| Score |
Name |
Explanation |
8 |
Diet Cherry Coke |
Coke seems to have pushed Diet Cherry a lot in recent years, along
with Diet Vanilla, and I for one am quite happy about that. Smooth and
mellow without being overly sweet (Pepsi's Strawberries and Cream should
take note), Diet Cherry is always enjoyable. |
| 3 |
Diet Coke with Lime |
Like Diet Coke with Lemon, Diet Coke with Lime tastes and smells bad. It smells like
something you'd mop the floor, with and it tastes too sweet to be lime. When you actually get a
lime wedge in a restaurant, one reason it's nice is because the sourness of the lime nicely
complements the sweetness of the soda. That's completely lost here. Too much sweet, not enough sour. |
| 6 |
Diet Pepsi Lime |
Besides having a briefer name than Diet Coke *with* Lime, Diet Pepsi
Lime also tastes quite a bit better. Not as sugary-tasting as Diet
Coke with Lime, which is a good thing. |
| 9 |
Tab Energy |
You wouldn't know this was a diet drink (5 calories) if you hadn't
read the label. Has a great sour watermelon taste. Better than Sugar-Free
Red Bull. |
| 8 |
Diet A&W Root Beer |
The root beer taste does a great job of covering up the typical artificial
sweetener taste. Of course, if you don't like root beer to begin with, don't bother. |
| 8 |
Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper |
This seems like a lot of flavors to cram into one container, but
it's actually pretty good. However, it might've been better to get
two individual flavors instead of one hybrid. Maybe they were trying
to one-up Coke? Anyhow, I'm really impressed with the strong flavor.
Subtlety is overrated. |
| 9 |
Diet Sunkist |
Excellent. Hardly tastes like a diet drink at all. One of the best.
|
| 8 |
Jones Soda Black Cherry Sugar Free |
Wow. Wow. The black cherry flavor in this one is a lot stronger than you'll
get in major brands like Dr. Pepper or Coke. Nicely done. Only the artificial sweetener
after-taste keeps it from greatness.
|
| 6 |
Coke Zero |
This is indeed better than Diet Coke, so mission accomplished. Tastes pretty close
to regular coke, so I'm surprised it's not more popular. Of course, part of the
problem is that it's nearly not as ubiquitous as Diet Coke.
|
| 4 |
Diet Canada Dry Ginger Ale |
Has a pretty mellow, ginger-y, Sprite-like taste. Tastes a lot like regular Ginger Ale, so if I liked
regular Ginger Ale, I'd probably like this too. Unfortunately, I don't.
|
| 5 |
Diet Coke |
Not compelling, but not disappointing either. When people think of what diet soda tastes like, they think
of this one. The industry standard, the workhorse, good ol' reliable Joe. It's available pretty much
anywhere soda is sold, and it gets the job done. It's something of a gateway drink - if you like this one,
you can drink almost any diet soda.
|
| 3 |
Vault Zero |
Coke's competitor to Diet Mountain Dew. It has a citrus taste that's similar to Mountain Dew - and apparently
has even more caffeine - but it also has too much of the artificial sweetener
taste. Bad.
|
| 7 |
Diet Black Cherry Vanilla Coke |
I don’t understand how this drink came about. There was already Diet Cherry Coke and Diet Vanilla Coke.
So why combine them? Also, I'm not sure why this is called 'Black' Cherry; I don't really taste any 'blackness.'
Apparently this may replace the Vanilla line in the future, which is too bad, because I prefer keeping
Diet Cherry and Diet Vanilla separate. This is still good, however, and you can somewhat taste individual
cherry and vanilla flavors.
|
| 10 |
Diet Rite Red Raspberry |
Fantastic. This one completely surprised me. The raspberry flavor is just bursting out. The best one I've tried all year. |
| 7 |
Pepsi One |
That one calorie makes all the difference in the world, because
Pepsi One is quite good, especially compared to Diet Pepsi.
It's a shame that Pepsi One isn't more readily available, as I can't
see anyone liking Diet Pepsi more than this. It definitely
comes closer to the taste of regular soda than Diet Pepsi does. |
| 7 |
Diet Mountain Dew |
I used to start the day with a 20 ounce Diet Mountain Dew in place
of coffee. It's cool, refreshing, and has lots of caffeine.
