Yeah really. I thought about mailing a letter down to Salem Oregon where they make Kettle Chips because they got rid of Cheddar Beer flavor and replaced it with some bullshit new flavor, but the keyword here is "thought."

At least the preload image confirms that some people cared desperately about relatively unimportant things before the internet was invented, too.

zest: Wait, I can still get Cheddar Beer chips where I live...

Holy crap! It was maybe 5-or-so years ago but they definitely took them off the market for a while. I haven't even paid attention since those were the only kind I liked (spicy Thai's ok), but there it is on the website. Yay! My mind control worked.

Someone probably mailed them a letter.

One of the marketing leads was also the guy who made OK soda.
That dude is cool in my book.

What's funny is a lot of people did. There was even an online petition and people protesting outside of their headquarters. But at least the last time I checked, they had no plans to bring it back. It was like they had lost the recipe or something. I guess McDonalds does that with McRib, and Mtn Dew does it with their other flavors, but everybody knows those are limited time things, so stock up while you can if it's your jam, but it'll probably be back soon. The discontinuation of cheddar beer chips came as a complete surprise, and there wasn't any kind of announcement or acknowledgement, and I'd assume that a lot of the chip community stopped buying Kettle chips for a similar-tasting substitute, or, made them themselves like I did (it's a pretty easy recipe.)

The "Our Children Will Never Know Refreshment" sign almost sounds sarcastic. I wish it was.

They finally brought back Surge. I can't ask for anything more!!!!

Call me what you will, but I only drink soda with booze in it (it isn't that often) and while I loved surge when I was a kid, I just drink coffee for caffeine and ignore most sodas these days. Without having tasted surge for almost 20 years, is there any booze it goes well with? And for context one of my first homemade alcoholic beverages was surge, amaretto and baileys. Not very proud of that..

Basically, that one goes: New Coke was a disingenuous marketing ploy, meant not to actually replace Coke, but to drum up controversy and therefor buzz for the aging brand. Once they "brought back" Coke Classic, it would be seen as this huge victory for consumers, and relieved Americans would buy it in droves. This is essentially what happened - New Coke bombed, but Coke Classic made a killing and saved it's market share.

Another fun conspiracy theory is that Coke Classic isn't actually Coke Classic; it's a new formula with a false label. New Coke was brought in to confuse soda drinkers and, once our tastebuds were so used to the "new" taste that we'd forgotten precisely how the original Coke tasted, a new formula Coke "Classic" would be introduced and nobody would notice the difference. This one's actually got a kernel of truth to it, because apparently the re-introduction was when Coke made the switch-off from cane sugar to corn syrup sweetener. As any soda hipsters who've been drinking craft sodas and/or the sugar-sweetened nostalgia versions of popular brands that've been cropping up in recent years can tell you, there is a noticeable difference in taste.

that sign on the left smells like astroturf

The New Coke was a story about the largest vanilla bean consumer saying "fuck you" to vanilla bean brokers in Madagascar:http://academic.udayton.edu/PMIC/Readings/coke.htm

People can't blind taste the difference between cane sugar and corn syrup...or even brands despite different formulations. The label matters most and sip tests are notoriously difficult to interpret.

>> People can't blind taste the difference between cane sugar and corn syrup...or even brands despite different formulations.

This is false. While amateur studies often indicate a general trend towards consumer misidentification of brands, this has more to do with the limits of your average consumer's palate than with an equivalency in taste between soda products. And claiming that there us no difference in taste between cane sugar and corn syrup is flat out wrong - while the difference is less pronounced than, say, the difference between corn syrup and a "sugar-free" sweetener such as Sorbitol (disgusting stuff), the two produce a noticeably different mouthfeel and finish.

mouthfeel

Is gmol saying that people can't taste the difference between Coke and Pepsi? Perhaps some people can't (and I've heard that Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi are hard to distinguish), but I most definitely can.

In fact, I used to commonly drink brandy and Coke, and I'd send the drink back if they brought me brandy and Pepsi because Pepsi's awful.

People *can* resolve a taste difference between pepsi and coke and can, no doubt, be easily trained to classify accurately. I think companies have found that vast majority of people don't.

I used to tend bar at this place that had "Mexican" Coke and for a dollar more you could get your &Cokes with that instead. A lot of people still opted for the tap cola, but during happy hour it meant your well whisky was instead of 2. Pretty good deal and so much tastier. I always had the courtesy to inform people that it was RC and not actually coke, because I've never heard anyone order a "Jack and Pepsi/RC", regardless of brand loyalty.

Thums Up is the best cola.

Fentimans' is the best cola. And the Pepsi Made with Real Sugar is damn fine cola. But nothing beats Jarritos.