Overview:
Those of you who know me exclusively through my reviews here on Everyview may not be able to tell, but I am very elegant. I have very high class tastes that can be satisfied only by the finest tobaccos and rarest wines. The tobacco must be smoked out of nothing less than pipes carved from ostrich bones and the wine is only to be sampled from diamond cups crafted by the most skilled jewelers in the world.
Enter Private Selection Sparkling Soda. It’s expensive and comes in a weird-looking glass bottle, but does it tickle my prestige?
Review:
When elegantly removing the fancy aluminum cap off of the fancy glass bottle, you can’t help but feel… fancy. There’s just a certain level of Ritz that comes with every abnormally shaped glass bottle, and this is no exception. But isn’t it what’s inside the pretentious glass bottle that really matters? No, but I can probably review a drink a little better than I can review a bottle. Maybe.
The first thing you’ll notice about Private Selection’s Sparkling Lemon Soda is that it actually smells like real lemonade and not a “lemon-flavored beverage.” It has a great balance between sweet and sour and is rather appetizing and isn’t overpowering at all.
The flavor itself is pretty good, too, albeit very average. It’s definitely lemonade, but there is a slightly bitter taste that isn’t too noticeable but detracts from the overall taste. The drink is also highly carbonated, hence the “sparkling” term used to describe the thousands of bubbles that swim around in your mouth like diamonds around a French woman’s neck. This presents a lighter texture than non-carbonated lemonade would, creating a more refreshing feel. It’s not something you’re going to want to drink all the time, but it makes a nice treat on the occasion.
The real “ritzy” part of Private Selection isn’t the fancy glass bottle or the fact that it sparkles, but is instead the high price tag of over $2.00 per 11.1 oz bottle. That’s just ridiculous. There is nothing overly special, memorable, or extremely appealing enough about this drink to warrant such a high cost of admission, other than the fact that it’s so damn fancy. Pick it up to try if it’s on sale, but I wouldn’t say it’s worth any more than $1.50, and even that’s steep for such a shallow (as in amount of liquid in bottle, not describing its personality. Although it is pretty snobby) drink.
Final Words
Okay, I admit it, I’m a mildly overweight slob with cheap taste buds, acne, and a bald spot. That being true, I can’t find anything outstanding about Private Selection Sparkling Lemon Soda. It has a nice aroma, tastes just fine, and has an enjoyable “tickly” texture, but over $2.00 for one 11.1 oz bottle is too much to ask.
If you can find it for cheap, go ahead and try it if you’d like. But there’s nothing particularly special about it.
Pros
- Fresh lemonade scent
- Tickly sensation from all those little bubbles
- Imported from France
Cons
- Tastes very average
- Not a memorable beverage
- Costs way too much
Score: 6.8/10 (Meh)
Aroma: 7.5/10 (Smells like lemonade)
Flavor: 7.0/10 (Nothing outstanding or memorable)
Value: 6.0/10 ($2.00 per 11.1 oz bottle is too much)
i feel like it would be worth a try at least, it seems interesting, a refreshing lemonade-esque soda.
I really enjoy the notion of Private Selection, which a Kroger exclusive brand, being depicted as “ritzy.” Even with the elevated price I find it hard to take this product seriously as an upper-class item.
As pretentious as I am, I bet I would LOVE this stuff. Although being poor, more than one bottle probably is not in my future.
I’ll probably give this a try if I ever see it anywhere. Just to say I’m schnappy.
Pinky out!
You know now that you mention it, glass bottles are quite fancy despite the liquid they hold. It could be a bottle of rat urine, if it were in a glass bottle it would be considered “exotic”
There is a market around my old home town called United Grocery Outlet. I found these for 79 cents a bottle and picked up a case. I agree with your review on the flavor – 7.0/10
I did not see mentioned in the reviews or comments that these soda’s are a generic version of Lorina Sparkling Lemonade, made in France since 1895. It is expensive, but might be compared with Lorina, against which it is intended to compete. Now that is a classy soda. American GI’s drank it when they liberated France during WWII and then in the 1960′s, it became popular as many movie stars emulated ‘the French lifestyle’.
FYI – it was less than $2 per bottle in my neck of the woods. We drank a lot of it (PS not Lorina) unitl our store stopped carrying it.
@ Searching for Soda
Well thank you for the insight! And our stores stopped carrying it as well, which is why I never reviewed any of the other flavors