Most importantly, it has that classic lemon-citrus Mountain Dew
taste. This tastes better than Vault but doesn't have as much
caffeine. |
| 7 |
Sprite Zero |
The Sprite Zero can announces that it contains the "Same
Great Taste!" I'm not sure if they're saying it tastes
the same as Diet Sprite, or regular Sprite. I'm guessing it's
the former, but the latter turns out to be true as well; it tastes
similar to regular Sprite. It shares the distinction with Diet
Dr. Pepper of being the major brand that's closest to the taste of
the original. Though a lot of people enjoy the unoffensive,
sweetened lemon seltzer-water taste of Sprite, I still find it too
common and passive to fully recommend. |
| 6 |
Lo-Carb Monster Energy |
This energy drink reminds me a lot of Rockstar's sugar-free energy
drink. They both have a tropical, fruity taste with a
strangely bitter aftertaste. Caffeine is supposed to have a
bitter taste, so maybe the bitter taste in these drinks is due to
their tremendous caffeine content. The can I bought cost
$1.99 for 16 ounces, so compared to Sugar-Free Rip-It it's not a
great value, but it is cheaper than Sugar-Free Red Bull. And
not surprisingly, it tastes better than the former but worse than
the latter. |
| 9 |
Diet Rite Pure Zero Tangerine |
You know a diet soda is good if, after you try it, you double
check the bottle to make sure it's actually diet. Diet
Rite Tangerine Pure Zero is that good. Maybe it's the 0
caffeine or the 0 sodium, but these Diet Rite guys are definitely
doing something right (no pun intended...well, maybe it was intended a little). Orange
soda is pretty common so it doesn't have the shock value of Red
Raspberry, which is why it gets a slightly lower score. |
| 2 |
Diet Rite White Grape |
Tastes like carbonated white grape juice...with a terrible
artificial sweetener aftertaste. No one would ever drink
this. Not grape juice fans, not soda fans, and definitely not
fans of things that taste good. |
| 7 |
Diet Dr. Pepper |
The medicine-like taste of Dr. Pepper
conquers all, as this tastes very close to regular. If you
like Dr. Pepper, you'll like this. If you're trying to make
the switch, this is the best gateway diet soda. |
| 9 |
Arizona Diet Green Tea Energy Drink |
Outstanding. I really like this one.
Smooth green tea taste, lightly carbonated. Tastes WAY better
than most energy drinks, save for Tab Energy. |
| 8 |
Main Street Diet Cream Soda |
Main Street is Giant Supermarket's own
brand of soda, and Main Street Diet Cream Soda delivers exactly what
you want from a store-brand soda: it's always cheap, tastes good,
and provides something not easily found from the major brands - a
diet cream soda. It's good enough, in fact, that I'd buy this
even if it weren't cheap, especially because I never see any other
diet cream sodas in the store, even though they're known to exist. |
| 1 |
Diet SunPop Grape |
This is another one of Giant
Supermarket's own brand of sodas. And it's dreadful.
Undrinkable. It tastes so similar to grape cough syrup that
I'd rather drink cough syrup, as that would at least cure my
cough. |
| 5 |
Diet Caffeine Free Coke |
There is a slight difference between Diet
Caffeine Free and regular Diet Coke. Caffeine Free tastes a tiny
bit sweeter, but the difference is negligible. |
| 7 |
Rockstar Zero Carb |
Though magenta in color, this still
tastes like the same "fruit" in other Rockstar drinks
(I've heard it described as passion fruit, which is probably a good
description.). It's good though, and avoids the bitterness and
bad aftertaste of some of its competitors. |
| 7 |
Diet A&W Sparkling Vanilla Cream Soda |
I had to travel to Manhattan to find this
stuff, and to be honest, I'm a bit disappointed. It's good,
but I was expecting great. It's too heavily carbonated.
The carbonation adds "bite," but the vanilla flavor is too
subtle for this much carbonation. |
| 8 |
Dr. Brown's Diet Cream Soda |
This is another soda I had to travel to
NYC to find. I commend Dr. Brown for doing what he can within
the diet cream soda genre. If you think about it, you can't
really knock someone's socks off with a vanilla soda; vanilla is too
subtle of a taste, and if you overdo the vanilla flavor, it would
make people sick. That being said, I think this is probably as
good as it will realistically get for diet vanilla soda. Just
the right level of carbonation (A&W has too much, Main Street
has too little) and a flavorful vanilla taste. But rest
assured that if I do find a diet cream soda better than this, you'll
read about it here. |
| 7 |
Dr. Brown's Diet Black Cherry |
I've given up trying to figure out what
"black" cherry is. I'm just going to assume that it
means cherry. This tastes a lot like Cherry 7-Up. It's
too carbonated but hardly tastes like diet soda. |
| 6 |
Tab |
As I try more and more diet sodas, I'm
starting to taste a lot of similarities. Tab, for instance,
reminds me of Coke Zero. In other words, it's similar to Diet
Coke, but tastes less like a diet soda. |
| 6 |
Fresca Sparkling Black Cherry Citrus |
Yet another black cherry drink.
