I grew up drinking all kinds of sodas. Frosty Root Beer, Topp Cola, Cragmont Soda, Delaware Punch, Dr Pepper, Orange Crush, and Mountain Dew. I never liked the big name colas-Coke and Pepsi just didn’t do it for me.
About ten years ago I found modern sodas that I pretty much fell in love with-Stewarts and Jones and Dr Pepper Made With Real Sugar. I also found that I really hate Moxie and most of the odd flavors you find in Asian and Mexican markets.
Ah, Real Sugar.
So I am a bit of sucker for any of the Big Evil Conglomerates making Old Style sodas with Real Sugar. But I am often disappointed with the results. While Dr Pepper does, in fact, taste different with real sugar, the Throwback Mountain Dew tastes pretty much like-a Mountain Dew.
When I went to London a few years back, I was greatly impressed with pretty much everything-but especially with the sweets and sodas. They were all really sweet. The UK is not up their eyes with corn the way America is, so it still cheaper to make sodas with real sugar. Or at least it was last time I was there. And the candy bars are just plain sweeter as well-I’ve no real understanding of this. It seems to have something to do with the temperature being cooler.
Anyway. It’s the caffeine in Mountain Dew that makes it popular, not the sugar. So I kind of like the Red Bull Cola-but not as much as I like regular Red Bull. I do miss the days when I could open one of those coffin style soda cooler and find a couple of dozen different flavors and sizes lurking in there. I also like a lot of the odd flavors they have at The World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta. I really like the sweet ones.
When I was a kid, we had the “soda man” come around with his truck, and my mother would buy a mixed case of Royal Crown sodas. My favorite was the grape, followed closely by the orange, but when I think of drinking them now, it makes me shiver to think how sugary they were. Every once in a while, maybe twice a year, usually on a Saturday afternoon, around 4:00, the only thing I want is a very tall glass of Coke, on ice, which I drink in less than 2 minutes. Can’t explain it, but when the craving its, there’s nothing I can do to stop myself. Otherwise, I drink water. b-o-r-i-n-g.
Well, I am also a great fan of water and do drink a good deal more water than I drink sodas.