Remembering a couple of crappy beverages..

[Guest MarvinisaLunatic]

I consider myself to be a good expert on sodas and beverages. But recently I've started drinking tea and less sodas, although I'll still try the new hyped sodas when they come out. This got me to thinking about some of the more unsuccessful hyped sodas and beverages that I can remember tasting (or at least in one case, seeing)

 

Orbitz - the beverage thats "out of this world" - and it deserves to be..

 

Background - Clearly Canadian basically started the whole "Fruit flavored water" concept, one of the few things with the word Canadian in it that is actually decent. They had cool looking bottles and there were some really good flavors. But, as with any other concept that sells well (See Vanilla Coke for a recent example), everyone else started ripping off the idea and all of a sudden there were about 20 different fruit flavored water beverages available. But Clearly Canadian was still the best tasting of them all...but they felt they needed to try something new.. Rewind to the year 1996..

 

The Beverage - Clearly whoever was responsible for Orbitz obviously must have loved to have balls in their mouth...literally and pun intended. The basic concept of Orbitz was that it was a fruit flavored water with..get this..fruit flavored balls floating around in it or more descriptively just sitting in the liquid, as they didnt sink or rise, they just sat in the liquid. Now, if that weren't bad enough, they went way out into left field with some of the flavor combinations: Blueberry-Melon- Strawberry, Pineapple-Bannana-Cherry-Coconut (yes, all 4 flavors), Raspberry Citrus, Vanilla Orange and Black Currant Berry. Now, you'd think Orbitz would be half drinkable, if not for the stupid fucking balls floating around in it. They may have made the drink look really cool, and it might have been a really cool concept idea to have little balls floating around in the water, but how Orbitz got past the product testing stage is beyond me. I suppose people just too embarassed to say "I don't really enjoy the little floaty balls in my mouth". But, sadly the water portion was nothing like regular Clearly Canadia fruit flavored water, mainly because the balls would all sink to the bottom in the regular water. Luckily, Clearly Canadian still makes flavored water in even cooler looking bottles and even better flavors, but Orbitz fizzled and eventually was discontinued. Some places still have the stupid crap ('Im looking at you Wal-Mart) and I don't even want to think how long that crap has been sitting on the shelves..AVOID IT!

 

Josta - the soda with the stuff from Brazil in it

 

Background - Pepsi had finally gotten over the whole Crystal Pepsi debacle (thats another failed soda, but people remember that more). It was time for a new product to grace their lineup. Rewind to 1995...

 

The Soda- Of course instead of using any sort of known flavoring to anyone in the US, Pepsi must have gotten a cheap deal on an trip to Brazil for their R&D dept. Im pretty sure that is the only possible reasoning behind picking guarana berries as the main flavoring for their new soda.

Not many people actually knew what guarana berries were and what they tasted like. That is Strike 1 (and how many people today know what the hell guarana berries are?). Upon just looking at it, you would notice that its a reddish color, very unlike other colas at the time and also a color associated with Coke, not Pepsi (perhaps this is where they got the inspiration for Pepsi Blue..). That is Strike 2 (remember this is 1995). The third and final strike against Josta came from that fact that guarana berries have natural caffeine in them as it is. Pepsi must have forgotten this and caffinated the beverage like it was Pepsi, which resulted in Josta having a ton of caffeine. This being 1995, the main people that bought soda were adults and adults drink coffee (Remember this!!) not soda, and most adults don't like a lot of caffiene. In retrospect, Josta was doomed to fail from the start, but had it only been thought up about 7 years later it probably would have sold well. I remember trying it, and I honestly thought it was halfway decent, it had a really cool berry flavor to it, but the buzz from it was too much and I got a really bad headache. Apparently, they still make Josta, in Brazil where people probably enjoy it. There is also a small grassroots campaign to bring the stuff back to the US (and I think they could do worse ..Pepsi Blue anyone..?) but I doubt it will happen.

 

And maybe it was the black cat on the label...oh well..

 

Save Josta..or not..

 

Pepsi Kona - sounds Hawaiian..but its not..

 

Background - Apparently the Pepsi R&D dept. was trying to come up with a new product again, but this time they made sure that they did some of the R in the R&D first. Of course, if the research stinks, then whats the point of bothering with it? I think the Pepsi R&D dept has more failures than Vince McMahon..rewind to 1995..

