So coke has put out vanilla coke now which i mgiht add is very tasty and i';ve been drinking it like water at work......so what does everyone else think about it?

plus fav soft drink?

I've always been one of those kids that ordered Vanilla Coke at Sonic, Steak and Shake, or the like, so I'm thrilled that they have it canned now. I even used to buy vanilla syrups and add it to coke....

But my all time favorite drink is homemade cream soda from big river grille.

Close seconds would be Jones Cream soda (marshmellowy!) and Stewarts Cherries 'n' Cream.

Good topic.

Will

i love it. it's the greatest thing i've ever had.

I always enjoy trying new and exotic sodas. I like EPCOT at Disney World and The World of Coke in Atlanta because they both afford opportunities to sample new soft drinks from around the world. I also like Sam's Choice sodas because they're cheap and taste funny.

Having said all of that, I would give Vanilla Coke a B+. It's not bad... but not great.

Vanilla Coke: I moderately enjoy it. It's good for a change of pace.

I drink Mello Yello or Mountain Dew to wake up, and only to wake up, during the months of the year when it's too hot outside for me to drink coffee. These are liquid speed.

I enjoy Dr. Pepper with pizza or any other Italian food.

I enjoy Snapple Peach Iced Tea or Lemon Lime Gatorade or water when I'm *really* thirsty.

I enjoy a wide variety of beverages, from Big Peach to IBC Root Beer to Squirt to Arizona Green Tea, for something interesting to sip on. Like TF, I'm always on the lookout for interesting, exotic new beverages. Vanilla Coke will go into this category.

But my default, all time favorite beverage is Coca-Cola, but only if it doesn't come from a plastic container. Cans, glass bottles, fountain - all of these are good, but plastic bottles of Coke just do not taste as good.

Does the plastic rule apply only to Coke, or to all beverages? I'm curious, because I've never noticed a difference in flavor.

Will

Sobe's Mr Green is the shit. I highly recommend it. I wasn't drinking soft drinks for a long time...but Mr Green brought me back.

At work, we were thrilled when Vanilla Coke finally arrived. I drank it like it was going out of style for a little while, and now I have decided that I enjoy it, although it is not quite my favorite drink. I can only really enjoy it when it is ice cold.

As for my favorite soft drink, I would have to go along with Dr. Pepper, especially at meals in restaurants. Water is a constant in my daily beverage diet, so it would rank among the favorites, too.

JC, I, too, have to drink Mountain Dew or Mello Yello in the mornings to wake up, since I don't favor coffee.

Just about any peach drinks rank up in the top tier somewhere, since I am ALL about peaches. Right, TF?

Oh, how could I forget... Faygo beverages, particularly Rock n Rye, Redpop, and Orange Pineapple soda, kick ass. Hard to find in Tennessee, but there are a few convenience stores near MTSU that sell them... keep an eye out, they're tasty.

Will

haha, faygo! i forgot about that stuff.

yoohoo is definitely near the top of my list...

I haven't "rewarded my curiosity" yet with the new vanilla coke. I got a bad yoohoo once, it was crappy. then it happened again and I stopped drinking yoohoo. mountain dew, dr pepper, and pepsi are my regulars. yes, I like pepsi more than coke, guess I go for the sweets.

come on. you can't let two bad yoohoos ruin in for the whole lot of them. give it a second chance. if tina can give ike a second chance, can't you find it in your heart to give yoohoo a third chance?

"Only second chance you get is the chance to make the same mistake twice..."

Great movie. Mamet is a genius sometimes.

Will

In my experience, this rule is across the board, but especially true for Coke, Dr. Pepper, and any type of beer. Actually, one thing that does taste really good out of the plastic is Sprite. Some drinks you just can't find in anything but plastic bottles (Big Peach, Sun Drop, Tahitian Treat and Mr. Green come to mind), so in those cases, I really can't make a comparison.

My on again/off again place of employment, the Belmont Bi-Rite on Belmont Blvd. here in Nashville, has a vast selection of hard-to-find beverages in the coolers in the back.

