Dr. Pepper Cherry

   Being from Texas, I love Dr. Pepper (Especially Dublin Dr. Pepper).  Dr. Pepper is a staple soda here in the Lone  Star State, as it was invented here.  I also like cherry flavoring in soda, so normally you’d think that Dr. Pepper Cherry would be something I’d be all over.  Let me tell you in four words why I’m skeptical:  Dr. Pepper Red Fusion.  Red Fusion came out in 2002 and lasted a whole 2 years.  They never came out and said what flavored Red Fusion, but I always assumed it had a cherry base.  Sadly though, Red Fusion tasted like flat Dr. Pepper.  So excuse me if I don’t get all excited when I try this Dr. Pepper Cherry.  I will tell you one positive thing right off the bat about it though… I got this for free!  Thanks to reader D.W. (Not the caped crusader that graced The Disney Afternoon toon block) but a cool guy nonetheless. 

   Looking at this can, I can’t avoid thinking that Dr. Pepper is trying to seduce me.  It’s a black can, which isn’t something that’s very common right now (I can only think of Coke Zero off the top of my head).  At the top of the can in lowercase is the phrase “amazingly smooth”.  I seriously doubt that I’m going to be amazed at how smooth this tastes, but let’s give it a shot.  Oh before I continue, you know this is full of chemicals right?  I didn’t bother going into the ingredients list because they would just depress you.

    The aroma wafting (ok maybe wafting is a bit strong) out of the can smells just like Dr. Pepper… with a tiny, tiny amount of cherry in it.  Time for drinkin’.  The first sip I take puts one thought into my mind… normal Dr. Pepper is better than this.  I will never favor this over Dr. Pepper.  Ok, that was technically two thoughts, but let’s continue anyway.  While somewhat smooth it’s not “amazingly smooth”, but no one here is surprised by that.  Actually, when it first hits your tongue you get a nice bubbly sensation.  To put it somewhat bluntly it tastes like a slightly weaker Dr. Pepper with a little bit of a cherry taste to it.  I will say that this tastes better than Red Fusion did though.  I’ve harped on this drink more than it deserves, but I’m disappointed.  In my opinion you could make this a lot better by ramping up the cherry flavoring, and using sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.  I don’t say that because I prefer sugar, (I do prefer sugar, but I didn’t say that because I did… stay with me here.) but because sugar adds a crispness to soda that HFCS does not.  All in all, this is about what I expected… which saddens me.

As you can see by his expression, Twist was not seduced.