One could scarcely call a pale-green soft drink Pepsi. Nonetheless, here it is. Pepsi Ice Cucumber is an actual product, not a parody along the lines of Beef Twinkies. This bizarre beverage went on sale this week in Japan. As with many new products that experiment with flavors, it's only available for a limited time. I've savored sake with slivers of cucumber in it, but this green concoction strikes me as some sort of Zimalike mutant. While I'd love to think that Pepsi limited the supply of this new creation to boost future sales, after reading some reactions from bloggers in Japan, I'm not so sure. Japan Probe notes that the label describes the drink as a combination of cucumber and cola, but concludes that it has very little cola flavor. The blogger goes on to say that after the first few intriguing sips, the artificial cucumber renders it nasty. Japan Probe also has a post of some YouTube reactions to Pepsi Ice Cucumber. One fellow said it has a "green flavor, kind of like Satan's in my mouth." Mmm ... devil cola.

I noticed at the ex-Queens Head in Henley (now called the Idle Hour) that they have a super range of soft drinks - various fruit juice mixes even Root Beer, Dandelion and Burdock and 'real' lemonade and ginger beer. It would seem there is trend developing, as mentioned in yesterday's Independent, for style bars to offer such delights. Even I, partaker of vast quantities of Breakspears and Mount Gay Golden and Coke, have drunk more than a few recently.
At the end of last year, 









