Pakola Fresh Lime

The Pakola brand seems to have pretty heinous can design right across the board (their Lychee and Orange designs are particularly bad) but their Cream Soda has given me a blind faith in the whole range that means I am willing to try to enjoy all their flavours no matter how bad they look.

This one smells and tastes a little more like real lime than your average lime soda but I am stll yet to find a lime flavoured soft drink that lives up to my love of real lime. If someone could capture the taste of biting into a lime wedge, that would be the soda for me. The taste is fairly light and refreshing, definately suits the flavour. There is something a little gluggy that sticks in your throat and stays in the aftertaste. Maybe its the sodium as a preservative doing this? Ah fuck it, I don't know what sodium is or does so I won't pretend to, all I know is that something isn't right. They did get the carbonation right, perfect little bubbles that don't make you need to burp to save your own life from bloat like some cheap sodas have.

Overall this soda is pretty tasty and refreshing but nothing too special. One day someone will make my ultimate lime soda, or I will make it myself.

68/100

-DM

Available at Hayat Hypermarket, Brunswick.

Limca Lemon-Lime

Imagine combining discount-store lemon dishwashing liquid and the powder on the outside of Warheads candy; Imagine Combining Lift, liquid hand-soap and baking soda; Imagine hating yourself enough to drink an entire 400-odd mLs of this. If memory serves, Limca was purchased by Darcy, so I wonder, how’d I end up having to drink this horrible stuff? Tastes like a cheap lemon lolly, with the texture of talcum powder.

1/100

-LC

Available at Hayat Hypermarket, Brunswick.

Coming Soon

Just a quick note about some upcoming posts we have. We will be doing a megapost about once a month, these will take in a few sodas in one post that are all of a certain series or flavour. The ones we have in the works at the moment are:

- Mountain Dew Megahaul
- Root Beer Roundup
- The Great Sarsparilla Swindle
- Tasmania Compilation
- The Bickfords Collection

The first one of these will be up soon. We will also be putting one new post up each Monday, Wednesday and Friday from now on.

- The Wizards Of Fizz

Thums Up

This is one of the Coca-Cola owned companies that runs out of India, apparently it does pretty well over there but maybe their cola flavour just doesn’t translate. First up the bottle is great and the logo is even better, some big soda companies (Pepsi) could learn a thing or two from the graphic designers at Thums Up. Also, one law that I live by is “everything tastes better out of a glass bottle” so going by aesthetics alone I had high hopes for this one. Too bad it couldn’t hold up it’s end of the bargain.

The smell of this is like a mix between cola nut and human excrement, maybe the excrement of someone who eats a lot of cola nuts. From the look of it, I thought this soda might have had little to no carbonation, I also suspected it may have been sitting on the shelf for months. Turns out this soda is over-carbonated, hundreds of gassy little bubbles that made me burp a lot, hurt my tongue and made me feel sick.

The taste was really unpleasant, a cola nut cola (like Phoenix) gone wrong. It tastes horribly artificial, as bad as diet soda and leaves a shitty taste in the back of your throat. The aftertaste sticks around for a long time, a fermenting artificial sweetener taste and hints of the human excrement flavour are back.

Thums down (sorry had to do it).

22/100

-DM

Available at Hayat Hypermarket, Brunswick.

Welch's Strawberry

This can does look appealing, it does look like candy and it does look like the drink tastes but man is it pink. It’s not just a little bit pink, its “verging on being too embarrassing for a man to be seen drinking so I almost just bought grape flavour instead” pink.

The smell is really sweet but appealing. The taste is pretty much the same, a very sweet strawberry flavour that is really tangy and biting. The bubbles are small and very fizzy which I prefer. It tastes like the goo inside of a strawberry freddo frog in soda form. I would definitely call it a dessert soda, I wouldn’t recommend it for a summers day, unless you like your summer full of inflamed stomachs and sugar headaches.

Like a lot of overly sweet sodas, having it ice cold saves it from becoming a thick sugary syrup but the aftertaste gets kind of goopy after a little while regardless. It is perfect as a sweet dessert soda but hard to get through a whole can, I would suggest sharing it.

78/100

-DM

Available at Wellbeing Korean Grocery.

