Pepsi's Roots

It's a little known fact that Pepsi was originally called Brad's Drink after Caleb Bradham.  Bradham was a pharmacist in New Bern, North Carolina.  If you are interested, you can actually visit the actual store where Bradham created and sold his product in 1898.  It's a museum.  Go figure.  The location also has a historical marker. I think at some point Pepsi should come out with a can honoring Caleb Bradham and use the original name of Brad's Drink.  Perhaps someday.

A historical soda marker in New Bern, North Carolina

Sun Drop Girl

While posting about the Diet Sun Drop soda can in my collection, I came across the website for the soda.  I saw it and I was confused.  First, why do all caffeinated citrus drinks have to be marketed as aggressive or crazy?  The website for Sun Drop has a zany, awfully dressed girl wiggling in a painful looking manner to advertise Sun Drop soda.  At first I didn't get it, but now I do.

The Sun Drop girl 2013 

Soda is really one of those nothing products. It's zero nutrition, zero purpose, and zero importance.  It is the epicenter of everything expendable.  But this blank nothingness is soda's advertising charm.  Since it is a product of nothing, it can be defined as anything.  Hence you have Beyonce with Pepsi lips (and a bizarre statement by her stating how Pepsi helps her reach fulfillment as a creative artist), cuddly Coca-Cola polar bears, and the Sun-Drop girl.  Now, you can be suckered into Beyonce and polar bears, but it's obvious the Sun Drop girl is a farce.  And that's genius of it.  It's calling  it like it is.  For this truthfulness, I like Sun Drop now.  Beyonce, you are the Sun Drop girl.  As are the Coca-Cola polar bears.  The Sun Drop girl is just the only one wise enough to see it.  See her here.

Valentine's Day Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi

Here is the Valentine's Day 2013 Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi can.  The Pepsi logo is shaped as a heart. I'm actually quite fond of the design.  Diet Pepsi was introduced nationally in 1964, making it the first nation wide diet cola drink.  However, the very first Diet Cola drink was Diet Rite manufactured by Dr. Pepper in 1958. Anyway, that's a wide divergence from just describing the simple white caffeine free diet Pepsi can with a playful heart which now a happy member of my growing collection.

Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi Valentine's Day 2013
(The font is faint but it says Diet Pepsi in gold 
below the heart on the left)

Cream Soda

One more can for the collection today.  It is a Price Chopper (generic brand) Vanilla Cream Soda.  This particular cream soda is a light brown color.  A boring distinction, I know.  However, I say it because I didn't know that cream soda, at least according to Wikipedia, is manufactured in other colors such as clear, red, pink, orange, and blue.  I've never seen cream soda these colors before but apparently they are out there.  As a side note, at least one of my sons didn't care for the flavor of cream soda.  I find that surprising because cream soda was one of my favorites as a kid.  Too each his own.

Price Chopper Vanilla Cream Soda 2013

13 Songs with Coca-Cola

While Coca-Cola is thrilled to get us all yearning to buy the world a Coke, they are also pleased when song writers drop a little Coca-Cola reference into their lyrics.  Below are thirteen songs Coca-Cola actually advertises on their website as having a name check for Coca-Cola.

"Good Directions," Billy Currington

"When I Paint My Masterpiece," The Band

"Ellsworth," Rascal Flatts

"Drive-In," The Beach Boys

"I'm Just a Girl," Deana Carter

"Having a Party," Sam Cooke

"Hip to My Heart," The Band Perry

"When Worlds Collide," Neil Young

"Small Town Girl," Kelly Pickler

"Lola," The Kinks

"I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool," Barbra Mendrell

"Americano," The Brian Setzer Orchestra

"Spin Me a Christmas," Aqua

The one that comes to mind that's missing is "Come Together" by the Beatles where John Lennon sings "He's got monkey finger, he shoots Coca-Cola."  I'm wondering if this is an oversight or an intentional omission because of the very real possibility Lennon was making a thinly veiled reference to shooting cocaine.

At any rate, yes, soda cans are mundane.  But soda has a history and it pops up in various nooks and crannies of culture and I find that refreshing.  You know, like a Coke.

