As you may have seen, Diet Coke launched four new flavors last month. The flavors include: Ginger Lime, Twisted Mango, Zesty Blood Orange, and Feisty Cherry. I was intrigued. So in the name of science, I made a trip to my local Giant to collect ’em all and sample them (yes, the cashier made a comment that I was buying 4 single soda cans). To save you the trouble of having to do the same, read on for a taste test and ranking of these…slightly out-there flavors.
4. Twisted Mango
I was skeptical of this one. Mango and Coke together? Hmmm. You can smell the fruitiness before you even take a sip, so you have a feeling that the mango flavor will be strong. Twisted Mango is very sweet – it kind of tastes like a carbonated dried mango slice. I wouldn’t grab this to drink on its own, but it would probably make a decent mixer.
3. Zesty Blood Orange
I’m still unsure why anyone thought that these two flavors would mix well. I’d maybe – maybe – accept blood orange as a flavor of Sprite, but Coke? No thank you. It tastes like someone dipped an orange lollipop in a Diet Coke. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want to drink that.
2. Ginger Lime
To be honest, ginger lime doesn’t taste like much. There’s a subtle hint of lime, but you really can’t taste much of the ginger. There really isn’t much to say about this flavor. It isn’t bad, it’s just underwhelming.
1. Feisty Cherry
Reminiscent of Cherry Coke, so I’m not sure why we recreated it. Maybe just to give it a zazzier (feistier?) name? It may have more of a black cherry flavor, but that also just may be me trying to come up with some reason to differentiate it from Cherry Coke. This is the most normal flavor out of the bunch.
Conclusions
Of the four new flavors, Feisty Cherry is probably the only one I would willingly pick up and drink again. Ginger Lime is the least offensive of the bunch, mainly because it has almost no flavor. I still don’t understand why there is a mango and blood orange flavor. Of course, you can’t go wrong with a good old fashioned, regular Diet Coke. Sometimes, it just isn’t worth messing with a classic.