This column is perfection, packed with so many yes! I remember! moments and beautifully wry observations. (Peach-teriyaki ha!). Our small town had more than one bottling plant (everything was so localized) with Royal Crown Cola as our favorite because 18 bottlecaps got you free entrance into the Saturday kids matinee movie. Grandpa got us those, mom would only buy Shasta; finding their Tiki Punch flavor was like finding a golden ticket. Going to re-read this one several times.
I am always skeptical of strawberry-kiwi. It sounds like an unlikely combination. I picture chemists in a soft drink lab trying to come up with a good strawberry flavor but never quite hitting it. Every try was a disappointment. Finally, they figured they’d just say they’d hit upon a unique combination: Americans didn’t really know what kiwi tastes like, so they couldn’t call it out. And the chemists could stop trying to perfect pure strawberry flavor and get on with their lives.
I've long had early-onset nostalgia, yearning to relive a time that may never have existed and, if it did, that certainly had passed before I was born. Now, of course, I'm old enough to experience the real thing, and I do.
Soft drinks never mattered much to me, but your post called to mind the summer jobs of my youth, mostly field work in the New Mexico sun, and the thirst that came with them. I remember a summer spent planting posts and stretching wire for a vineyard in the low hills west of the Rio Grande river valley. A gallon milk jug full of water, frozen solid at the six o'clock start of our day, would be melted and gone by mid-afternoon. Then the sun would send us home.
"I've long had early-onset nostalgia, yearning to relive a time that may never have existed and, if it did, that certainly had passed before I was born. "
How come creme soda doesn't get any love? Now that flavor is combined with Dr. Pepper or Coke [?], but seems to have disappeared on its own from the scene. As a kid, I pilfered warm cans from Mom's garage, just to enjoy the sugary fizz.
We had cream soda (the more common spelling on the East Coast, apparently) once in a while when I were a lad. Generally soda was only available on holidays or when we had pizza; my parents firmly believed that pizza required carbonated sugary beverages, for some reason. My father was always curious about the less-common brands — RC Cola, or Dad's Root Beer, or some other unusual label — and the rarer flavors, at least in our neck of the woods (Boston's North Shore). So he'd occasionally include the odd bottle of cream soda, or birch beer (which I remember quite liking), or some other odd concoction.
You'd have to search it on Instagram but I have relatives who mainline Dr. Pepper. A recent college graduate took her photos on campus using Dr. Pepper instead of champagne. Dr. Pepper found it online, joined her account, and sent her a big box of customized swag. It was really above and beyond.
As a kid, I worked at a Coke bottling plant. After sickening myself on free Fanta Grape, I realized that I didn't much care for soft drinks, so I used to bring a quart of milk (pre-metric) with my lunch. I'd eat my peanut butter sandwich outside, sitting on a pile of pallets, chugging milk from the carton, until the owner of the plant came by one day and suggested rather strongly that I use a Coke cup to drink my milk if I was going to do it in public.
I just had peanut a butter sandwich and about a liter of milk for supper tonight. Some things are perfect.
In the early - mid 60s my school had a Coke machine that also had Fanta Grape and Orange soda, all in little 6 1/2 ounce bottles (for 10 cents).
Those little bottles have made a comeback at the supermarket and to me make the perfect size refreshment (or mixer for that matter). Sort of the anti-Big Gulp.
I grew up on a dairy farm in Alabama. From the time I was about 10 years old, in the summer, we were out in the sun all day every day putting up hay. Cutting hay, raking hay, baling hay, hauling hay, then fertilizing the fields to grow the next cutting of hay. My granddad had a general store. He kept one of those old coke boxes on his back porch stocked for the grandkids with cokes, Nehi grape, and then Mt.Dew when it first came out in the 60’s. I never looked back. Mt.Dew was THE thirst quencher and pick-me-up of choice. We used to say that we ran on Mt.Dew and honeybuns. Like you, some of my fondest memories are being sweat-soaked, dog tired, and taking the first slug of an ice-cold Mt. Dew. We called it “the nectar of the gods”. Thanks for the article, great writing.
I remember working as a summer camp counselor-in-training in the ‘70s. Next step up was “teacher”, so perhaps a dead end. Or perhaps they were avoiding the acronym.