Do they have Jolt cola? I love that stuff, but I can't find it anywhere in Tennesee. You can order it off the Internet, but it's terribly expensive to ship a case of soda.

Has anyone heard about Dr. Pepper's new flavor or the blue, berry-flavored Pepsi that will soon be hitting the market?

I like SoBe and cherry Coke. Dr. Pepper and pizza is a good combo. I usually drink a dr pepper every morning. it helps wake me up. nothing compares to tea. i drink that more than anything. not the stuff you buy in bottles but the stuff you make at home. its like blood.

why does coke in cans, bottles and foutain drinks taste different?

sun drop comes in cans as well...

does anyone remember clear pepsi?

From Coca-Cola's website:

The Coca-Cola Company make sure that all syrup made at various bottling plants around the world are made specifically the same. Theoretically, a Coke in Saudi Arabia would be just the same as a beverage in Texas. However, a few variables could change this. One of the first is the amount of carbonated water added to the mix. Any bottling plant-produced drink (cans, glass or plastic) would contain the same mixture. However, some soda fountains and other portable dispensers can have a different mix. Some fountains mix their Cokes much "heavier", with more syrup and less carbonation. Also, some fast food establishments will add too much ice or run out of syrup and not notice, giving the customer a brownish seltzer water. Also, carbonation can be altered over time in various containers. While a glass bottle holds the highest amount of pressure the longest,a once-opened plastic container quickly loses its fizz. Cans hold carbonation well, but the taste of drinking out of an aluminium container can change things. Another factor is the serving temperature. Coca-Cola should ideally be served at 40 degrees F, and fountains and some home refrigerators don't always match this. The taste of a warmer Coke brings out more of the bitterness and "bite" while a colder Coke goes down easier.

Yes. Nasty, nasty, nasty. It might have been cool if it tasted just like regular Pepsi, but it didn't. It tasted like NutraSweet-ened bullshit.

Does anyone remember Crystal Clear Gravy?

I am ALL about some crystal clear gravy.
And, yeah, Crystal Pepsi sucked ass. I remember that it came out when I volunteered at a day camp...or maybe I attended it..either way, all the kids used to get it out of the machines. I would tell them that it was gross, but they had it in their heads that it was good since it was something different. Good thing that crap got cut from the Pepsi line-up.

all that crystal stuff is sick!!! ick ick ick. juist doesnt taste right. surge is another i couldnt stand.

I've always heard that aluminum cans alter the taste of the products that stored in them. However, since I have a fairly weak sense of taste, I never really believed it. One day, however, I got a can of Dasani from the Coke machine at my office. It made the water taste totally metallic. I tried to force it down, but I could drink about a quarter of it.

So let this be a lesson, kids: Only get bottled water from a bottle... not a can.

Thanks a ton for these links, TF. I'm looking forward to trying these out. The soda industry is a small obsession of mine. I'm always looking for something new.

Berry flavored Pepsi is definitely a weird one. But Cherry Mountain Dew was a smash in my book...

Will

uggh tf. i tried that canned dasani last summer. blech.

i must say that i do enjoy the vanilla coke, but i would rather buy one at sonic or somewhere where i can control the amount of vanilla. there is not enough in the canned if you ask me.

(Edited by mindylieu at 4:07 pm on Jul. 8, 2002)

I for one loved Crystal Pepsi. Toward the end though, they replaced it with "Citrus Crystal Pepsi" and that tasted like bad Sprite.

And what about Coke II? I think I was the only person that enjoyed it too...

Will

true that. they hand it out at school all the time.

(Edited by damon at 4:15 pm on Jul. 8, 2002)

what about Coke's OK cola or soda or whatever it was. it came out while i was in the 8th grade-'94 or '95. it was pretty good, but the cans were the best part.

vanilla coke made me go like this

... in a good way

(Edited by damon at 4:18 pm on Jul. 8, 2002)

My mom insisted that cola bean was a major reason for zits so she made my sister and I drink clear pepsi, after a while you get used to it. As soon as i started liking it they took it off the market.

