Red Bull Cola

Cafe Society
#1

I hadn’t heard of this but I saw it in the store last night and had to give it a try.

It’s cheaper than Red Bull, and comes in a 12oz can (Red Bull is 8-point-something.)

The ingredients (abbr.) are:

Water, sugar, carbon dioxide (:rolleyes:), galangal, vanilla, mustard seed, lime, cola nut, cacao, licorice, cinnamon, lemon, ginger, coca leaf (?!!), orange, corn mint, pine, cardamom, mace (?), clove, lemon juice concentrate, caffeine from coffee beans.

It starts of pleasantly spicy and flavorful, but has sort of a weak, watery finish. It’s very complex and if you slow down and let yourself taste it, each drink can be a different experience.

Overall it’s better than I expected it to be, but just shy of strong enough or cola-tasting enough. Since the vast majority of non-mainstream colas outright suck, I would actually rate this one pretty high (I can see myself finishing this 4-pack and maybe buying more at some point in the future, which is more than I can say for a lot of obscure colas I’ve tried), but it’s still behind my favorite, Coke.

#2

I’d like to try it. It’s intersting that it has real Cola, I think Coke and Pepsi both gave that up a long time ago.

#3

I quite like the stuff. Better than either of the major players anyway (although Coke sourced outside of the US and made with actual sugar is substantially better than the Coke available here). I too was surprised to see Coca and actual Kola nut listed in the ingredients. It definitely helps with the taste. A little watery but definitely a better taste than most of the readily available colas - Royal Crown Draft is (and I say this from memory as it was readily available in NZ but I can’t seem to find it in either Nevada or back in Alabama) probably a little better overall.

eta: Not talking about standard RC Cola, which is pretty awful, but the pure joy they made/make in glass bottles called Royal Crown Draft

#4

I find it has an unpleasant aftertaste after a promising start. The aftertaste reminds me of cheap cola bottle sweets I used to devour in years gone by.

#5

Mace is the covering of the nutmeg pod. It is used as a flavoring in baked goods and is the classic spice for doughnuts. It would be a good counterpart for the vanilla. Now the *pine *. . .

#6

Why the rolleyes for carbon dioxide? Most sodas just lump it in with the water and say ‘carbonated water’, so what’s the big deal that they listed it separately?

And I’m also very surprised they listed all the spices and flavors separately, too. Most foods and drinks just list them as “spices, natural and artificial flavors.”

#7

Oh Og please tell me this is going to be available in WV soon!!

#8

You answered your own question. I just thought it sounded kind of pretentious.

I was glad to see that too. Also, I think it’s all natural, which is rare in a soft drink. Even the “all natural” 7-Up has HFCS in it.

#9

I got a bottle of this stuff one time when I was a kid. Maybe my tastes have changed but at the time I remember it being one of the most disgusting things I had ever drank. It was so bad that I only took about 2 drinks, and then I carried it around with me the rest of the day and asked everybody I saw to taste it. I laughed as they took a drink and then their face would screw up in disgust and they’d look at the label and say what IS this stuff?!

I’ve never seen it before or since. If I had to guess I’d say this was around the early to mid 90s in southern California. The best I recall the taste was like someone had mixed equal parts cola, chocolate, and coffee, and then left a metal spoon in it long enough for it to absorb the metal taste.

#10

I’m drinking my second one right now and it’s considerably better. This would be something I could really love if it weren’t that:

A) I don’t drink soda on a regular basis

and

B) It’s ~3x as expensive as a can of Coke

#11

I wouldn’t mind trying it, but I’ll probably stick to plain old RedBull.

Oh, and RB also comes in 12oz cans. :slight_smile:

#12

It does - along with the original and more common 8-point-something-oz cans I mentioned - but they’re about $3 each IIRC. These were $5 for a 4-pack.

#13

I went to a concert in Atlanta last Saturday and they had women passing out free samples while I was waiting for the doors to open and wound up with three of them, all of which I drank but only because the concer ended at 1:30 AM and I had a two hour drive ahead of me. I thought it was really bland, too watery, and all around tasteless. It tasted like diluted Sam’s Cola to me.