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Cola Wars Continue


As you may remember from a recent entry, I mentioned that I have switched sides in the Cola Wars. For somebody with partial heritage in Atlanta Georgia, switching off Coke is a bit sacrilegious.
Yes, I admit: I've gone to the dark side -- I've been drinking Pepsi. Diet Vanilla Pepsi, to be specific. Of course I was already a bit let down by Coke way in the past with the whole 'New Coke' debacle.
And now with the new flavor wars, Coke has again let me down. I think they worried too much about keeping the core Coke flavor, and just kept the flavors too muted to be valuable.

Hey Coke - here is a hint: 15 years ago I perfected the art of flavoring Coke -- 2 parts Coke, 1 part Sprite = Lymon Coke - perfect.

Well, switching to Pepsi was a double-sided switch. I had switched off sugar too. It happened when I was trying Atkins. Atkins made me too cranky, but drinking diet soda is the one habit I've kept from Atkins. I found that both Dr. Pepper and Vanilla Pepsi had a strong enough flavor to help hide the diet flavor. But there was still one thing wrong with these diet sodas: they have Nutrasweet. Maybe it doesn't bother you, but I don't like the side effects very much. I have actually noticed getting a bit of a headache from it.

But then Diet Rite, in the last few weeks, came out with diet soda with Splenda instead of Nutrasweet. Yes!

But I still have a problem. You see, being a programmer, I need that caffeine to help be in a good programming mode. And to my shock, all versions of Diet Rite are caffeine free. Even the Cola! Hello! Diet Rite: cola should have caffeine! Okay, so you can have a caffeine free cola, but the main cola needs to have caffeine! Why do you think techies have been known to by Jolt? To get more caffeine!

I've switched sides again, but I'm still searching for the holy grail for canned soda. For now, I get my soda boost from Diet Rite, and I get my caffeine from Lipton tea. Hot Lipton tea. Good thing it is getting cooler for the fall. Hot tea isn't as appealing when it is 90 degrees outside. Of course, working in a very well air conditioned building helps offset the effect :).

So Diet Lymon Coke with Splenda, where are you? I might just switch back!

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