may be.
And now, Pepsi returns to the realm of Cherry Vanilla with this latest version, in both regular and diet (which makes me wonder how different plain old cherry and plain old vanilla tastes compared to BLACK cherry and FRENCH vanilla in the Jazz soda). As for the non-diet version, which I just finished drinking, I’d have to say, it tastes almost identical to Black Cherry Coke, but is a bit sweeter and is unevenly balanced with way too much focus on the vanilla. I can’t even really taste any cherry and I’m highly disappointed. Hell, I might as well be drinking a syrupy sweet Vanilla Pepsi (is that still on the market? Probably, since I hate it). I seriously wish I had a regular Wild Cherry Pepsi floating around the house right now so I could mix it with this new Cherry Vanilla Pepsi to dilute what appears to be a full bottle of vanilla extract that was dumped into this latest flavor’s formula…
