Monday, May 2, 2011

Ouzon Soda, Opa! Originals

Ouzon Soda, Opa! Originals



Dare I take the Ouzon plunge?

Whenever a company offers to send me a soda for free in the mail, I am always slightly afraid someone is trying to poison me. I mean, it's the internet, right? There are people out there who want to poison me. It's a given.

Ouzon was sent to my by, I presume, the company that makes it. While they didn't actually poison me, it wasn't exactly clear at the beginning if I would walk away or not. The initial yuck factor was pretty high.


Pre-yuck.



Post-yuck.

There's a handful of strikes against Ouzon before you even open the bottle. "The Original Non-Alchoholic Ouzo Flavored Soda" is a bad start. Any non-alcohol alcohol I've ever tried has been bad, except for Senorial Sangria which is dreamy. Senorial Sangria sets a high standard for unalcohol alcohol. The other strike against Ouzon is a suspicious panel on the back of the bottle saying that 5% of the after-tax profits go something to do with "Orthodox Minsteries". I'm not sure what that means, let's deploy google... Okay, the Farah Foundation seems to give out piles of money to Christian organizations of a certain bent.

Elsewhere on this blog I've made my opinion of that stuff very clear, so I'm going to pretend really hard that these are the bad-ass Christian types who fund secret anti-vampire squads and make epic mosaics. I hope. So if you spent a dollar on Ouzon this foundation probably gets two cents, don't do this if you are a vampire or are mosaicrophobic.

But to business. What does this stuff taste like? To me it tastes like bad, natural licorice. Or you can read this sentence aloud:

"Ouzon tastes like anise".

Read it aloud to a friend and watch their face. It'll be great.

But yeah, I don't like natural licorice. I don't like fake black licorice. I don't like things that are anise flavored. BUT! (Anise, but!) But, I keep taking little micro-sips while I write this. I can't really stop poking at the bottle, it's like a scab ready to pick. It hurts to do it, but I gotta keep sipping. Partially, it might be because it is delightfully cold - something Opa Originals can't take credit for. Partially, there might be some secret bit of good in here. But I doubt it.

Not the best thing to come out of post-Atlantis Greece, not as good as Stala Orange Drink. Maybe if I was a recovering drunkard this might help stave off my ouzo urges, but I'm not. And I don't like anise things. And I think religion is bad for everyone. So...


9 comments :

  1. Black licorice is no good so this is definitely a drink I'll avoid.

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  2. BUT! If you like black licorice I bet you'd love this drink. You don't so you won't, but if you did you would. I bet.

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  3. You make a compelling argument.

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  4. There's a sort of clean-ness to the stuff, combines with a heck of a snap, that gives it a certain amount of appeal. I guess I want to convey that there's a degree of quality in this stuff that you don't find in a lot of drinks today.

    But it might as well be high-quality booger flavored sugar water for as much as I like licorice. High five, dude!

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  5. This soda is actually pretty good and it's hard to find.

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  6. Maybe proceeds of the sales of Ouzon can go towards the Greek bailout :)

    Let us know your review of Pepsi or Coca Cola's next release...not sure which one of the two but one of them is said to release a new drink @ splitop.com

    Anise is yuK

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  7. VERY informative -- thank you for your great insight.

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  8. I like black licorice just fine and I did not like this stuff. I had two sips and I was done.

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