Review – Dr Pepper Vanilla Float, Cherry Vanilla and Dark Berry

For nearly a year now, I’ve been meaning to write this post… and now it’s here. For my birthday last year, I thought I’d order some Dr Pepper with flavours that I can’t get in Germany. Among them are Vanilla Float, Cherry Vanilla and Dark Berry. Sadly, I didn’t have the chance, at the time, to check out Cream Soda, but eventually, it made come over here as well, who knows?

As a bit of context here, I’m a Dr Pepper addict. I love it way too much. It’s a nice flavour that tastes kind of differently whenever I try it. Sometimes, it reminds me of spices and sometimes it kind of tastes like cherry. At times, it even tastes like marzipan, which is great. I mean, I have no clue what is in there apart from lots of caffeine, sugar and more caffeine but I love it regardless of that!

The flavours I can get over here are the standard Dr Pepper, Dr Pepper Zero, Dr Pepper Energy, and Dr Pepper Cherry. I don’t like cherries too much, which is why Dr Pepper Cherry isn’t my favourite here… and I don’t really notice a difference in taste when it comes to Zero and the Standard, apart from one being a tad less sweet, I guess… and the Energy-Drink-variant is alright, although there’re better energy drinks out there… but when it comes to sodas, Dr Pepper is clearly my favourite.

This has many reasons apart from the taste as well. The branding is great and the design of the cans are lovely. On top of that, I can get 24 cans of Dr Pepper for only 7€ in Luxembourg if I ever go there again… and overall, it’s a taste that not everyone likes, which kind of makes it special. In Germany, it was advertised with the slogan “Schmeckt, aber nicht jedem”, after all. This roughly translates to “Tastes good, but isn’t for everything” but can also be interpreted as “Not everyone likes it” or “It tastes good but not everyone sees it” due to the wordplay there. They are aware of the unique flavour and cash in on that, which is something I like. It’s self-aware, kind of ironic, a bit quirky, and I guess that’s the average Dr Pepper fan in a nutshell as well, which works.

Now, as far as the sodas here go, we usually have 0,33l cans here but the cans that arrived actually came in bigger cans. In America, everything is bigger, after all, I’ve been told. The cans I got are a tad taller and feature 0,355l of soda in them aka 12 FL OZ.

Anyways, first up, we’ve got the Vanilla Float flavour! Personally speaking, I’ve never heard of this one before and I’ve never heard of Vanilla Float, period. The concept of dumping ice cream into a glass and pouring soda over it felt so foreign and barbaric to me that I immediately fell in love with it. I’d imagine that root beer (something that I only recently enjoyed myself for the very first time) would taste incredible with the addition of vanilla ice cream.

As far as the presentation goes, the can looks great! The “vanilla” colour of the can works incredibly well with the dark red of the logo and the small vertical stripes on the can make the can really stand out. As far as the soundtrack goes, it sounds like any other can. No matter if you kick it, tap it, or throw it, it always sounds, feels and hurts the same as any other can.

The flavour is very good. You can easily taste the vanilla-ice-cream-esque flavour out of it but it still has that Dr Pepper after taste – and interestingly, that works really well together. I’m honestly quite intrigued about trying out making an actual Vanilla Float with Dr Pepper but maybe I’ll wait with that until Summer when the heat is going to kill me over here in my top-floor-flat with the sun burning me to a crisp through that window right there that you (hopefully?) can’t see from wherever you’re reading this from. Now, I love vanilla but the fact that it actually tastes so strongly like it and the fact that you still can taste the Dr Pepper flavour out of it… is incredible. I would have thought that it either tastes like Dr Pepper or like Vanilla but they did a great job with conveying this feeling of unity between the two, and I love that.

Next up, we’ve got Dr Pepper Cherry-Vanilla. I said earlier that Dr Pepper already kind of has the taste of Cherry in it and that I don’t rate the cherry-flavoured variant that highly, but in this case, I was quite intrigued as it’s Dr Pepper with Cherry-AND-Vanilla-flavour. First up, the presentation looks fresh and adorable, in a way. The can features a lovely dark red in the background with slightly lighter tones of red in the form of vertical stripes that then get complimented with thinner bright-yellow/vanilla-ish stripes as well. The Dr Pepper logo also has a mix of two types of red and a bit of black in it and has the addition of a vanilla-ish-coloured “Cherry Vanilla” circle and some cherries nearby. The soundtrack of this can also sounds quite similar to other cans if not the same. The kick, tap and throw taste resulted in the same results: It sounds, feels and hurts the same, especially when your flatmate shouts at you for not washing the dishes again and throws it at your head. (I’m just kidding, or am I?)

But in the end, the only thing that matters is the taste and I must say, it does taste like Cherry-Flavoured Dr Pepper with a slight note of vanilla that is barely tasteable. I would have loved it if the vanilla-flavour was more present in this one and the cherry on top, was probably that the cherry-flavour was even overwhelming the DrPepper-ness of the soda itself, which is not that good in my humble opinion. Alas, this one isn’t my favourite but I’d imagine that other people that don’t like Dr Pepper that much but who appreciate the taste of cherry-flavoured sodas might actually fancy this.

At last, I also tried out the limited edition Dr Pepper Dark Berry! The can features a very dark blue with a white font on it and the announcement that Spider-Man: Far From Home is out. On top of that, the can reveals that Mysterio guy on the back. I don’t know that guy and had to ask a friend about who that guy is. I called him Dark Berry Guy before and he got mad. I’m not doing that anymore. As far as the presentation goes, I am a fan of the dark blue but I absolutely hate Dark Berry Gu- Mysterio. I mean, I don’t know him and can’t say if I hate him or not… but I don’t like him on the can. It kind of looks washed out and weird and I just don’t think it suits the style and brand that much, although I appreciate Big Ben in the background. Just not my cup of tea, I guess. Anyways, the can feels, sounds and hurts the same as others although I didn’t wanna kick it since it looks quite cool. If you wanna kick the can, do it on your own. Watch out that you don’t hurt anyone. Thank you.

The taste itself is… berry good. I’ve been waiting for a whole year to make that joke. But yeah, it’s a great soda that has that Dark Berry juice in it that you may know from flavoured Energy Drinks… It also smells very much like black berries and blue berries and other berries. Honestly, who knows what’s in there but it tastes good and I like it a lot. The after-taste, though, is the best thing about it as it really tastes like a can of Dr Pepper. It may be differently flavoured but the original flavour is still there which makes it quite nice. This is probably my second-favourite taste so far. I like Vanilla Float a bit more than this one but this one certainly is better than Cherry Vanilla, in my opinion, without wanting to degrade Cherry Vanilla. Cherry Vanilla is still a top-tier soda for me!

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Anyways, in the end, I wasn’t much of a Cherry-Vanilla fan but the other two flavours were awesome. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on other flavours eventually as well! As mentioned before Cherry Vanilla is still Top-Tier-Soda simply because it still kind of tastes like Dr Pepper and also because nothing really compares to Dr Pepper anyhow. In a way, in my opinion, Dr Pepper might surpass the concept of tier-lists and rankings and actually be the God of Sodas, period. Not much to discuss here.

Have you tried any of these before and if so, what were your thoughts?

Hope you enjoyed my post. I’ve been meaning to write a review on these flavours before but I actually don’t really know anything about taste-testing things and thought I’d just handle it in the same way as I did with games… and that can’t possible go wrong, right? If you have any feedback and suggestions for the Cream Soda review that’ll come out eventually, let me know. Take care of yourself and stay hydrated!

Cheers!

This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well.