Jaimie, your quote from the Coke website reminds me of King of the Hill, "And who else would know more on the subject then the good scientists in the Tobacco industry"

I'm afraid I don't agree with them, though. Coke tasted distinctly different while I lived in Poland, yet it was consistently different in all forms. I actually liked it more there.

I loved OK soda. It was out in the summer of 1995. For some reason, East Tennessee was chosen as a test market before they went national with it. Every time I eat at Burger King, I try to recreate its magical taste by mixing three parts Coke, one part orange soda, and a splash of Dr. Pepper.

In Europe, Coke is made with cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, so you're right, it WAS different (and better).

Will

so you're one of those people! i've always wondered about the reason behind that while filling drinks at BK. then again, maybe the rest are just strange...

this is becoming an addiction. play ghetto soccer, drink vanilla coke. i feel like a junky.

I always mix the drinks, too. If I were to order from you, I would ask you to do the same for me. Of course, I would never ask anyone else to do that...I would only want to inconvenience you.

you're too kind...

mixing drinks like that is disgusting....i beleive when yopu mix all the drinks at the fountain iys called a "suicide"

The perfect fountain combination: 50% Coca-Cola + 50% Dr. Pepper.

how can you bastardize soda like that???

The "Doctor Dew" is hard to beat. The recipe is implicit.

Will

Dr. Pepper and Coke is awesome. Good call JC.
Also, I have tried the Dr. Dew and was pleased. I have never gotten all drinks from the fountain and mixed them. I just didnt think that orange soda would mix that well with the others.
And, damon, you're welcome.

It's all just different colored sugar-water. Mixing them doesn't change a whole lot.

Remember Cheerwine?

Unless rum or whiskey are added.

I was just about to bring that up! I used to love Cheerwine when I was little. I've heard you can still buy it in North Carolina.

As for soft drinks, my favorite is Orange Fanta, but I tend to drink mainly water. Runner's habit. My Nalgene is pretty much an extension of my body at this point.

Does anyone else here use the word "Coke" interchangeably with "soft drink"? If you say "pop" instead, quit posting now.

We still sell Cheerwine at my grocery store, actually. Anyone want any? I've got the connections.
And, Coke, to me, is any kind of soft drink. That confuses the hell out of a lot of people that I know who haven't come from Tennessee. What's with that?

i HATE it when people refer to all types of soda as "coke". My friend does that, and it causes nothing but confusion in all aspects of life.

I hate that for you. Hey, can you grab me a coke? Oh wait...By coke, I mean Dr. Pepper. Thanks.

Amen. I was born and raised in the south, and I have never refered to all kinds of soda as 'Coke.' Why do ya'll do this?

By the way, has anyone here had Cheerwine ice cream? I can't remember who makes it, but my aunt'n'uncle up in Hendersonville buy it all the time.

(Edited by jamiecarroll at 10:18 pm on Jul. 10, 2002)

So true. My parents don't allow me to associate with such people.

JC, Food Lion makes Cheerwine Swirl Ice Cream. We sell that too. I am a sad, sad grocery store employee.

what is the cheerwine you speak of?

Cheerwine is disgusting.

i suspected as much...

hey, i never minded the cheerwine. i am, however, right now enjoying a tasty Jones Juice (from the makers of jones sodas). purple carrot and fu cran fu are my favorites, but steer clear of bada bing (a weird cherry mixture), it tastes like vomit. and i also cast my vote to the "coke" for all soft drinks side.

I used to always refer to anything as coke when I was younger, now I differentiate. Although if you ever catch me saying soda, or even worse pop....shoot me on sight. I dont know what it is, it just sounds lame. Maybe its ick accent that they're usually said in. Maybe its just a latent trait from growing up southern, other accents disturb me and seem unnatural.

despite my attack on drink mixing, i am in fact an advocate of pop. however, i don't use it when requesting a drink- only when referring to carbonated drinks in general.

