Journeys of Jack Tripper: Product Review: Coca-Cola Blak

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With a $100 gift card burning in my pocket, I went grocery shopping at Target and came across the wonderful product known as Coca-Cola Blāk.Yes, with the line over the a. That might not show up correctly on your monitor. I'm sure my first-grade teacher Mrs. Inkrott told us what that line was called when we did phonics but I did not pay attention to one minute of my first grade class. I was enveloped in reading Encyclopedia Brown books and daydreaming about Robin Evans from TV's Riptide. Anyway, the line is there to inform you it is not pronounced "black" as in Big Blak Afrika of the Mau Maus:

...but "blake" as in Robert Blake.

Why they named a beverage after the In Cold Blood actor I'll never know. But the line above the A is there clear as day! See?

I felt the pangs of apprehension that I recognized well from pondering involvement with a Bush Voter... or a lesbian... or a student. But it was a scant $4.99 for a four-pack, so I thought I'd bite the bullet and do you all a favor in reviewing the fine product. With industrial pipecleaners I pushed down my inhibitions and placed the brown package in my red receptacle. (That last line is here just to garner google hits from creatively-languaged perv searchers.)

Kareem Wilson bobblehead approves. Will I? Click the jump to find out.

I opened the bottle after several hours of cellaring in the icebox. It had a bouquet of fresh chocolate and day-old diapers. Not to be put off, I took a heavy swig of the half-sugared half-nutrasweeted hybrid-of-all-hybrids:

I let it linger in my mouth for a few moments. Then it became unbearable.

It quickly became clear Tubgirl had bottled her product and shipped it under the Coke label.

My duodenum contracted and I felt the pangs of retching; I searched for a landing spot on the carpet I could comfortably later blame on the cats. Yet my stomach muscles would not provide me respite from the reeking monstrosity that was the Blāk. Held in and contained like my feelings for a certain woman I can't mention, it burned with the heat of a thousand fires. Perhaps the few hours in the fridge wasn't enough. I tried the product on the rocks.

With great trepidation I lifted the glass to my lips and sipped.

Initially the experience was exponentially better. My soul sang to the heavens in Hallelujahs for this... wait... ugh.

This was no improvement. The initial cola-excitement was being overruled by an aftertaste of burned Awful House coffee that hasn't been swapped out since 11pm.

That's when I realized that I was handling this situation entirely the wrong way. This is coffee! I ought to be drinking it from a coffee mug! That's where I'm going wrong!

Again the flavor was improved and I felt my purchase had been made with great wisdom. Then... Tubgirl.

Don't blame the mug. Much like the campus where it was acquired 5 October 2003 it is a champion. I could have used my Fisher-Coleman '98 mug, but I didn't want the flavor to be tainted by the stink of defeat. Ugly, ugly defeat. Smelly defeat.

Conclusions

Much like the post-Baretta career of its namesake, Coca-Cola Blāk is an abomination. At $1.2425 a bottle it is an overpriced abomination. Avoid it at all costs!