Anyways, we had “punch” at meal time. The one gallon jugs, always identified by the color, because who knew what the flavor was?
Expert of course for the purple.
I’ve heard that flavor, almost like grape, was the first artificial flavor used at scale.
A better simulacrum than the pseudo-banana flavor. My favorite is still the “green apple”.
Such a fun read. It’s great how you bitch slap nostalgia. Then, the hilarious responses you get here. You push their porch swings and hear them squeak. I love it!
1965ish.. bumping around on the dirt roads with my grandpa in Central Oklahoma near Coyle.
Stopping at the gas station owned by some second cousin.. buying a Strawberry soda from the old "put the nickel in and lift the lid and pull a soda out" machines.
This brought back many memories. My parents didn't let us drink much pop, they had us make Kool-aid. BUT.... when we'd go to Aunt Elaine & Uncle Ribs the sky was the limit! He was a truck driver for Coca-Cola and had a basement fridge full of Coke! We couldn't wait to be told to go get ourselves some pop! After dinner the adults would be playing cards and we'd be sucking as much down as we could. It was Heaven!
James... The Arctic is at the TOP of the earth... 🌎
Arctic - has bears, Antarctic - has no bears. It's really the only way to tell them apart.
Besides the locations. 😎
And penguins.
If you want to trust things like "science" over your own eyes. Sure. ;)
I moved up here over 60 years ago. My house is some 130 miles below the Arctic Circle but I've spent quite a bit of time above it.
Nothing beats sitting up here atop the world looking down with a glass of, er, soda in hand.
Australians would dispute that.
I'll take my chances 😉
Living dangerously, I see.
This column is perfection, packed with so many yes! I remember! moments and beautifully wry observations. (Peach-teriyaki ha!). Our small town had more than one bottling plant (everything was so localized) with Royal Crown Cola as our favorite because 18 bottlecaps got you free entrance into the Saturday kids matinee movie. Grandpa got us those, mom would only buy Shasta; finding their Tiki Punch flavor was like finding a golden ticket. Going to re-read this one several times.
i'd give elderberry-sirloin a try myself.
I am always skeptical of strawberry-kiwi. It sounds like an unlikely combination. I picture chemists in a soft drink lab trying to come up with a good strawberry flavor but never quite hitting it. Every try was a disappointment. Finally, they figured they’d just say they’d hit upon a unique combination: Americans didn’t really know what kiwi tastes like, so they couldn’t call it out. And the chemists could stop trying to perfect pure strawberry flavor and get on with their lives.
The family likes Tiki Punch.
I've long had early-onset nostalgia, yearning to relive a time that may never have existed and, if it did, that certainly had passed before I was born. Now, of course, I'm old enough to experience the real thing, and I do.
Soft drinks never mattered much to me, but your post called to mind the summer jobs of my youth, mostly field work in the New Mexico sun, and the thirst that came with them. I remember a summer spent planting posts and stretching wire for a vineyard in the low hills west of the Rio Grande river valley. A gallon milk jug full of water, frozen solid at the six o'clock start of our day, would be melted and gone by mid-afternoon. Then the sun would send us home.
I miss that.
"I've long had early-onset nostalgia, yearning to relive a time that may never have existed and, if it did, that certainly had passed before I was born. "
Anemoia.
If you drink 6 cokes fast, you'll burp 7 up.
How come creme soda doesn't get any love? Now that flavor is combined with Dr. Pepper or Coke [?], but seems to have disappeared on its own from the scene. As a kid, I pilfered warm cans from Mom's garage, just to enjoy the sugary fizz.
We had cream soda (the more common spelling on the East Coast, apparently) once in a while when I were a lad. Generally soda was only available on holidays or when we had pizza; my parents firmly believed that pizza required carbonated sugary beverages, for some reason. My father was always curious about the less-common brands — RC Cola, or Dad's Root Beer, or some other unusual label — and the rarer flavors, at least in our neck of the woods (Boston's North Shore). So he'd occasionally include the odd bottle of cream soda, or birch beer (which I remember quite liking), or some other odd concoction.
Dr. Brown's creme soda (vanilla flavored soda pop) is pretty good. If a local grocery store has a kosher section, you might find it there.
No kosher section in my local stores. They don't even have halvah anymore.
