BevReview.com

In January, Coke announced that they would be rolling out a flavor extension of their flagship brand: Coca-Cola with Lime. (One month later, Pepsi announced they would come out with Pepsi Lime to battle Coke's new offering).

Recently, both makers had gone through the Lemon Battle (Pepsi Twist, Diet Coke with Lemon), the Vanilla Battle (Pepsi Vanilla, Vanilla Coke), and the Low-Carb Battle (Pepsi Edge, Coke C2). I guess it just made sense to add lime to the mix!

First in my market was Coca-Cola with Lime. The packaging is standard Coke, with the only deviations being a lime green cap and green coloring on Coke's famous "ribbon device" logo. They've also added an image of a lime to the packaging (just in case you didn't figure it out from the words "with Lime"!).

Interestingly, the bottle I picked up differed slightly from the one featured in Coke's promotional advertising. The promo packaging features green lines at the top and bottom of the label to emphasize the lime aspect. However, in my store-bought version, those green lines are missing. Personally, I think the marketing of the lime flavoring would have been stronger and more distinctive had they kept the green lines. The bottle still looks too much like a regular bottle of Coke.

On the other hand, maybe it was a good idea to drop the green lines that promoted lime. Why? Because this drink doesn't taste much like lime at all. There is little to no flavor enhancement here. You can tell something is slightly different as you drink it, but lime… no, you'd never guess. The aftertaste is also unrewarding. I have a hard time believing that Coke spent a lot of time doing research and development on this flavor because it's a pretty poor showing.

You won't find me buying this drink again. It's falsely advertised as something new and different, but it's pretty much the same ole Coke!