Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash: Hallowed be thy name

If God invented anything better, he saved it for himself.

You've heard that (at least I have) when referring to a multitude of things: heroin, vagina, seeing your favorite team win it all.

For me, it's simply Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash, the greatest soda (and liquid in the physical universe we occupy) ever invented.

I still remember the day I heard about it. It was late 2006, and I heard a radio ad while at home from my holiday break in grad school.

I've always loved cranberry flavored things, which also goes hand in hand with my intense dislike of yeast infections. Cranberry juice, cranberry sauce.....well, I guess that's about it.

I'm not a big soda guy either. Sure, Dr. Pepper is like heaven in a can, but besides a brief love affair with Vanilla coke my senior year of high school, I don't drink too much.

Unless I'm using cola as a mixer for rum and/or bourbon, soda doesn't play a large part in my life.

But then again, I've always been a sucker for specialty sodas. Maybe it's the fact that I can't walk into a 7-11 365 days a year and get a Mountain Dew Baja Blast, which is only at Taco Bell, that makes it so appealing.

I remember my brief fling with Pepsi Holiday Spice. I was a junior in college, and had turned 21 the previous August.

Since I was always broke as shit (after all, pot costs money), my main alcohol consumption came in the form of cheap fifths of dark rum:

• Ron Virgin. Dark as the night and twice as long. This was almost black, and mixed well with any cola or ginger ale. Hell, it probably was good taken in shot form as well. At $7.90 a fifth, it was the equivalent of The Glen Livet for me.
  
• Sir Francis Drake. The cheapest piss-colored rum available in a handle form. For those of you who don't know what a handle is: A) kill yourself; and B) it's a 1.75 liter bottle. The big boy. The only problem? After a night of drinking it, you're insides feel like they have been rinsed with dirty dishwater. If you can't afford the $11.40 handle, then the fifth was $6.85 or something like that, and $7.43 with tax. Not that I remember or anything.
  
• The crown jewel of the cheap fifth, Mr. Boston. Mr. Boston and I go way back. At 5.90 a fifth, you can do no wrong with that gentleman. Sure, it was as bitter as swill. But it mixed well with coke. And the hangover was slightly less dirty than Sir Francis Drake.
  

The reason I digressed about glorious cheap rums was because Mr. Boston mixed very well with Pepsi Holiday Spice. So well, in fact, that I will probably never be able to drink Pepsi Holiday Spice (should it ever come back) again without tasting that fine, impure distillation of Mr. Boston's finest.

But now I have Cranberry Splash. And it is an enticing lover. She beckons me from grocery store shelves and convenience store coolers.

"Come. Taste me. I won't be around forever you know. Would you like me to put on my 2-liter dress for mixing? Or how about you and me take a car ride in my 20 oz. suit? Or we could spent an evening together, me in my 12 oz. cans and you drinking six or seven of me."

I could tell you that I'm flaccid now, but I would be lying.

My current favorite cocktail is Tito's Handmade Vodka mixed with Cranberry Splash. The last time I got rip-roaring drunk was a few Sundays ago while watching football.

I drank a fifth of Tito's along with a 2-liter of Cranberry Splash throughout the day. I remember the first half of the 1:00 games, and the bitter end of the night game.

And I did not piss all over myself. As far as you know.

So if you're in the Northern Virginia area, and you see that your local supermarket has been cleansed of all Cranberry Splash, I might have been there.

And if you slip on something that smells vaguely of bleach, then you know I have been there.

I apologize for nothing.