This one, like other Fresca varieties, is clear and citrus-y.
The cherry flavor is very subtle - not nearly as strong as the
citrus flavor. If I hadn't seen the can beforehand, I probably
wouldn't have known about the [black] cherry flavor. |
| 5 |
Fresca Sparkling Peach Citrus |
More so than Fresca Black Cherry, this
has a noticeable peach flavor. And yet, it's still not that
good. I think the problem is that it tastes a bit too much
like a diet drink. |
| 7 |
Main Street Diet Root Beer |
Another solid one from the guys at Main
Street. Not quite as good as Diet A&W, but good
nonetheless. |
| 7 |
Diet Berries & Cream Dr. Pepper |
This is a combination that doesn't seem
like it would work, yet it does. You can taste the berries,
and can at least fathom a cream taste. Between this and Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper,
those PhDs at Dr. Pepper have nailed the task of "adding fruit
flavor to a non-fruit-flavored cola." |
| 6 |
Canada Dry Diet Cranberry Ginger Ale |
There aren't many cranberry-flavored sodas
around, so it is unique in that aspect. I just wish it weren't
so carbonated so you could really taste the cranberry. |
| 8 |
Canfield's Diet Cherry Chocolate Fudge |
I can see the headlines in the gossip
columns tomorrow: "Local Degenerate Admits he Enjoys Bizarre
Chocolate Soda." Well, I don't live my life for the
tabloids, and this cherry and chocolate-flavored soda is
delicious. If you are open-minded enough to accept this
coupling, try it. |
| 7 |
NOS Sugar Free High Performance Energy
Drink |
This reminds me of Sunny Delight.
It's sweet and orangey, but more of an approximation of orange than a
real orange taste. It tastes pretty good for an energy drink
(in case you're wondering, "NOS" refers to nitrous oxide). |
| 4 |
Diet Quist |
Another soda from Giant Supermarkets, but
this one is a "miss." It's in a crowded category,
lemon-lime, and it just doesn't taste quite right. The
artificial sweetener taste is too evident, giving this a slightly
off-putting taste. |
| 3 |
Sugar Free Rip-It |
I find myself drinking this a lot because it's cheap and has lots
of caffeine (and guarana and taurine, whatever those are), but I'm
occasionally reminded that it's not very good at all. It doesn't taste as
good as Sugar-free Red Bull or Tab, at least. But you can't have everything
when it's 99 cents for 16 ounces. |
| 3 |
Sugar-Free Jones Root Beer |
I still don't know if I like root
beer. The last few root beers I reviewed got high marks, and I
was beginning to think I really liked root beer. But
immediately after trying this one, I was put off. It's
definitely the "rootiest" root beer I've tried, though. |
| 4 |
Diet Coke with Splenda |
Not sure who came up with this one.
This is worse than Diet Coke. Making it with Splenda has worsened the artificial sweetener after-taste problem.
|
| 2 |
Diet Pepsi Jazz Strawberries & Cream |
There are few sodas that actually cause me
displeasure. This is one of them. I would rather be
dehydrated than drink this. The "strawberries &
cream" taste is just too cloyingly icky-sweet, and it's all
wrong for a diet soda.
|
| 10 |
Sugar-Free Jones Green Apple Soda |
I've never tried a soda that captures a
flavor as well as this soda captures that sour, green apple
taste. And on top of that, there's no hint whatsoever of it
being a diet soda. Absolutely brilliant.
|
| 6 |
Diet Lime Go 2 Cola |
This is Safeway's in-house brand, and it's
pretty good. The lime here is actually sour, unlike the
overly-sweet lime in Diet Coke with Lime, which is terrible.
|
| 5 |
Diet Rockstar Energy Drink |
Sour, fruity, and bitter are the three
components I taste here. Unlike Sugar-free Rip It, I wouldn't
mind drinking this even if I weren't on the prowl for
caffeine. It's not great though (especially not the
aftertaste), and there are definitely better tasting energy drinks
out there, including Rockstar Zero Carb.
|
| 6 |
Diet Pepsi Jazz Black Cherry French
Vanilla |
There have been a lot of Black
Cherry-Vanilla combinations lately, but Pepsi does them one better
with a Black Cherry-French Vanilla. This is the
"other" Diet Pepsi Jazz, aka the good one, aka the one you
wouldn't have to be completely parched and wandering through the
desert to enjoy. Once again, the adjectives (Black and French)
are superfluous, but this is still worth trying. It tastes
remarkably similar to Diet Black Cherry Vanilla Coke, but I think
the Diet Pepsi base is not quite as good as the Diet Coke base.
