It seems like we’ve always had something delicious and carbonated to drink over the years. Let’s see how pop has changed over the years!
Boomer Generation:
Squirt was a citrus soda from back in the beginning of the 50s. It was naturally flavoured as a grapefruit citrus drink, but supposedly contains a very small amount of grapefruit juice. Sprite before sprite, if you will… just a little more grape-fruity.
TaB! From back in 1963. Sugar free and in a BRIGHT pink can. It was Diet Coke before Diet Coke. It used to be marketed for people who wanted to “keep tabs” on their weight. Although it fell in popularity, it was still available until 2020.
Generation X
Fresca was a hit in 1966. To this day it’s one of the few pops you can find that is GRAPEFRUIT flavoured. It was a competitor against Squirt, but also was sugar free, like TaB. It’s actually darn good, too.
Mellow Yellow was Coca Colas answer to Mountain Dew back in 1979. Was it a good answer? Well considering you can still find Mountain Dew but not mellow yellow? It is a drink I do wish would get acrerelease tho. I’ve heard a lot of folks talk about it. Never got the chance to try it, but I want to… just not enough to drink a soda that expired 20 odd years back.
Millenial Generation
Diet Coke!! Even though Coca Cola had been around for a hundred years at that point, DIET COKE didn’t appear until 1982. And it’s coke. So you know it’s popular.
Crystal Pepsi is one that even tho it wasn’t around for long, only a few years in the 90s, it was popular enough to come back MULTIPLE times in the last 20-odd years. Tried the rerelease and, yeah, it’s Pepsi with a gimmick, but it was a neat gimmick, despite not lasting long.
Generation Z
Here’s one that I didn’t expect to be as popular as it is: probiotic Soda. Stuff like poppi that’s supposed to be “healthy” was a bit of a trend a few years back. I think this can even be seen with drinks like Kombucha. It’s not carbonated, but it is a drink that has persisted on store shelves for years now.
Beyond the Generations
Coca Cola has been in production since the 1880s, and even though its formula has changed many times over the years, it’s still amazingly popular. Through different flavours, kinds, and even label designs, Cola has been with us for 145 years.
Of course there are a lot of Cola type drinks now, like Pepsi, around since Coke was in the 1880s.
Dr. Pepper has been around since 1885, as well. This drink has been ruled as its own category of soft drink. Despite my calling it a “spicy coca cola”, it was ruled by the FDA as its own category. It is not a cola, root beer, or fruit-flavoured drink, but instead is called a “pepper soda”.
The one thing I think is interesting is the change in flavours through the generations. From colas to fruity flavours like grapefruit and cherry Soda, then to carbonated water drinks.
What’s your favourite carbonated beverage? Is it still on the shelves these days?
– Tie-Dye Tam
