I happened to be passing through one of our local Fair Trade shops today to pick up some more coffee beans, as is my habit - not only do they have more variety than most regular supermarkets, but their blends are almost universally better quality, thus slaking the taste buds of the discerning Java drinker as well as giving a warm fuzzy feeling that you’re doing something positive for farmers in developing countries, or at least helping them get screwed slightly less than they would otherwise be.
Anyway, the crux of this story is not coffee, because right there on the counter as I was paying I spotted a drinks can emblazoned with the name ‘Ubuntu Cola’, which made me suddenly smirk and chuckle involuntarily in a way that prompted the cashier to give me an unusual look. Of course, I could have spent the time explaining to him that Ubuntu was the name of a free software operating system, and thus to see it turning up on the side of a can of cola was pretty surprising, but we could have been there for a while, and he probably wouldn’t have thought me any less crazy by the end of it either - I suspect he would have just been a little more specific about it (i.e. a crazy geek). As such it was faster just to grab a can, add it to my tab and be on my way.
So what’s it like? Well, it’s a little darker than regular big-name cola and tastes quite a bit like Pepsi, although oddly it seems to remind me of the Pepsi of my youth, perhaps because the ingredient list seems a little simpler and it’s loaded with natural cane sugar rather than ‘high fructose corn syrup’ (whatever that is). Overall pretty good - I usually don’t choose to drink cola these days but it was worth the experiment, if only for the blogworthiness 
As it turns out, there’s a whole Ubuntu Trading Company and it appears Ubuntu Cola might just be the first of many Ubuntu food products. I wonder what Mark Shuttleworth thinks of that?
May 10th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
I’ve seen some of this around, although I haven’t tried it. Though the word Ubuntu is obviously not just an OS-specific thing, as we all know. I agree though, it’s odd to see it labelled on food.
May 10th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
That made me chuckle as well. I bought a can in the canteen of a well-known mobile phone network’s call centre. It had been there a couple of weeks, at a quid a can, double the price of the real stuff.
According to the cashier, I was only the second person to buy some. It tasted ok but strange, so I bought another can the next week to try and figure it out, becoming the third person to buy it as well.
They don’t have it any more, oddly enough.
May 10th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
I know it’s not OS specific, but then neither is the word ‘Windows’ or ‘Apple’, and we’ve seen how much people covet those words
Canonical have trademarked “Ubuntu” (and variants like “Kubuntu”) but I guess probably only in the software domain.
May 10th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
I refrain from elaborating on my sniggering sessions when i see things like this though, as I have done in the past.
Me: “Wow, Ubuntu cola… Ubuntu, so cool!”
The Woman: “What’s so cool about Ubuntu?”
Me: “Oh, it’s a Linux distribution, it’s really awesome!”
The Woman: “I forget why I decided to marry you.”
I’m pretty sure I’ve done this many-a-time before.
May 10th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
I just wanted to stop by and say thank you for the Ogre engine.. thanks to you and all your team, you guys rock!
May 10th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
I’m confused.. Is this like a coincidence or did they set-up this cola based off the branding of Ubuntu Linux? Looking at their site many people seem to think they branded this cola purposely to grab attention.
Either way it’s working, because I want to try it, hehe. It says it’s stocked in my uni in Huddersfield so I’ll take a quick look around Monday although I have to admit I’m not a big cola drinker, I prefer water myself (yeah I know, boring).
Steve I don’t know if I missed it already but I’d love to read about your impressions of the latest Ubuntu release.
May 11th, 2008 at 4:18 am
Have you run out of the monmouth rocket fuel yet?
May 11th, 2008 at 10:41 am
@Andrew: Well, Ubuntu is the name of their whole company, so I guess it depends on when they set it up. But yeah, my suspicion is that it’s a tactic to get publicity.
I haven’t tried Ubuntu 8.04 yet on the desktop, I configured a 8.04 server machine for one of my customers recently though and liked it a lot, mostly because it’s just like my Debian boxes here but with newer packages. I’ll be trying desktop 8.04 when I get a bit of time though.
@jonnii: yes, thanks - I made it through the whole packet in about 2 weeks
I thought it was very nice, but it was a bit too strong for my wife so I’ve been experimenting with various types to find a range we both like.
May 12th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
here in germany we have a washing powder called linux… so…
May 29th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
That’s nothing! Where I live, we have little holes in the walls through which we can look out, called ‘Windows’. Cool, ain’t it?