March 17th 2010 - Lindsay, Ontario
It was a heady time here at Babble Labs. I was rapidly recovering from exposure to nearly lethal cheesecake substitutes and was putting the finishing touches on my praise to the greatest movie of all time ever - no exceptions. But then, the bad news came: Elan Games was going to be shutting its doors for good in three days.
This posed somewhat of a problem for me. First: Elan was a place I visited to get away from the burden of family and friends. Second: I would no longer have something to bitch about in late night blog-posts. Third: I had scheduled to do an experiment there in August.
Pause, freeze-frame and rewind back to late 2009. While hunting around a soda shop for new finds, Chippy Sunshine and I came out with five bottles of Nutrisoda. It looked like any other soda, but it claimed to imbue the drinker with special properties, like some kind of magical potion.
Fuck that, I'm going to get some soda!
So, on the car ride back, we devised a tasting, just like the Great Crush Tasting (the first article evar). If Nutrisoda claims that it can make people energetic or boost their immune systems, well then we're going to test it and see if there's any truth to the claim damnit! The idea was to get a group of people together, have them drink Nutrisoda and after a while, see what the effects were, or rather, what the drinkers believed the effects were.
But we can't just tell people what they're drinking. That might ruin the shaky scientific validity of the exam. So, we devised a group of rules to help us maintain anonymity between the sodas and allow us to get a non-biased result.
- None of the testers will know which soda they are drinking at the time and the order of the sodas will be chosen randomly.
- Three "ringers", non-Nutrisoda drinks, will be introduced at random into the line-up.
-
The testers will pick from a list of 10 different qualities that they believe the soda they have drank has provided them:
1. Confidence 6. Radiance 2. Calmness 7. Intelligence 3. Energy 8. Focus 4. Anti-Cancer 9. Immunity 5. Happiness 10. No Effect
We also ensured that there was a visual barrier separating the testers from the samples, and that the final results of each test were kept secret until the end of the testing period. Even James Randi can't argue with testing guidelines like that. At Babble Labs, we're scien-tastic!
In order to keep this interesting, it was decided to let each tester rate the flavor on a scale of 0 to 10, and make comments about the taste.
So, fast-forward back to March. With three days to schedule, setup and execute the experiment, we worked fast: gathering eight testers from the bowels of Elan to assist. As a good-faith measure to ensure that I wasn't trying to poison them, I agreed to partake in the test too, but only as far as rating the flavor of each soda. They would be the only ones testing out the claims on the bottle.
And then, like that, it was March 20th, the final day of Elan Games, and the start of the experiment:
Dayton:
He joined in because we told him that this would be completely painless and he would enjoy it very much. For the record, he was very disappointed in us.
Duffman:
Not a serial rapist. We think.
Dylan:
Possibly the only gamer in existence who is not in need of a bath. He's very clean.
Evan:
From the Great Crush Tasting. He returned to Earth after ascending to the Upper Planes as a minor deity in order to assist us and make kissy faces at the camera. Look at 'im go!
John:
Soon-to-be former owner of Elan. He joined in on the promise that I would write something about people masturbating while looking at his picture. Furiously.
Josh:
Most likely to become the president-for-life of a small equatorial nation through fear and systematic beatings.
Sam:
Rocking out with some old-school specs.
Sara:
Between here and the Great Crush Tasting, her photos have become masturbation fodder for a group of devotees who call themselves "the Saracens". Yeah, I don't get the name either.
Scott:
He's only here because he was promised free Cheetoes. He has been lied to.
Jordan:
Battling indigestion in exchange for a few measly page-hits.
Nutrisoda Focus was the first flavor that we tested. It claimed to be "sparkling mango + peach" flavor, which actually sounds quite nice. The truth however, was far off.
