Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of "New Coke." When they attempted to replace regular Coke with a sweeter, more Pepsi-like flavor. 25 years. Yikes!



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola#New_Coke

New Coke:

On April 23, 1985, Coca-Cola, amid much publicity, attempted to change the formula of the drink with "New Coke". Follow-up taste tests revealed that most consumers preferred the taste of New Coke to both Coke and Pepsi, but Coca-Cola management was unprepared for the public's nostalgia for the old drink, leading to a backlash. The company gave in to protests and returned to a variation of the old formula, with high-fructose replacing cane sugar, under the name Coca-Cola Classic on July 10, 1985.

In April 2007, in Canada, the name "Coca-Cola Classic" was changed back to "Coca-Cola." The word "Classic" was truncated because "New Coke" was no longer in production, eliminating the need to differentiate between the two. The formula remained unchanged.

In January 2009, Coca-Cola stopped printing the word "Classic" on the labels of 16-ounce bottles sold in parts of the southeastern United States. The change is part of a larger strategy to rejuvenate the product's image.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4YvmN1hvNA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfhFBTL-Xsw&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzxHDqUz8Sk[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_hvOBnsirI&feature=related[/youtube]

Makes me feel like OLD Beachy.

This coincides with the month that my wife and I first started dating. So I'm getting all misty over here.

New Coke is long gone and you and your wife are still together.

All is right in the universe.

Back then, I did a taste test at work between New Coke, Coke Classic, and Pepsi. I got them all correct just by smelling.

And how did you smell?

Awful!

(I can always count on Beachy when I leave a hanging curve ball like that.)

I've never tasted New Coke.

Was it good?

I was not impressed with New Coke. But I did like Caffein-Free Pepsi.

New Coke was closer to Pepsi than to Coke Classic.

Why would we celebrate such a disaster? What's next, a tribute to the Edsel and Crystal Pepsi?

And not just alphabetically.

Crystal Pepsi was awesome, you heathen.

I am currently enjoying a cold, A&W Root Beer.

It was an above-average cola, but the problem was that it wasn't Coke. Some of the local bottlers started with the new formula before the new packaging was available. You had people complaining that their Coke tasted flat or like Pepsi. I just remember it tasting like a decent, but generic cola.

So, it was the New Coke fiasco that can be tangentially blamed for the replacement of real sugar with HFCS. Sweeten Coke with something natural, like, you know, sugar, and maybe I'll drink one again.

The only time I have a Coke now is when I'm in a taqueria and they have Coke from Mexico in glass bottles. It's sweetened with real sugar.

I loved New Coke. That same spring, Detroit area Coke cans featured the entire 1984 Detroit Tiger team, one player per can, and I drank a bunch of New Coke collecting them all. Never quite reacquired a taste for Classic Coke when it came back. To this day, I prefer Diet Coke to Classic Coke, as it tastes more like New Coke.

Isn't Diet Coke the New Coke formula, but with Nutrasweet?

And I prefer the American Coke. Go figure.

The New Coke of cars...