The Food Snob was as excited as the rest of you when we heard that Shaquille O’Neal was getting into the beverage game. We had high hopes for his foray in the world of drink; after all could the man who once penned the line “I dribble rhymes like basketballums / They call me E.T. (what’s that, Shaq-man?) / Extra tallums” be anything less than infallible? We picked some up at the local 7/11 to find out.
Soda Shaq (yes, it’s called Soda Shaq, not Shaq Soda) comes in 23.5-ounce cans at 99 cents apiece (naturally, given the partnership with AriZona). There are purportedly three servings per can, but, come on, no one is sharing these things. Drinking a full can will net you 270 calories, 30 mg. sodium and 72 g. sugar, although it is worth noting that Soda Shaq is made of all-natural ingredients. We grabbed a few of our newsroom compatriots and tried all four of the flavors.
∎ Vanilla Cream Soda
This tasted like a dull plain cream soda. It appeared to be slightly flat or undercarbonated.
∎ Strawberry Cream Soda
Tasted like cream soda with a hint of fake sugar (weirdly enough, since there aren’t any synthetic sugars in it). One taste tester said “It tastes like liquid cotton candy. . . I don’t like it.”
∎ Orange Cream Soda
This tasted the most like what it was supposed to taste like. One taste tester’s opinion was that “it tastes like a Creamsicle that was left in a car for a week.”
∎ Blueberry Cream Soda
We were hoping that we saved the best for last. Could the star of Blue Chips do blueberry cream soda justice? Turns out, the answer is no!
Overall, we were unimpressed by Soda Shaq. Going by a scale of the faces he makes on the eight different collectible can options, we give it a “one squinty eye, confused/injured mouth” face (far left, above). Normally if a celeb got into something like this, we’d advise them not to quit their day job; unfortunately, Shaq already quit the one he was good at and now hosts Upload with Shaquille O’Neal, so we’re not sure what to say.
