I sampled some Pepsi Natural yesterday at the grocery store

[Orrex]

Those of you across the pond might know of it as Pepsi Raw, instead.

Regardless, one if its marketing trump-cards is that it's made with cane sugar, rather than that HFCS demons' semen you've heard so much about.

First, let me disclaim that I'm a Coke drinker. At its best, Pepsi tastes IMO like flat Coke sipped out of an ashtray, but I digress.

Pepsi Natural was utterly unpalatable. It had a thin, syrupy taste and no "body" whatsoever. If someone had handed me a glass of it without revealing what it was, I seriously would have thought that something was dangerously wrong with it.


What am I missing? Everything I've read about "real sugar" Coke and Pepsi makes them sound like the undiluted nectar of the gods. But when I finally get a chance to try one of them, it tastes like something that your disreputable uncle brewed in an old bathtub in a darkened basement.

:shrug::puke::shrug:

[semillama]

1. I thought it was ok.

I applaud the removal of HCFS from soda, for one reason: sodas with it leaves my teeth feeling like there's a thin coating of syrup on them, which i find highly unpleasant. Regardless, I'll still take a diet pepsi over throwback any day, since I don't need the empty calories of a regular soda.

[charlie]

2. I wouldn't know about Pepsi Natural

I haven't heard of it, let alone tried it. I'm really not much of a soda aficionado.

But, I am one who's lamented the replacement of sugar with HFCS in everything. HFCS has a cloying sweetness that overpowers most other flavors. A Coke with syrup has its notes like cinnamon and wintergreen blunted, buried under a smothering SWEETNESS. Sugar doesn't do that so much. It's one of the reasons I like a diet cola with old industrial-chemical sweeteners once in a while (Offbrands! Cyclamates!). Nasty as they are, you can still taste everything else that goes in it.

[realisticphish]

3. a resounding "meh"

it was ok, i guess. I used to drink more coke, but i've really gotten hooked on pepsi max. I still like regular coke better than regular pepsi, but i honestly don't remember the last time I drank regular pop.

As to the throwback stuff, I wasn't terribly impressed. Like you said, it was kind of flat, like the machine at the restaurant has run out of syrup. Supposedly the lack of carbonation makes it "more drinkable"

[conscious evolution]

4. Haven't tried it yet

I'm a coke fan myself.
Try doing the taste test like you would a wine tasting.Cleanse the pallet between tastings and you will see the difference.If you don't want to go thru the bother then try it with the sugar coke tasted first.The HFCS leaves that aftertaste that sticks around in your mouth for a while resulting in everything tasting like crap.

[Warpy]

5. Drinking any soda with sweetener is like drinking maple syrup

to me, unpleasantly thick with a lingering acidic aftertaste. There are health food sodas with cane or beet sugar as well as honey, and none of them is as satisfying as the artificially sweetened no calorie stuff.

In fact, I'm even starting to forego those in favor of seltzer. I do like the bubbles. The sweetness, not so much.

[trotsky]

6. I drink very little pop anymore...

but we picked up some Pepsi Natural because it sounded intriguing. It was OK - pretty weak, but I think that's to be expected. Instead of making cola from simple cola bean extract, the process has become so fine-tuned and formulated in order to appeal to our taste buds.

[Codeine]

7. Pepsi is awful no matter what it's sweetened with.

Living in Southern California I have access to all the south-of-the-border sodas I want, and I've really come to prefer cane sugar Coca-Cola to anything else. The Mexican Pepsi was downright awful, but sugar Coke vs. corn syrup Coke is no contest.

[Warpy]

13. Have you tried some of the fruity sodas?

Some of them are weird to a Boston Irish palate, but some of them are awesome!

I agree about their Pepsi, horrible stuff. The US stuff is barely drinkable, icky sweet compared to Coke.

[Codeine]

15. The grapefruit flavors are awesome,

as are some of the other citrus flavors. I hate tropical fruits, however, so the guava/mango/whateverelse flavors are out.

[TZ]

8. I thought it was not bad

Seemed less acidic and harsh.

[varkam]

9. Never even heard of it, but your description has me lolling.

:rofl:

[onager]

10. Anyone else ever heard this soda terminology?

Where I grew up (South Carolina), people often called soda pop "dope." In the cotton mills, the little snack cart that made the rounds was likewise called "the dope wagon."

I still hear the term occasionally back there, but not as often as when I was a kid.

I've heard it was a reference to the Good Old Days when Coke was made with cocaine.

Also in those Good Old Days, drug stores sold soda pop as medicine. So please don't mention this in the Health lounge, since I don't want any wo...er, Alt-Med Fans trying to medicate themselves with the stuff.

And that myth about using Coke for birth control is an old husband's tale. Stick with condoms.

[charlie]

11. Not in real life

I've read about it, and I had a friend whose Dad remembered soda being called dope.

S'funny how "soft drinks" were originally marketed to women, so they'd have something to do while men got liquored up on the "hard" stuff. Whatever kept you off Demon Rum was good, I guess. Even the Pope enjoyed the cocaine rush of Vin Mariani now and again.

[Orrex]

12. I believe that Cormac McCarthy uses the term in "Suttree"

IIRC, the phrase he uses is "dope box," which I gather from context to be the ice chest wherein one's bottles of dope are housed.

[Warpy]

14. Soda shops in Boston are still called spas

and people still call soda pop tonic there.

As for medicinal qualities, Coca Cola syrup over cracked ice is a southern remedy for nausea and vomiting, and damned if it doesn't work!

[onager]

16. Yep. We used it for that. Also good for a hangover...

No wonder. Lots of sugar + caffeine, and the water helps with rehydration.

In the Cola Wars, I've always been a Coke Partisan. I'm nearly as bad as baseball great Ty Cobb, who was one of the first investors in Coca-Cola.

There's a story that Cobb was driving thru the desert once, nearly out of gas, and stopped at a service station. He asked for a Coke, but the station owner said he only sold Pepsi. Cobb told him to go to hell, got back in his car, and kept driving.