X-Entertainment's '11 Discontinued Sodas Revisited'

I love this stuff:


http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0961/
------------------------------------------------------------------

Crystal Pepsi:
I think part of the reason why Crystal Pepsi was considered such a flop is because Pepsi built up its debut like the second coming of Christ. I mean, you buy a minute-long Superbowl commercial where Van Halen credits Crystal Pepsi as the root of a cultural evolution, and you damn well better be more than a can of Pepsi without any brown in it.

Still, it was one of those things that people had to try at least once. There was no excuse for avoiding a novelty factor that high. A childhood friend and I forced his little sister into doing a blind taste test, and we were shocked when she couldn't tell which glass was regular Pepsi and which was Crystal Pepsi. I don't think the phrase "BOOYAH" had even been coined yet, but there we were, screaming it at this poor little idiot girl who couldn't tell Pepsi from its bastard naked cousin named after the worst secondary character from Roseanne history.
------------------------------------------------------------------
</snip>
http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0961/

that stuff was god awful...I'm surprised that bottles of it still exist

I'm kinda into mail-order of sodas that I can't get around here.

I would imagine 15 years of aging could only improve the flavor

I was a few months late in tasting it, living in Germany, and couldn't tell the difference. Tasted okay to me.

I expect my cola to be brown anything else is just plain wrong, and the flavor was off a bit too. I'm the same way with ketchups, when they came out with those "fun" colored ketchups a few years ago, I was completely grossed out by them even though the taste was supposedly the same

Expecting one taste and getting another is quite startling.

I bought one bottle of Crystal Pepsi when it hit my PX in Germany. The first taste was strange--it was not Sprite flavored!--but when I stopped looking at the stuff, it was just a cola.

Some of those I never got to see, but I love looking at old designs of cans/bottles and seeing how the styles have changed over time and how they looked at different periods. (Yeah, I'm a nerd.)

I definitely miss Surge, though. I was in eighth grade at the time of its release and my friends and I were a bunch of hardcore Surge fans. (Well, except for my best friend, who was one until he had an intense allergic reaction to it!) For me, it was about the taste, but I think the ad campaign worked its charm on plenty of junior high and high school age guys at the time. Surge kind of slowly disappeared, though; I hadn't realized it had been totally taken off the market but just thought that it had become really hard to find.

I wasn't that big on Blue Pepsi, and I'm normally a fan of fruity drinks. That one was just a little too sweet. Crystal Pepsi just tasted like normal Pepsi to me but I think, like the Arch Deluxe, that one probably failed because it couldn't live up to the abnormal hype surrounding it.

Two drinks that I miss that he doesn't mention in the article: This weird berryish drink from the late-nineties called Josta. Also, a citrus-y soda from the mid-nineties that he mentions in passing in the article: OK Soda. I remember the drink being rather good and I liked the weird drawings on the can, but I don't think it lasted for very long at all.

at a Yearbook Signing party when I was in High School (Spring-ish 1996).

It was, in fact OK. It tasted like a suicide with a bit too much Orange.

OK was one of the few drinks that Coke out-and-out cancelled. Most hold on in certain markets where they are profitable (i.e. Surge was sold until 2006 in certain fountains.)

Man, I miss that stuff. Became addicted in the summer of 1997, because every store sold it for dirt cheap (as a promotion- get the masses hooked, of course :) ). It had a crisper taste than Mountain Dew, if I remember.

I swear it tastes JUST like it.
Duckie

My husband can't get enough of vault zero. And for those DUers who loved Surge, they can now get it with an extra kick in Vault.
Duckie

I read somewhere recently that cola is naturally clear. The brown is added to it. They did give CP a different flavor, though. I thought it tasted like ginger ale.

Oh; I laughed my ass off.
Now I gotta go see if I can find one.
http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0948/

I loved those when I was a kid! And that is hilarious!! :D

God help me if my local McDonalds takes away my shake. It's really the only reason why I ever eat at a McDonalds

That's what's wrong with the world, we need more Van Halen. They're supposedly touring this year so maybe we'll see world peace after all?

that Surge was still available in select fountains.

But even the syrup is gone now.

I loved that stuff. Yum!