I spy a Vanilla Coke with Roger in the DitD photos. Just thought that I would let you all know.

obviously a man of excellent taste.

Roger never drinks carbonated beverages. He's, like, a vegan or something. Since DitD is sponsored by Coca-Cola, they digitally alter a lot of those images so it looks like the artists are drinking their products. It's part of their new marketing campaign.

hahaha. shameless self promotion!

are you serious about that tom? what is the world coming to. ever see josie and the pussy cats?

hmmm... i don't think i would admit it if i had.

It always seems so wonderfully ironic when people ask a character named "Tom Foolery" if he's serious about something.

such people are not to be trusted.

Alright. In light of new soft drinks coming out, I want to pose this question: Who has tried Pepsi Blue? I tried some tonight. Perhaps it is an acquired taste...It just seems too carbonated to me. I know some who LOVE it, and others think it tastes like "battery acid". Try it, and let me know!

i love vanilla coke, and there is no other. drinking this blue pepsi thing would be adultry. i can have nothing to do with it.

Vanilla Coke is okay for a second (the second it takes like regular coke) and then the vanilla kicks in and....it might just be too much for me. I dunno, I'm a straight Dr. Pepper man.

As for the Blue Pepsi...I must get someone else to buy that and then mooch a drink off of them. I have to try it....

Pepsi Blue and Dr. Pepper Red Fusion are both pretty tasty, but they're just too weird-tasting for me to want to drink them all of the time. You know, colorful colas are "in" this year, Charlie Brown.

I agree with jamiecarroll. I would only drink Red Fusion and Blue around once a week, whereas I can always drink Coke or Dr. Pepper.

i tried pepsi blue the other night and i hated it. it smelled like melted pop rocks and tasted like smurf urine, or at least what i would imagine smurf urine would taste like. i do, however, enjoy me some vanilla coke.

has anybody tried the sobe green man stuff? it tastes like moldy 8 week old dr. pepper. and looks like sewage.

Dr. Pepper is the king of all soft drinks.

sorry ray, but vanilla coke is way better. of course, i hate dr. pepper, but that isn't important. vanilla coke will challenge dr. pepper for rights to the fridge this year.

wow.. can one even buy a regular coke in a vending machine anymore? EVERYTHING has some sort of fruit flavored counterpart.

dr. pepper red fusion was alright.. tasted almost exactly like dr. pepper though. someone told me it had prune juice in it so now everytime I drink it all I taste are prunes. ick.

vanilla coke (and regular coke) leave a bad taste in your mouth.

sprite remix is my favorite so far. it tastes like a liquid fruit roll up. still can't drink the whole bottle though.

This is a rather random topic to bring up. Someone was really bored in this dry posting time and went looking for more stuff to talk about.

nailed it.

actually i found it trying to find another one to bring back. but yeah.. yddd if you arent going to contribute to my desperate attempt to talk about fruity sodas then you can shut your mouth!

I will contribute.

I like Vanilla Coke and bought it regularly for a while. I have yet to try Sprite Remix and am curious as I see my students guzzle it by the gallon-full all day long.

Overall, though, I try to drink little soda these days.

the chek version of vanilla coke is a good, cheap alternative.

Vanilla Coke sucks. I rank it in my "sucks" category with Diet Coke and "New" Coke or Coke2, whatever the hell it was. Mello Yello/Mountain Dew and Coca-Cola are my regular drinks of choice. I usually do not like any other caffeine-bearing soft drinks, since I have not acquired the taste for them (Dr. Pepper being the main offender). I typically drink 6 or so 12oz or 20oz Cokes/Mello Yellos a day. I am an addict. I like it.

geeeez. youve got to be constantly wired.

