Thanksgiving Week: Day Five - Soda Shaq: Vanilla Cream Soda

It's day five of the Soda Shaq taste test!  I've sipped and chugged my way through orange, strawberry, and blueberry, and now it's time to get to what I'm hoping is the best of the best.  Or possibly just the "not worst" of the "overall okay."

Enough fiddle-faddle.  Let's get drinkin'.

First things first, the can was much more durable when I opened it.  The pull tab didn't feel like it was even close to snapping off.  There wasn't any difficulty in fully opening it, not requiring any additional finagling to get the tab fully open.  So already this can is ahead.

Also, I find the Shaq face on this can comforting.  It's a calming, comforting expression.  It's as if Shaq knows I'm unsure about his soda, and he wants to assure me he knows what he's doing.  "Relax," he says, "I'm going to take care of your flavor needs."

It beats the other expression I could have picked up.

Shaq's either trying to be a pirate or he just failed an eye exam.

So on to the taste.  If you recall, I commented in all of the others that the cream tended to overwhelm the fruit flavors.  Vanilla, however, is quite potent, and you only need a little to go a long way.  I don't know if I've yet done a blog post about the injustice done to vanilla through the years, but it should be explained....somewhere other than here.

Taste-wise the cream flavor still reigns supreme.  If nothing else, I can't fault the brand for not presenting a solid cream soda.  This time, there's a stronger flavor from the vanilla when it first hits your tongue, and the remaining aftertaste is strongly vanilla flavored.

The carbonation is light, but not as light as the orange cream soda.  It  didn't have opportunity to have bubbles dance on my tongue, as the smoothness of the flavors encouraged me to quickly swallow and let more flow from the can.

Now, there's a noticeable difference between real vanilla flavoring and artificial vanilla.  One difference is that you'll sooner see me cook with no vanilla rather than use the artificial stuff.  The other is that the real vanilla has a cleaner taste and feels fresher.  The articificial flavoring lives up to its name in taste.

This flavor is pleasant and light, and I really think the vanilla cream blends better than the other flavors.  I highly enjoyed this soda, and while it might not be the best soda I've had, I wouldn't turn one down if offered to me, and might even pick it over some of the sodas I tend to "default" to.

I give this soda an A-.  It needs some tweaks here and there, but it's a solid soda.