I just picked up some pistachio halvah today. You can get Achva halvah on Amazon.
This is really good, made of just sesame seeds and honey, but it's expensive: https://www.amazon.com/Wellbees-Honey-Halva-Refined-Sugar-Artificial/dp/B082XHWBCW?th=1
Shasta creme soda is available at every supermarket I go to. Also A&W makes a creme soda too, which I will purchase from time to time.
Cream soda with a squeeze of lime is very good.
My favorite barbecue place has Hank’s Vanilla Cream soda in the cooler.
You'd have to search it on Instagram but I have relatives who mainline Dr. Pepper. A recent college graduate took her photos on campus using Dr. Pepper instead of champagne. Dr. Pepper found it online, joined her account, and sent her a big box of customized swag. It was really above and beyond.
Dr. Pepper, mixes well with whisky or Bourbon. But I'm maybe weird for that.
Really good poured over a country ham before you roast it.
Grape soda is great, but for me nothing beats Stewart's Orange Cream. Like drinking a Dreamsickle.
Peach iced tea is nice, too.
Those cans of fizzy "flavored" water are actually the chemical by-product of some industrial process, and not really meant for human consumption.
As a kid, I worked at a Coke bottling plant. After sickening myself on free Fanta Grape, I realized that I didn't much care for soft drinks, so I used to bring a quart of milk (pre-metric) with my lunch. I'd eat my peanut butter sandwich outside, sitting on a pile of pallets, chugging milk from the carton, until the owner of the plant came by one day and suggested rather strongly that I use a Coke cup to drink my milk if I was going to do it in public.
I just had peanut a butter sandwich and about a liter of milk for supper tonight. Some things are perfect.
Canfield’s Diet chocolate fudge, and Swiss Cream flavors at grandma’s on the south side. I can literally taste the memory now. Thanks
All the drinks you describe sound absolutely revolting. You will not find them in my house. Just warning you.
Thanks for the warning. ;-)
Thanks Karen
In the early - mid 60s my school had a Coke machine that also had Fanta Grape and Orange soda, all in little 6 1/2 ounce bottles (for 10 cents).
Those little bottles have made a comeback at the supermarket and to me make the perfect size refreshment (or mixer for that matter). Sort of the anti-Big Gulp.
I grew up on a dairy farm in Alabama. From the time I was about 10 years old, in the summer, we were out in the sun all day every day putting up hay. Cutting hay, raking hay, baling hay, hauling hay, then fertilizing the fields to grow the next cutting of hay. My granddad had a general store. He kept one of those old coke boxes on his back porch stocked for the grandkids with cokes, Nehi grape, and then Mt.Dew when it first came out in the 60’s. I never looked back. Mt.Dew was THE thirst quencher and pick-me-up of choice. We used to say that we ran on Mt.Dew and honeybuns. Like you, some of my fondest memories are being sweat-soaked, dog tired, and taking the first slug of an ice-cold Mt. Dew. We called it “the nectar of the gods”. Thanks for the article, great writing.
I remember working as a summer camp counselor-in-training in the ‘70s. Next step up was “teacher”, so perhaps a dead end. Or perhaps they were avoiding the acronym.
Anyways, we had “punch” at meal time. The one gallon jugs, always identified by the color, because who knew what the flavor was?
Expert of course for the purple.
I’ve heard that flavor, almost like grape, was the first artificial flavor used at scale.
A better simulacrum than the pseudo-banana flavor. My favorite is still the “green apple”.
Dude - you crack me up!
Such a fun read. It’s great how you bitch slap nostalgia. Then, the hilarious responses you get here. You push their porch swings and hear them squeak. I love it!
1965ish.. bumping around on the dirt roads with my grandpa in Central Oklahoma near Coyle.
Stopping at the gas station owned by some second cousin.. buying a Strawberry soda from the old "put the nickel in and lift the lid and pull a soda out" machines.
This brought back many memories. My parents didn't let us drink much pop, they had us make Kool-aid. BUT.... when we'd go to Aunt Elaine & Uncle Ribs the sky was the limit! He was a truck driver for Coca-Cola and had a basement fridge full of Coke! We couldn't wait to be told to go get ourselves some pop! After dinner the adults would be playing cards and we'd be sucking as much down as we could. It was Heaven!