TaB Clear

Did you know TaB, the precursor to Diet Coke, was also caught up in the "clear" frenzy of the early 1990s?  Below is a TaB Clear commercial that weaves TaB Clear into a story line involving U.F.O.s, Bigfoot, and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.  The commercial humorously links the four items together.  Not really a bad piece of advertising, really.  TaB Clear only lasted from 1992 - 1994, which as always, is a wise reminder to collect the cans while you can.  (Which is a really great unintentional pun by the way.)

TaB Clear 1992

"Mean" Joe Greene

I posted an earlier classic Coca-Cola commercial...the so-called "Hilltop" advertisement where youth from around the world sing the catchy song "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke."  I thought I would share another big gun Coca Cola commercial.  This one aired during the 1979 football season and made an appearance in the 1980 Super Bowl.  Here, defensive tackle of the Pittsburgh Steelers "Mean" Joe Greene" hobbles to the locker room while being approached by a young fan.  Joe is at first dismissive of the boy until the boy offers him his Coke.  Joe accepts, chugs the bottle with an incredible tolerance for the product's carbonation, and with new found peace, kindly tosses the boy his battered jersey.  A heart warmer every time.

TaB

Did you ever wonder what was before Diet Coke?  No one really wonders about things.  Diet Coke just always seems to have been there.  Well, as all good folks know, Diet Coke was released in 1982.  Before that year, however, Coca-Cola was already selling a Diet soda horrendously called TaB since 1963.  The legend goes a computer generated thousands of possible CVC names and Coca-Cola picked TaB, perhaps because it could help folks keep "tabs" on their weight.  Diet Coke quickly nudged TaB aside, but it is supposedly still sold in some markets.  If I can find one, I'd love a can of it.

Diet Coke's Father...TaB

Diet Sun Drop

A new can for the collection.  It's a Diet Sun Drop picked up from the local Wal-Mart.  In layman's terms, Sun Drop is Dr. Pepper/Snapple Group's version of Mt. Dew, the current market leader.  It seems like a newer brand, but its actually been around since 1949.  It also comes in a Cherry version which I would long to have  if I could only locate a place that carried it.

Diet Sun Drop 2013

Beyonce and Pepsi

I just stumbled upon an article where Mark Bittman, a food critic for the New York times, lambasted soda companies and their sponsor celebrities.  Bittman eyes Pepsi in particular with their lavish endorsement deals they provide the likes of Britney Spears, Beyonce, and Cindy Crawford.  Since soda is unhealthy, the argument goes, celebrities should be ashamed of themselves for marketing the product, just how we would look down on celebrities winking on a billboard near a school endorsing a cigarette.  Bittman was not alone in his criticism.

f 

Kiss of Pepsi, Super Bowl 2013

I don't find the idea so offensive.  Personally, seeing Beyonce's face painted with the Pepsi symbol during the Super Bowl promotions turned me off to their product.  Ditto for Britney Spears hacking the soda as well.  I don't care for them as singers or celebrities so why would I want to drink what they drink?

Now, Coca-Cola...they have a marketing campaign I am a sucker for.  Holidays, polar bears, good summer times, buying the whole world Coke, that kind of stuff I love.  Beyonce and the glib celebrities like her actually make me hate the world.  As pathetic as it sounds, Coca-Cola actually makes me love the world a little more.

However, regardless of how I feel about Beyonce, I wish I had her Pespi can just because.  It was before my can collecting days but it's an advertising siren of the times.

Beyonce 2013 Super Bowl Pepsi Can

Pepsi Throwback

Added a new Pepsi can to my collection.  This is the Pepsi Throwback can.  Pepsi Throwback is Pepsi's way of "going natural" by simply adding vast quantities of real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.  I find it delicious, but my wife thinks it tastes too different from the traditional Pespi.  Of course, being a sophist, I argued that Pepsi Throwback was the real traditional Pepsi.  But she didn't want to hear about it.  No matter.  Anyway, the can appears below.

Pepsi Throwback 2013 

Cheerwine

One thing I noticed during one of my trips to the local Wal-Mart was that they carry some brands I had never heard of before.  Looking them up, I learned that while they are new here, they are big sellers in other areas of the country.  It looks like Cheerwine is one of those brands.  I can't find it in my stores yet, but it might be making its way into a store near me sometimes soon.  I am a sucker for cherry soda so I would be very pleased to add this one to my collection.  It's supposed to be big in North Carolina...

