Cool food news: They put Krispy Kreme in your Cheerwine

Did you feel that little bump this morning? That would be your Southern food-icon worlds colliding, when Cheerwine and Krispy Kreme released their latest collaboration: Cheerwine Kreme.

This isn’t the first date for the two North Carolina-based products (Salisbury for Cheerwine, Winston-Salem for Krispy Kreme). In 2010, Krispy Kreme introduced a Cheerwine-flavored doughnut. This time, they’re flipping it, adding a Krispy Kreme taste to Cheerwine. (We have to wonder: If you wash down a Cheerwine Krispy Kreme doughnut with Cheerwine Kreme soda, would you start talking like Luke Duke?)

The color looks a little watered down, a pinker version of Cheerwine’s signature dark red. The texture seems a little watered-down too, with fewer bubbles than straight Cheerwine.

So how does it taste? As the name would make you think, it’s definitely similar to cream soda with a cherry chaser. Among our taste testers, the ones who liked it admitted they have weaknesses for sweet, sugary treats. One Northern transplant said it reminded him of Faygo, the cult-followed red soda.

The ones who didn’t compared it (not favorably) to diet cream soda.

“It was terrible, but not in the the way I thought it would be,” said Observer restaurant reviewer Helen Schwab. “I thought it was going to be teeth-stickingly sugary.”

If you can’t wait to try it, look for it in Krispy Kreme shops in North Carolina, South Carolina and Savannah, and in supermarket chains including Food Lion.