Tahitian Treat Fruit Punch

Imagine you're on a subway platform and a big, scary looking dude starts cursing at you and shaking his fists.  It's definitely you he's talking to, it's 3am and no one else is around.  Then he dashes up the steps and you're all "There ain't no way he's coming over here" but he does.  The menacing guy stomps down the steps, looking mean as hell, walks up to you, reaches into his jacket like he's going for a gun, then pulls out a twenty dollar bill and gives it to you.  "Enjoy this, young man", says he and leaves.

That's Tahitian Treat Fruit Punch. 

Reed's Cherry Ginger Beer

Okay, stick your tongue out about half and inch and bite it lightly.  Bend your chin down tight against your neck and nod your head up and down while flapping your arms around like broken penguin wings.

There.  You just drank Reed's Cherry Ginger Beer.

Smells like sour cherries, which is always a bad idea.  Not like sour cherries, but like sour cherry flavoring you see in Polish markets.  What genius said "Let's go to an Eastern European market and find the nastiest thing there that isn't kvass, and then let's mix it into our soda?"

This stuff is bad.  About eight bads out of ten.  Fifteen bucks would get me to finish the bottle but I ain't seeing any takers.

Russian "Soft Drink Lemonade"

I get the name off of the lying import label.  It's not lemonade, it's some sort of orange drink.  But classy.  A classy russian orange drink, I feel like I am a classy kid pretending to drink a dry champagne while sipping on this stuff. 

But yeah.  Not much more to say.  Doesn't really taste like oranges. 

Pretty good, actually.  None of the comedy you'd expect to see with Russians making soft drinks.  Just plain old not awful.

Basil Seed Drink

Shit like this makes science fiction novels seem all pale in comparison.  It looks like I'm drinking frog eggs but I don't have to get all grossed out over drinking frog eggs, rather I get all grossed out of the taste of drinking magic gelatin basil seeds. 

Drinking it is fun, is awesome, couldn't be better.  I could go through the physical action of drinking this stuff all day if I didn't have to taste it.  Why do basil seeds taste like bananas?  Seriously.  Oh, wait, it's because they put banana flavoring in the drink. 

Why would you do that?  I guess for something banana flavored it's not as vile as it could be.

I like how the ingredients break down is done:

water 54.44%
basil seed 32%
cane sugar 13%
honey .5%
banana flavor .06%

That little bit of banana flavor goes a long fucking way.

This percentages thing makes a lot of sense, though, and is exactly the sort of thing that we will never ever see in the US because we don't want to know how much chemical swill we consume. 

Anyways, this stuff isn't totally awful.  I wish it came in tiny, clear bottles. 

Big Shot Pineapple Soda

Boasting that it's "New Orleans Own", we are forced to question whether New Orleans has many good ideas.  This one, I think, started out as:

"Hey, let's make taking medicine fun!" and by the time they'd gotten through legal they were left with a vaguely pineapple tasting soda.  That dude on the can needs to go back to Gasoline Alley and stick to working on cars.