Most people have chosen a side between Coke and Pepsi — yes, it's proven that they taste different — but, occasionally, the two cola giants will try to lure fence-sitters with exclusive novelty flavors. After all, who can forget Diet Coke Feisty Cherry or Orange Vanilla Coke? Or, on the other side of the bipartisan pop wars, Pepsi Peach and Pepsi Lime ? And lest we forget, Pepsi also brought us the now-discontinued Kona line of coffee-flavored drinks for those who liked a little side of caffeine with their caffeine. One such novelty flavor was Pepsi Fire, a limited-edition cinnamon-flavored soda that was set to last eight weeks of summer in 2017.
Lauren Cohen, Director of Marketing for Pepsi, stated in a press release at the time that "Pepsi Fire [was] going to ignite [the] season with an unexpected and spicy twist to our classic cola taste." The rollout followed a $2.3 million 2004 trial of Pepsi Fire in Asian markets.
Pepsi billed the Fire variety as a hot and spicy drink. The human tongue perceives cinnamon as spicy due to aptly-named cinnamaldehydes, oils that affect flavor receptors on the tongue and shoot back warnings about potential irritants. (Yes, those Atomic Fireballs and Big Red gum from your childhood were actually aggravating your mouth!) Reviews were seriously mixed The internet had a lot to say about Pepsi Fire, but not all of it was good.
Actually, most wasn't. Taste of Home was disappointed by trying the soda, saying that "it didn't deliver a strong cin.