d&g, ting, squirt

Michael has a theory about international sodas. Their makers all love Coca Cola (or at least, they love the success of Coca Cola), so the challenge for them is to make an equally successful yet tastier product. Pretty much every international soda that we've tasted thus far has decided to do so by dumping double the amount of sugar into whatever concoction they come up with. They seem to have concluded that everyone loves Coca Cola because it's sweet, so people will love their sodas twice as much if they were simply twice as sweet. In reality, the opposite effect takes place.

An excellent example is D&G  Pineapple Soda. At first, I had high hopes for this soda. It was purchased at a deli in the West Village, the bottle has a cartoon cat wearing shades (similar to MC Skat Kat from Paula Abdul's Opposites Attract video) and sipping his "Original Jamaican Flavor" soda through a straw.  The bottle also told me to "Stay Kool."  How could this be bad?

Alas,  D&G Pineapple Soda tasted like a liquid pineapple Starburst. I took only a few sips before I had to dump the rest of it. My teeth started to hurt from the sugar. And, D&G, you need to work on your bottle cap. If you had MC Skat Kat on your cap, I would have liked the soda a lot better! Just a tip.

Ting is another beverage from D&G -   and I just happened to have a bottle cap.  I don't remember when I got this, or what Ting tastes like, but according to the website, it is a grapefruit soda. Clearly D&G can know how to make a fun/interesting cap.  They should really think about the cat idea. The grapefruit aspect, however,  leads nicely into Squirt.....

Another very sweet, but surprisingly American soda is Squirt.  My bottle came from a local bodega, and I believe that it was actually from Mexico, not the US.  It had a refreshing citrus flavor, but unfortunately was way too sugary for my taste (I'm a Fresca girl, personally). This bottle was shared with Michael, who liked it more than me. He drank Squirt growing up and was more familiar with the taste.  He finished off the bottle. The cap, however, is great!  I wish that we had found one that wasn't so banged up, but the bodega didn't have much to chose from.