02 April, 2012

Guarana Soda

I was at The Barn, a sort of job-lot grocery store in Greenfield, MA, when I found this: Guarana soda. It was at a truly bargain price: $1.00 per 12-pack (that's not a typo. It really was twelve cans for one dollar.) Imported from Brazil, the soda is flavored with guarana berries and sweetened with cane sugar. Lynnafred put a couple of 12-packs into our shopping cart. "First of all," she said, "Guarana is delicious. And second of all, they're loaded with caffeine. This soda is guaranteed to be excellent."

It is excellent, actually. I'm not sure how much caffeine is in the soda (the label doesn't say) but the flavor is very good. Sort of fruity with a hint of citrusy sharpness. Lynnafred says it tastes a lot like Monster energy drink, which makes sense because guarana is a big ingredient in Monster.

For me, though, the flavor is startlingly similar to one of my favorite defunct soft drinks, OK Soda, a one-time product of the Coca-Cola Company which was briefly test-marketed in 1993.

Guarana is good stuff, refreshing and a little fruity. We liked it well enough to run back up to The Barn again at the end of the week to buy five more 12-packs. Chances are, it's going to be hard for us to find in the future.

5 comments:

Scott Spolverino said...

Do me a favor and send me a twelver?

Jen said...

Lucky!!! I was a Brazilian exchange student and that was my favorite soda down there. And it's so hard to find up here!

Anonymous said...

OK SODA. That was my favorite. I called that hotline so many times. It was great. Sometimes I mix cola with orange soda and try to relive the good ol' days.

Anonymous said...

That is a bargain! Even in Brazil you cannot get that price for 12 cans in the supermarkets. 2 years ago I was there and buying 1 single can was already US$ 0.50. They usually have expiry dates on them, were they good still?

shawnamcc said...

I saw "guarana" and my eyes lit up, so I had to say something. I've been to Rio many times, and while I have never have seen this particular brand, I can safely say that the best guarana, and this is coming from both my taste buds (I've tried other brands)and my Brazilian friends... is that Guarana Antarctica is the best there is... Perhaps because it's probably the more expensive brand, but it seems in my experience with Brazilians... the more expensive something is, the better it is...