A soda can to look for...

Crystal Bay Loganberry

My wife came home from a higher end grocery store with a new soda for me the other week.  I thought I would finally get around to posting the can.  It's called Crystal Bay Loganberry.  It was delicious.  A link to the product's website can be found here.  These are the kinds of cans I like, unique niche-market kind of cans that mean something to somebody.  Well, not most people.  But at least me.

Crystal Bay Loganberry 2013

Kick Radio Spot

I looked up a little more on Kick, the defunct soda from 1995 - 2002.  I discovered an (unused?) radio spot for the brand.  From the style of it, you can tell they were going for the youthful demographic that sees soda as perhaps a type of bottled rage or other such silly notions.  I already think Mountain Dew does an effective enough job of marketing of their product through a similar vein of teenage hoopla.  I think Kick was trying to go too far and ended up becoming a parody of itself alienating the consumers it hoped to woo.  Enjoy!

St. Patrick's Day Kick

For St. Patrick's day I thought I'd unearth a greenish soda outside of the ubiquitous orbit of Mountain Dew.  I discovered Kick, a soft drink manufactured by the Royal Crown Company from 1995 until 2002.  They aggressively marketed it as a punkish, hip, citrus drink, but there was limited buy-in from the youthful demographic they hoped to woo.  The drink is now no more.  Sodas come and go.  I only hope to snag them for my can collection before they retire.

R.I.P. Kick Soda 1995 - 2002

Clinton, Grand Juries, and a Diet Coke

Remember when I shared that Andy Warhol quote about Coca-Cola?  How Coke is great because everyone from the bum on the street to the President of the United States drinks Coca-Cola and all of the Cokes are good and everyone knows it?  Well, this scene percolated into my recollection when President Clinton was caught up in his Monica Lewinsky scandal.  During his grand jury testimony, captured on video, President Clinton pauses and takes a swig from a silver can of Diet Coke.  It's right there on the 6:30 mark.  What does this teach us?  That even if you, the President of the United States, are under pressure, having a rough time, trying to forget about blue dresses, wincing at knowing your wife is only standing by because she has political aspirations of her own by carpetbagging New York, and are laboriously working out crafty linguistic arguments about the nature of the word "is", you too can still have refreshment from Coca-Cola.  Amazing.

X-Factor Dragon-Fruit Pepsi

I gained a limited edition can for my collection.  The X-Factor Dragon-fruit Pepsi.  It's a horrific product, really.  It tastes like Pepsi with fruity cough syrup someone impishly spiked it with while you weren't looking. Not fun.  My wife agrees it tastes horrible and was surprised when I trucked home from the store with a 12 pack of it.  "Dude," she said, "We tried that and it tasted horrible."  And it did.  But that was before I started collecting soda cans.  I mean, the X-Factor Pespi clearly says "Limited Edition" so, duh, obviously I need it for my collection.

Oh Simon, you liar...

Now, what provides the can with an additional hoot is that I recall sitting on the couch with my bride watching the X-Factor where they premiered the flavor, you know, sowed the advertising seeds to make folks buy, buy, buy.  And I remember Simon Cowell and Britney Spears cracking open the soda cans and taking sips.  Then Simon says, "It's good.  It's really good."  Oh Simon, Simon, Simon, you make a living being the guy who tells THE TRUTH on your music shows and you expect to fool us with your simple compliment?  Simon says buy and we do.  Just a big game to him.  Of course, Simon is a money man, and knows how to sponsor a product.  The man darn well knew that soda was like carbonating a cough drop.  But you have to admire him for it.  He got millions to take that sip and drop a positive adjective.  But me, I get zilch from Pepsi so I tell it like it is.  The soda tastes like a cola stain on a pharmacy shelf.  But, the can is all right.  So I'll keep it.

