So there’s a soda here in Germany that’s a mix of cola and orange soda, which was first brought to market under the brand-name Spezi. Since then, other companies have introduced similar cola/orange flavoured sodas into the German market, under other names, such as Mezzo Mix (made by Coca-Cola) or Schwip-Schwap (by PepsiCo). The original manufacturer of Spezi, a company named Riegele, trademarked the name Spezi, so the competing sodas are normally called just a “cola mix”.

Unfortunately, however, Riegele was as unsuccessful at protecting the use of the name Spezi, in the same way that the “Kleenex” and “Xerox” companies were unsuccessful in having those terms be eventually used to refer generically to all versions of the same kind of product. I.e., people use Spezi now as a generic term that can refer to any of the cola-mix products. So, if I order a Spezi around here, I might wind up with a Mezzo Mix or a Schwip-Schwap.

Well, that’s true here in Southern Germany, at least. When we were in Leipzig recently, Chris tried to order a can of Mezzo Mix at a counter by saying he wanted a Spezi. However, the woman at the counter had no idea what he was talking about, even though we could see that they had cans of Mezzo Mix in the case behind her. When he changed his order to specify Mezzo Mix, though, the woman gave him a look as if to say, well, why didn’t you just say so?

Leipzig is in the former East German part of the country. And as it turns out, according to Wikipedia at least, the original Spezi made by Riegele wasn’t originally sold anywhere in East Germany (including Leipzig), and Riegele still hasn’t made great inroads into that market, 20 years after the reunification of the country.

Of course, Riegele hasn’t made great in-roads into the Tübingen market, either, which was never part of East Germany. I have not yet been able to find it anywhere in town, which I say after a totally non-exhaustive search of 3 grocery stores in town. But I can say with certainty that Mezzo Mix is the cola-mix of choice for stores here in Tübingen to carry, apparently. It’s in every grocery store and also in every cafe. I actually originally thought that Mezzo Mix was the only cola/orange soda around, and that Spezi was just an alternate name for it. But it turns out that Coca-Cola just has a broader market share and, perhaps, more aggressive distributors.

But I digress.

What I really wanted to talk about today is the “Great American Spezi Taste Test” (GASTT) that happened a little over a week ago here in Tübingen. It was a select set of judges, with just Chris and myself on the panel.  Since we couldn’t find the original, our GASTT  taste-tested 4 brands that are found in the supermarket here, to see if there was any difference in taste.

I should note that during the GASTT both Chris and I could see which was Spezi was which during the first round of testing. So, it was not a double-blind test. That’s the problem when you don’t have the budget to hire extra people to help conduct these tests.

Anyway, here are the results we had after sampling a small taste of each product in the first test round, where Chris and I could each see what the product was we were drinking:

• Mezzo Mix (made by Coca-cola)
  • Strength: Good fizz, lots of head on it
  • Color: looked like a dark tan cola
  • Overall: Definitely watery. Not a strong cola or citrus/orange flavor. Just tasted liked minimally flavored chemicals.

• Schwip-Schwap (made by PepsiCo)
  • Strength: Good fizz, lots of head on it
  • Color: Much lighter tan color than any of the others
  • Overall: Like a watery orange soda

• Paulaner Spezi (not the original, but a brand made by a beer company)
  • Strength: Stronger, more orange-y flavor; it bills itself as a blend of cola, orange AND lemon
  • Color: Much darker that the first two,more the color of a cola, just slightly lighter
  • Overall: Tasted like a cola mixed with orange soda – elements of both could be detected

• Schwartzwald Sprudel brand Cola-Mix
  • Strength: Stronger, more orange-y flavor; by far the most citrus-y tasting, with a whopping 3% real fruit juice (the others don’t claim any percentage of real juice)
  • Color: Comparable to the Paulaner
  • Overall: Tasted like a cola mixed with citrus elements, light and pleasant

After round one, the Schwartzwald Cola-Mix topped both of our lists, with the Paulaner a close second.

Then, Chris closed his eyes and I gave him samples to taste, to see if he still preferred the Schwartzwald. And yes, his Spezi taste buds are quite in tune with the tastes: he pick the Schwartzwald Cola-Mix once again, and correctly identified each of the others he tasted in that round.

I, as it turns out, don’t have nearly as discriminating a palate for Spezi. Of course, the fact that I was laughing hard all through the 2nd round may have made it harder to conduct my taste test with-my-eyes-closed properly. But for whatever reason,  I didn’t detect any difference between the Schwartzwald and the Paulaner varieties during the second round, even though I’d had a clear preference for the  Schwartzwald Cola-Mix the first time round.

Maybe the bouquet of the Paulaner had opened up upon decanting to enhance the taste and fool me in the second round? Well, they say wines do that, right, so why not Spezi?

Anyway, for me the Paulaner Spezi and the Schwartzwald Sprudel Cola-Mix are very similar, even if I did give a slight nod to the Schwartzwald in the first round. Without a doubt, both are heads and shoulders ahead of either the Mezzo Mix or the Schwip-Schwap. Which means it’s really too bad that what we get around here is mostly Mezzo Mix. Ah well.  But, we don’t drink much soda, anyway, so I guess we can always seek out the good stuff in the grocery store when we want our Spezi fix.

Although, I stopped by the grocery store today to get a bottle of the Schwartzwald Sprudel Cola-Mix, to celebrate the writing of this post. But the store was all of out it. However, as I stood there looking for it on the shelves, I realized that the Schwartzwald Sprudel brand makes all kinds of drinks that are mixes of juices and Mineralwasser. I.e. they make bottled Schorles. Their newest offering: a Rhabarbarschorle.

So, perhaps at heart the Schwartzwald Sprudel folks just make drinks in general with sparkling mineral water. That would make sense, after all, since the word in the dictionary for sparkling mineral water is Sprudel. That word isn’t used here in Tübingen, but that is supposed to be the real German word for “fizzy water”.

Upon realizing that, it initially came as no surprise when I turned around in the soda aisle this morning in the grocery store and saw that there, on the other side of the aisle, shelved with all the bottled mineral waters, was bottled water made by the Schwartzwald Sprudel people. I leaned in for a closer look.

According to the label, the water in that bottle was Still — i.e., non sparkling — water.

Someone’s very confused.

Anyway, tomorrow we’ll move on to a different area of drinks that rarely sparkle (for me) here in Germany: the world of German coffee.