Confirmed sighting: Tropicana Festive Blend
Posted: 20:39 Tue 16-12-2003. Price: £1.49/ 1 litre. Location: Sainsburys, London NW3. Sub-flavours: Totally different but also sampled at the same time - Marks and Spencer Pressed Red Fruit Juice With A Hint Of Seasonal Spice (£2.29/ litre). Nutritional unusualness: Higher sugar levels than ordinary Coke (though whether that's bad for you, or Coke is now good for you, I can't quite work out).
Snackspot reports: In a bid to make this week's sightings a little more seasonal, clearly nothing says "festive" round at Pepsi's Tropicana labs more than a blend of "100% pure squeezed orange (45%), mandarin (35%), and white grape juice (20%)". The grape and mandarin add some interesting new hints, though it's still got the standard (slightly freezerburned?) Tropicana taste. Marks and Spencer's characteristically high-priced response stretches the definition of "red" somewhat with its 80% red grape juice, 8% strawberry puree, 7% raspberry puree and 5% blackberry (plus extracts of cinnamon and nutmeg) - I haven't shopped there for ages, but was reassured to see they still use detailed descriptions instead of proper product names (eg, do Scottish branches sell haggis under the label "Minced Heart, Lungs, And Liver Of A Sheep Or Calf Mixed With Suet, Onions, Oatmeal, And Seasonings, And Boiled In The Stomach Of The Slaughtered Animal"?).

...In other quick drink news: Asda are "looking into" whether to place Sunny Delight with room-temperature squashes (instead of in chiller cabinets) - and, while there are no signs as yet of a UK launch of Pepsi Blue, this US report predicts a (US) launch of Diet Coke with Lime "early next year".

Add a comment | # Permalink to this page | 11 comment(s) so far: (NB: NO IDENTITIES ARE VERIFIED; ANYONE COULD ACTUALLY BE FROM THE MANUFACTURERS OR COMPETING COMPANIES. ALL CELEBRITY POSTINGS ARE IMPERSONATED ... POORLY)

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Posted: 21:43 Tue 16-12-2003 by Snackspot # permalink comment
Comment: Just on the subject of Marks and Spencer, I read a funny thing recently about the low recognisability of the "celebs" in their current TV ads, which concluded something like: Will the target audience of 50+ year olds be saying "Well, if their cava is good enough for June Sarpong, it's good enough for me!"?

Oddly I can't remember where it was though (maybe some other website? that comedy bit at the front of the Guardian Guide? CURSE MY FAILING MEMORY!)

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Posted: 10:42 Wed 17-12-2003 by "moggy" # permalink comment
Comment: I've had this, it's quite tasty actually...

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Posted: 11:01 Wed 17-12-2003 by Snackspot # permalink comment
Comment: Yeah, I didn't mind it that much (but now, with amazing timing, it seems to have completely disappeared from my local Sainsbury's).

What gets me about all the Tropicana juices is that though they taste more like "freshly squeezed" than from-concentrate juices, they still don't taste quite the same as actual "freshly squeezed" stuff.

(It's like that old gag about "1-calorie" colas - I mean, they got all the other calories out, right? What's the problem with that last little bastard?)

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Posted: 09:57 Thu 18-12-2003 by "moggy" # permalink comment
Comment: It's still available in my local co-op (Summertown, Oxford) but only on certain days it seems. I'm not too keen on the idea of Tropicana's new juices (with added fibre/calcium/laxatives... etc) and I can attest to the fact that Tropicana Tropico (or whatever it's called) will start to ferment after about 8 hours in a moderately warm office. The carton I purchased ballooned up to bursting point in a day and a half and eventually I had to dispose of it by throwing it into a skip. The resulting explosion was extremely exciting but not worth the couple of quid I paid for the drink, which incidentally was not very nice.

P.S. I think that last little bastard calorie is the flavour? :)

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Posted: 12:44 Thu 18-12-2003 by Snackspot # permalink comment
Comment: as history will attest, i actually really like the Pure Premium Fibre one (but it retails at 1.99 so, when i do buy it, i often mix it 50-50 with Sainsbury's from-concentrate pineapple juice - 83p/litre - so as to bring the aggregate cost down to something like £2.80/ 2 litres = £1.40/litre): http://www.snackspot.org.uk/thread.php?story=0305181840daa

i've never had a Tropicana Tropico (?) explode on me though - and am now quite tempted to try it

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Posted: 20:40 Sat 20-12-2003 by "cokeco" # permalink comment
Comment: Yeah I like the fibre Tropicana juice too, but also refrain from purchasing it due to its high price. I did try the Festive Blend and didn't actually like it as much as I like the other two Tropicana juices I buy without fail every week. On another note I just finished drinking a strawberry and aloe vera still water and it was actually quite nice.

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Posted: 12:16 Mon 22-12-2003 by "moggy" # permalink comment
Comment: Is that the m&s strawberry and aloe water? 'Cos that is quite nice, but I was put off by a Chinese exchange student who was attempting to explain to a Thai student friend what Aloe Vera was. The terms "Toilet Roll", "Toilet Cleaner" and "Washing up liquid" came up multiple times...

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Posted: 15:36 Mon 22-12-2003 by "cokeco" # permalink comment
Comment: Yes, it was the marks and sparks one. I always remember slathering aloe vera on sunburns. But it didn't put me off drinking the water. Perhaps because I use regular tree bark toilet roll....

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Posted: 16:32 Thu 15-01-2004 by "Dan Burgess" # permalink comment
Comment: Had not heard of the coming of Diet Coke with Lime before, but the trade mags suggest that it will appear "early next year." Whether or not it is any good (let's hope Diet coke with Lemon is no indication), here's to hoping that it will ease prognostication efforts: http://triggur.org/coqo/coke.html

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Posted: 05:50 Wed 21-01-2004 by "Katrus" # permalink comment
Comment: Diet Coke with Lime is now availible around Detroit in the US, and it's very nice - slight Coke flavour, slight aspartame flavour, great huge overwhelming lime taste. Lime with Diet Coke would be a more fitting name.

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Posted: 10:21 Mon 26-01-2004 by "Saramond" # permalink comment
Comment: http://www.dietcoke.com/dietcokelime.shtml 54974 4 21

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