 

The Soda - The Pepsi R&D dept. did some more of their famous research and made an astounding discovery that some people liked to add coffee to their Pepsi (I bet the question was actually Do you like Pepsi? Do you drink coffee?, and the geniuses must of assumed that 2+2 = Pepsi Kona.) Now, I don't know anyone who mixes coffee with their Pepsi, or any other soda for that matter, and though Im sure that there are a few people that do, there is no need to make a beverage that is specifically targeted to a handful of people. Another set back was the name, the Kona part. Most people associated it to be something Hawaiian, but the Kona part actually refers to a type of coffee. I suppose Pepsi Joe or Pepsi Java were already taken.. The genuises at the Pepsi R&D dept. also forgot that Coffee has caffiene in it, as one of the complaints about Kona was it was too strong. Again, I think Pepsi missed the boat on this one, as I think it could have sold decently now with the fascination for different flavors of coffee and the like. And in an odd twist, Pepsi Kona didn't even last as long as another failed Pepsi product, Pepsi A.M., which was marketed as a highly caffienated alternative to the usual morning cup of coffee in the 80's.

 

The sad fact is that both of these Pepsi products sold better (and in Josta's case tasted better) than Pepsi's newest flop, Pepsi Blue.

 

Making fun of the Pepsi R&D dept. is pretty fun!

[Guest Vern Gagne]

OK Soda.

 

That tasted exactly like mixing different kinds of pop together. Like I used to do at Burger King.

[Guest areacode212]

I agree that Orbitz tasted like ass. The balls made it seem like a shitty prototype of pearl tea (which is awesome), only instead of tapioca, they used some kind of awful white substance. Ugh.

 

I don't remember Josta or Pepsi Kona, though.

[Guest ElectricRaccoon]

An additional sad point re: Orbitz. Even the one method of making a drink worth choking down, adding vodka, didn't work. It made all the floaters sink to the bottom in a disgusting glob.

[Guest starvenger]

I agree that Orbitz tasted like ass. The balls made it seem like a shitty prototype of pearl tea (which is awesome), only instead of tapioca, they used some kind of awful white substance. Ugh.

 

I don't remember Josta or Pepsi Kona, though.

You mean boba/bubble tea. That stuff rocks.

 

wrt Pepsi Kona, it sounds like those guys may have also watched too much of the Drew Carey Show (Buzz Beer, anyone?).

 

Cool stuff, Marvin. Can we see stuff on Pepsi Max, Pepsi Free and Pepsi One?

[Guest MarvinisaLunatic]

Oh..fun stuff..

 

Pepsi Max, Free and One -One word does actually make a difference!

 

Background Unlike Coca Cola, which learned not to mess with its drink formulas after the whole Coke II debacle. Pepsi always seems to be changing something about their soft drinks whether it be the drink formula itself, the packaging or its logo. For example, the formula for Pepsi has changed at least 5 times in the last 100 years. Pepsi already had been marketing a diet version of Pepsi since the mid 60's, the first Soft drink company to do so. At least these changes were supposedly going to be heathier changes, and for the most part they weren't really failures..

 

The Sodas Basically, Pepsi Max, Pepsi Free and Pepsi One are heathier versions of Pepsi. Pepsi free had no caffiene and Pepsi One only has one calorie (A direct ripoff of the old diet coke formula that only had "Just one calorie..just for the taste of it"..). Supposedly Pepsi one doesn't have an aftertaste, since its not sweetened like normal diet sodas, but the taste is so horrible that its not such a big deal.. Both of these formulas were specifically targeted towards the US consumer, and hence they are at least still on the market in some form. Caffiene Free Pepsi is still sold some places as Pepsi Free, and Pepsi One is still sold even though it sucks and I can't stand it. Personally, Caffiene never bothered me, but I can actually tollerate Caffiene free Pepsi, although Caffiene free Coke is horrible..

 