Pampa Tamarind

I had no idea what a tamarind was, so I did a little bit of research (I looked it up on wikipedia) and here’s what I came up with:

The tamarind, sometimes called the ‘Indian date’ is indigenous to tropical Africa, in particular Sudan, and also grows along the mountains facing the Arabian Peninsula as well as in Northern Australia, South East Asia, Taiwan, and China. It was introduced to Mexico and South America in the 16th century. The tree itself grows to between 12 and 18 metres high, with bright green leaves all year round. The flowers are small, and the five petals are yellow with either orange or red streaks. The fruit of the tamarind tree (a legume) is between 12 and 15 cm long and has a hard, brown shell. Inside this hard shell is typically 1 to 12 seeds (varying plant to plant as well as country to country) and a juicy flesh that is reddish-brown when mature. Tamarind is an ingredient of Worcestershire and HP sauce.

Considering this was my first encounter with tamarind flavour I’m in no position to describe how accurate Pampa Tamarind is, sufficed to say if tamarinds taste like a fairly bland combination of caramel and weak, flat cola then hats off to Pampa for capturing this in liquid form. I guess this soda does taste kind of like a date, just nowhere near as delicious. The aftertaste is pleasant in that it doesn’t stick around too long or suddenly go nasty, however the whole soda is thick and fairly unpleasant.

The bottle shape is nice and relatively unique, the Pampa logo is cool and the purple, red and white of the bottle work well with the black of its contents.

Overall this soda isn’t too bad, it’s just not amazing and the bland flavour coupled with the thickness of the soda means I probably won’t ever drink this again, although I would be pretty keen to try a real tamarind.

52/100

-LC

Available at Amir Bakery Brunswick and other Lebanese grocers/restaurants.

Jones Green Apple

As Darcy mentioned in his earlier post on their Cherry soda, Jones have some pretty far-out flavours. Although at the moment unavailable to Australians (as far as I know?), and probably pretty disgusting/a terrible waste of $4.50, I can’t help but get excited when I hear about ‘holiday’-themed flavours like turkey/tofurky and gravy, brussels sprouts (!!), xmas ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, candy cane, pumpkin pie and a score of others. None of this matters, however, if the soda in question, that is Jones Green Apple, is shit, and I’m happy to report that not only was it not shit, but it was very, very tasty.

The smell is very sour, with just a hint of green apple flavour poking through. The bright green colouring had me prepared for a very artificial apple flavour, something along the lines of sour apple hard candy. This was not the case; the drink was closer to an apple cider, with a hint of that artificial ‘apple’ flavour. The sourness of this soda sits at an absolutely perfect level. Without any of the Warheads-like pucker or unpleasant sensation that comes with some sourness, this soda still managed to be very sour. Although fairly light on fizz, due to the sourness (from citric acid as far as I can tell) this soda tingled on my tongue as I drank it. When drinking, the very first sensation is the tongue-tingling sourness, which lasts for just a second and is quickly followed by the very pleasant apple flavour of the drink, merging with the aftertaste and eventually fading away to nothing.

Sometimes when I drink too much apple juice (which I do quite often, it doesn’t take much) I get a bellyache- although I only had one bottle (but how I wished I could’ve had more!), there was none of that here. Unlike a lot of apple-flavoured drinks and ciders, this drink was not excessively sweet, and likewise the apple flavour was subtle enough that I could’ve easily cracked another bottle after finishing with this one.

This was a pleasure to drink, and I’m excited to try more of the flavours Jones has on offer. I’d love to try a ‘red apple’ flavoured soda from Jones in the future, and while this doesn’t exist yet it’s surely only a matter of time.

92/100

-LC

Available at Sugar Station.

The Groovy Taste Root Beer

I really like the look of this can, a bold move going for the mainly black look, its pretty eye-catching and doesn’t remind me of Coke Zero too much. It’s still got the overflowing mug of creamy root beer design which seems to be a staple of the root beer genre.

The best thing about this is that this soda tastes exactly like what that picture on the can looks like. Actually it tastes like what the creamy mess in the middle of this amazing ad looks like. It is like a milky root beer float. It has a nice ice creamy aftertaste too. I have found that root beers either have a creamy nice aftertaste like this one or a kind of biting bitter aftertaste. I don't think the latter is the sign of a shitty soda, it seems more like a choice so who am I to judge? Well... I'm a soda reviewer that’s who, and I say creamy aftertaste rules. I did notice that about half an hour after finishing this soda the bitter taste finally emerged and stuck around in my throat for another hour, the taste was far from groovy.

