Yeo's White Gourd Drink

I can still taste the horror of this one. Actually, it sat in the back of my refrigerator for a couple of months before I could even work up the courage to open it. This is because I've never tasted a gourd in any form, much less as a beverage, which seemed like the worst possible medium for my first gourd-related experience.

And even though I was expecting the worst, I was still taken aback at the pure unmitigated wrongness of this drink. There are no currently-existing flavors to describe it. It had kind of a peanutty-old sock flavor, a little bit like soy nuts, only gamier. Gordish, I guess. I don't know. Not helping was their decision not to carbonate the damn stuff, so you could experience the gourd flavor in full effect, without any tangy bubbles to distract the taste buds. The harnessing of CO2 for beverage purposes is one of man's greater triumphs, and makes even the most retarded store brand pop not just drinkable, but enjoyable. Thank you, Carbon, Oxygen.

The can proudly proclaims itself an 'Authentic Asian Drink' which I feel is pretty obvious, considering that if it was an American pop, the can would have something along the lines of 'XXXTREME ALPINE MIST POWER GOURDO CODE BLANCO BLASTOFF!!!!' spalshed across it in fonts of varying color and extremeness.

But even after all the aforementioned, the thing that really amazes me about the White Gourd Drink is that I didn't get it at an Asian grocery store. I found it in a major chain market, which means that of all the canned beverages floating around the entire continent, this was one of the most mainstream ones available, and therefore chosen to be stocked as a regular item at a major US grocery store. What the hell else is over there that didn't make the cut? The mind boggles.