Pepsi is giving away three new s'mores-inspired flavors just in time for bonfire season: Toasted Marshmallow, Graham Cracker and Chocolate. But not everyone will get to taste these new flavors. In fact, just 2,000 people who entered the Pepsi S'mores sweepstakes will get a chance to try them.
I got my hands on a pack of the Pepsi S'mores Collection to see how each tastes individually and when tried together. Here are my results.
How does each flavor taste?
Although the three are designed to be mixed together, I first tasted each separately.
Toasted Marshmallow: I immediately wanted to spit this one out. It smells like Diet Pepsi, so I thought the flavor would be subtle. I was wrong. It tastes like burnt licorice that's been soaking in Jagermeister. I really wanted to like this one and thought it would be my favorite.
Graham Cracker: This one has a very sweet caramel scent, but it tastes like a toasted Pepsi. It does somewhat have a graham cracker taste of cinnamon and honey, but it's not overpowering. It's the most mellow of the three sodas and the best tasting one, in my opinion.
Chocolate: The flavor of this one is nothing like a Pepsi. Instead, it reminded me of a carbonated Yoohoo drink or Hershey's cocoa powder mixed with sparkling water. It has a strong artificial chocolate smell.
How the flavors taste combined in Pepsi's recipes
Pepsi sent a recipe card along with the three new flavors. Here's what they are and how they taste when combined together.
The Classic: This is equal parts marshmallow, graham cracker and chocolate (one-third each).
Although I used the exact same amount of each of these drinks, the marshmallow flavor was the strongest (sigh). However, combined with the other two sodas, this concoction had more of a toasty taste, and the licorice flavor was much tamer. I swished it around for a few seconds, bringing the chocolate flavor out a bit.
Marshmallow (is for) Lovers: This is mostly composed of marshmallow soda (hence the name), so it's half marshmallow, one-fourth graham cracker and one-fourth chocolate.
I dreaded trying this one because, again, the marshmallow soda is my least favorite. This mixture brought out the licorice scent, but this time it tasted like Pepsi mixed with a Tootsie roll. Not the best, but at least the licorice flavor wasn't as present.
For the Graham: This uses more of the graham cracker flavor, so it's half graham cracker, one-quarter chocolate and one-quarter marshmallow. It's also encouraged by Pepsi to add an extra splash of graham cracker.
Off to a good start. This one smells like chocolate and graham crackers. I could taste notes of cinnamon from the graham cracker soda. It reminds me of a toasted graham cracker with a hint of chocolate. Fortunately, the marshmallow flavor isn't too present in this one. As I suspected, this one is my favorite out of the recipes.
The Chocolate Connoisseur: This is for the chocolate lovers, so it uses two-thirds chocolate, one-quarter marshmallow and a splash of graham cracker.
The aroma reminds me of Hershey's cocoa powder, but it tastes like artificial chocolate and Tootsie rolls again. I couldn't pull any Pepsi flavor at all from this recipe, and I also couldn't taste the marshmallow (thankfully). I did get just a hint of graham cracker, so the splash was necessary.
Would I drink any of these again? Absolutely not, but it was still a cool experiment to taste all the limited-edition s'mores Pepsi flavors.
Interested in my past taste tests? Here's what I thought about Coca-Cola's Dreamworld, Starlight, Byte and Marshmello Limited-Edition co*ke.
