Calories per Ounce: 16.25
Caffeine: Yes
Aaron's Comments: Big Blue is bottled by the same manufacturer that makes Big Red, and this fact is apparent when one drinks one and realizes that it has almost the same flavor as its red colored counterpart. The vanilla flavor is a little more prominent, but the bubble gum flavor is still present. In fact, the two sodas taste so similar that other than the color I'm not really sure what is supposed to be different. I suppose Big Blue is for people who want to get the mixture of vanilla and bubble gum flavor in their soda, but don't want to drink something red. It seems to have a slightly fuller taste than Big Red, with none of the tinny feel of the other soda. When put over ice, the bubble gum flavor fades into the background, and Big Blue tastes very much like a poor quality cream soda. Adding ice cream has the odd effect of highlighting the bubble gum flavor, although not unpleasantly so. If the idea of having a bubble gum-like ice cream float sounds enticing to you, then this would be a good option. I was only mildly impressed with Big Blue - it is marginally better than Big Red, but not so much so that I would ever bother to try it again.
When I lived in Kentucky and these two were everywhere I attributed it to the Lousiville/Lexington rivalry - Cardinals vs Wildcats. I've heard the phrase 'Go Big Blue!' fairly frequently, in reference to the Wildcats. It's Serious Business in Kentucky to where, yes, people on the Wildcats side will refuse to own or use or drink red things because it's the Cardinals' colours. I can't find anything to support this, but their social media at least acknowledges the colour matching, I found a post referring to a UK/UofL game as a 'match between Big Blue and Big Red'.
ReplyDeleteI can't tell the difference between them either, and yeah, they're both awful.
@Nai Calus: My wife's family is almost evenly split between being Louisville and Kentucky fans. I am not part of this religious divide as I attended the University of Virginia, making me a Cavalier partisan. Even so, I would not have thought of the Wildcats-Cardinals rivalry as driving the mystifying popularity of these sodas, but it does make some sense. They are manufactured by a company in Texas, so I don't think the reference was originally intentional, but I would not be surprised if they were capitalizing on it now.
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