Pepsi Natural

One of my favorite things in life is Coke made with REAL sugar...
I have been known to stock up on KP (Kosher for Passover) Coke and the Mexican variety but in my quasi-Yoda like lifetime (I am not as old as I make it sound but I feel it because the age of my average co-worker seems to be 12) I have never once seen Pepsi with cane sugar. I know it exists, I have heard that Pepsi does a Kosher version as well but I have never seen it. When I was candy hunting at Target... OK actually I was buying laundry soap but candy hunting sounds way more interesting, anyway... there on an end cap was a big display of Pepsi Natural.

Pepsi Natural (which also seems to have been test marketed as Pepsi Raw) is an all natural version of Pepsi. It features sparkling water (because merely calling it carbonated is soo 2005) sugar and kola nut extract. It is also colored naturally and of course has that sweet, sweet caffeine.

Blah, blah, blah PR aside what does it taste like?
I was worried it would be a little too much like Red Bull Cola in terms of the after taste- luckily for me that was not the case.

The smell is exactly like that of gummy cola flavored candies. Just a little sugary but kind of spicy at the same time hmmmm gummy... In terms of carbonation it is barely there. There's about the same amount of fizz as there would be if you left a normal Pepsi sitting for about six hours- I like flat soda so that worked for me. Of course it's all about the flavor.

Again, I am going back to flat Pepsi, be honest in a moment of desperate thirst (or laziness) we have all taken a sip from that bottle or can that has been sitting around for who knows how long and if you have (don't lie) then you know it seems like the syrup in the drink thickens and the cola flavor both intensifies and goes stale- that's what this taste like. I know that description probably sounds bad but it does taste pretty good. There's almost a cinnimon thing going on and there is a clean sense to the overall flavor.

While as a rule I prefer Pepsi's flavored options to they're regular cola I found myself really liking this one. What I am really hoping is that this opens the doors to more soda being made with sugar again rather then HFCS (and yeah, I am REALLY hoping Coke does a version like this)


PURCHASED FROM:
Target