"SoftDrinks" news and stories

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.

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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.

The Independent recommends three 'soft options' available from supermarkets and on the high street -

• Bon Grape Low Sugar Sparkling Grape Juice (Tesco £1.29) "low sugar means artifical additives must be used but the lively flavours make them worthwhile"
• Grove Fresh Original Tomato and Vegetable Juice (Tesco, Waitrose, Sainsburys £2.39-£2.79) "improbably good for you and entirely delicious"
• Fever-Tree Ginger Ale (Oddbins, Waitrose £2.99 for 4) "From themakers of the best tonic water around comes the best ginger ale. Great with proper rum"

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At the end of last year, Nick posted about Coca Sek, a soft drink that was being produced by the Nasa community, indigenous people to southern Colombia. The carbonated, citrus-flavored soft drink is made from coca leaves, the same coca leaves that are processed with solvents and other chemicals to produce cocaine. However, the narcotic form, cocaine, is foreign to the Nasa people, for whom the coca leaf is sacred. Nasa people consume coca leaves by simply chewing them and in the form of food and tea.

Despite controversy with respect to indigenous peoples' rights, drugs, economies, Coca Sek sales are gaining ground. What was initially a production volume of 3,000 bottles a week has almost tripled. Governments are backing off the Nasa people who are claiming sovereignty, the Nasa people are trying to "mainstream" coca leaves by promoting their pain-killing, nutritive, and spiritual benefits. Additionally, the producers of Coca-Sek are paying a higher price for coca leaves - about $15/bag of leaves - which is higher than what drug traffickers offer. That makes Coca-Sek an effective weapon in the war on drugs because "each leaf that goes to making the drink is one leaf less for the narcos."

Still, I highly doubt that Coca Sek will ever make it to the US.