Taiwanese soda company Ocean Bomb has a huge range of Pokemon-themed drinks out at the moment. This one, with Pikachu’s face and the word “cider” on it, convinced me it was the one to try.




Now, where I’m from in Australia, “cider” is an alcoholic beverage you drink in the summertime. I get that for Americans it’s a little different, but just so you know going forwards, my palette’s reference for cider is something that looks like this:


Not this:

Anyway! Cracking open the can I was greeted with a pale, sparkly soda.


There was a faint whiff of apple to the beverage as I first poured it out, but it should be stressed this isn’t cider, it’s cider-flavoured “sea sparkling water”, and while that may conjure images of subtle notes of apple atop a bedrock of carbonated nothingness, let me wreck that for you by saying this tastes like sugar with some apple juice run through it.

The drinks’ ingredients confirm this:


Not that this is a bad thing! Unless we’re talking about my health and teeth, in which case, holy shit this is a bad thing.

But for the purposes of this impressions piece let’s remember this isn’t a health drink, it’s sugar water, and as far as sugar water goes, it was really refreshing! It was a hot-ass day when I tested this, and the drinks’ sweet almost-cidery taste went down a treat. Not quite as refreshing as an actual pint of cider would have, but then, you can’t buy boozy cider with Pokemon on the front of them, so compromises sometimes have to be made.


While the Pikachu can I got was pretty nice, it’s only one of a number of Pokemon tie-ins that Ocean Bomb is currently offering, both individually and in big cases. Here are the others:

Ocean Bomb x Pokemon Ocean Bomb x Pokemon Ocean Bomb x Pokemon Ocean Bomb x Pokemon Advertisement You can skip ad after 1 second You can go to the next slide after 1 second Continue Ocean Bomb x Pokemon Ocean Bomb x Pokemon Ocean Bomb x Pokemon Ocean Bomb x Pokemon 1 / 8


I think I’ll try the Jigglypuff next. Mostly for the can.