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Soda, pop, soda pop, sodie (watch me cringe!), fizz water, whatever you grew up calling it, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ann1962 had an interesting post on Pepsi Throwback yesterday.
It got me to thinking how many brands of soda there were when I was a kid, some of which occasionally resurface for the sake of us old folks who still remember. There are still lots of small companies bottling soda, but I doubt many of them are as well known as the old local brands used to be. In St. Louis the top local brand was Vess. Their most popular variety and the only one they didn't just call Vess (whatever) was orange soda called Whistle. In St. Louis we knew about Nehi (Radar O'Reilly's favorite was grape Nehi), but it wasn't available everywhere in town. The local brand colas tended to be uniformly bad. Royal Crown Cola was a national brand, but it was not as good as either Coke or Pepsi in my book. Some local root beer was awful, like store brands today. A&W root beer used to be one of the rot-gut brands. In St. Louis, the good root beers were Dad's Old-Fashioned, Hire's and the very, very different IBC root beer. It was stunning as an adult to come across Barq's spreading nationally which was as good or better than the root beer we had as kids. Vernors was still a local brand when I ran into it in Columbus Ohio. Couldn't get enough of it in grad school. OnM mentioned Wink in the comments. I liked it, but I was used to the more sour grapefruit Squirt which I think was a local brand when I was growing up. Dr. Pepper has improved over time. In the old days people either liked it or hated it. The mix of flavors has been toned down over time and I'd guess fewer people now hate it. When I was a kid my Oklahoma cousins knew all about Dr. Pepper, but my Tennessee cousins had never heard of it. 7up was a stronger national brand when I was a kid. Back then it was easily the best of the lemon, lemon-lime sodas. Since then it's got a lot more good competition. Patio at least used to be Pepsi's line of fruit flavored sodas. The first time I was in Denmark in 1970 not only was Coke's Fanta orange still alive, but very popular with the locals.
I didn't drink much diet soda in the old days. Most of the saccharin-sweetened ones tasted horrible to me. I think guys my age were in awe of girls determined enough and tough enough to drink TAB more than once.
ann1962 had an interesting post on Pepsi Throwback yesterday.It got me to thinking how many brands of soda there were when I was a kid, some of which occasionally resurface for the sake of us old folks who still remember. There are still lots of small companies bottling soda, but I doubt many of them are as well known as the old local brands used to be. In St. Louis the top local brand was Vess. Their most popular variety and the only one they didn't just call Vess (whatever) was orange soda called Whistle. In St. Louis we knew about Nehi (Radar O'Reilly's favorite was grape Nehi), but it wasn't available everywhere in town. The local brand colas tended to be uniformly bad. Royal Crown Cola was a national brand, but it was not as good as either Coke or Pepsi in my book. Some local root beer was awful, like store brands today. A&W root beer used to be one of the rot-gut brands. In St. Louis, the good root beers were Dad's Old-Fashioned, Hire's and the very, very different IBC root beer. It was stunning as an adult to come across Barq's spreading nationally which was as good or better than the root beer we had as kids. Vernors was still a local brand when I ran into it in Columbus Ohio. Couldn't get enough of it in grad school. OnM mentioned Wink in the comments. I liked it, but I was used to the more sour grapefruit Squirt which I think was a local brand when I was growing up. Dr. Pepper has improved over time. In the old days people either liked it or hated it. The mix of flavors has been toned down over time and I'd guess fewer people now hate it. When I was a kid my Oklahoma cousins knew all about Dr. Pepper, but my Tennessee cousins had never heard of it. 7up was a stronger national brand when I was a kid. Back then it was easily the best of the lemon, lemon-lime sodas. Since then it's got a lot more good competition. Patio at least used to be Pepsi's line of fruit flavored sodas. The first time I was in Denmark in 1970 not only was Coke's Fanta orange still alive, but very popular with the locals.
I didn't drink much diet soda in the old days. Most of the saccharin-sweetened ones tasted horrible to me. I think guys my age were in awe of girls determined enough and tough enough to drink TAB more than once.