The inspiration for this article came from a stroll through a candy shop near my school. After walking past the store a couple of times without going in, one day I decided to peek inside. I found that amidst rows of candies from all over the world, they have an entire row of strange-flavored sodas. Being the “curious” person that I am, I decided to buy a few of the most random ones and gave them a try.
So, here’s what I got:
As you can see from the picture above, I decided to go with 5 flavors of soda: butter, grass, buffalo wings, ranch dressing, and pickle.
There’s actually some other flavors such as bacon, corn, and PB&J that’s probably more palatable, but since I’m going to taste random flavors anyway, might as well go all in, right? Anyway, if you’re interested in how they tasted, you can also check this Spoon article here!
So here’s how mine turned out:
1. Ranch Dressing
Smell: smelled like yogurt, which I guess is kind of accurate since ranch dressing supposed to have a bit of tang in it
Taste: strangely very sweet without any sourness at all. It gave a slight taste of ranch dressing, but not a good ranch dressing, if you get what I mean.
Aftertaste: strangely accurate and leaves your breath smelling like ranch dressing.
2. Pickle
Smell: smells like pickle. 10/10 accurate.
Taste: again, it tasted very sweet with no sourness at all. I could definitely taste the pickle aspect, although without any sourness or saltiness. Therefore, I wouldn’t say that it’s 100% accurate.
Aftertaste: lingering pickle aftertaste (and breath).
3. Buffalo Wing
Smell: my sense of smell probably has been compromised by now, but at first whiff, it actually smelled like orange. Then as I smelled it longer, I could pick up some smell of hot sauce. So, it was kind of accurate.
Taste: again, strangely sweet. It didn’t taste like buffalo wings at all. It tasted a bit like cardboard.
(In case you’re wondering, no, I’ve never eaten a cardboard before. But I would imagine that’s how it tasted).
Aftertaste: very sweet. That’s all that I can pick up.
4. Butter
A little confession: I secretly had high hopes for this one since I thought it was the least random from all the flavors.
Smell: overall a bit similar to ranch dressing, which is weird in my opinion. I tried to smell the two back and forth and though they have a slight smell difference, I can’t exactly pinpoint what it was. It didn’t remind me of butter at all, though.
Taste: again, very sweet. It also tasted a bit similar to the ranch dressing one, albeit some subtle differences. There’s a slight buttery flavor, but overall, it didn’t remind me of butter at all.
Aftertaste: yogurt-y aftertaste.
This soda definitely crushed my hopes.
Now, last but not least…
5. Grass
Smell: I think my sense of smell has been damaged at this point, but the smell didn’t remind me of fresh-cut grass at all. Instead, it has a pronounced unripe banana smell for me. If anyone ever smells this soda, please let me know what you think because I genuinely wonder what other people think.
Taste: sweet, and strangely has a slight sourness. I imagine it would taste like a banana peel or stem, if I ever . One thing for sure, it didn’t have any leafy or veggie-like taste at all.
Aftertaste: banana-y and strange. That’s the best description I can give.
Last Thoughts: Soda-Roulette Game
All in all, it was definitely an interesting experience to taste-tasted these sodas. Will I do it again? Probably not. However, upon tasting the sodas, an idea came to my mind: based on the color of the soda, you can use a few of these sodas for an interesting soda-roulette game for your next hangout! Here’s some pairings that can work:
1) If you’re in a dim room, you can pair the Buffalo Wing soda with orange-flavored soda. There’s a slight color difference but under dim lights, it won’t be too noticeable.
2) In some parts of the world, you can get a fruit-punch flavored Fanta that has a green color. You can pair that with the Grass soda.
3) For my Peruvian friends, or if you come across this soda in your Latin-American markets, you can pair Inca Kola with the Butter soda.
Have fun with your sodas, friends!