Pepsi Max is another story though, although it only failed about halfway... The Pepsi R&D department managed to discover that people in overseas (Europe mostly) were all for drinking diet sodas, as long as they didn't taste like a diet soda and didn't say anything about being diet on the package (How they managed to figure this out beats me..) If you know anything about Europe and most other countries, you'll know that Pepsi lags behind Coke in sales so much its almost a wonder how its so close in the U.S.. So the Pepsi R&D dept., desperate to help boost sales in Europe, went out to formulate a "non-diet" diet Pepsi. They only used half the amount of artificial sweeteners normally found in diet drinks and tinkered with the diet formula a bit to try and make it taste "Sweeter" to make it not taste like a diet Pepsi. They also tried to give it a name that didn't sound diet at all..and hence the name Pepsi MAX. Now, the stuff sold well in Europe and other countries overseas (and still does today) just as they had hoped, but Pepsi seems to have trouble with not leaving well enough alone. They decided to make Pepsi MAX available in the United States, which was bad idea needless to say. Americans never did like the concept of Pepsi MAX not being fully diet (it still had a few calories), its more of the "go all out or don't go at all" mentality, either drink a full diet soda or drink a regular one. The name didn't help either, as people expected it to be "Something" better than Pepsi (more taste, more caffiene, more carbonation..anything more) but it ended up being inferior to regular and diet Pepsi equally in the minds of American consumers. Some people think that Pepsi Max and Pepsi One are the same soda under two different names, but more likely Pepsi MAX was just a stepping stone in the development of Pepsi One. And just like Coke II and a few other major failures, you can still find Pepsi MAX in some places, especially if you live close to Canada.

 

Added Bonus:

Here's an interesting Pepsi Product that never made it to the U.S.

 

Tropical Pepsi - England

 

All this negativity on Pepsi also got me thinking about some Coca Cola Products that I hate, and I'll rant on them later..Surge, Fresca and Pibb Extra. I know that Fresca can still be found, and Pibb Extra is relatively new (about a year old or so) but its being phased out but you can still find it. I don't know about Surge, but Im guessing that its probably out of production.

[Chunk 0]

Added Bonus:

Here's an interesting Pepsi Product that never made it to the U.S.

 

Tropical Pepsi - England

The link didnt work. I dont remember that one, but im sure I would have tried it if i had seen it in the shops.

 

When abouts did it come out?

 

ChUnK!

[Guest LJSexay]

I agree that Orbitz tasted like ass. The balls made it  seem like a shitty prototype of pearl tea (which is awesome), only instead of tapioca, they used some kind of awful white substance. Ugh.

 

I don't remember Josta or Pepsi Kona, though.

Pearl Tea = Bubble Tea = Boba = best drink EVER.

[Guest MarvinisaLunatic]

Added Bonus:

Here's an interesting Pepsi Product that never made it to the U.S.

 

Tropical Pepsi - England

The link didnt work. I dont remember that one, but im sure I would have tried it if i had seen it in the shops.

 

When abouts did it come out?

 

ChUnK!

Link to foreign (mostly from Australia) Pepsi Cans

 

That link has the Tropical Pepsi Can on it, which they say came out in 1994. Some of those made tests in the US (Strawberry and Raspberry flavored Pepsi) but never got full releases.

[Guest Choken One]

Surge was COOL! I say this because They sponsered my Old Man once...

 

But Pepsi was a better sponser for 3 years...

 

Pepsi gave us free Cases...Surge gave us a T-Shirt...

[Chunk 0]

Added Bonus:

Here's an interesting Pepsi Product that never made it to the U.S.

 

Tropical Pepsi - England

The link didnt work. I dont remember that one, but im sure I would have tried it if i had seen it in the shops.

 

When abouts did it come out?

 

ChUnK!

Link to foreign (mostly from Australia) Pepsi Cans

 

That link has the Tropical Pepsi Can on it, which they say came out in 1994. Some of those made tests in the US (Strawberry and Raspberry flavored Pepsi) but never got full releases.

Just 1 second ... that bloke is collecting fizzy drink cans ... anyway the can does sort of look familiar, but I still cant remember trying it. Oh well

 

ChUnK!

[Guest MaxPower27]

::liked Orbitz::

 

[Guest Sturgis]

Am I the only one who thinks Tom Jones was horribly depressed in the Pepsi-Kona commercial?

 

I remember leaving Hershy Park on a field trip and they handed out Surge to everyone and pretty much everyone on the bus liked it. And I remember Surge seemed to sell pretty well but then droped off te face of the earth.

 

Pepsi Crystal Clear anyone?

[Guest Chuck Woolery]

Hey, I liked Pepsi Crystal. I'm a firm believer they never should've yanked it.

[Guest Anglesault]

What the hell were the little Orbitz balls made out of?

[Guest razazteca]

I liked Josta but never heard of the Kona experiement.

[Guest MaxPower27]

What the hell were the little Orbitz balls made out of?

I thought it was some kind of Jello type thing, but it wasn't as gelatiney.

[Guest areacode212]

There's a cool website devoted to saving Surge from extinction.

 

All of you thirsty Surge fans should check it out:

 

http://SaveSurge.org

 

They even have a Save Surge newsletter (they're up to #44).