Hell yeah. It's life as I have known it since a very early age. The natural progression of things should lead me to cocaine eventually...

you say that like its funny . . .



mello yello sucks and will never be as good as dew!
i used to drink a 6 pack of mountian dew a day. im constantly wired anyway though., eventually, i just stopped drinking them and started taking my friends' ADD pills.

uh-oh.
Don't think that because it was your birthday that you can talk to me like that, honey. There'll be an all-out brawl at the next Features show, and my elbow will have "Rachel" written on it so it will know its destination.

wow, yddd, sorry. i guess i was just in my birthday zone or something and didnt realize what i said. i had no idea there i did so much namecalling in my post! well, now ive snapped out of my birthday mentality but you still havent contributed to the post.

woah, RD, vanilla coke is nowhere near as bad as diet coke or New Coke... those have a special spot reserved in hell. Vanilla Coke is still pretty good with rum... i mean, it's not coke classic, but what is? diet coke and new coke however are banes of modern existence.

My friend has a can of New Coke and bottle of Crystal Pepsi that he bought on ebay as collector's items... the coke caught botchillism and exploded, along with his can of pork brains, but he still has the can for both...

did anyone else just read the work "coke" too many times and start to wonder if it's really spelled right?

(Edited by deathscythe257 at 7:42 am on May. 13, 2003)

Sprite Remix is the shit! I'm actually drinking one right now.

Since the original time period of this thread, I have completely given up caffeine, so my options for soft drinks are considerably more limited. It's for the better, though.

(Edited by jamiecarroll at 9:24 am on May. 13, 2003)

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I just can't bring myself to drink something as trendy as Sprite Remix. The whole "Remix" thing just seems stupid to me. I imagine all of those white Kid Rock/Eminem people drinking it as they cruise down 2nd Avenue in their thugged out cars. Imagine is nothing?

hmm... i haven't tried sprite remix but i hear good things. i say drink what tastes good... cuz why worry about being trendy? if you like goulash and then goulash became trendy, would you stop eating goulash? i wouldn't... i love goulash.

i'll probably sound like a racist for saying this, but i first saw sprite remix in a nolensville road vending machine, so i thought it was some sort of ethnic beverage, targeted to the folks who frequent nolensville road. i tried it and was dissatisfied.

Sprite Remix-- SUCKS. I was all excited when I discovered it in a gas station halfway to Birmingham when I went to see Foo Fighters a few weeks back. I thought it was some weird test market soda, so I got it. I was not pleased. The clear bottle rules, though.

Vanilla Coke-- Only if it's Diet. That is just too much syrup for one person.

MD Code Red-- (See above)

MD LiveWire-- Tastes like flat orange soda to me. I was hoping for a taste like Surge (which I'm convinced is just MD with extra orange flavoring). I was wrong. I prefer Sunkist.

I see what you're saying, but...it's a soft drink...so I don't get too bent out of shape about it.

I think "ReMix" as a name for a soft drink is hilarious. I laughed so hard when I first saw it. With candy and soft drinks, it's all about trendy, and I love it!

Yeah, and never try drinking just straight syrup either. It's pretty nasty...

I was just hinting that I think it's funny that Sprite's advertising used to say "Image is nothing. Obey your thirst.", yet their new drink conveys a certain image of "hipness." I'm not knocking people who drink it or anything. I was just making an observation. Myself, I will not drink it because it does not have caffeine. The only time that I might try it is when I am sick, because I always drink Sprite when I feel like shit.

Right on. Whenever I drink Sprite and I am well, I start to feel sick. It's a vicious cycle. The only coke-ish beverages I drink are Dr. Pepper, then Coke, and then Pepsi. Nothing else quenches my thirst.

You're conditioned and relate Sprite to being sick. That happens with taste aversion a lot, too. I have this thing about granola. Ugh. The thought makes me sick. But, that is only because I ate a box of granola bars when I was really sick for about a week last year, and now I can't stand the sight (not to mention the smell) of it. I walk down aisle 7 at work and grimace while I pass it. I just turn my head the other way. Although this is off topic, I still thought I would mention it.

