Hot Lips Strawberry Soda

   Hot Lips is a soda brand from the Pacific Northwest... it’s not available down here in Houston.In fact the ingredients listed on my Strawberry Soda are as follows:

Carbonated Water, Strawberries grown in the Pacific Northwest, cane sugar, and organic lemon juice.

   That’s an impressive list of ingredients in my book.There is no ‘natural strawberry flavor’ listed, they just list Strawberries grown in the Pacific Northwest.In fact the bottle says that this soda contains strawberry pulp, another plus.Wait a second; this drink has vitamins in it!40% of the Vitamin C you need in a day!If there is one way to get your score higher with this Jerk it’s to have me drink my vitamins in a soda (as long as it tastes good of course. I’m looking at you nasty tasting 7up Plus).The bottle art is simplistic, it reminds me of a children’s book about fruit.This is what a strawberry looks like kids, on a simple white background.Of course the Hot Lips logo is a lipstick kiss, but that’s pretty predictable in my opinion.We were able to procure this soda directly from the nice folks at Hot Lips... but don’t think that’s going to improve the score at all just because we were sent samples.Actually a lot of our sodas have been samples from companies, we just haven’t told you until now.

   Onto the tasting.Upon opening this you get a strong natural fruit sensation in the smell.Like one of those really awesome strawberry lemonades that has real strawberries in it... minus the lemonade smell of course.I’m now officially excited to try this, bottoms up.The first thing running through my head is that it doesn’t taste much like a soda.There is very little carbonation, but that could be due to the fact that the CO2 doesn’t stick very well to the ingredients listed above.I would also like a little more sweetness in this.It’s not tart like a strawberry, but it’s not all that sweet as well.It’s almost like I can taste too much of the organic lemon juice in it.This has a pretty good taste, but I just don’t feel like I’m drinking a soda.It feels more like strawberry juice, with a hint of lemon.My last run in with a drink like this was Fizzy Lizzy, but I’m happy to say that Hot Lips surpasses Ms. Lizzy in the flavor department.It’s a moderately refreshing drink, but nothing that I’d grab for on one of our 103 degree summer days.This is more of a solitary drink... something that you’d want to drink by itself so that you could enjoy the natural, but quiet, strawberry flavoring.All in all it’s a good soda, I’m sure there are non soda fans out there that would love this, but I just kinda like it.

~A

Twist likes strawberries

(Note:  This beverage was provided to us by Hot Lips)