Spring is here, flowers are blooming, the sun is shining down warming up the earth, and soon my typical caffeine go to of a hot cup of coffee may not be so appealing when the outside temperature is the same as the coffee in my mug.
So, I usually turn to another caffeinated alternative to a
hot cup of coffee, an icy cold pop, or soda, or whatever you call the caramel-colored
effervescent corn syrupy sweetly carbonated cola beverages that are found at fast
food/fast casual/perhaps even Michelin star restaurants, every grocery store on
the planet, vending machines in many of an employee breakroom and self-serve
gas station convenience soda fountains. I
prefer a soda pop in the summer months because I view coffee as barely tasty when
hot let alone when those bitter tannins have gone cold. I’m
using both soda and pop interchangeably because I think here in Illinois residents
often use those terms interchangeably if we even rarely use the generic term
for those cola beverages. Most of the
time when we want soda-pop we’ll ask for either a Coke or a Pepsi.
Ah yes, Coke v Pepsi.
Those two juggernauts of the soda industry have been going at it for
over 130 years. And I lived through the
time when the cola wars heated up.
For those of you who weren’t alive or were but don’t
remember/have forgotten the Cola Wars[i]
of the 1980’s, allow me to give you a brief history lesson. Coke was founded in 1886 by John Pemberton
in Atlanta, GA as an alternative for the morphine he was hooked on. He combined cocaine (legal back in 1886) with
the cola nut from Africa. It proved
(still proves) to be so popular a pharmacist by the name of Caleb D Bradham in
North Carolina tried to come up with an alternative to Coke which he did by
combining the digestive enzyme pepsin into a similar carbonated cola nut
formula for his pharmacy/soda fountain.
Coke became the ultimate icon of Americana and Pepsi may have been a
relic of forgotten soda past like Nehi[ii]
if not for a shrewd business decision done by Pepsi CEO Charles Gruth at the
height of the Great Depression to reformulate Pepsi and sell it in 12 oz glass
bottles as opposed to Coke’s 6 oz glass bottles for roughly the same nickel.
The Coke V Pepsi wars began to heat up during my childhood
when in the late 1970’s a market researcher found more people enjoyed the taste
of Pepsi than Coke in blind taste tests. This led of course to Pepsi’s 1st
major advertising blitz. This was
followed by several mega TV ads featuring the King of Pop[iii]
(and I don’t mean soft drinks) appealing to “The Pepsi Generation” aka me and
my fellow teenagers in the 80’s as Pepsi tried to frame Coke as the drink of
the old fogies. In the 1980’s Pepsi was growing so popular
that Coke felt compelled to change their iconic Pemberton formula into
something called “New Coke” which tasted a lot like Pepsi. The backlash from the public was so great
that Coke backtracked and brought back Pemberton’s original formula and New
Coke has gone down as one of the worst business decisions in all of history.
Still, Coke V. Pepsi.
Which is the better tasting soda?
For me, I grew up in a Pepsi household.
Maybe back in the 1970’s & 80’s the Pepsi bottles were still cheaper
than Coke. Maybe my dad just loved the
taste of Pepsi hence us becoming a Pepsi household. I don’t know why we drank Pepsi we just did
at least at home. If we went out to
McDonalds or Wendy’s or even fancier restaurants my dad and I would get Cokes
because obviously most restaurants would have a Coca-Cola soda fountain as
opposed to a Pepsi soda fountain. This
made Coke a bit of a rare treat for me.
Because I grew up drinking both colas my cola loyalty has flipped
flopped between the two companies ever since.
When I decided I was writing this post I sat down to
determine which cola I actually liked. I purchased a fountain Pepsi from Costco
& a Coke from McDonalds. I found
the Pepsi was indeed a lot sweeter, almost cloyingly sweeter. Coke, meanwhile, had the right level of
sweetness. I also purchased two 20 oz
bottles (one of Coke, one of Pepsi) and after sipping from each I realized that
I prefer the original Coca-Cola. Even
still, there was barely any difference between Coke & Pepsi and I’m OK with
drinking both. Does this make me
wishy-washy that I’m not picking a brand and staying loyal? Maybe. However, since Coke has [iv]192
calories for a 12 oz can, 52 g of sugar in the form of body inflaming high
fructose corn syrup, 35 mg of caffeine (also not necessarily good for the
heart) the question I should be asking isn’t Coke v Pepsi. It should be should I even be drinking soda
pop at all? In fact, I might be part of
the last Pepsi Generation since most people younger than myself are drinking
less sugary drinks instead of Pepsi or Coke. [v] Furthermore, maybe colas are getting too
expensive and they have no reason to lower their prices[vi]. At the grocery store I found both 12 oz 12 pc
can cases were $9.99 each but if you bought 3 of them the Pepsi dropped to
$4.99 a 12 pack and Coke dropped to $5.49 a 12 pack.
Besides, I can get 1000 gallons of water from my local
municipality for $3 that I run through a $22 water filter to remove lead and
other chemicals. Toss in the fridge and
that can easily quench my thirst. If I
do need a caffeine boost I’ll dump in a Liquid IV[vii]
energy pack. So, who needs Coke or Pepsi?
Excuse me while I run out to the store to pick up more Coke
and/or Pepsi.
