...
Oh. Right! This blog.
I wanted to make this a weekly affair, but I'll tell you what: on Monday, I was not in any kinda state to do a cheerful blog entry. And then I just kinda forgot yesterday. SO. Hi guys! I asked y'all to choose which soda I did next, and the opinions were fast and furious here and on my LJ where I originally posted the review. But I'm not going to lie to you, that while it was pretty much a tie, my taste buds ultimately chose the winner. Heh!
You might know their whisky from Lost in Translation ("For relaxing time, make it... Suntory time"), but Suntory makes a lot of Japanese beverages, both alcoholic and otherwise. And they bring us today's offering...
Suntory Red Ginger!
At first glance, the bottle is pretty nice. It has a red and black lace theme going on, and that typography for the drink name is kinda exciting! So, let's get started, shall we?
It smells like... ginger ale.
And it tastes like...
Ginger ale, too! What the... what is "red" about this?? Does it go three times faster?! (Thanks, Ali, for taking me to task on the lack of a Char joke! I'm ashamed...) And now I'm RED WITH ANGERRRR! Well, okay, I don't actually feel enraged, just mildly cheated. I like ginger ale a lot, so I'm okay with it being sort of a sub-par Schweppes, but c'mon, Japan. You let me down.
Packaging: B+
Bouquet: B-
Interpretation of theme: D
All-around Taste: B
Final grade: B-
Suntory Red Ginger was kind of a let down. Sure, it's drinkable, and I don't really know what I was expecting "Red" Ginger to taste like, but it wasn't far enough from regular ginger ale to really warrant being seperate from it. Ah well.
Next week, Melon Float. We shall see how this goes.
BONUS ROUND!!
I've invited a co-writer, Jose of Ichi's XBox Gaming Reviews, because he's tried quite a few of the specialty Pepsi flavors in the past few years. I'm not a fan of Pepsi in its original flavor, so I'm very willing to let someone else drink those, haha!
However, he brought it to my attention that Pepsi NEX Zero is doing a promotion with Gundam and Be@rbrick! Now, If you don't know me outside of this blog, then you probably don't know that I am absolutely coo-coo bananas for Gundam. Of course, I'm talking original, Universal Century timeline Gundam (although I did love X and I will always have a soft, vunerable spot for Wing), not the more recent stuff... but fortunately for me, Japan often remembers how much it loves First Gundam too. Last year was the 30th anniversary, and I went nuuuuts.
Anyway, back to this promotion: each bottle of Pepsi NEX Zero comes with one of 16 possible Gundam Be@rbricks. I went to one of the local 7-11s and saw that they had a huge selection, but someone had STOLEN the Char Aznable Be@rbrick from its package and just left it there. WHAT. What kind of jerk does that! I was pretty cheesed off. So I dug through the sodas (not a small feat, but fortunately, I have small hands, haha) and got a GM.
Now, I would have gotten more, but I was totally out of yen and also, Pepsi NEX Zero...
...sucks. I hate Splenda and its ilk, so "sugar free" versions of things and I don't get along. So now I have a bottle of Pepsi NEX Zero just sittin' in my fridge and I'll try to find someone to give it to so it doesn't go to waste, but still. Ew.
Alright, that's all for now. Until next time!
-Sarah