Whilst it didn't have the deep flavour of Sioux City Root Beer (review to come shortly) it was definitely one of the best I have had, creamy and delicious. If it wasn't for that bitter after-after-after-taste then this would have scored even higher.

68/100

-DM

Available at Central Grocery, Melbourne Central and other various Asian grocers.

F&N Cool Ice Cream Soda

I couldn’t wait any longer to do this review, the can had been sitting in my fridge for nearly a week and catching my eye every time I looked in there. This soda just looks so damn refreshing, the cool blue and white just does it to me, I feel relaxed and hydrated just looking at it, but something about judging books and covers means its time to drink it.

The smell is pretty standard cream soda fare but the taste really takes it to the next level. It has a really creamy, vanilla ice cream flavour that makes it taste like a float. It also has a biting strong fizz that I really like, just heaps of little bubbles. This might not be perfect for those who like the less fizzy, sparkling mineral water style bubbles but I loved it. The milky flavour wasn’t overbearing and was still really cool and refreshing (like the can promised). The flavour moves on pretty quickly though and doesn’t leave much of an aftertaste or anything lasting.

The soda loses marks because as it got a little warmer the taste deteriorated pretty quickly, it just didn’t work well not being ice cold. Lucky it is easy to drink and you should be able to smash it down quickly but I would definitely suggest having it really cold.

Overall the taste of the soda is great, a proper creamy soda that is still refreshing. This is another success for a sugar-sweetened soda that leaves me wondering why they ever use high-fructose corn syrup. Sugar tastes way better and doesn’t leave shit all over your tongue. As I said, have it ice cold or you might struggle to get through a can but on the whole a delicious soda.

76/100

-DM

Available at Central Grocery, Melbourne Central and other various Asian grocers.

Pakola Orange

Pakola Cream Soda is probably my favourite soda of all time. See elsewhere on this blog for a full review, but basically it’s a delicious blending of traditional Cream Soda with the floral taste of rose water, a really really great soda.

This offering, however, shares little with Pakola Cream Soda, and aside from a pleasant level of fizz I can find nothing to recommend Pakola Orange, a huge disappointment.

The smell of the soda is strong, like orange medicine. The can is very orange, and the soda is the same colour. The soda tastes a lot like how it smells, pretty much just a strong, sickly orange-flavour, more in line with medicine/multi-vitamins than other orange drinks. The texture is similarly unappealing, slightly gritty, like powdered sports-drink. Not only is the taste of the drink disgusting, but it leaves a gross feeling on the tongue. The aftertaste lasts for far too long, although to be honest the taste is so bad that every moment it sticks around after swallowing is pure agony.

I only finished a third of the can, and would’ve drunk even less if I hadn’t been planning on reviewing it.

7/100

-LC

Available at Hayat Hypermarket, Brunswick.

Jones Cherry

So I have heard mixed things about Jones Soda, that they do some gimmicky type themed flavours, that they are all about the marketing, that their product doesn't stand up to the hype. I did a little more investigating for myself and found out the hard facts. They do a whole lot of limited run sodas, they change their label designs all the time, they use cane sugar they also let you design and buy your own labels. This may all sound like useless marketing bullshit but this time round, I don't mind. It's kind of hard to get Jones in Melbourne and at some point I might be jaded enough to turn down a casserole flavoured soda but for now I'm just gonna go with it and caught up in the whimsical world of Jones.

Asthetically, the bottle looks like what it is, a hip, independant soda company, complete with ever-changing black & white photo. The soda has a nice deep red colour and the whole package looks pretty damn good. It has the smell of a typical cherry drink, your average Cherry Coke type deal. All pretty standard issue so far, but wait, just wait for the taste my friends. The closest thing I can compare it to is some sort of musical symphony. It starts out quietly with barely any mouth taste then it builds into a crescendo of a flavour that is a mix between normal cherry soda flavour and real cherries, then the aftertaste takes over and slowly fades out to nothing over the next 25 seconds or so. No lingering taste, just an awesome experience. Then, just when you thought it was all over, just as the aftertaste has gone, my mouth starts watering, really wanting another mouthfull. I thought it must have been just because it was such a delicious drink that I wanted more, but then it happened again, and again. Just as the flavour fades my mouth starts watering and I desperately want another drink. I don't know what kind of crack Jones is putting in their soda but I don't care because it certainly makes for a tasty beverage.