Dragon-fruit X-Factor Pepsi 2013

Jack White and Coca-Cola

I came across this Coca-Cola commercial that was supposedly in Australia   The music was done by Jack White of The White Stripes, a now defunct musical duo I enjoy.  I was scrolling through the comments and they separated into two camps.  First, there were those folks who understandably called Jack White a sell-out.  I mean, here is a musician who rambles in the album notes of Elephant about the mass produced "cereal box" world that we live in but does a commercial for the world's biggest, and arguably most successfully marketed of corporations.  I get that critique   On the other hand, there were also those folks were told everyone to cut Jack White a break.  I mean, as one poster so memorably put it, "if the guy has a Coca-Cola fetish, then so what?  He gets to do a commercial for a product he loves."  That phrase, "Coca-Cola fetish" glared out at me.  I never thought of it that way, but as I've blogged before, Coca-Cola is all about marketing their sugar water so grandly that we have that type of emotional relationship with it: a Coca-Cola fetish.  Anyway, I give no Jack no gripe about his commercial   The guy is all about the colors red, white, and black  anyway and Coca-Cola has two out of three of them.  Advertise and drink away, Jack White.  I love your music and enjoy a Coca-Cola.  Just save me a can or two from Australia when you are done for my collection.

7-Up Gold Commercial

I never posted a commercial for the elusive 7-Up Gold soda that briefly appeared in 1988.  I wrote before the soda had a ginger-ale taste, but I have since read it also had an apple-cinnamon zing too.  I wish I could have tried it.  Sadly, I doubt I ever will.  I can least imagine how awesome I would have been at a classy restaurant with 7-Up Gold served to me as a teenager.  So wild.  Nothing like bothering the well-to-dos at the table next to you by trying that new-fangled soda with your wild friends.  Maybe that was the problem.  Why market 7-Up as having a wild side? If they would have left out the caffeine and marketed it as a homey grandma's house beverage with a heart warming hearth or something mom's might have bought it. Maybe it could have even been a seasonal thing.  Dr. Pepper/Snapple should try to bring back 7-Up Gold as a holiday beverage.  If it sticks, then they can expand.  That's what I think.  I should contact Dr. Pepper/Snapple.  In fact, I just did.  So can you.

You too can be wild if you drink 7-Up Gold

Stay Safe, Know Your Sodas

So I saw this picture floating around the internet and could resist sharing it.  It's a satirical response to New York City Mayor's Michael Bloomberg prohibiting the selling of 2 liter bottles of soda in restaurants.  This is bad news for pizza places who generally sell 2 liters with pizzas.  Personally, like all rational people, I find this ban utterly foolish, but hey, what do I know, I'm only a soda can collector.  I don't collect two-liters so I'm not an authorized expert on them.  Maybe Bloomberg is.

Mango Lemonade

My wife and I had a date night the other night.  I saw this mango lemonade entitled the "Golden Bear" and had to try it.  It's made by the Arizona Beverage Company.  There is no tea in it though, just sugar stuff.  The picture cuts off the top of it but I am too lazy to change it.  My sons saw the can on the counter the following morning and were happy to add it to the collection.

No Coke in Joyce Carol Oates

The other day when I was at a meeting at work donating blood, learning useful things, and otherwise enjoying the company amid laughter and proverbial paper footballs, I also had a pressing issue on my mind still waiting to be resolved.  Hopefully, it will be resolved soon.  But in the meantime, after the meeting, to clear my mind, I wandered over to the library and browsed the stacks a bit.

Joyce Carol Oates, the author with no Coke

I picked up a Joyce Carol Oates novella and started reading.  It helped some.  While reading, I wondered if there would be any soda references, perhaps a Coca-Cola being dropped somewhere.  I've seen it done before in a little Updike and Carson McCullers.  But no dice...there is no Coke in Joyce Carol Oates, at least this one. But there were references to Philomela, Ovid's poor character in Metamorphoses.  And references to other various signs of 1970s collegiate decadence, but alas, nothing to tie into the blog.  

Now, you might be sensibly wondering what literature has to do with a little soda can collection.  Obviously, nothing.  BUT...if you have ever read your Moby Dick, which all good folks should do, you notice that Melville does something unique.  Everything in the novel is described through the lens of whaling.  A little like how everything in Ulysses by Joyce is seen through the lens of the Odyssey.  So why not see other things, such a literature, through the lens of something equally useless and mundane such as soda cans?  Really, why not? Oh you laugh?  Bring it.

Mountain Dew Kickstart

I was on an early morning run and I discovered this swell can on the side of the road.  It looked like he needed a home so I picked him up and took him home with me.  He's a nice tall fellow.

