Cherry Crush is an American flavour, and from what I've been lead to believe, it's marketed in Illinois, mostly in the Chicago area. Don't confuse this with the bevy of lip glosses, crappy movies and alcoholic drinks that all share the same name.

Comments:
Brad: I think a whole tree was milled just to compact enough cherries into one bottle.
      Score: 7/10
Courtney: Reminds me why Cherry Coke was taken off of the market.
      Score: 3/10
Evan: If I could rate this higher I would. It's over 9000!
      Score: 10/10
John: Very cherry...very merry.
      Score: 8/10
Jordan: It's peppery. Dear God, why is it peppery?
      Score: 4/10
Sara: It was good.
      Score: 9/10

Final Score: (6.8/10)

Strawberry Crush is supposed to come from New York or Maine or something. It's another one of those Crush flavours that we had no idea existed until recently. It's probably the easiest of the 'harder to find' flavours to find, and I found at least a half-dozen places that sold it.

Comments:
Brad: Smooth, quite smooth. This flavor was quite good.
      Score: 8/10
Courtney: Reminds me of weekends at the farm, picking wild strawberries. Love it!
      Score: 10/10
Evan: Like a good hooker past her prime.
      Score: 2/10
John: Initially slightly bitter, but has an aftertaste that brings back childhood memories.
      Score: 7/10
Jordan: Rich aroma of strawberries, tastes like Kool-Aid. Very little carbonation.
      Score: 8/10
Sara: Tastes like Strawberry Jello that hasn't become Jello.
      Score: 2/10

Final Score: (6.2/10)

Pineapple Crush comes from Newfoundland. It sounded harmless enough, but it's deep yellow colour is disconcerting, enough so that we all began to make nervous jokes while getting our glasses filled.

Comments:
Brad: A worse torture cannot be devised. BIOWEAPON.
      Score: 0/10
Courtney: Tastes like Hawaii threw up in my glass after a night of 2 bottles of tequila and a French transvestite hooker named Nancy.
      Score: 0/10
Evan: Gross. I need more Cheetos.
      Score: 0/10
John: Best taken like oral sex - aim for the back of the throat to avoid the taste.
      Score: 3/10

Jordan: Worst thing I've put in my mouth since that Guatamalan prison.
      Score: 2/10
Sara: I'm pretty sure this is what becomes of leftover urine samples.
      Score: 0/10

Final Score: (0.8/10)

Pineapple Crush nearly killed our resolve to continue, but we pressed on, filling our glasses with Crush Tropical Punch. The bottle had graphics on it that reminded us of the dearly-departed Tahiti Treat soda. Eyes watering with fear, we took the plunge.

Comments:
Brad: Toucan Sam shoved in a blender, carbonated and served ice cold.
      Score: 5/10
Courtney: Yuck.
      Score: 4/10
Evan: Bastards ripped off Tahiti Treat!
      Score: 6/10
John: Fruit drink gone wrong. So so wrong!
      Score: 1/10
Jordan: After the carbonated abortions that were Cherry & Pineapple, this is quite refreshing.
      Score: 7/10
Sara: Tastes like a gay pride parade with a little S&M thrown in for good measure.
      Score: 2/10

Final Score: (4.2/10)

Our last bottle was Peach Crush. It's supposedly from Georgia. It's pink. Very pink. There were also some disconcerting chunks floating about in the bottom of the bottle that worried us. Was the stuff expired? It's not like we can shake the bottle to try and get the chunks to dissolve.

Comments:
Brad: This wasn't horrible and was acually good! I suspect a Jedi mind trick.
      Score: 8/10
Courtney: Not bad. Tastes like chikin. (PS eat more chikin)
      Score: 8/10
Evan: Pretty good actually.
      Score: 6/10
John: It made sweet love to my tongue.
      Score: 8/10
Jordan: Tastes like a fresh peach. Imagine that! It tastes like it's supposed to!
      Score: 9/10
Sara: Little and fuzzy. Like a peach, a fuzzy peach.
      Score: 7/10

Final Score: (7.6/10)

Birch Beer Crush. This comes from Newfoundland. That's about all we knew. This was the only Crush we couldn't get in bottled form. We didn't know what it looked like and a quick search on Wikipedia turned up that it was supposed to taste like a stronger version of root beer. The stuff was a bright pink colour and a minty after-taste. It also caused 3 of us to get immediate heart burn. Not bad for a sip's worth of soda.

Comments:
Brad: This horrible drink reminds me of a bad bender, the kind where you are so drunk that you think mixing alcohol is a good idea.
      Score: 5/10
Courtney: [Courtney declined to comment on this one as she immediately began vomiting after having a drink.]
      Score: 0/10
Evan: Kind of a cross between cream soda and root beer. Fairly enjoyable. I mostly came for the Cheetos.
      Score: 8/10
John: A strange love child of cream soda and root beer.
      Score: 7/10
Jordan: It's Lovecraft in a can.
      Score: 3/10
Sara: What's brewed in Newfoundland, should stay in Newfoundland.
      Score: 1/10

Final Score: (4/10)

Ok, this isn't a real flavour of Crush, but I had 10 containers with small amounts of Crush still in them. In the manner of a knight of old, I threw down the gauntlet and challenged John to a drink-off of swamp water. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, swamp water is a combination of everything that's left over. The good and the bad. Suprisingly, the Cream Soda didn't change the colour of the drink, but the Birch Beer made the whole thing bright pink. We prayed to our respective non-deities and then consumed.

As you can see, this was a bad idea. I became violently ill, to the point where Courtney accused me of having an affair with the toilet. John however got the brunt of the badness. Filled with so much high-fructose corn syrup and nicotine, his body shut down and he began foaming at the mouth like some kind of mad dog.

Without having touched the swamp water, Evan actually ascended into deification, but quickly returned to the mortal realm when I reminded him that there were still other flavours out there that needed us to taste them. Courtney and Sara shut themselves off from society to try and forget the horrors of the night. Brad fashioned himself a pair of makeshift plastic cup nipples and played with them until he passed out.

As we collected our wits and stumbled out of Elan Games, we realized that we were all part of some monumental event. Maybe not in the grand scheme of things, but we were an elite group of people who had tasted 10 flavours of Crush soda. The call of new flavours called to us and we began to search for new Crush experiences.

Here's the average score for each attendee to show how we each found the Crush flavours of the night:

Brad		(5.4/10)
Courtney		(4.8/10)
Evan		(5.4/10)
John		(5.9/10)
Jordan		(5.7/10)
Sara		(4.7/10)

• The Nutrisoda Experiment
• Cooking with Count Chocula
• From Soda to Superheroes (2009 Retrospective)