When you first look at the bottle, it's pretty hard to miss the very bright blue liquid found inside. I'm sure the Pepsi Blue fans will take notice. As they should, because I think there are some similarities.

The drink itself has a strong berry scent, quite different from other drinks in the same genre. That first sip also brings a zippy, biting flavor with hints of sour. It's a good flavor overall, something like liquid candy. The overall flavor and finish tend to be syrupy, like most of the Crush flavor extensions.

Overall it's a promising flavor that will probably be welcomed by those who were also fans of Mountain Dew Revolution and Mountain Dew Game Fuel Alliance Blue. It's not quite the same, obviously, but puts this drink in the same flavor ballpark, sort of like how Amp Energy Elevate treads into that berry world.

Inside you'll find the following ingredients:

Crush Blue Raspberry
Carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, sodium benzoate (preservative), natural and artificial flavors, Blue 1

A 20 oz bottle contains 260 calories, 105 mg sodium, 69 g carbs, and 67 g sugars. This drink is caffeine free.

Crush Blue Raspberry is probably one of the better flavor extensions to arrive in recent years for the brand. It produces a refreshing and unique taste that is ideal for stand-alone consumption when you just want something cold, bubbly, and flavorful.

Like the other flavors in the product lineup, this drink is caffeine free, contains no real juice, and is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). There aren't many lime-flavored drinks out there, though this summer has been popular for the genre, including Sunkist Citrus Fusion and Mountain Dew Distortion.

Upon opening the bottle, I kid you not, Crush Lime smells like some sort of household cleaning product that you'd use to wash your floors. Did Pine-Sol get into beverages?

The very bright green color supports the idea that this is a lime drink, but the flavor itself is rather mild. Not as strong in the lime department as we would have imagined. The smell sort of oversells the expectation. To be honest, the drink tastes like a melted ice pop like Fla-Vor-Ice or Mr. Freeze.

Overall, the flavor is very syrupy and fake in nature, and not very refreshing. It's what is to be expected in the Fanta/Crush category of fruit-flavored soft drinks. Something that sort of tastes like the flavor on the label, but that's about it. Quite disappointing.

Ingredients:

Lime Crush
Carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, sodium benzoate, natural flavors, ascrobic acid (to protect flavor), calcium disodium EDTA, Yellow 5, Blue 1

A 20 oz. bottle contains 320 calories, 110 mg of sodium, and 86 g of carbs (84 g sugars).

Bottled with a smart, dark color, Cherry Crush is actually quite good for a fruit beverage sweetened by high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The flavor is bold and surprisingly cola-like, which was unexpected for a brand that typically reflects sweet fruit flavors. The scent has candy qualities, and after a few gulps, the sweetness finally does creep up on you. This cherry drink is distinctly different from what's currently available in the genre, and given the increase in distribution and not finding a comparable flavor in Coke's Fanta offerings, may actually have an impact on regionally available cherry beverages such as Cheerwine. If nothing else, Crush Cherry seems like a "mature" entry in the Crush product line, which I think is a good thing.

This caffeine-free drink contains no actual juice. A 20 oz. bottle will cost you 280 calories, 115 mg of sodium, and 74 g of carbs (73 g of which are sugars). What else is inside? Here's the ingredient list:

Crush Cherry
Carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, natural and artificial flavors, citric acid, sodium benzoate (preservative), caramel color, Red 40, acacia gum, Blue 1

Overall, we give a thumbs up to Cherry Crush. Smart packaging, nice color, and best of all, a pretty tasty & unique cherry beverage from a mainstream beverage brand. It's a nice addition to the Crush lineup!

Well, it appears that Pepsi at least has a stop-gap measure in place to shore up their orange misfortunes. According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Pepsi Bottling Group (PBG) has just signed a distribution deal for Dr Pepper Snapple Group's Crush, including Orange Crush and its spinoff flavors. It should be interesting to see how this increases the profile of Crush in the marketplace.

Here's the full story from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Pepsi Bottling Group to distribute Crush in U.S.
Joe Guy Collier
Thursday, August 21, 2008

Pepsi Bottling Group has signed an agreement with Dr Pepper Snapple Group to make and distribute Crush beverages in the majority of its U.S. territories, the companies announced Thursday.

Pepsi Bottling Group, based in Somers, N.Y., is the largest Pepsi bottler. Dr Pepper Snapple Group, a Plano, Texas-based beverage firm, was spun off earlier this year from Cadbury Schweppes.

The deal is significant because it will almost double the U.S. market penetration of the Crush brand, which includes Orange Crush, Diet Orange Crush and Grape Crush. Pepsi Bottling Group already distributes Crush in Canada.

