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Mariah Carey debuts new ‘melodic beverage’ called Butterfly

Singer Mariah Carey and business partner Kevin Liles, CEO of Go N'Syde beverages, announce the launch of her new beverage Butterfly in New York on Monday.
(Andrew H. Walker / Getty Images)
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What does music taste like? Can you capture sweetness with your eardrums? Can choruses be delicious? These are all questions prompted by the announcement of a new drink called Butterfly, which is being marketed as “a melodic beverage inspired by the magic of Mariah Carey.”

At a news conference announcing Butterfly’s arrival, the singer sipped the pink liquid from a champagne flute and described it as “a whole ‘nother thing,” then suggested that allowing a bottle of her elixir into your life is virtually like living among the platinum artist herself. “We can do this and I will almost be in the room with you,” she said as an electric fan outside the frame softly blew wind across her hair.

The new drink comes in a sensual, well-figured bottle and contains ingredients including water, sugar, sodium benzoate, sucralose and colorings including Red 40 and Blue 1.

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Not coincidentally, the arrival of the Butterfly drink comes at the same time that the multiplatinum artist is promoting her new album “Me. I Am Mariah … The Elusive Chanteuse.” Released to great fanfare but poor reviews and middling first-week sales, the album currently sits at No. 3 on the Billboard charts.

That showing didn’t seem to bother her on Monday. She was focused on the beverage, of which she coyly gushed, “I don’t want to give away our secrets, darlings, but it’s — everybody else is going to be mad that they didn’t do it first. That’s all I can say.” (Apparently she never enjoyed Nelly’s energy drink Pimp Juice, 2Pac’s Hunid Racks or Snoop Dogg’s malt-liquor-infused drink Blast.)

Still skeptical? The pitch on the bottle’s label might do a better job than Carey’s media event. “Butterfly gives everyone something new to sing about. Let this melodic blend of sophisticated sweetness lift you to your high notes every day that you pamper yourself with a sip of Butterfly inspired by Mariah Carey.”

The drink is available exclusively at Walgreen, purveyor of some of the world’s most exotic beverages. So far the critics are skeptical. Wrote junkfoodguy.com: “It tasted, literally, like liquid sugar-free gummy bears. No joke .… I got that weird blend of sugar and sucralose flavor — you know, the kind when you drink sugar-free drinks. Which I don’t like. At times I also caught weird floral notes — borderline soapy.”

That’s not soap. That’s Butterfly.

Looking for music tips? Follow Randall Roberts on Twitter: @liledit

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