Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Dead Soda Brands From Our Youth.

As I grew older, I came to realize the folly of drinking too many soft drinks. In fact, I haven't had a regular soda pop in many years. Every once in a blue moon, I'll partake in a diet soda. This is usually to create a mixed adult beverage, though.

Diet Cheerwine and Bacardi Black Rum, anyone?

When I was a kid, my parents kept our home fully stocked with all sorts of soda pop; so much so that drinking water seemed wrong. Yeah... thanks parents. I'm lucky I've never had a cavity.

Thinking back, I remember all of the great sodas I had in my youth -- RC Cola, Dr. Pepper and Cherry Pepsi just to name a few. But, what about some of the discontinued and forgotten sodas? Where did they go? Here are three to invigorate your memory.


Surge was released in 1996 by Coca-Cola to combat the rising popularity of Mountain Dew. Obviously, they failed miserably. By 2003, it was totally discontinued. Surge was marketed as one of the first soda/energy drink hybrids and played heavily into the extreme sports fad of the '90s. Ultimately, Surge was brought back late last year in limited supply -- you can only order it online at Amazon.


Here's an oldie that I loved to drink back in the day -- Slice. Beginning in 1984, it came in many different flavors, including (but not limited to) fruit punch, peach, mandarin orange, pineapple, lemon-lime and strawberry. The fruit punch flavor was awesome, as was the mandarin orange. I remember not liking the peach flavor, though. The lemon-lime flavor was the springboard for Sierra Mist, which has since become the chief national competitor to Sprite. By 2000, production of most Slice flavors was scaled back heavily. In 2005, the line was completely eradicated by parent company PepsiCo. I have read in multiple places that select flavors of Slice are exclusively available at certain Wal-mart locations, but I've never personally seen them.


Ahhhh... good old Crystal Pepsi. You were utter crap. I tasted you twice back in 1992 and was absolutely disgusted. I remember the exact place I first tasted Crystal Pepsi -- I was in the parking lot at the long shuttered Star Value grocery store in Victoria, Virginia. I got one out of a vending machine (remember when soda pops cost a quarter). What a waste of twenty five cents! My brother Josh seemed to enjoy Crystal Pepsi, if I remember correctly. How, I have no idea. I can still remember the flavor -- it tasted like a flat, bitter tonic water with a dash of syrup. It was absolutely awful. By 1994, it had vanished from store shelves. To this day, I can still recall the Crystal Pepsi commercial that featured Van Halen singing "Right Now". Yeah... your soda sucks RIGHT NOW is more like it. Crystal Pepsi hasn't been seen since, much to the delight of everyone.


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