| Dayton | |
| Score: | 7/10 |
| Effect: | Focus |
| Comments: | Tastes like fruity energy drink, then like diet pop. |
| Duffman | |
| Score: | 4/10 |
| Effect: | Immunity |
| Comments: | Tastes like piss and pineapple. |
| Dylan | |
| Score: | 1/10 |
| Effect: | Radiance |
| Comments: | That should not have been made. Feel like headachy. |
| Evan | |
| Score: | 3/10 |
| Effect: | Radiance |
| Comments: | This doesn't taste like anything real. I don't know if it is curing my cancer or not, but it tastes terrible. +1 to badness. |
| John | |
| Score: | 6/10 |
| Effect: | Immunity |
| Comments: | Bitter. This was effectively demonstrated by my immunity to reprisals. (We're not sure what reprisals he means, but we're hoping to find out before he strikes at us. - Ed.) |
| Josh | |
| Score: | 4/10 |
| Effect: | No effect |
| Comments: | Strange after-taste: not unlike feet, before the taste of pineapple. |
| Sam | |
| Score: | 4/10 |
| Effect: | Calmness |
| Comments: | Bad aftertaste. |
| Sara | |
| Score: | 0/10 |
| Effect: | No effect |
| Comments: | Caused involuntary facial grimacing. |
| Scott | |
| Score: | 5/10 |
| Effect: | Focus |
| Comments: | Bad aftertaste. Aspartame? |
| Jordan | |
| Score: | 4/10 |
| Comments: | Tastes like pineapple with a side of ass. |
| Results | |
| Total Score: | 3.8/10 |
| Correct Responses: | 2 |
| Conclusion: | Only two people guessed this one...less than 1/4. Strangely enough, more people thought that it tasted like pineapple, which coincidently, is not the flavor. |
The second soda to be tested was Nutrisoda Energize, which was supposedly "sparkling mandarin & mint". I know that mandarins aren't really oranges, but the flavor is pretty close. Orange juice and toothpaste make for a terrible combination, I don't know why Nutrisoda decided to make a soda that features it prominently. Maybe it's like when Jones Soda makes ham-flavored soda or when Jelly Belly makes dirt-flavored jelly beans?
| Dayton | |
| Score: | 4/10 |
| Effect: | Intelligence |
| Comments: | Nasty. Bitter aftertaste. Tastes like a health store smells. |
| Duffman | |
| Score: | 6/10 |
| Effect: | No effect |
| Comments: | Lime + berry + taurine. |
| Dylan | |
| Score: | 1/10 |
| Effect: | Energy |
| Comments: | It's like a drink of death and Fresca. |
| Evan | |
| Score: | 1/10 |
| Effect: | Intelligence |
| Comments: | It tastes like a health food store smells. |
| John | |
| Score: | 0/10 |
| Effect: | Calmness |
| Comments: | The above is a typo. I feel "clamness". This beverage makes me want to hide in the sand and stick out my tongue - squirting at passersby. |
| Josh | |
| Score: | 2/10 |
| Effect: | Intelligence |
| Comments: | Tastes like raspberry with large doses of aspartame. |
| Sam | |
| Score: | 0/10 |
| Effect: | Radiance |
| Comments: | Tastes like the smells of a store. |
| Sara | |
| Score: | 0/10 |
| Effect: | No effect |
| Comments: | Tastes like aborted babies. |
| Scott | |
| Score: | 4/10 |
| Effect: | Confidence |
| Comments: | Bad aftertaste. Gives confidence to eat people. |
| Jordan | |
| Score: | 1/10 |
| Comments: | Tastes like the health food store smells. Numbed my throat. |
| Results | |
| Total Score: | 1.9/10 |
| Correct Responses: | 1 |
| Conclusion: | Duffman was able to correctly guess that this soda contained taurine, a chemical that is used in many energy drinks. Nobody has any idea how he was able to do that and still not guess the correct effect. Four people commented that the taste was similar to the smell inside a health food store. |
The first curve-ball of the test: Irn-Bru. For those of you who aren't in the know, it's Scottish, and very good. The bottle represents the last of my stock: bought during a Scottish festival. I was very interested to see how people would react, or if they'd even notice.
| Dayton | |
| Score: | 1/10 |
| Effect: | Anti-Cancer |
| Comments: | Tastes like banana medicine. Abosolutely nasty. |
| Duffman | |
| Score: | 5/10 |
| Effect: | No effect |
| Comments: | Banana + orange + ginger. Dizzying. |
| Dylan | |
| Score: | 3/10 |
| Effect: | Anti-Cancer |
| Comments: | Tastes like that banana medicine you get as a child. |
| Evan | |
| Score: | 5/10 |
| Effect: | Banana medicine. |
| Comments: | |
| John | |
| Score: | 6/10 |
| Effect: | Happiness |
| Comments: | The flavor is reminiscent of boxed wine after sitting in an oven for three months. |
| Josh | |
| Score: | 7/10 |
| Effect: | Anti-Cancer |
| Comments: | Tastes like banana, but not cancerous. Maybe even medicinal. |
| Sam | |
| Score: | 5/10 |
| Effect: | Anti-Cancer |
| Comments: | Banana medicine. |
| Sara | |
| Score: | 9/10 |
| Effect: | Happiness |
| Comments: | Cool beans. |
| Scott | |
| Score: | 6/10 |
| Effect: | Anti-Cancer |
| Comments: | Banana medicine + old freezies + some Russian drink from Russia. |
| Jordan | |
| Score: | 7/10 |
| Comments: | Banana flavored and smooth. I like it! |
| Results | |
| Total Score: | 5.4/10 |
| Correct Responses: | 1 |
| Conclusion: | Most people thought that this was medicinal for some strange reason, and most of the testers actually used the word medicine or medicinal in their comments. Overwhelmingly, they thought it would prevent cancer. Do I smell a marketing strategy? |
