Sparkling Ice’s New Cherry Cola Sparkling Water Is a Soda in Disguise

If you’ve ever wished your grandma would walk around with a little more zest for life, I have great news: Sparkling Ice just launched a new addition to their line of 16oz canned caffeinated drinks. Today, I’ve got my hands on a can of new Sparkling Ice Caffeine Cherry Cola. Let’s figure out what the hell this is and how it tastes.

Is this actually a cola?

If I have a “beat” here at Sporked, it’s soda, which is why my answer to that question is particularly awkward. I’m not sure if this is a cola. The press release says this is a sparkling water, but I’m not convinced. It smells like a cola, tastes like a cola, and even looks like a cola. There’s no sugar, but there’s plenty of zero-sugar colas out there. I think Sparkling Ice made a cola by accident.

New Sparkling Ice Flavor!

Sparkling Ice Caffeine Cherry Cola

Casey’s

Pros: For a while now, I’ve held up Celsius’ Cherry Cola as the best zero-sugar cherry cola—energy drink or otherwise. That ends today. We have a new king. This zero-sugar sparkling water(!?) could easily pass as a cherry cola in a blind taste-test. The flavor is truly authentic to not just “cherry cola” but Cherry Coke. It’s even the right color! So many sparkling waters and energy drinks are clear (or a vibrant highlighter green that throws you off), but this looks like a Coke that had a little too much ice an hour ago.

Cons: If they’d just up the caffeine content, I could truly leave Celsius’ Cherry Cola in the dust. As it stands, 70mg of caffeine in a 16oz drink just isn’t going to cut it for most caffeine seekers. Bizarrely, that low total actually makes it an even better substitute for cola since a 16oz Coca-Cola contains an extremely comparable 54mg.

Credit: Liv Averett / Casey’s

Rating:

8.5/10

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