While Aftermath is ostensibly a gaming, media and technology site, it is also whatever we want it to be because we own it. And in the spirit of our Kotaku colleague Mike Fahey, who loved reviewing various snacks under the banner of “Snacktaku,” and as someone who has bizarrely strong feelings about soft drinks, I am returning to that tradition by bringing the attention of the masses to a soda that is a generational achievement: The Red Bull Winter Edition Sugarfree Fuji Apple & Ginger. I am pleased to report that Red Bull was cooking with this one.
Red Bull as a brand is bizarre: The drink itself can be saccharine and offputting to people who aren’t used to it, yet it's outwardly svelte and austere compared to the grotesque market it helped spawn. Red Bull hosts countless extreme sports events that often involve different variations on seeing how high a guy can fall from without dying. For a few years they were the primary patron of electronic music journalism with Red Bull Music Academy before they decided that it wasn’t worth it and they shut down the entire thing. It is a shame, but I still reference some of those articles from time to time. Red Bull continues to put out those weird squiggle cartoon ads including during the most recent Super Bowl, which I find endearing and old fashioned given that they are often adjacent to ads that are AI slop, promoting the panopticon for dogs, or just generally ill-advised.
Chris Person
A key to Red Bull’s success is iconography and consistency. You’ll often see them in their own dorm-friendly dedicated mini fridges at delis and gas stations, apart from the riffraff of other sodas. The primary thrust of their offerings is their main flavor in sugar and sugar free, although over the years Red Bull has experimented with a wide array of other variants. There’s the recent monkfruit-flavored alternative to sugar free called Red Bull Zero that I respect conceptually but would say “needs some work.” There was the short-lived (in the States) but aggressively flavorful Red Bull Simply Cola, which listed all the flavor components and was genuinely fantastic but fizzled out over the years (It can still be purchased in some territories as part of their “Organics” line.) I have wanted a diet version of that for ages and have found one Muslim-owned UK cola called Aqsa Free that gets very close and which claims to donate their profits to Palestinian causes. On top of this, there are seasonal variants of Red Bull that often come and go. These are referred to as “Editions,” and some of these end up escaping their seasonal prison, getting rotated into the year-round mix.
This last winter, Red Bull created something special dubbed Red Bull Winter Edition Sugarfree Fuji Apple & Ginger. Apple soda is an under-utilized soda flavor in North America, outside of imports like the iconic Sidral Mundet from Mexico, Kobe Kyoryuchi Cider Zero from Japan and Apple Sidra from Taiwan. Red Bull’s take on the genre is a kind of Jolly Rancher apple taste married with a crisp ginger aftertaste. The result is deeply pleasing and drinkable, fruity up front followed by a crisp, palate cleansing aftertaste. You could drink these all day if caffeine was not an ongoing concern. Unlike the abrasive mainstay of regular Red Bull, the Fuji Apple & Ginger is inviting to anybody who has ever had apple juice. On top of this, the can is slightly different, sporting an eye-catching gradient design instead of the usual solid colors the Editions are saddled with.
After much meditation and a season of slamming cans of the stuff, I have come to the conclusion that The Apple Edition could be Red Bull’s White Monster Sugar Free if they play their cards right. For people who are not aware, the primary mainstays of Monster Energy are Monster Energy (green lettering) Monster Energy Lo-Carb (b lettering) and Monster Energy Zero Ultra, which everyone just calls “white Monster.” The first two are (I say this with love) sludge: the way-too-sweet caffeine blaster that is typical of also-ran energy drinks.
White Monster is different, a disquietingly palatable citrus flavor that stands in stark contrast to its extreme exterior and branding. I have often likened it to Turbo Fresca. White Monster is the crowd pleaser, the icon that stands against the Call Of Duty-branded freak juice it shares a section of the cooler with. If there is a gay-coded Monster, White Monster is it. And while the brand offers Ultra variants that come and go, including the strangely appealing Vice Guava, none touch White Monster in terms of sheer presence.
Anecdotal though it may be, I have seen a creeping amount of Red Bull Fuji Apple & Ginger in the wild relative to other flavors. Perhaps it is because the can itself is oddly striking: the gradient jumping out of the freezer and calling attention to itself in a way that other cans do not. Perhaps it’s a regional bias, and maybe people in my neighborhood are fans of the flavor just a tiny bit more. Very likely it’s because I am on the hunt for the flavor, as I will often buy a few of the sugar free variants when I’m on the road.
Or maybe people are coming to the same conclusion I am, that Red Bull has a hit on their hands. I have seen reports that the flavor has been rebranded as The Apple Edition in the UK and is now offered year round, and I have reached out to Red Bull for confirmation to see if the same is true in the States. I hope The Apple Edition has a long life alongside the original Red Bull as a fan favorite. Perhaps it can become the brand’s second, just like White Monster – the iconic crowd pleaser, a tasteful choice for those in the know.
