I like both Moxie and Cel-Ray (and need to find a source for the former; the midwest is bereft of regular Moxie sources). I now need to find and try some spruce beer… I like ginger, root, and birch beers, so might as well try another “beer.”
Vanilla-flavored sodas gross me out; both plain vanilla and cream sodas. Way too cloyingly sweet. The various attempts to capture floats in a bottle (A&W Float, Sunkist Float, Barq’s Floatz) are also pretty bad; the first two eschew carbon dioxide for nitrous oxide and include cream and thickeners for a nasty mouthfeel, the last overdid the vanilla cream taste. Though, frankly, plain Barq’s is pretty gross, too, with way too strong of an anise flavor.
Mountain Dew Baja Blast flavor, which I tried at a Taco Bell some five years ago was probably the worst I’ve tried.
Because I haven’t tried them I don’t get to nominate them, but I would like to call attention to the Jones Soda Drinkable Thanksgiving Dinner from 2004:[
I was at a weekend academic competition last spring where there was a big promotion for Sun Drop. It’s a new citrus-flavored soda made by, IIRC, the Dr Pepper company. They were giving cans of the stuff away free, so I got one to give it a try. Nasty stuff. I took two swigs of it–the second just to confirm my first impression about how bad it was–and tossed the rest away.
It’s getting a big national push now, but it’s been around for 80 years or so. Like Mountain Dew, it was a southern drink, and reminds me a lot of how MD used to taste. Very mellow taste and feel, which belies the fact that it’s got even more caffeine than its more popular competitor.
If I need a flat-tasting citrus soda, I go with Ski, which remains a regional brand.
Sun•Drop’s recently been bought by Dr. Pepper, so people think it’s new. But it’s been brewed by a little bottler in Sauk City, WI for ages.
It’s like a lighter, crisper Mtn. Dew (and similarly caffeinated).
I love finding local bevs like that. Just love “Ale-8-One” from Kentucky (wish the shipping didn’t cost twice as much as a six pack online!).
But Moxie?
Brought a six back from Maine and after looking up my worst enemies to get them to try it (which has taken decades), I’ve still got a can left. Gross.
Eeeew! That’s gotta be one of the more disgusting descriptions I’ve read… bleh. I was gonna say I thought Crystal Pepsi was pretty revolting but I have a feeling it’s tame compared to this!
Anyone from England remember Panda Pops? The disgusting drinks that you always seemed to find from ice cream vans, and nowhere else, for about 5p? It would be 25 or 30 years ago when I was young enough to have them, but I remember them being undrinkable when I was a kid.
Back in the 80’s I worked at an independent grocery store in Evanston. (yes, it was Asbury St. Market, Eva Luna).
They had a generic brand my mind is protecting me from remembering. The flavor unfortunately will stay with me till my dying day.
Diet Peanut Butter Fudge Cola.
It was three bad sodas in one. You had horrible generic diet soda, vile diet fudge soda with hints of petroleum, and unspeakably bad diet Peanut Butter soda with a oily aftertaste that no amount of Listerine or sulfuric acid could erase. I seriously gargled with a mixture of baking soda and vinegar hoping the same chemical reaction that cut though clogged drains would help. All it did was go up my nose and leave a stinging residue of artificial peanut butter in my nose.
My co workers were EXTREMELY amused by this…bastards one and all.
Moxie is pretty awful-I drank a can about 10 years ago-that was enough. Another weird concoction marketed by Coca-Cola (in Asia I think) is a grafruit-flavored soad-awful.
I also think that Dr. Brown’s Celery Soda (NYC) is pretty vile.
This is the one and only soft drink that has ever horrified me. They must keep it there just so they can laugh at the looks on people’s faces when they try it.
When I worked at a coffee shop I thought it would be clever to make an espresso soda, so I mixed vanilla syrup and espresso with seltzer water. Unsurprisingly, it was horrible. I’m with Student Driver: vanilla does not belong in soda.
Assuming you meant grapefruit, I don’t know if there some alternate brand marketed in Asia, but Fresca is a pretty big Coke brand and is available just about everywhere. Happened to be one of LBJ’s favorite drinks.
Here’s a review from back in 2004. The author described the Green Bean Casserole flavor as, “gross enough to warrant throwing up eight times with flailing arms.”
I like both Moxie and Cel-Ray (and need to find a source for the former; the midwest is bereft of regular Moxie sources). I now need to find and try some spruce beer… I like ginger, root, and birch beers, so might as well try another “beer.”