It is a Mountain Dew Kickstart Orange Flavored Energy Drink.  I'd never come across this beverage before.    It's actually a rather new drink with Pepsi, the owner of Mountain Dew, trying to get people to drink their caffeinated beverages instead of coffee. Maybe it will work.  It also comes in fruit punch.  I'll have to look out for that can.

Giving Blood and Ocean Spray

Yesterday at work we spent the day in a conference.  The speaker was excellent.  However, I also sat with a gang of pals that made the time go by quicker. You know how that can go. There was the option to donate blood and one by one we slipped out to donate our fluids to the Red Cross.  The best part of donating blood of course are the congratulatory snacks and beverages afterwards.  I was able to gain two cans for my collection.  They are mini servings of Ocean Spray Apple Juice and Cranberry Juice. Two more cans down.  Down to what?  A basement full of recyclable garbage?  Perhaps.  In the meantime, it's nice to blog about the beverage industry.  Oh yeah, and if you are interested in donating blood and being a hero like myself and my coworkers were doing today, you can look into that here. See, yes, I blog about what is essentially trash that houses a product (soda) generally accepted as horrific for your health, but I can do a little good now and then.

Coca-Cola Bottle

I collect soda cans, but in truth, I actually prefer drinking soda from a glass soda bottle.  You can buy Coca-Cola in glass bottles in the US.  It is significantly more expensive because stores (correctly) are not anticipating that you will return the glass bottle.  However, the soda is also sweetened with sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, which does give an added incentive to purchase it, just for a change.  It's called Mexican Coke and believers buy it and drink it religiously.

Anyway, the Coca-Cola bottle actually has a little bit of history behind it.  It was designed and trademarked by Coca-Cola in 1915 to distinguish Coca-Cola form the many imitators.  It was released in 1916 and marketed as a perk to let folks know what exactly was the real thing even when rummaging around blindly in a bin of ice.

It's actually still a rather powerful idea.  Coca-Cola just brought back their two liter bottles into the familiar coke bottle shape and were rewarded with increased sales because of the positive association consumers have with the shape.  It matters what you put your product in.

You must admit it looks much better this way.
It has more style and less of a "Bottled Vat-of-Liquid-Sugar" feel.

Six Flags New England Coke Can

This is the front of my Caffeine Free Diet Coke can.  Looks pretty normal, right?

Well turn it around and then BAM!  You have a promotion on the back.  

I like soda cans with promotions.  This particular can has a promotion for the new Goliath roller coaster at Six Flags New England.  I'm a decent soda fan, but an even bigger roller coaster fan.  My idea of a perfect summer would be strolling around a amusement park with my wife, sipping soda from Caffeine Free Diet Coke Cans, and responsibly leaving my soda can at the loading station of my favorite roller coasters.  Remember, real roller coaster fans don't drink and ride. Yup.  I play it safe.  Always.

Reward Your Curiosity

I thought I'd present the very first commercial for Vanilla Coke from the year of its release in 2002.  It has the actor Chazz Palminteri portraying some type of mafia boss rewarding a teenager for poking his head into a hole.  The tag line for the commercial was "Reward Your Curiosity."  If you'd also like to know, Palminteri is an Academy Award winning actor.  (He won for the 1994 Woody Allen film Bullets over Broadway.)  If you are going to sell a great product like Vanilla Coke, you might as well get an award winning actor to do so.  Great actor, great Coke.  Simple. Why can't Pepsi get it?

Vanilla Coke

My friend brought in a Vanilla Coke can for me at work today.  It was a real treat since Vanilla Coke is one of my favorites.  The only thing that would make it better would be if there was a Caffeine Free variety.  Unfortunately, I have been unable to find any in my area so I am stuck drinking Vanilla Coke in the mornings and afternoons since Caffeine does too good a job of keeping me awake.

Vanilla Coke Can 2013 in the Basement

Vanilla Coke, I've learned, has always been around at soda fountains,but it wasn't canned until 2002.  Sadly, they retired it 2005 citing poor sales and consumer preference.  One of the replacements for Vanilla Coke was Black Cherry Vanilla Coke, which I recall from my best friends apartment in college being absolutely awesome. They brought Vanilla Coke back in 2007, but then they discarded Black Cherry Vanilla.  Why is it we can't have both?  In some future world where peace has been give a chance, I predict we will have both side by side.  Write your Congressman about it.  Please.

