BevReview.com

Recently, Pepsi launched 2 new flavored diet drinks under a new sub-brand called "Jazz". These were first rumored back in April and formally introduced in July as "Jazz, A New Line Of Indulgent Zero-Calorie Colas."

In what may be one of the longest product names to date, Diet Pepsi Jazz Black Cherry French Vanilla is the first of two drinks in this new line. It seems the folks at Pepsi weren't satisfied enough to simply launch a new flavor under the Diet Pepsi brand. Nope, they created the Jazz entity to cover these new drinks, while still maintaining the Diet Pepsi logo as well. Why they did this, I don't know. Maybe they thought that folks would be more willing to try a diet drink if it was labeled "Jazz" rather than "diet" (see Coke and their "Zero" fetish for other examples of this).

Jazz Black Cherry French Vanilla is no doubt Pepsi's response to Diet Coke's Black Cherry Vanilla and Diet Dr. Pepper's Cherry Vanilla flavors. Apparently by adding more words to the name, it's supposed to be better. It's not.

Sweetened by aspartame & Ace-K and having no non-diet alternate, Diet Pepsi Jazz Black Cherry French Vanilla takes pretty bad. But don't just take my word for it. I asked some close friends to try it via a taste test and provide their feedback as well. Some were diet cola drinkers; others were not.

There is a definite "cola" taste to Diet Pepsi Jazz Black Cherry French Vanilla, but the aftertaste is killer bad. Some testers equated the flavor to the cough medicine Robitussin. Others thought the palette was more like a snow cone or a big wad of Hubba Bubba. There were no positive comments from those involved.

Overall, while the packaging is attractive, and the flavor choice was potentially good, the execution on the flavor kills this soft drink. Not to mention the ridiculously long name and odd branding choice… not very smart. This drink is not recommended!