Frute Brute cereal

 

Product circa: 2022 (and many years before and still to come)

Part of the Count Chocula entourage that makes its appearance seasonally.  This is the first time I had heard of Frute Brute, despite it existing, in various forms, since 1974.

Ever had cherry cereal?  I bet you haven’t.  These seem to be cherry flavored paws with the occasional marshmallow to provide most of the sweetness.  The cherry flavoring really works well here, it’s quite a novel and pleasant experience.  If I ate cereal on the reg, and if this stuff were available on the reg, I would definitely make a habit of buying it.

Dr. Pepper Cherry

 

Product circa: 2025

I didn't realize this product was around until a friend gave it to me.  I'm going to assume that it's Ephemeral in the sense that it might be regional, seasonal, or just not available at all times everywhere.

Very tasty!  I wish it were around more, I would probably buy it semi-regularly.  However, that's only because I don't have regular access to Cheerwine, which is basically a better version of this.

The Dr. Pepper Cherry has a cherry-heavy flavor, like Cheerwine, but I feel like the spicy Dr. Pepper base actually minimizes my enjoyment, in this case.

Mountain Dew Fruit Quake

 

Product circa: 2022

These are post-hoc thoughts from memory.  Ostensibly a fruitcake-flavored Dew (I love fruitcake), instead this is really perhaps the best fruit punch soda I have ever had, with a heavy concentration on cherry.  Fantastic.  I hope they re-release it with a more welcoming and crowd-pleasing name/branding.

Pepsi Wild Cherry & Cream & Zero Sugar

Product circa: 2025

Note: This is a Presumptive Ephemeral Nom

As many brand competitors (in many industries) tend to release similar products to compete at the same time, this release coincides with Coke's Orange & Cream varietal.

As someone who claims that Pepsi Vanilla is his favorite soda of all time, and who also believes that Pepsi Wild Cherry is truly exceptional, I was very excited for this.  Sadly, while this stuff is taste, I think its probably a worse product than either mentioned above.  It is lesser than the sum of its parts.  I think the flavors just get a bit too jumbled.  It might have been possible to blend this in a way that worked better, but maybe not.  The vanilla tastes odd, and the cherry doesn't taste quite like the flavor in Pepsi Wild Cherry.  The Zero Sugar version isn't bad, but I don't taste vanilla at all.

7-Up Shirley Temple

 

Note: This is a Presumptive Ephemeral Nom.

Product circa: New Year 2025

A novel and quaint idea, this stuff is very scant on flavor.  It's sweeter than 7-Up, and the color is cute, but I'm not getting any flavor that's easily identifiable.  I could be convinced easiest of cherry, and there is some generic berry flavor that might be trying to simulate pomegranate.  I've read excited and nuanced reviews of this stuff online, and my opinion is that they are getting caught up in the marketing.  This is a fun product, but in the end, it's a sweet "pink" lemon-lime drink.

M&M's Cherry Cordial

 

Product circa: Intermittently from 2008, to maybe even the present; might have been seasonal for Valentine's Day or Christmas.

A very impressive feat.  They managed to make these taste like actual cherry cordials and not the artificial cherry that flavors every candy or soda we've ever had.  I don't know what the "cherry cordial" flavor is, but they got it.  Other than how incredible a technical feat this is, it's not overwhelmingly tasty.

Sprite Chill

 

Product circa: Spring 2024

Cherry lime isn't exactly a very innovative flavor to add to Sprite, but I think this works pretty well.  The cherry is restrained, and I don't even taste the fake lime flavor... perhaps they added just enough to provide a bitter balance to the cherry.  Overall, not bad, but nothing something I'll yearn for when it's gone.

Mountain Dew Game Fuel Citrus Cherry

 

Product circa: 2016

Mountain Dew Holiday Brew & Merry Mash-Up

 

Products circa: holiday seasons 2017 and 2018-2020, respectively

Holiday Brew: Evidently this is just a mix of regular Dew and Code Red... so it's just a "diluted" Code Red?  It certain tastes like it.

Merry Mash-Up: I can detect cranberry in this, but otherwise it just tastes vaguely like a "red" Dew.  I'd love to see them take another try at a cranberry Dew!

Mountain Dew VooDEW 2023

 

Product circa: Halloween 2023

An overall cherry-heavy fruit punch Dew, very similar to even a previous year's VooDEW flavor.  Reading further, it seems that this ended up being a cross-branded flavor, using flavoring from cherry Airhead candies.  Spot on!

Sprite LeBron's Mix

Product circa: summer 2015

LeBron's Mix was actually a reprise of Sprite's "6 Mix by LeBron James" which had appeared a year before.  Both had the same formula: a Sprite base with cherry and orange mixed in.  The promotion seemed to be nothing more than Coca-Cola attempting to cash in on LeBron's immense popularity from the early 2010s.  I presume that LeBron himself collaborated on how his mix would taste, but I'm not sure.

Sprite variations, which are seldom, tend to be quite good, but this one falls short.  The first half of each sip is nice, with a cherry-like Sprite vibe, but the aftertaste is like cheap orange candy.  Each swig plays with your emotions, such that it ends up being worse than the original product.

So unfortunately, the flavored Sprite exceptionalism ended in 2015.


Sprite LeBron's Mix:- Passable
Original Sprite (for comparison):- Good

Gatorade Cool Blue Cherry

Reviewed here almost a year late is Gatorade Cool Blue Cherry, a limited edition that was a sister product to Gatorade Strawberry Lemonade, both of which were flavors exclusive to 7-Eleven for the summer of 2013.

Cool Blue Cherry has more than meets the eye.  The sip starts with simple sweet cherry, which is a bit off-putting due to the blue color.   The sweetness, however, is tempered with an additional tang/sourness that isn't found in the normal line of Gatorades.  But then comes an additional note afterward, which I swear is pineapple.  It's a strange combination, but the overall tone of the drink is more tropical than simply cherry cough syrup, like I was expecting.

It's simple, well-executed, and surprising.

Gatorade Cool Blue Cherry:- Outstanding

Original Gatorade(Orange, for comparison):- Good

acquired: 7-Eleven

Canada Dry Black Cherry Wishniak

Wishniak is a black cherry soda that is named after real wishniak, which is actually an Eastern European vodka-based black cherry liqueur. (If you like reading about liquor, check out my other site here.) Legend has it that this genre of soda was conceived and named in the Eastern European disaporae of Philadelphia.  A brand called Frank's was probably the original version, and it call still be bought today.

Some of the larger soft drink companies have issued their own versions of Wishniak, and Canada Dry is among them, which denotes it as a limited availablity(specifically, probably regional) varietal.

Full disclosure: I'm not a big fan of black cherry flavored foods.  I find that I prefer sweeter cherry flavors like found in Coca-Cola Cherry or Cheerwine.

The flavor of this stuff is pretty good.  It's a tad more bitter and sour than more traditional cherry sodas, but it maintains a sweetness that keeps it more on the crowd-pleaser side.  This may be a bit tame for true black cherry enthusiasts.  The flavor is indeed "dark" with a character that will remind you of other dark berries, such as raspberry or grape.  There's also a bit of black pepper that bites you near the end.  On the swallow, this soda manages to leave a short crisp finish with almost no aftertaste.

Canada Dry Black Cherry Wishniak: (Good)

Acquired: privately-owned convenience store