What Now

A KELLY PRATT CONSUMER REPORT: Coca-Cola Blak

I have a manic desire to try stuff with unusual flavors. One of the great joys in my life is to stop at some out of the way store and come across a drink or candy that I’ve never tried before. Granted, it’s not always a good thing, but what can I say? I want to make everyday an adventure if I can, right? So during my lunch break today, I stopped in to Target to grab a South Beach wrap when I came across a new beverage. This drink is called “Coca-Cola Blak” with a curvy thing over the “a”. The bottle states that it is a “carbonated fusion beverage”. It was a little expensive, almost $6 for a four pack, but I had already decided that six dollars wasn’t too much to pay to try something new. Besides, they weren’t selling them individually. I had read about these before somewhere. A Blak is a mixture of Coke and Coffee. That is correct, you heard me, Coke and Coffee. Granted, that sounds a little disgusting, but I was willing to be the guinea pig. You never know when you’ll find something you really love. Anyways, so I grab one of the bottles and bring it into the office to try after I ate lunch.
When I was actually ready to try it, I kind of just carried it around for a while. It was like when you have to take medicine and you’re pretty much convinced it’s going to taste like battery acid, so you put off doing it for a as long as you can. That was me and this little brown bottle. I finally walked down the hall to Ed’s office and asked if he had ever had one. He had not, but he seemed just as intrigued as I was. We looked at it for a moment and talked of other things, but I finally opened the cap and sniffed it. It didn’t smell bad, just maybe a little strange. It had kind of a fruity-coffee smell, like when you go into a coffee shop that sells pastries or something. When I finally worked up enough nerve, I tasted it. Do the words “HOLY RUSTED METAL, BATMAN!” mean anything to you? It. Was. Gross. Ed tried it, and he had the same reaction. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t unbearable (which is good because I now have to consume the entire 4 pack so as not to waste money) but the taste sort of sneaks up on you. It’s like a coke float made by the demons of hell, or at least like one of those things you create when you’re a kid when you’re “cooking” with stuff you pull out of the fridge and mix together. Not only does it taste bad, it leaves an oily feeling slick on your tongue. I guess that could be the coffee extract or something, but I’m not sure. The only truly positive things I can say about it is it is low in calories and carbs, the packaging is nice, and after about 10 minutes the caffeine kicks in and you feel like you’re skin is crawling off. Trust me, anything to take your mind off of the taste. Ed, who only had one swallow of it, and I both had to scavenge for other things to eat or drink after this experiment to get the taste out of our mouths.
I think maybe someone ought to go to Atlanta and check out the Coca-Cola folks who came up with this. Something tells me that they knocked back a few of the OLD cokes that still had cocaine in them when they were brainstorming for new flavors. I’m not going to tell you not to try it, but I am going to advise you to keep a packet of Wet-Naps handy. Not because I think you’ll spit out the Coca-Cola Blak and need to clean up, but because you’ll probably need to eat one afterwards to take you’re mind off of the taste in your mouth.

NO THUMBS UP. GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER…