Do you take some sort of sick pleasure in forcing me to drink these ridiculous concoctions!?!?!? Curse you, curse yo….. wait… This is… actually not half bad.

Suntory has done what Sapporo couldn’t: mix the flavor of chocolate into a non-coffee drink. Congratulations, Suntory! I don’t really think I needed 500ml of the stuff, I would have been happy with just a taste. Anyway, drinking this “Chocolate Sparkling” is like having a strangely flavored Jelly belly. The flavor doesn’t match the medium at all, but it’s mysteriously accurate and somehow good…

I think if I had any more than a bottle, the paradox of chocolate soda would wreak havoc on my mind… so I’ll make this my first and last bottle of the stuff this year. Maybe it’ll be back for next year’s Valentine’s day.

Translation: Contains no chocolate (chocolate was not used)

Finally, it’s interesting to note that the chocolate flavor, while strikingly accurate, uses no actual chocolate. If you’ve got a chocolate allergy but are curious what all the rage is about, this might be the drink for you!

See Suntory’s official Chocolate Sparkling page for more information (in Japanese, of course).