What The Jester Had to Drink: The New Fresca(s)

The marketing gurus at Coca-Cola have let yet another soda jump on the remixed flavor bandwagon. We've seen Coke with your choice of cherry, vanilla, lemon, or lime; Sprite with berry or tropical flavors, and now... Fresca? That old bastion of diet soda? Yes, it's been reinvented, complete with sleeker labeling and two cousins of the original grapefruit flavor- peach and black cherry. The original flavor hasn't been messed with; if you have had any in the last 20 years it still tastes just the way you expect. The peach flavor is by far my favorite of the trio; the aroma is dead on for a ripe, fresh peach, giving a slightly synaesthetic sensation of the gentle fuzz on your tongue. The flavor itself isn't quite the same, giving way to a bit of an artificial edge, but generally is one of the better peach flavors I've come across. I can't quite say the same for the black cherry, which was overwhelmingly candy-sweet and very little else.