One Man's Opinions About Zevia and Blue Sky Free

So I have a whole bunch of Zevia natural sugar-free soda in my fridge. Also some Blue Sky Free, another brand of stevia-and-erythritol sweetened diet soda. Cold soda, summer weather, sounds like I'm in the perfect position to review soda, doesn't it? There's just one teeny little catch: I loathe soda. All soda. Sugar-sweetened soda, diet soda, all-natural diet soda, cola, ginger ale, lemon lime, orange, wild cherry, it doesn't matter. I can't abide the stuff.

It's just too damned sweet. Keep in mind that I've been low carb for 15 years, and thus eating very little processed, sweetened stuff. And for seventeen years before that, I'd avoided most sugary stuff, too. So 99% of all commercially sweetened stuff tastes disgustingly sweet to me.

Oh, I drank diet soda for years. In my high school years I was putting down 12-18 cans of Tab per day. But I never did like Diet Coke as well, and quickly discovered that a couple of cans of aspartame-sweetened soda during the day were enough to give me panic attacks at night. So I stopped drinking soda, and very quickly lost my taste for it completely. I am not exaggerating when I tell you I don't believe I've drunk more than a couple of sips of soda of any kind in the past twenty years.

Enter my friend Chris. Chris is one of the two wonderful guys who do work on my rental properties. And Chris likes soda. A lot of soda. On a hot day, he'll have a two-liter Mountain Dew at the job site with him, but he'll drink just about any flavor.

So when Chris came over a couple of weeks back to get a paycheck, I mentioned the sugar-free soda in my garage fridge, and asked if he'd be willing to try it. He readily agreed, though he generally professes scorn for diet soda. He said the Zevia ginger ale didn't taste like what he was used to, but it was okay. Chris chugged that down, and tried a Blue Sky Free ginger ale. Said it tasted more like a standard ginger ale, he liked it fine.

Chris then tried a Zevia Wild Cherry. He said it was okay, but had a woody undertaste. I tried a sip, and could taste what he was talking about, but actually thought it lent a certain complexity. It was the sweetness I couldn't handle.

Seemed like we were doing well, here, so I packed up one of every flavor of soda I had and sent them with him, with instructions to write down his impressions, which instructions he followed, and fulsomely, too. I hereby transcribe Chris's notes and ratings. He used a 1-5 scale.

Zevia Lemon Lime Twist: "Tastes like lemon-lime (weak) Kool-Aid shot through w/club soda. The sweetener reminds me of Splenda, which is to say -- to my cane-sugar trained tongue -- it tastes artificial, ie, fake. I'd drink it if I HAD to, however... Rating: 2- 2 1/2

(I'm trying to figure out the circumstances under which he would have to drink soda...)

Zevia Cola: Tastes like Diet Pepsi watered down w/club soda. You may disagree, having more experience, but to me this stuff tastes like how I remember Tab tasting. I just dislike diet colas. Rating: 1 1/2-2

Zevia Ginger Root Beer: Tastes like any commercial root beer (eg A&W, Barq's, etc) shot through with club soda. I'm starting to notice a trend here... By the by, my definition of "club soda," which is to say the taste I'm tasting, is carbonated mineral water, yes? So -- this stuff is really good anyway. Hell, I finished the can. Rating: A solid 4.

Zevia Dr. Zevia: Tastes like Dr. Pepper meets Diet Cherry Coke... w/club soda! The cherry is light and kind of flowery, sort of, almost-ish. In that I had come in, thirsty, from the yard, I had to stop myself from chugging the whole thing. Quite to my taste, in other words. Rating: Another solid 4.

So there you go. Keep in mind that Chris is a die-hard sugary soda drinker. I need to assemble a panel of local diet soda fans to come over some hot Saturday and help me get what I suspect will be a more representative opinion sampling.