MAYrathon 2.0 Day 23 - Pepsi Fire

We interrupt our regularly scheduled review where I was going to eat some shitty canned fruit from Thailand to bring you - Pepsi Fire! This one has been on the rumor mill market for weeks now, and I've been keeping my eyes peeled. Today I happened across a 12 pack and had to buy one. If you're a soda freak like me, act fast because Pepsi is only planning to keep it around until the end of June. Which sucks if I end up liking it. But that's Pepsi's M.O., besides the reliable classics, Pepsi will release something new and/or strange, keep it on the market for a bit and then take it away forever. After a humble resurgence, Crystal Pepsi is once again all but a memory. If you look up failed Pepsi products online, there's a crazy long list. Let's take a look at the TOP 5 FAILED PEPSI PRODUCTS:

1. For about a year, Pepsi decided to compete with coffee and came out with Pepsi AM. It was in 1989, so I have no memory of it, and I don't know if it was just Pepsi with a new name or a new formula, but either way, the coffee folk weren't having it.

2. I was very much a fan of Pepsi Next, Pepsi's attempt to dethrone Coke Zero. Paradise Mango was probably my favorite cola soda flavor ever. And then Pepsi just took it off the shelves for reasons unknown.

Remember this one? It came around during Christmas from 2004-2006, but no one cared.

Marketed to the early 2000s rapcore fans with expensive Papa Roach videos, this one never caught on and I doubt many people remember it today.

And...Oh Yea...this ALREADY EXISTED.

That's my biggest issue with this drink. What if I love it? I know, like everything else, it'll be gone sooner than later. Well I have a brand new 2017 Pepsi Fire can in front of me right now, and it's time to see if the gimmick machine has another hit or miss on their hands. The cola, which claims to have natural and artificial cinnamon flavors smells like a regular Pepsi. I'm not getting anything different scent-wise. A couple of gulps in, and yes, I'm a fan. It is exactly what would happen if you dropped an atomic fireball candy into a Pepsi. It's not hot or spicy in any way; but just a smooth, refreshing cinnamon cola. Whisky drinkers - pour a little JD in the can - you won't be disappointed. 

MAYrathon 2.0 Day 11 - King Kong Cola

Son of a...this jerk again. Homeboy is trying to Single White Female me!

So today we have King Kong Cola. Why? I don't know, but I'm sure it has something to do with the new Skull Island movie coming out. It's a cool looking bottle and besides the photo and a brief mention of King Kong being a trademark, the bottle itself is otherwise pretty nondescript. It's from Rocket Fizz, and they make a few varieties of cola which I've never had, so I wonder if they're all just from the same batch with a fancy new sticker on it. There's little info online about this one. Even the Rocket Fizz website just shows a picture of the bottle and says, "Great Monster Flavor." That's it.

How to make RC Cola

There's a reason I pretty much never do cola reviews (even though I have another one lined up this month). Actually there's two reasons. 1. I'm not a huge cola fan. I like Coke Zero and Pepsi. I can tolerate Coke. I hate Diet Coke. RC Cola is Satan's fartbox. So whenever I am on the lookout for obscure sodas, cola ranks up there as being about as weird as rain in Seattle. 2. All colas have three distinct flavors. Coke. Pepsi. Not Coke or Pepsi. Seriously, every generic cola I've ever had, including Shaq Backsweat flavored RC Cola...sucks! I've never found one I like. But I admit the celebrity tie-in with ole' Konger was enough to intrigue me enough to pick it up and throw it into my cart. Let's see what we got.

As expected, it has a generic cola smell to it. It's unmistakable. Like every single not Coke or Pepsi I have ever tried. Let's hope the taste is at least tolerable...it's fine. Mild. Cola. Not as bad as RC, but definitely just a run-of-the-mill cola. I'd put it a step above generic grocery store cola, but not by much. I bet Jeff Bridges would like it.