And, MD LiveWire tastes just like orange soda to me, too, so I agree with Carligula there. I haven't tried Sprite Remix, but I have tried Vanilla Coke (which I mentioned about a year ago in this thread). That opinion is still the same. I love it when I have eaten something salty and need some sugar to balance it out (and don't want to wait on my body's processes of negative feedback to do so).

7 Up was the "I can't stop puking" drink at my house. I won't go near it.

Vanilla Coke is OK, if you've never had a real malt shop coke with vanilla.

I'm a Ski fan, straight up - but Mello Yello has always been there for me too.

Man, that is so cool. Ski is excellent. It lives in the genre of Moon Pies and RC Cola.

(Edited by richarddawson at 12:47 pm on May. 13, 2003)

i still like vanilla coke alot. i still think pepsi blue is gross. dr. pepper red fusion is now tolerable to me, but it is still pale in comparison to the original. i have yet to try the sprite remix. i bet jermaine dupri likes it. what is this "new coke" that everyone speaks of? the carbonated beverage that i consume the most of has to be diet mountain dew. that stuff is great, and far better than the regular dew. we always have a large supply of it at my house.

The biggest marketing mistake in the storied history of soft drinks. Back in the mid-80's, Coca-Cola decided to change the formula of Coke. "New Coke" as it was called (from what I barely remember) was a total flop and "original" Coke returned. I cannot remember if "original" Coke disappeared for a time or not. Nonetheless "Coke II", "New Coke", or whatever it was called was a total disaster. I assume it was made to compete with Pepsi's "Next Generation"/Michael Jackson advertising campaign.

Hopefully, they learned their lesson and such a mistake will never happen again...

(Edited by richarddawson at 1:39 pm on May. 13, 2003)

I can't even remember how many case studies we had about New Coke in my marketing classes in college. It was one of the biggest market research disasters in the history of capitalism - right up there with bottled water for pets and Audioslave.

(Edited by jamiecarroll at 2:44 pm on May. 13, 2003)

Ouch. Too true.

Since I missed out on earlier Crystal Pepsi conversations, I now want to add my personal testimony. I was probably in fourth grade and my friend Stephen McElroy and I were at my dad's gas station off of I-65. Crystal Pepsi was all the buzz amongst our fellow students, so we had to try it. I don't really remember hating it much, but I know that neither of us liked it. So, we decided to have fun with the Crystal Pepsi by adding colored candy to the bottle. I remember being in awe of the drink when we dropped blueberry bubblegum into it and watched it turn blue. It was cool.

Did you become a Mormon? When I lived on the west coast I knew lots of Mormons. We don't have enough here in the South.

When I was little my grandma would let me drink syrup straight and I loved it (I wasn't the slimmest child) but now, probably because of that, syrup makes me sick. Ugghh.

Sprite Remix makes me sick if I drink too much. Actually, that's true with anything that has artificial fruit flavoring. I love skittles and I love starbursts but I can only have a couple or else they make me feel soo sick to my stomach.

I do love gulash though.

Absolutely not! I just realized that I was seriously addicted to caffeine - like if I didn't have some before about 2 pm, I would get a pounding headache. For the most part, I really haven't missed it. I wish I could give up tobacco as easily.

indeed! i'm having the shakes and i'm only at 40 hours or so.

(Edited by deathscythe257 at 3:18 pm on May. 13, 2003)

Old coke did indeed go away for awhile. When it returned, it was called Coca-Cola Classic so people would know. It still is today...

Will

i had a mormon friend in middle school. her family had about 6 cats & all of them had a name that started with "F." during slumber parties, her mom would show us live-action disney movies like 'chitty chitty bang bang' and 'that darn cat' & would QUIZ us afterwards. she'd write the quiz questions in shorthand, so we couldn't cheat. the mom claimed that she was asked out by dave clark of the dave clark five during the 60s, when she was a waitress in wisconsin.

Then she found out that Dave Clark only dicked Christians.

Wow...with a childhood like that, it's a wonder why Donny Osmond didn't end up like Michael Jackson.

Of course being a Jehovah's Witness did that to Michael....