With the holiday season now underway officially (since, as everyone knows, November 1st is when it’s acceptable to start talking about Christmas, Thanksgiving be damned), Pepsi is rolling out a new seasonal flavor in the United States – salted caramel, which doesn’t really seem like something I would want in a soda.
Pepsi claims that the new flavor “blends the refreshing taste of cola with a delicious caramel finish,” which doesn’t tell me a whole lot about anything and seems way too cloyingly sweet (even by Pepsi’s standards) for my tastebuds.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
In Japan, Pepsi is launching a “Christmas Cola,” which “is a Japanese spongecake flavor, one that is topped with whipped cream and filled with strawberries.” It’s a white drink that comes with “a sweet and sour cherry aroma.” That makes sense, since you really can’t *smell* sweet and sour, but…okay, whatever floats your boat, Pepsi.
Pepsi isn’t stopping there, deciding to combine Mountain Dew and Code Red in a special “Holiday Brew” drink that sounds like a Frankenstein drink you’d make at Taco Bell at 2 AM.
Combining two of Mtn Dew’s beloved, original flavors – green Mtn Dew and Mtn Dew Code Red – to get one bold taste of holiday spirit for a limited time only.
Other holiday-themed junk that Pepsico is rolling out this season include Gingerbread Spice Quaker Life Cereal and Chewy Bars (please don’t let “gingerbread spice” become a thing like “pumpkin spice,” America), Cranberry Orange Spice IZZE (a flavored sparkling water), and Cheetos Sweetos Holiday Cinnamon Sugar Puffs, because if there’s one thing the world needed, it’s *sweet* Cheetos.
I get it. Companies have to roll out these absurd seasonal flavors, because if they don’t, they’ll lose market share to those companies that want to cater to customers who crave peppermint gingerbread spiced pretzels. But we have to be getting close to a saturation point, right? There are only so many seasonal items that one person can consume, and even though they’re getting rolled out earlier and earlier, I can’t see how many more products can infest the market every holiday season.
[Pepsico]
