There's been no shortage of great sodas in America. From Southern classics RC Soda and Big Red Soda which were popular in the 1940s and 1950s, to the great variety of brands spawned from PepsiCo and The Coca-Cola Company in the latter half of the century. Mr Pibb, Mello Yello or Surge anyone? Here’s what everyone was sipping the decade you were born.
An old-fashioned term for Scotch whisky, Mountain Dew was developed as a mixer in the 1940s, by brothers Barney and Ally Hartman. The bright green drink was first bottled in Knoxville and Johnson City in Tennessee and Marion, Virginia. It wasn't available nationwide until the Pepsi-Cola Company (now PepsiCo) bought the brand in 1964.
By the 1940s, Coca-Cola was well on its way to becoming the manufacturing giant it is today. During the Second World War, bottles were sent to Asia, Europe and North Africa, so American servicemen and women could get hold of the drink for a nickel wherever they were in the world. More than five billion bottles were distributed in total.
Although not such a big national player anymore, in the 1940s this Georgia-based soft drink brand poured money into print and TV ads featuring popular celebrities of the time including Joan Crawford, Betty Grable and Bing Crosby. It had a big fan base in the South and country singer Bill Lister even recorded a song about drinking RC Cola (short for Royal Crown Cola) with a Moon Pie (a chocolate cookie with a marshmallow center). The pairing is still a local favorite and there's an annual RC-MoonPie Festival in Bell Buckle, Tennessee.
Did you know Orange Fanta was created in Nazi Germany? Or that its original ingredients were waste products such as apple fibers, cider mash and whey (the cheese by-product)? After the war, in the 1950s, Coca-Cola’s extremely popular second brand was given a recipe update and brought over to the US.
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Diet sodas ruled in the 1950s. Beverage businessman Hyman Kirsch is credited with creating the first diet drink, No-Cal, but it was Royal Crown Cola who took its product, Diet Rite Cola, nationwide in 1958. At first the brand targeted diabetics and was often sold in the medicine section at the grocery store. However, it quickly went mainstream, becoming America's fourth best-selling soft drink.
Still a favorite in Southern states, Big Red was one of the first red cream sodas. Flavored with vanilla, lemon and orange oil, the drink was created in Waco, Texas, by R.H. Roark and Grover C. Thomsen in the 1930s. Originally named Sun Tang Red Cream Soda, the drink wasn't referred to as Big Red, as it's known today, until the late 1960s.
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Coca-Cola’s lemon and lime cousin, Sprite started life in Germany as Fanta Klara Zitrone before being introduced to America in 1961 as a competitor to rival 7Up. It has always come in a refreshing green bottle or can (similar to 7Up) and is instantly recognizable.
Before there was Diet Coke there was Coca-Cola’s Tab. And to rival Tab there was Diet Pepsi, which became available in 1964 and, unlike Tab, is still sold worldwide. The soda faced criticism in 2015 when the controversial sweetener aspartame was replaced with sucralose and many fans said the taste changed.
Now here’s an interesting fact: Gatorade, the sports drink formulated in 1965, was named after the Florida Gators, the sports teams that represent the University of Florida. Today it's one of the leading brands and is often credited as the first-ever sports drink (although British brand Lucozade actually dates back to 1927).
Do you remember Teem? On shelves from the 1960s to the 1980s, it was a lemon and lime-flavored soda by the Pepsi-Cola Company (now PepsiCo). It had many fans but after two decades was axed and replaced by another citrus drink called Slice.
Mr Pibb debuted in Southern US markets in 1972, with fruity, spicy notes similar to Dr Pepper and was the same color as cola. Interestingly, The Coca-Cola Company originally wanted to name it Peppo, but in the end wasn’t allowed because the name was too similar to its competitor. While Mr Pibb is no longer available to buy, a reformulation of the drink called Pibb Xtra is on shelves today.
Introduced by The Coca-Cola Company to compete with Pepsi’s Mountain Dew, this groovy citrus-flavored soda encapsulated the decade. Soon, limited-edition cherry, peach and melon versions were launched. The original is still on sale today.
Inspired by the smell of different fruit syrups mixing in the air at a soda foundation, pharmacist Charles Alderton created Dr Pepper in the late 19th century. Fast forward to the 1970s and its marketing slogan claimed it was still “the most original soft drink ever in the whole wide world”. This was the decade of its much-loved jingle “Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper too?”.
In a rush to keep up with the diet soda industry, The Coca-Cola Company launched Tab. However, it quickly suffered two obstacles: its first sweetener cyclamate was banned and its replacement saccharin was getting bad press. Nonetheless, it managed to gain fans and was the best-selling diet cola of the 1970s and 1980s.
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One of the most famous brands to be born in the 1980s, Diet Coke positioned itself as a great drink that happened to be a diet soda. Its tagline was "Just for the taste of it" and its memorable first advert, filmed at The Radio City Music Hall, New York, was a star-studded affair.
These pear-shaped bottles reached the US in the mid-1980s. First launched in France in 1935, Orangina is a sparkling soft drink made with orange juice and pulp. It’s known for its bold advertising campaigns and catchphrase “Shake the bottle, wake the drink”.
Particularly popular with children and teens, this fruity twist on Coke was launched in the US in the 1980s. It was the first of its kind and quickly built a fan base. By the end of its first year it was among the 10 best-selling soft drinks. Unlike many other sodas on this list, Cherry Coke sales are still going strong.
Invented just after Coca-Cola in 1893, Pepsi had always lagged slightly behind its competitor. But something unexpected happened in the mid-1980s. When Coca-Cola changed its classic formula and launched "New Coke" (the unofficial name for Coca-Cola's reformulation) in 1985, it upset customers so much Pepsi was able to take the top spot. Coca-Cola quickly returned to its old recipe to win its fans back.
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Extreme sports, cool athletes and ski events is what Red Bull came to be associated with in the 1990s. The sweet soft drink, featuring taurine and caffeine, was based on Thai energy drink Krating Daeng, which is still on sale today. When Austrian entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz met its creator, Chaleo Yoovidhya, they decided to launch it globally.
Still trying to find a way to top Pepsi’s Mountain Dew, The Coca-Cola Company launched a citrus drink called Surge in 1996. It had a bright green can and was marketed as having a “hardcore edge”. After being canceled in 2003, it made a comeback and can be found at Burger King chains with Coca-Cola Freestyle machines.
This strange soda brand was brought out by Coca-Cola in the US in the 1990s. Its adverts focused on how it made you feel instead of its flavor. There was even a manifesto with statements such as “There is no real secret to feeling OK”, which is a marketing message we can get on board with.
If you thought the cola wars were put to bed in the Nineties, you were wrong. In the early 2000s, Pepsi brought out Pepsi Twist – its classic drink with a hint of lemon, with the aim of extending the brand's reach. It was tested in Minnesota and Texas, before being rolled out nationally and internationally.
If this logo looks familiar, that's because it's 7Up but flipped around. A stronger-tasting, caffeinated version, dnL was released by Cadbury Schweppes in 2002, with the slogan "Turn your thirst upside-down”, only to be discontinued three years later. Poor marketing was blamed for its failure to take off.
When Coke Zero arrived in 2005, people wanted to know how it differed from Coca-Cola’s existing diet soda aside from its packaging. The answer is it tastes exactly the same as regular coke, whereas Diet Coke has a lighter flavor. Now replaced by Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, it was also accused of stealing sales from its sibling.