|
| 9 |
Waist Watcher Diet Black Cherry |
I'd take this over a black cherry-vanilla
cola any day. Unlike all of those, which combine a cherry,
vanilla, and cola taste, this focuses on just the cherry taste, and
it's fantastic. Very flavorful.
|
| 6 |
Cherry Coke Zero |
I think Waist Watchers Black Cherry has
spoiled me, because I can no longer see the appeal of half-hearted,
half-cola, half-cherry sodas. Despite being a "new"
drink and having its label designed by Rocawear, this tastes
pretty stale. It's too similar to Diet Cherry Coke for me to
care.
|
| 5 |
Diet Schweppes Ginger Ale |
The Schweppes people do something a little
interesting with this ginger ale by giving it very little
carbonation. Also, this ginger ale doesn't try to kill you
with its ginger taste.
|
| 3 |
Diet Pepsi Jazz Caramel Cream |
Caramel Cream? I had never seen a
caramel soda before. But there it was, sitting in the
refrigerated section of my local 7-11. I had to try it.
What I drank was something that did resemble caramel. However,
therein lies the problem: caramel and cola don't really go
well together. It just ends up tasting too sweet, much like
the Jazzy Strawberries & Cream concoction I detested previously.
|
| 8 |
Diet Rite Black Cherry |
Another excellent Diet Rite soda. By
focusing on just a deep, bold, black cherry taste, instead of adding
a cola or vanilla taste to it, we have another winner here. I
would love to see the Rite guys tackle a non-fruit flavored
soda.
|
| 2 |
Diet Hansen's Tangerine Green Tea Soda |
With these smaller brands, it can go
either way. It can be an undiscovered gem, or a rightfully
undiscovered abomination. This is an abomination. For
something made out of Splenda, it tastes horrible. It tastes
like a mixture of tea, orange, an awful artificial sweetener taste,
and some kind of root taste. If not a root, it's a branch, or
something out of the forest. Maybe it's the 35 mg of ECGC?
Who knows. It comes in a tall 16 ounce can, but who wants it?
|
| 9 |
Boylan Bottleworks Diet Creme |
As one of the few sodas that still
requires a proper bottle opener, I expected great things from this
addition to the crowded diet cream soda field (or "diet creme,"
as it's spelled here). I was not disappointed. The first
sip revealed a lightly-carbonated, butterscotch taste that I found
quite pleasing. The butterscotch aftertaste stays on your
tongue but is not off-putting. Even better than Dr.
Brown's.
|
| 8 |
Diet Cricket Cola |
I originally reviewed this soda several
months ago, but I had to remove it from the site because the
conditions under which I tried it did not meet my later-established
criteria: the place where I bought it didn't have any ice, so I had
to drink it straight from the bottle. Anyway, I'm happy to
report that the past several months have not diminished my
satisfaction with Diet Cricket Cola. On paper it doesn't sound
great - combine green tea with diet cola - but the results are
sublime. This hardly tastes like a diet soda at all.
|
| 7 |
Sugar-Free Jones Black Cherry Soda |
The Jones boys have made a pretty good
black cherry soda here, but this is a crowded field and there are
better variations. Diet Rite and Waist Watcher are both better
than this one, which has a bit too much of an artificial sweetener
taste.
|
| 6 |
Diet Pepsi Wild Cherry |
A long time ago, some guy realized that
cola tastes better with a cherry flavor added to it. That guy
was Thomas Edison, and though cherry cola was just one of his many,
many inventions, it is probably his most significant after the light
bulb. In fact, cherry cola has become so commonplace that I
completely overlooked Diet Pepsi Wild Cherry; before my friend T.D.
pointed out my omission, I thought I had already reviewed it.
If you've tried Diet Cherry Coke, you're in for a similar taste
here. The cherry flavor definitely improves the sub-par Diet
Pepsi base. Also, I made up that Edison thing.
|
| 7 |
Vanilla Coke Zero |
Coke finally has a winner with their Zero
band of sodas. I wouldn't be surprised to see it replace Diet
Coke and its variations in the future. Because there's less of
an artificial sweetener taste, the subtle vanilla taste is allowed
to come through. I can't wait to try a Lime Coke Zero.
|
| 4 |
Diet Pepsi |
If you been to Taco Bell, KFC, or the
University of Maryland lately, you've been forced to tolerate Diet
Pepsi in place of Diet Coke. It's not as good. The
diet-y taste is stronger here than it is in Diet Coke.
|
| 3 |
Diet Coke Plus |
Diet Coke Plus has some vitamins and
minerals that make it better for you than your average soda, but it also
tastes worse than Diet Coke. It comes on too strong - the
artificial sweetener taste is overwhelming.
|