Review - Cool Mountain Black Cherry Soda

Bottler: Cool Mountain Beverages

Calories per Ounce: 11.7

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: Cool Mountain Black Cherry, unlike many of the other flavors in the Cool Mountain line, has a strong flavor, with the black cherry almost hitting you int he face right off the bat. Unfortunately, like many cherry-based sodas, this means that there is something of a medicinal taste to the drink. adding ice mutes this aspect to the soda, making it taste a little less like sweetened cough syrup, but also dulls the cherry flavor itself. The soda mixes extremely well with ice cream, as the strong cherry flavor is still quite prominent even when mixed into an ice cream float, although tempered by the ice cream enough to eliminate the medicinal taste and producing a very nice cherry-vanilla combination.

Review - MacFuddy Pepper Elixir

Bottler: Orca Beverage Soda Company

Calories per Ounce: 12.5

Caffeine: I have no idea one way or the other, but I think not

Aaron's Comments: MacFuddy Pepper Elixir has one of the most humorous bottles of any soda I have seen. The label claims that the drink is "infused with luck" and promises "12 oz. for 24 hours of favorable outcomes". The label also asserts that the soda "cures timidness and satisfies the daring". These are some fairly bold (and moderately silly) claims. The real question is, how does this soda taste?

Well, imagine a Dr. Pepper with a very strong black cherry flavor and an aftertaste of hot peppers. That is more or less what MacFuddy Pepper Elixir tastes like. Except the black cherry is extremely prominent (and of a higher caliber than most cherry sodas), while the hot pepper after taste is extremely subtle. With ice, most of the flavor other than the cherry is muted, although the mild heat from the hot pepper remains - with the caveat that almost none of the hot pepper flavor is still noticeable. The combination of flavors makes for a highly unusual ice cream float, as the vanilla of the ice cream seems to enhance the spiciness of the pepper element, smoothing out the bite but making it more flavorful. Does it actually provide luck, cure timidness, and satisfy the daring? I have no idea, but it does deliver a tasty cherry soda with a pepper kick.

Review - Mountain Dew Kickstart Black Cherry

Bottler: PepsiCo

Calories per Ounce: 5

Caffeine: YES (92 mg per 16 oz)

Aaron's Comments: I love cherry flavored sodas, although to be honest, there doesn't seem to me to be much different in flavor between "cherry" and "black cherry" flavor. In the case of Kickstart Black Cherry, the cherry flavor is adequate but unspectacular, with the typical sweet and slightly tart flavor common to cherry flavored drinks. Of all four of the current Kickstart flavors, this is actually my least favorite, which was something of a surprise to me, as when I first saw them on the shelf, I assumed that the Black Cherry would be the best of the bunch. On the other hand, when served over ice, the soda's flavor becomes more strongly "cherry", but the flavor of artificial sweetener becomes more prominent as well. Despite the fact that using this soda in an ice cream float is something that was clearly not anticipated when it was made, I tried it anyway, for science. It serves adequately in an ice cream float, although the flavor of the soda is a bit thin for this purpose.

As a soda, Kickstart Black Cherry is okay, but not fantastic. However, it is loaded with caffeine, has considerably fewer calories per ounce than normal sodas, and its label touts that it has 5% juice. This means that it is an excellent stimulant delivery device for people who want to pretend that they are being healthy.

Review - Virgil's Black Cherry Cream Soda

Bottler: Reed's, Inc.

Calories per Ounce: 13.3

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: I love cherry sodas, and I'm partial to vanilla flavoring in soda, so I approached Virgil's Black Cherry Cream with high hopes. These hopes were, for the most part, met. The soda has a very strong cherry flavor which is quite good although it dominates and completely overshadows the cream portion of the soda. Drinking this soda with ice doesn't substantially change the flavor, which somewhat surprised me, as most sodas have a muted flavor when one drinks them with ice. Serving the soda with ice didn't even help bring out the cream flavor, and the black cherry flavor was still completely dominant. The soda pairs well with ice cream, forming an ice cream soda that tastes very much like cherry vanilla ice cream, although the cherry flavor in this concoction is more prominent than in a typical blend of cherry vanilla ice cream.

Review - I.B.C. Black Cherry Soda

Bottler: Dr. Pepper

Calories per Ounce: 15

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: I am a sucker for cherry flavored sodas, and I.B.C. Black Cherry soda is one of the most accessible, and one of the better available cherry sodas. On its own, the cherry flavor is very strong and heavy, but with ice the heaviness is cut and the cherry flavor is highlighted. The soda doesn't mix particularly well with ice cream. A float made with the black cherry soda is neither particularly good or particularly bad, as the flavor of vanilla doesn't really enhance or detract from the soda's natural flavor. This is a case in which a combination of two things doesn't result in something greater than the two individually. Instead, the result is pretty much the same as one would expect having the soda and the ice cream separately.