I’m drinking some Red Bull organic sparkling water because that’s a thing now. If you ever thought, “what if I could get the great taste of Red Bull without the caffeine,” then this drink is for you. Like literally for you. You are the only person who wants this.
The line is called Red Bull Organics and they are made with all “natural” ingredients and contain neither taureine or vitamin-C, aka caffeine. They don’t even throw any extraneous vitamins in there just to make it worth your while. They are making it solely to jump onto the La Croix trend and you are drinking it solely because you enjoy punishing yourself.
The line only launched in San Diego and North Carolina, and yet there is a giant bin of them for free on campus here, sponsored by Amazon. The simplest explanation is that they are giving them away free for promotional reasons, but I prefer to think that they are being automatically delivered by the Autofac from the show Electric Dreams. No human consciousness is involved in them appearing here on campus, yet here they are.
The line consists of four flavors, much like the pretty terrible new Diet Coke flavor line. In the case of Red Bull, the new flavors are Simply Cola, Bitter Lemon, Ginger Ale and Tonic Water. Tonic Water seems the most passable, but I was only able to get my hands on Bitter Lemon and Ginger Ale. The Bitter Lemon tastes like they invented Sprite, but then had to add a twist, bitterness, to not make it a complete rip off. The bitterness is very bitter, almost like lemon pith. It tastes a bit like a vodka soda. After drinking it, my lips smelled like rubbing alcohol. The flavor is so medicinal that I can see it becoming the kind of thing you hate but then become psychologically addicted to.
The Ginger Ale flavor is safer. Ginger Ale is ginger ale, and they aren’t claiming to do any cute twists on it like the “bitter” in the lemon.
Unfortunately, it looks like it would be $20 plus shipping to get the flavors I’m missing. I’m going to stop short of using the American health care system to pay for my work, so I’m not going to set up a GoFundMe. Instead I’ll leave the Soda Pop Shop tab open in the background until the day I drunkenly decide it’s worth it. This is the tried and true method that got me a rose gold karaoke microphone and a money gun. I guess what I’m saying is, if you want to see further soda reviews, buy me a drink.