Source

Additional detail, including which flavors are included, provided by The Wall Street Journal:

Pepsi Bottling to Distribute Dr Pepper's Crush Sodas
By Betsy McKay
August 22, 2008

The maker of Orange Crush is squeezing some new life out of an old soda standby.

Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. Thursday disclosed that Pepsi Bottling Group Inc., the second-largest soft-drink bottler in the U.S., will distribute its Crush sodas in most of the bottler's U.S. markets.

The deal is a coup for Plano, Texas-based Dr Pepper Snapple, spun off from Cadbury PLC earlier this year, and marks a comeback for a well-known brand that faded from store shelves after several bottlers dropped it for other brands.

The new arrangement will make Crush available in about two-thirds of the U.S., still excluding parts of the northern Midwest and northern mountain states. It is sold in less than 40% of the country now, mostly in the Midwest.

PBG will gain a widely recognized brand to take on Coca-Cola Co.'s Fanta, the leading orange soda by volume. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

PBG's move represents a blow for PepsiCo Inc., which stands to lose a large chunk of distribution for its own main orange soda at a time when sales of fruit-flavored drinks are performing better than cola. To accommodate Crush, which PBG will sell in orange, diet orange and grape flavors, PBG in those markets will drop Pepsi's Tropicana Twister soda, which comes in similar flavors.

While Coca-Cola and PepsiCo bottlers sell a few outside brands, they rarely take on a product that competes directly with a Coke or Pepsi drink. PBG distributes more than half of Pepsi's U.S. volume. It distributes Crush in Canada.

Pepsi spokeswoman Nicole Bradley shrugged off the distribution loss. "Of course we would prefer our bottlers to carry our products over anyone else's, but we have no objection to PBG's orange-soda decision," she said. "We're making bigger bets together, going where the growth is," such as enhanced water and energy-drink brands, she said.

PBG spokesman Jeff Dahncke said relations with PepsiCo have "never been stronger."

The market for orange sodas — which includes fruit flavors such as grape and pineapple — represents a small portion of U.S. soft-drink volume. They account for a 4.1% share of the market, according to industry publication Beverage Digest.

But fruit-flavored sodas are performing better than Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, or other giant soda brands partly because they are popular among the growing number of Hispanic consumers in the U.S., according to Jim Johnston, Dr. Pepper Snapple's president of sales. "We believe Crush has some unlocked potential," he said.

Sales of orange sodas declined 1.6% by volume in the U.S. in 2007, hurt by consumers shifting to newer drinks such as enhanced waters and energy drinks. But the drop was less steep than the 2.3% drop for the carbonated-soft-drinks industry overall, according to Beverage Digest.

Source

Not being owned by The Coca-Cola Company or PepsiCo, Crush is obviously harder to find then other fruit-flavored soft drinks. Coke has Fanta Orange. Pepsi has Tropicana Twister Orange. Both horrid-tasting orange sodas.

Unfortunately, that pattern extends over into the more rare strawberry-flavored pop category. There aren't a lot of strawberry beverages out there, but there are enough by the big guys to crowd things out, such as Fanta Strawberry and Tropicana Twister Strawberry. Like their orange siblings, these drinks aren't much to write home about. Every now and then you'll get something new in "Strawberryland", such as a Jones Soda Strawberry S'lime or even an oddity like Jones Soda Jelly Doughnut, but again, they don't add anything new to the market.

I unfortunately have to say that Strawberry Crush falls into the same boat as these other drinks. It's unimpressive. Like most strawberry soft drinks, its flavor is extremely on the fake side. It tastes a lot like Fanta Strawberry, and that's not a good thing. You are hit with an overtly sweet, syrupy taste that is compounded by the use of high fructose corn syrup. On top of that, the aftertaste just lingers there for a while, unpleasantly. In the end, Strawberry Crush tastes like carbonated Robitussin cough syrup.

Yuck.

Crush is somewhat hard to find these days, but it's still around. I seem to remember seeing it more during my childhood with its siblings, Grape Crush and Strawberry Crush. But once I opened the cap and drank of this beverage, I knew who was still the leader of the pack when it came to great orange taste… Orange Crush tastes wonderful!

The flavor is authentic (at least as far as artificial flavorings go). The smell and aftertaste don't leave you cringing. It's smooth going down and lasts with you in a positive way. This is how an orange-flavored pop should taste. Thus, I'd rank the preferences regarding orange soda this way:

1. Orange Crush
2. Orange Slice
3. Fanta Orange

If you have a chance to pick up a bottle of Orange Crush, don't pass it up. You'll regret it later!