Natural; it’s all the rage these days. From bags of potato chips to women’s body parts, everyone seems to want something untarnished by the hands of man. Who could blame them? Wouldn’t you want a crystal blue lake or shimmering white snow? I’m sure you don’t have a choice anyways, thanks to a power plant ruining the closest body of water to you. Yet leave it to massive corporations to claim that their giant machines can make a product that’s all natural. I’m not disputing the natural ingredient claim, but what do they mean by listing “Natural Flavors” as an ingredient? What would the soda taste like if it was unnatural flavors? Tylenol Soup?

The “Natural” claim is probably mostly referring to the fact that they got rid of that dreadful fatty-making goo, High Fructose Corn Syrup. I would rather eat a pound of butter while laying down and playing Halo than ingest that awful substance. I don’t care how much of the “Natural” claim is marketing-based, the sooner they switch back to permanently using real sugars in soda, the better. The Corn Refiners Association can try to fool us all they want with their doublespeak names, like “corn sugar,” but in the end it’s all the same. High Fructose Corn Syrup is like Slimer from Ghostbusters, condensed, liquified, and beveragified. And no, not in a good way like those old Ecto-Cooler Hi-C juice-boxes.

The result is a beverage that has never looked or tasted better in its life. I admit that I don’t have much of a frame of reference, but this might be the first soda I’ve ever had that textually felt water based. In my experiences my arch nemesis corn syrup had thickened up the mixture closer to a sticky paste for hyperbole’s sake. Instead you get a fresh, crisp flavor that tastes like a bartender squeezed you some fresh citrus without the excessive throat melting acids. They really got the natural part down; as soon as I opened the bottle, I got a strong whiff of lemon juice, shortly followed by an equally natural but less dominant lime juice scent. It’s a strong flavor that springs to life, rather than bogging itself down. I attribute this to the lack of HFCS. Your body no longer has to be subjected to the beverage equivalent of jumping into a small slough of nuclear waste! I love that I can feel less bad about drinking soda, but Sierra Mist Natural isn’t good enough to bring me to the dark side of beverages. When you get down to it, Lemon-Lime is just too plain for a rebel like myself. If I could get my hands on some Cranberry Sierra Mist Natural, maybe then we’ll talk.