Since I already posted a picture of the bottles here, I'll give you a picture of the ad for Pepsi Dry that is running on the subway at present. The stick thin model speaks to the idea that this is a low calorie beverage, but the marketing is very much focused on the "dry" and less sweet angle. I think they're playing both sides (body conscious women, and men who like less sweet things).
Well, that was fast. I said I wasn't going to review it, but one of my commenters said this tastes nothing like regular Pepsi and I found it for 98 yen ($1.20) at Seiyu supermarket. With the gauntlet of oddness rightfully tossed before me, and the option to be the cheap ass I am, I decided to take the plunge and do a review. Incidentally, note that I got the calorie information wrong on this when I talked about it in the random picture previously. I recollected it was 11 calories per 100 ml, but it is actually 21 per 100 ml. That makes an entire bottle 105 calories.
After opening the bottle, I gave it a good sniff. It smells like cola, but somehow a bit weaker than usual. This could be my imagination, but that's the story and I'll stick with it until someone who pays better attention to the scent of colas points out that I am wrong... then I will humbly accept the correction and make use of the strikethrough option. That being said, when I took a sip, I had a sense of why it didn't smell as strong as regular cola. That's because it tastes like a weaker version of it as well.
When I lived in the U.S., I was a Pepsi drinker for many years before I switched to Diet Coke. I remember Pepsi's flavor quite well and that I liked it better than Coke. It was only when I swapped over to the carcinogenic (aka diet) version that I gave up Pepsi. This tastes like something else which I drank for many years, RC Cola. That is, it's a pale imitation of a bigger brand name cola. The flavor just falls flat on the tongue and if you hold it in your mouth for awhile, it seems to dissipate into the taste of club soda. It's not a bad taste really, but it is just not particularly good or refreshing.
I've mentioned before that I experiment with sugar-free baking because of the way in which the use of sugar spikes blood glucose levels, so I know that one of the things which you lose when you give up sugar is the way in which it enhances flavor (and adds moisture, but this is plenty moist no matter how much sugar you remove). It seems clear to me after sampling this that taking out the sugar has removed the "bite" from Pepsi and no one has done anything to augment it's flavor (like adding tons of sodium like they do with diet sodas). It's like a watered down version of Pepsi and I'm not a fan.