 

If that's not enough to entice you to go there, maybe Goldberg will:

 

[Guest areacode212]

Here is some Surge poetry from that site:

SURGE Beckons Me

My mortal eyes has fell upon

gentle green, out of this

world soda...

 

My laughter has returned

ever since I took that

drink...

 

SURGE beckons me to have

a jolly good time & yet

right before my eyes I

see it all fading away

unless we fight for what

we believe in....

 

SAVE SURGE MY BROTHERS........

----------------

and another:

 

Carpe Vertum

 

Others may falter,

But I'll never forget

Your taste.

 

I lock the car

And race through the parking lot.

As I enter,

I check the machine

And breathe a sigh of relief.

 

You're still here.

 

I pay for my cup

[Extra Large]

And race to the fountain

Before my sandwich

Arrives.

 

I press her to the logo

And smile

As she fills with

The Emerald Ambrosia.

 

Eagerly, I bring her

To my lips

And fill my mouth

With Sharp Lime

Carbonation.

 

The Green Tingle continues

Across my tongue as

I take a seat.

 

God, this Surge was worth

Driving forty-nine

Miles for.

[Guest Choken One]

Wow.

[Guest Anglesault]

Wow

[Chunk 0]

I guess some people just really really like Surge

[Guest Sturgis]

Hey, I liked Pepsi Crystal. I'm a firm believer they never should've yanked it.

Hey I liked it to, but I just felt like it needed to be said.

[Guest MarvinisaLunatic]

Hmm..

 

Surge was nothing but a crappy ripoff of Mt Dew, and between having a horrible taste and having those stupid commercials where everyone yelled "SUURRRRGGGGEEEEEE!"..its no wonder why the stuff is gone. Coke has since turned Mellow Yellow into is Mt Dew Clone (which I always thought was the Mt Dew cloney anyway) since I have seen and tried the Mellow Yellow Cherry and Mellow Yellow Mellon flavors, and I would almost want to argue that Mellow Yellow Cherry is better than Mt. Dew Code Red, and the mellon one is pretty unique. (Try to say Mellow Yellow Mellon five times fast..)

 

Speaking of ripoffs, Mr. Pibb is nothing more than a ripoff of Dr. Pepper. Now, I'll give credit to Coke to want to differentiate Mr. Pibb from Dr. Pepper and all the other Dr. Pepper clones, but Pibb Xtra is just putrid crap. , For the most part it tastes just like Regular Mr. Pibb. I initially thought when I first tried it "isn't that nice, they tacked on the cool word Xtra (with super cool spelling) and there's nothing different about it". Well, that feeling lasted about 21 seconds. Pibb XTra apparently does have something "Xtra" added to it, a whole lot of "Xtra" aftertaste. I don't know what they did to Mr. Pibb to give it such an aftertaste, and I hope that the aftertaste wasn't added on purpose, but it just totally ruins it. Its the kind of aftertaste that you need to rinse your mouth out with mouthwash about 8 times to get rid of, its just that horrible..

Edited April 26, 2003 by MarvinisaLunatic

[Guest Choken One]

Mello Yello been around LONG before Surge and was thought to be dead but has been revived since...

 

Surge was cool for a week...I still have the Decals They gave us...

[Guest DrTom]

I remember Pepsi Kona. My dad has been big into Kona coffee for years (and I'll admit it's dashed good stuff), so I tried the Pepsi Kona to see if it was like the coffee at all. While it wasn't awful, I just have to wonder if the people Pepsi allegedly polled who put coffee in their Pepsi were all crackheads.

[Guest MrRant]

I like Pibb Xtra. Pepsi One is not anywhere near as bad as Caffeine Free Pepsi. Josta wasn't that bad. But what about JOLT? The pop that marketed itself with 2x the amount of caffeine? I loved that stuff.

[Guest The Czech Republic]

I loved Crystal Pepsi, personally. Especially for the Van Halen commercial and the SNL tribute, "Crystal Gravy."

[Guest The Metal Maniac]

Vern: It was Coke and Orange Soda. I SWEAR, that's EXACTLY what OK Soda tasted like.

 

I remember that from Jr. High. It wasn't a bad drink, really, and the cans were neat. They had writing and stuff on 'em, so they were at least somewhat entertaining.

 

As for Surge...I seem to recall a buddy telling me that Surge was still sold in Canada, but as something else...I can't recall what it was he said though, nor do I know if he was even correct, so...I've helped no one.

 

YAY ME!

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

What the hell were the little Orbitz balls made out of?

Liposuctioned fat and asbestos.