Crystal Pepsi (2016)

It's back! But was it ever really missed? The answer is...kinda. Like Surge, Crystal Pepsi has always had a cult following and the demand to see it again has always been pretty big. However, it was a bit of a flop when it was first introduced and Pepsi was fine with closing the vault on the experiment forever back in the 90s. It was unlikely for years that we'd ever see it again. And again, just like Surge, it was due to the outcry of like-minded nostalgia demand, led mainly by YouTube celebrity, the LA Beast, that got this item back on the shelves...for a limited time at least. Before giving my tongue another 90s bath, let's hit the interwebs for a brief history lesson on Crystal Pepsi.

That concert would have been pretty sweet!

While my nostalgia for Surge and Ecto Cooler remains solid because of what a huge part of my childhood and early teen years involved sucking it down like life support, Crystal Pepsi not only came around when I was younger (around 9), but it also lasted so briefly that it didn't put as big of a dent in my memory over time. I remember it existing, and I remember enjoying it (I think), but it came and went in a little more than a year. Pepsi experimented with their "caffeine free alternative" to Pepsi in select markets in early 1992 and it proved to be a hit. They rolled out complete production in 1993 and marketed it with stale headbangers Van Halen and stale impressionist Billy Crystal, who I guess were the hippest people in the go-go 90s.

Remember that Van Halen song, "Right Now?"
REMEMBER???? Me neither. 

Coca Cola tried to counteract the new clear soda craze with...Tab Clear. Which led every Generation Xer at the time to...not give a good god damn; most people were surprised that Tab was still around (and it STILL is today! and it STILL sucks!) And even with initial success, sales dropped rapidly for Crystal Pepsi as most people who like clear sodas realized they could just drink a Sprite, and most people who liked Pepsi, liked caffeine and so no point in drinking Pepsi without the magic wake-up dust. There was just no market for it, and by 1994, the stock was completely cleared out and it became nothing but an urban legend around the Pog tables and Roller rinks for nearly two decades. 

Interestingly enough, as nostalgia grew, and websites like eBay made vintage, unopened sodas a fun hunt for collectors, they began to surface online with a dark, muddy texture in their unopened bottles. Apparently, whatever magic turned Crystal Pepsi clear eventually wears off. Just like Poo-Be-Gone (Most obscure reference from most obscure movie ever). And as more and more of my generation decided to screw college and become internet reviewers and website stunt-boys, the legend grew and grew and the demand became overwhelmingly large. It made an extremely limited online only release around Christmas of last year, but was finally made available to the masses in August of this year. However, don't rest on your laurels and assume it'll always be around like Tab Clear (stupid), it's only around for an eight week release, which as of this writing means there's only four weeks left. I stocked up on enough to last the zombie apocalypse, but this may be the last time I'll ever taste a NEW Crystal Pepsi in my lifetime. So...is it worth it?

I crack it open and the fizz and carbonation dances around in the plastic bottle, probably listening to some Counting Crows songs. And the smell is so much like Pepsi but...not. It's interesting to note too that the new release does have caffeine unlike the original. Alright, I've waited 22 years for this, let's have a sip. 

Hmmm....It's definitely a Pepsi, but, for lack of a better explanation, it's Pepsi with a clear taste. It's as if you took a Sierra Mist, took out the lemon and lime flavoring, and shot it up with Pepsi instead. It's very bubbly and the aftertaste is almost that of seltzer water. I would say the nostalgia factor is a 10/10, but if I had to just go on taste alone, it's inferior to just a regular Pepsi. It's fun. It reminds me of watching X-Men cartoons and creeping out girls in elementary school, but it's not going to change my life or cure world hunger. Overall, a tasty treat that makes the rarity of it that much more enjoyable.

Okay, well my fridge is literally 75% weird sodas at this point, and I can't fit any real food in there, so I'm going to try and do these things on more of a regular basis. Hope you enjoyed how awesome I am.