No Crystal Clear Can? Blame the Commercial

Since I blogged about the Crystal Clear Pepsi cans I don't have yesterday, I thought it would be spiffy to locate a Crystal Clear Pepsi commercial to post.  On youtube, that wonderful collective attic of film, I located one.  For those of you who don't have thirty seconds to waste on advertising for a product that no longer exists, here is a quick play by play of its awesomeness.

We see the bold statement that "RIGHT NOW SOMEONE IS TRYING CRYSTAL CLEAR PEPSI" along with a face of Caucasian a person (clear, right?) taking a sip of a clear liquid....this person's pupil dilates (presumably) because of it's incredible taste...(get it? the eye goes crazy because this product is something you can really "see")...we see flashes of lightening showing how the flavor "strikes"...cut to a clear liquid being poured to form into a Crystal Clear Pepsi Bottle...a row of dominoes fall upwards in a line (I always associate soft drinks with dominoes so this was a good move by Pepsi)...words float through the sky...now a man in a red Speedo is flying/diving through the sky and fluffy white clouds...more words...we see a lady dressed in white sitting on a white chair enjoying Crystal Clear Pepsi...the lucky wench...and then we see bottles of Crystal Clear Pepsi relaxing at the bottom of a tub of water...AU-MAZ-ING...it's like, dude, there is nothing in the bottle at all!  And yet the commercial just told me there really is!  Whoa.  How could not enough people be interested?  I mean, like I said, dominoes make me want soft drinks, but flying guys in Speedos seals the deal.  But, as always, I guess I'm an outlier.  So sad.

Crystal Clear Pepsi

I recall playing Legos, trains, and board games on the bedroom floor of my best friend's house when I first heard about Crystal Clear Pepsi.  My friend just came back from a trip where he also heard the news, and he was now sharing it with me.  Needless to say, I was intrigued, even though this was decades before my can collecting days.  I waited, I watched for it, I was patient, I was devote.  And then it came.  December 14th, 1992. We bought it in two liters as a family for my birthday the next month, and I got a great kick out of it.  Then, one day, I realized it was gone.  I asked my mother to buy it and it could no longer be found in the stores.  A tragedy!  I always wondered why they retired it or why they didn't bring it back.  Well, I looked it up and apparently, it was a trend in the early nineties for all things to be "clear." (Think dish soaps and even beer!)  It was a health image thing, really.  So beyond the fact I guess since it didn't sell well long term, there is no real reason to bring it back since Americans aren't too gaga over clear things anymore anyways.

Crystal Clear Pepsi in a Can
How many of these are left in the world?

As a seasoned soda can collector of two weeks now, I looked back and wonder if the product was offered in a can.  I imagined it would be, but it does seem silly in a way since most people don't look at the soda they are drinking from a can anyway.  No matter.  They did made it in cans.  And oh, how I wish I had a Crystal Clear Pepsi can for my collection now.

Note:  While Crystal Clear Pepsi was released in December of 1992, Diet Crystal Clear Pepsi was not released until the April of the following year.

Monster Energy Orangeade

Earlier this week I went on an early morning run.  By the side of the road, I found this excellent Monster Energy Drink Can.  The flavor is Monster Orangeade.  I'm not a big energy drinker myself, I've had only about one or two in my life, both on a late night college road trip.  However, the cans of the drink are pleasing and I have no problem collecting them.  From their website they seem to have quite a litany of flavors.  They will make for nice collecting when I happen to find them.

Grrrrrrr...

7-Up Ten and Buddies

I had heard about Dr. Pepper 10.  The Dr. Pepper 10 can and advertising campaign is worthy of a post itself which I will deliver in the near future, most likely when I obtain my own copy of its masculine can.  What I didn't know however, was that Dr. Pepper/Snapple released other versions of 10 calories soda as well.  I haven't seen any other this at my local supermarket so I will have to keep my eyes open for them.  Apparently, the ten calorie marketing has been a good move for the company and they are looking to capitalize on it.  So would I.

4 to look 4