Orange Soda doesn’t taste like soda made of oranges. It tastes like the result of a groupthink session between forty Coca-Cola employees who have never eaten an orange, but have had the experience described to them in great detail. (I like the image of that last sentence, but there is a 45 percent chance that I accidentally stole it from someone, possibly David Foster Wallace. I tried Googling to see if it has been used before, but I couldn’t find anything. I could change it to avoid this problem altogether, but I sort of like it, and if I actually did come up with it, I might nominate myself for Forbes’ 30 Under 30. I am totally cribbing David Foster Wallace’s sometimes-irritating parenthetical comments, but I don’t think that’s technically plagiarism, just self-indulgent.)
American Fanta is labeled “100% Natural Flavors,” but of these flavors, none are orange juice. All-Natural and No-Orange? I am actually kind of impressed. It takes dedication to not include the fruit that is in the name. I feel like the FDA should have made this illegal by now.
Not that the nutritional content of soda really matters to me. Orange soda and ginger ale are my two favorites even though neither really tastes like the produce in their names. When I drink soda, I am not trying to improve my health. I am trying to test my body’s LIMITS. The “Made With Real Ginger!” label on Canada Dry somewhat bothers me. If it’s there, why can’t I taste it? I have eaten enough sushi to know that ginger is pungent.
For whatever reason, different countries have slightly different Fanta formulas. UK-brand Fanta has 5 percent juice. Spanish Fanta, a bottle of which my boi Sawyer got for me while in Spain, is 8 percent juice and comes in a curvaceous bottle.
Spanish Fanta tastes slightly better than American Fanta because of this 8 percent. There is just enough orange for you to recognize that what you’re drinking was partially living matter, but not enough for Coca-Cola to pretend it’s remotely healthy. It tastes like they poured a tiny bit of Orangina into a bottle of American Fanta, which is pretty much what I’m looking for. When I drink Orangina, I think, “I could have just poured seltzer in Tropicana to make this.” I couldn’t possibly make Fanta at home because my kitchen doesn’t have the required chemicals, preservatives, and dyes that make Fanta taste so good and look so dangerous.
Does Fanta have 89% of your daily sugar allowance? Yeah. Should you be drinking anything that has 44 grams of added sugar? No. But as A$AP Ferg once said, “People who are scared don’t live life.”
American Fanta: 8.2
Spanish Fanta: 8.5
“Live Life, Drink Fanta.”™ – Jacob Sweet
