Drinking Jean Naté!

Oh man, I’m right down to the wire on my commentary on the Jones Halloween Sodas (Target Exclusive)

These are the three flavors I bought — Scary Berry Lemonade, the Candy Corn and Caramel Apple. The Scary Berry tasted like battery acid, the Candy Corn tasted like vodka and orange soda that had been sitting out open for six weeks, and the Caramel Apple was surprisingy good.

The Jones Holiday Flavors are getting put on the shelves at Target right now. I might buy one, I dunno. They’re like $11.

Ok, I’ll talk about the new Frescas. I’ll talk about the Peach flavor today and the black cherry later on in the week:

This was hands down one of the best Peach sodas I’ve ever had. But just like original Fresca, I can only have it once in a wile or I’ll get tired of it. I do like how Coke is getting Fresca out in the mainstream again, though.

Yeah, the Pepsi plant in Newport News, VA is still spewing out fakemates:

(I’m sorry, I can’t taste the lemon in Diet Pepsi Twist. I can in regular Pepsi Twist, but not in diet.)

(I bought this at Farm Fresh in Smithfield, brought it home, and into my fifth can about a week later I thought to myself, “this tastes funny” — turns out this stuff had expired back in January. I ended up throwing away the last three cans in the fakemate it was so vile.)

I’m going to be so sad though when Newport News finally goes to the fridgemate though, they’re being such rebels now for sticking with fakemates. Although fakemates take up more room, they are easier to open.

I used to buy probably four cans of Dr. Browns once a week when I was working at The Fresh Market. At Fresh Market it was only $.69 a can–at Farm Fresh its $.99 a can. Highway robbery. So unless I go to my old workplace, I won’t be buying the Dr. Browns for a while.

I bought a couple for a friend and I since we have an inside joke about this stuff. When I sent the can to him (along with some other drinks) I drew a little happy face sticking his tounge on the can with a sharpie.

I wrote this back in May and I thought I put it in here, but I guess I didn’t:

Everybody at the soda message boards I frequent say that the Fanta line by Coke should be killed off and by sales figures it probably will in the next few years. I have some suggestions before Fanta gets a plot in the soda graveyard (in-between Josta and Pepsi Blue) :

Fanta would sell better if they made the rare flavors available (Citrus [or whatever its called], black cherry, peach, apple, pineapple) and widdle down the “classic” flavors (grape, strawberry and orange). I mean how many grape, strawberry and orange sodas are there already on the shelves?

And the Fantana girls? The ones in the tv/print ads? They’re ridiculous. The only people who are reacting to those ads are 9 year old girls because the Fantanas resemble Barbie dolls of the world. Just show the soda in the ads, make some funny plain ads. Or do what Fresca, Tab and Pibb Xtra does–don’t advertise.

Tuesday night I was talking to Brian, via the yahoo messenger, and he was telling me about the short-lived Pink Grapefruit Fanta. I about died when he told me this. If Coke put this back on the Fanta line up, hell, I’d keep Fanta afloat just on sales of that stuff! I bet that stuff is like liquid sex! Like a sweet, corn syrupy, koolaid and sparkling grapefruit juice pink super meow-meow sugar water grapefruit celebration!

But I’d predict that Coke will discontinue the Fanta line again in a few years, (they dropped Fanta in the 80’s, called it Minute Maid until 2001, and called it Fanta again) and end up calling it Fruitopia, and people will go “Fruitopia is back…but in soda form!”

One of the Phantom Fanta flavors–a hard to find Fanta.

The next to last can from my box from sodafinder.com.

This was a really good Black Cherry soda for it expiring in February of 2004.

Ok, this is the worst beverage I’ve tried this year.

I found this on the organic asile of Farm Fresh for about $.66 cents. I thought it was going to be good, since I like tea. Nope, its unsweetened green tea that sits in a can. That’s all.

Tazo teas were another drink that I used to buy all the time during my stint at The Fresh Market.

I always associate Tazo tea with this customer I had a crush on (his name was Chad and he worked at the Jamestown Reservation). He always came in every Monday and bought Sushi and a Tazo tea.

I’m lookng for him if anybody knows who he is!

I brought up Tazo at the rolls eyes bevnet boards when we were talking about the old way Bevnet used to review drinks. Bevnet ripped the old Fruitopia drinks a new one back in the day because of their “trendy labels”. I thought the same thing when drinking that bottle of Tazo last night (lifted from my bevnet comment):

Funny, a few hours after I posted this, I just cracked open some Tazo Tea (I buy it when its on sale at the Farm Fresh) and the label is so uber-trendy, its sickening:
“Shake before drinking : you might also want to do a little chant if you feel up to it”

“Please recycle this bottle. It deserves to be reincarnated too”