I’ve had the Kroger “Big K”-It’s got a lovely aluminum aftertaste.
I found Coke Starlight and Coke Dreamworld to be equally hiddeous, some of the worst flavors I’ve ever tried. On the other hand, Coke Move is quite pleasant. From the website I see that they sell Coke Georgia Peach and California Raspberry, never tried or seen either of those. I suspect they’re not bad. I lurve me some Chery or Vanilla Coke.
I drink the Zero Sugar versions of all of the above.
Again-Just straight cola flavored, no diet.
They have all the same flavors and IMO the difference in taste is negligable.
One word:
M O X I E
It’s the oldest Cola-ish soda, and the most popular… in Maine, at least. Anyone else thinks it’s terrible.
I have fond memories of daring kids to drink it.
Hey, Amazon carries it!
.
If it has to be a Coke product, I couldn’t finish my “How Bad Can This Be?” can of Coke Dreamworld. It was like they swished cotton candy around in a vat of Coke.
Oops, reread the thread and discovered that I’d missed the Moxie mention.
(Ninja’ed, but with moxie.)
I referred to it as cola -ish. We used to call it Mr. Pepper ('cause it was too stupid to go to med school).
It doesn’t. It has to be a cola flavored soda.
A quick search for “worst cola”, rating twelve common brands, is not fond of the Whole Foods variant. But this one sounds worse, YMMV, and is probably cheaper:
Shasta Cola wasn’t our favorite cola we sampled for this test, but it can’t be accused of being boring. It has an acidic, bitter, almost medicinal aroma with a dominant citrus oil presence. It tastes like it smells, with an astringent citrus rind-like flavor that cuts through the inherent sweetness of the soda. It’s so citrus-forward that it almost tastes like lemon-lime soda mixed with cola. There’s a kind of soapy quality to the flavor that’s pretty strange, though not entirely unpleasant. If you want a normal-tasting cola, this isn’t it, but it’s a nice change of pace. Shasta also has a very good mouthfeel — it’s heavily carbonated, so it doesn’t seem syrupy on the tongue at all.
You have a terrible title. You asked for a variation of Coke or Pepsi, not the worst cola. I’d ask a mod to change it.
Yes, Shasta cola was the worst I ever had.
I guess I thought the OP clarified it enough.
I’ve finished a couple of the Starlight, but I wouldn’t try it again. I tried to complete a bottle of Dreamland (who had the bright idea to add black currant to cola anyways?) over the course of a couple of day and wound up pouring half the bottle out – Blech.
For hideous plain cola, I’d just go with a budget grocery store house brand, they typically have the balance of the cola nut and auxiliary spices and citrus elements annoyingly askew - avoid known whitelabled outlets like Costco’s Kirkland as they will be closer to the standard name brand fare.
People don’t necessarily read the OP especially if the the title is a coherent, self-contained question. You complaining about people answering the question in the title is my cite.
Is Cragmont around any longer? That used to make us long for RC or Shasta after the Little League game was over and the cooler was popped open.
I had a Jolt Cola at some point in the late 80s or early 90s, but I don’t remember what it tasted like. Anyone know where Jolt ranks on the cola flavor spectrum?
I remember it being on the bitter side despite the claim that it had ‘all the sugar’. The extra caffeine did the job well, I wasn’t drinking it for the flavor.
And, yeah, Shasta cola was awful.
I find Pepsi to be sweeter than Coke, but not by much. I’ve had a few Jolt Colas, and they were nowhere near as sweet. And when I tried Shasta, I had to ask: “This is a cola?” Because it tasted nothing like one.
They could have marketed it as, “The cola for people who don’t want to taste cola.”
Moxie isn’t really cola-ish. It’s basically more like root beer. The main notes are wintergreen, gentian, and perhaps a touch of licorice.
In terms of actual Coke variants, the recent “limited edition” watermelon and strawberry Coke was sickly sweet and vile (although my daughter liked it).
Pepsi - have we all forgotten Crystal Pepsi?
Cola in general - my vote is for Virgin Cola. They basically advertised it on the basis of the bottle looking like Pamela Anderson. The actual drink was unpleasant and cheap-tasting IMO, although it seems to have had enough success for Coke to make an effort to tank it.
Somewhat turning this into a discussion, but I find cheap colas to be a *lot* better than they used to be. I remember when store-brand colas were so bad that, were it not for the brown color, you would have no idea they were even attempting to be cola.
Nowadays I would take pretty much any no-name cola over a “flavored” coke. e.g. I find the coke with lime flavor undrinkable.