This was one of the best sodas I have tasted in my life thus far and I've only had one bottle but I'm a full blown Jones soda convert. I can't wait to taste more.

91/100

-DM

Available at Sugar Station.

Fanta Fruit Punch

The fairly hideous can depicts what are presumably the flavours that make up Fanta’s take on fruit punch- an oddly proportioned pineapple, half-orange and a bunch of bananas.

The smell when the can is cracked is very much like candy bananas. The soda itself (inexplicably dark green) tastes like a toned-down banana lolly, not as strong as the smell, mixed with a little bit of brown cream-soda, and reminds me a little of bubblegum flavour. The taste and smell of this soda is decidedly artificial, and a quick look at the ingredients list confirms that the only fruit in this punch is on the can.

For the first few sips I was really enjoying this soda, however after just a few more I was finding it hard to continue. Although the flavour is good, really good, it is far too strong, and drinking the whole can was a struggle. I don’t want to be beaten over the head by a flavour, or battle to finish a single can.

The soda was excessively sweet, far too thick and syrupy. Aftertaste was affected as well, leaving a lingering sweetness without any traces of the delicious banana/bubblegum of the drink itself. This sweetness lasted for minutes after I finished the can, and was a fairly unpleasant reminder of an otherwise fairly forgettable soda.

Had I been drinking this soda purely for enjoyment, I doubt that I would have finished the can. The overly-strong flavour and excessive sweetness made for a thick and punishing drinking experience, which is a shame considering that the flavour itself is pretty tasty. Don’t bother with this soda.

52/100

-LC

Available at Central Grocery, Melbourne Central and other various Asian grocers.

Schweppes Grapefruit

The smell of this soda is spot-on, almost as if you had just cut a real grapefruit in half, and the characteristic sourness is here in a fairly realistic quantity.

The taste is less faithful, far sweeter and all but lacking the sourness that the smell promised, but still pretty great. This soda tastes a whole lot like Lift (which it resembles in appearance to a T) or other lemon-flavoured sodas, with a roughly equal amount of Grapefruit flavour alongside the lemon. Like most lemon sodas, this drink is fairly light, fairly bubbly, and definitely refreshing.

While the sourness is much weaker than the smell led me to expect, it is not entirely absent and in fact the sourness level is very pleasant, if maybe a little too weak for my liking. In place of the sourness, Schweppes have opted to up the sweetness of the drink, and while compared to Lift etc this drink is relatively light-on sweetness wise, I wish that it was just a little less sweet and a little more sour.

The can looks great, fairly basic and uncluttered, nice colours and an appealing design. I’d go so far as to call it ‘classy’.

I really, really like this soda, but wish that the sourness of Grapefruit had been emphasised over the sweetness.

78/100

-LC

Available at Central Grocery, Melbourne Central and other various Asian grocers.

Diet Black Cherry Shasta

I think when I first spotted this soda I was distracted by its amazing 80s style can design and black cherry flavour when I should have noticed a few (really noticeable) red flags on the can.

1. DIET in huge letters. After this I feel like imposing a blanket “no diet” rule on all future reviews. Still never had a diet soda I have enjoyed.

2. Flavoured with Splenda. I suppose there is worse stuff that you could put in a drink but this makes for a heinous aftertaste.

3. Caffeine Free. Not that this is really a problem but coupled with the other things listed above, it doesn’t help, the least this soda could do is give me a kick to give me the energy to reach for the noose like you invariably want to do after downing this stuff. Harsh. Probably undeserved.

So you probably get the feeling that I don’t like the soda, in truth it’s not sooo bad, but its definitely not good either. It’s just bland, with no outstanding flavours, pretty much just Diet Coke in cherry flavour. At first crack, the smell is really good, a nice strong cherry scent. After tasting it though, the cherry flavour is really weak, more of a “with a hint of cherry” than a standalone cherry drink. The only thing I could taste through the whole drink was that typical chemical diet soda taste, every diet soda has it, foul and artificial. It hides while your actually drinking but then sneaks up on you right after, and stays FOREVER.

Overall this soda feels like something good (a black cherry soda) shrouded in a lot of bad (shitty diet chemicals, splenda). I wouldn't buy this again I will judge everyone who does.

38/100

-DM

Available at Bargain Depot Supermarket, Brunswick.