Pepsi Blue

If, as Marx said, history repeats itself as farce, what does farce repeat itself as? We soon may find out, as the Cola Wars that ravaged popular culture in the 1980s seem to be heating up again.

Last May, just before Coca-Cola released Vanilla Coke, Pepsi rushed out an announcement of its own newest weapon, Pepsi Blue, a berry-flavored cola aimed squarely at the teenage market. Now that Pepsi Blue has hit the streets, Coke — having no doubt noticed a looming blue-beverage gap — recently countered by announcing its own blue-colored entry, Fanta Berry.

Why blue? Well, for one, it may be connected to Pepsi's ongoing effort to trademark its corporate color across the globe. For another, they've already tried most of the other colors. In the last few years, the company has dedicated itself to rotting your teeth harder and faster, with such offerings as roseate, speed-in-a-bottle Mountain Dew Code Red, hardcore Sprite competitor Sierra Mist and furniture cleanerish Pepsi Twist. With Blue, Pepsi appears to be on a mission to conquer the spectrum. Perhaps indigo is next. (Actually, you can create that by mixing Mountain Dew Code Red and Pepsi Blue. It's like the fun and games in elementary school science class, but edible! Barely!)

Sound like the beverage industry is desperate for new ideas? They are. The soft-drink market, like the beer and pornographic magazine markets, is referred to as "mature," meaning pretty much everyone who wants a product is already buying it. Total sales of carbonated soft drinks in 2001 went up only 0.5% from the previous year, according to the Beverage Marketing Corporation. The average per-capita consumption was down for the third straight year, to 55.4 gallons in 2001 from 55.9 gallons in 1999. That's right: Your yearly cola consumption would slightly overfill one of those drum barrels used for disposing of mob informants, with slight spillage if the late informant is dropped in there like an ice cube.

One reason corporate confectioners are so fond of blue-colored beverages, perhaps, is that flavorwise there's no real-world analogue they even need pretend to imitate. The bottle labels Pepsi Blue as "Berry Cola Fusion." It goes without saying there is no ingredient listed to suggest that an actual berry or any type of fruit was involved in the making of this drink.

One further note on that "fusion": This word, meant to connote the seamless melding of disparate forces has instead given us grotesqueries like Croatian-Jamaican food and rap-rock. Perhaps not coincidentally, in another instance of happy synergy, Pepsi Blue is being promoted by Dreamworks Records' Papa Roach and Geffen/Interscope's "up-and-coming rock/rap group", Sev, whose new song premiered in a commercial that aired during MTV's Video Music Awards.

The drink itself has the look and smell of your average bottle of Glass Plus, but that olfactory preview can't prepare you for what's in store when you swallow it (nor, it seems, for what happens later). The stuff is strong. Take the already sugary taste of Pepsi, add more ingredients ending in -ose, kick up the carbonation by a factor of 10, then add whatever magical power the blue coloring gives, and you've got something that'll spin your teeth and set fire to your throat. It's the opposite of the more genteel, creamy Vanilla Coke. Instead of evoking nostalgia, this drink wants to sear the drinking experience permanently into your brain.

Pepsi Blue may not be flat-out disgusting, but its taste isn't intriguing enough to make you want to get your 55.4 gallons worth. God willing, the youth of today will reject this product, and convince Pepsi to abandon its foolish obsession with pigment. Pepsi Blue will go the way of Crystal Pepsi, the company's attempt to capitalize on the see-through-liquid fad of the early 1990s.

— Bob Cook (bobc@flakmag.com)