Now that my daily commute to work takes me past a 7-11, I find myself stopping there every morning for a Big Gulp. Don’t judge. Some people have their coffee, I have my morning fountain Diet Pepsi. Anyways, when walking into 7-11 you can’t help but notice an advertisement on the door for Arizona Soda Shaq. How could this not catch your eye? NBA legend Shaquille O’ Neal’s uber-excited face couldn’t possibly be any bigger on this can.

I decided to try all four flavors and then write this blog post. All four flavors are creme soda based; Vanilla Cream, Blueberry Cream, Orange Cream, and Strawberry Cream. Arizona touts the products as being made with all-natural ingredients including real Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla extract and pure cane sugar. Advertisements say the drink is a relative bargain at only 90 calories per serving. Look closely at that can though. The can is about 24 ounces meaning a can contains 3 serving sizes. That means drinking a can is worth 270 calories. That is lower than most regular-calorie sodas. 24 ounces of Pepsi would come in at 300 calories and the same of Mountain Dew would come in at 330 calories. Critics are targeting Shaq because of his long-standing support of programs targeting childhood obesity and diabetes. It’s worth noting that at 72 grams of sugar per can, Soda Shaq does again slip in under Pepsi and Mountain Dew. Those clock in at 93 grams and 84 grams respectively. The American Heart Association recommends 20 grams a day of added sugar for women and 36 grams for men.Shouldn’t Shaq get some credit for at least being slightly lower than other carbonated soft drinks? Not at all. Arizona is marketing these as a “diet” item using the tagline “fans can satisfy their sweet tooth without the guilt from the very first clean and refreshing sip.”

We tried all four flavors in the office. Here’s what we thought:

None of them were very good.

Even the pregnant lady in the office wasn’t a fan of them and pregnant women like weird things, right?

Of all the flavors, the Orange Creme was probably the best. None of the flavors were very flavorful. One opinion that was heard around the office on most flavors was that they would make halfway decent mixers for cocktails. If that’s what Shaq and Arizona were going for, then they made a pretty decent play on that.

Since I wasn’t “wow’d” by any of them, I’ll leave it to some other bloggers for actual reviews of the drinks. Claire over at XOJane tried them. And of course BuzzFeed had something to say back in June.

I may not be good at reviewing things, but I am quite talented at embedding cool videos in my posts. So, in honor of Shaq Soda, I give you five six awesome Shaquille O’ Neal videos.

Shaq was of course awesome in the cinematic classic Blue Chips way back in 1994 with Nick Nolte. Here’s Neon.

He continued his stellar acting career in Kazaam.

In 1997 Shaquille O’Neal fought crime in Steel.

He continued to prove how talented and awesome he is when he beat Michael Phelps in a swimming event.

Shaq once showed Justin Bieber how to dance. The Biebs probably owes a lot of his success to Shaq. Maybe he can buy him something nice, since he can’t for Grandpa.

Bo knew football. Shaq knows basketball.

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