Recently, Dr Pepper has been doing the most. They’ve released a coconut flavor, a blackberry flavor, a strawberries and cream flavor, and more, but this Valentine’s Day there is a new Dr Pepper flavor in town…the flavor in question? Dr Pepper Zero Sugar Cherry Crush. The “town” in question? England. Yes, the UK of all places is getting a limited edition Valentine’s Day Dr Pepper and we (the United States) aren’t. I know! What gives, @Dr Pepper? You couldn’t have thrown the U.S. a bone given everything that’s happening here and let us try this Valentine’s treat too? It’s a no-brainer given that aluminum cans are cheaper here due to having one less syllable than they do in the UK (I assume, I don’t work in supply chain). One could certainly argue we need this more right now—it’s been a rough month stateside, to say the least. But I digress, if we can’t sip the drink we can at least spill the tea, here is exactly what is available in the UK.
What will this new Dr Pepper flavor taste like? Is it named “crush” like the soda, the turtle from Finding Nemo, or that thing of when you’re smitten with the turtle from Finding Nemo? Is this Britain punishing us for using not using the metric system? Or for (*whispers*) the tea thing?
Okay, so what this new Dr Pepper flavor is supposed to taste like is “a new cherry twist on our zero sugar variant” according to the VP of the Euro arm of Coca-Cola. According to a bunch of different review videos from Brits across the UK, it tastes like everything from “Cherry Coke” (though that person had never had Dr Pepper before) to “just like Cherry Dr Pepper,” which does in fact exist to “just straight-up Dr Pepper.” Our best guess? It tastes like Dr Pepper with a very subtle hint of cherry flavor that you might only catch if you are pretty familiar with the taste of normal Dr Pepper to begin with. Admittedly, I haven’t had Dr Pepper in years, but for the longest time I thought it was black cherry flavored. Oh how wrong I was (it famously comprises 23 flavors). It would certainly be strange of them to come out with a cherry-flavored black cherry drink.
Dr Pepper Zero Sugar Cherry Crush has been available in the UK since January 27 and will be in stores through Valentine’s Day in 330mL, 500mL, 2L, and 8x330mL formats. Individual 330mL (80p) and 500L (£1.35) packs will also be available. Basically, if you are in England looking to buy this, there are lots of sizes (aka commitment to certain amount of soda) to choose from.
If you really are in the UK, please tell us how this is! Inquiring Sporked writers want to know. Is this flavor worth some hype? Or are we correct in our cherry-flavored “sour grapes” attitude that this flavor simply may not be good enough to have made it to the States? Or are we just pretending to be aloof so you bring us more new sodas and attention in the future? We’ll never tell.
