Anyone who spends any appreciable amount of time around me, particularly the two or three people who would most likely read this, knows that Diet Coke and I have an obsessive, almost unhealthy relationship. I’m not talking about the fact that it’s a generally unhealthy drink, I just have a relationship with it. Like, more than a friend.
Even as I write this, Diet Coke and I are never far apart.
My Diet Coke obsession is a lasting holdover from the days when I worked long overnight shifts as a 911 operator (I needed the caffeine, I hated coffee, and Diet Coke seemed like a better option as a technically sugar-free, zero-calorie option.) Growing up, however, I was firmly a Pepsi boy. My dad loved regular Coca-Cola, however I drank the stuff sparingly. Even then, it was too tart for my tastes, and I preferred Pepsi’s sugary sweetness.
Apparently, a lot of people did, especially back in the early 1980s. In 1985 Coca-Cola, facing increasing market share losses to Pepsi and multitudes of taste tests where people would choose Pepsi over Coke, decided to do something that too this day remains a business case study of almost legendary proportions.
Thus was born the biggest corporate conspiracy theory since they tried to figure out why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
New Coke was developed as a sweeter re-formulation of Coca Cola that was released after extensive taste testing where people said they preferred it to Pepsi, completely ignoring the fact that they didn’t ask if it was preferable to Coke Classic, or that people would have to drink more than one sip of the stuff at any given time. People lashed back at the prospect of losing the original Coca Cola to this saccharine upstart that Coca Cola brought back the original formula as Coca Cola Classic after less than three months, and New Coke (later rebranded Coke II) went largely ignored and relegated to dollar stores. It was mostly off of American shelves by the mid-90s.
At least, until, Netflix came along with the show that kicked off the 80s nostalgia craze we all enjoy today: Stranger Things.
Making us forget just how much the 80s actually sucked, one season at a time.
Amid all of the flurry of ads and promotions for Stranger Things’ fourth season this past summer, Coca Cola quietly announced a little promotion. Since the season was set in 1985, they would be offering a $19.85 Stranger Things-themed cola gift set, consisting of two 8-ounce glass bottles, one of regular Coke and one of Coke Zero, and two standard cans of New Coke, using the original release formula.
Now, I was just about to turn two when New Coke came and went like a fart in the wind, and it was long gone from the market by the time I was old enough to drink sodas without my parents’ permission. I never really watched the show, but the allure of trying something so legendary was difficult to resist, even at $9 a can.
So, when I found out the promotion would be discontinued after Labor Day, I bit the bullet like a good capitalist shill and made a purchase that I’m certain my dad will bring up and grill me about if I ever ask to borrow money again.
The most irresponsible purchase I have ever made. In the past month.
Questions about my fiscal responsibility aside, those two cans represented a once in a lifetime opportunity. A chance to sample a soda of legend, despite the fact that what made it legendary is how it failed harder than attempts to overturn Brexit. Surely, a unique experience that will never come around again (at least until Stranger Things Season Five) is worth two meals at McDonalds plus tax, right?
To prepare for my taste test, I came up with a methodology. Both cans went into the fridge to get ice cold as soon as they arrived, and I began to prepare my body, my mind, and my spirit for the experience I was about to undertake. The following morning, I went to campus, taught my class, and came home. I cooked and ate my dinner (Spaghetti alla Carbonara, homemade), cleansed my palate with water, brushed and mouthwashed my teeth, and then waited one hour before another drink of cold, filtered water.
My taste buds were purified and anointed in the cleansing waters of Pur, so that I may enter this experience with eyes open, mind clear, and taste unburdened by garlic.
I took one can, cracked it open, and for the first taste, I took it directly from the can itself, just as I would have had I purchased it from a vending machine in 1985, a time where I thought pooping my diaper was the greatest thing I would ever accomplish with my life.
The first taste was cold and delightfully fizzy, as it should be. While the can seemed to be of heavier stock than a standard Coca Cola can, I didn’t taste any influence from the medium. The flavor itself, though, did remind me of Pepsi, or more specifically Diet Pepsi, somewhere in between the two. It was cloyingly sweet, while not overly saccharine. As someone who grew up drinking regular Pepsi, however, I found the flavor to be wholly unremarkable. For the remainder of the tasting, I poured the contents into a glass with ice cubes. The flattening effect of the ice, while providing for a colder drink, did not have an effect on the taste that I could detect at the time. The more I drank of it, however, the more the sweetness seemed to…curdle, for lack of a better word. The flavor’s sweetness profile began to turn from Pepsi-sweet to more of a “Generic Discount Cola” sweet you might find in the cheap stuff at Aldi’s or Wal-Mart.
With the first can consumed and well on it’s way to being my wake-up trip to the toilet the next morning, I let the second can sit in the fridge for a few more days. I did this to give me time to process the experience, to consider it against 35 years of consumption, and what I had just tasted means to one who styles himself an aficionado of sodas, a master of the carbonated arts. Then, just before Labor Day, I drank the second can.
It was if my third eye was opened for the first time. I peered in to the abyss, the void between this world and the next, only for the void to peer back. And flash me a dick pic.
Pictured: The infinite and complex reality beyond the veil
I did everything the exact same as I did before, right down to my pre-dinner ritual. I even cooked the same meal, with the same ingredients, and I drank it the same way: One sip from the can, and the rest poured over ice.
Perhaps it was the fact that I came in to the second can with an idea of what to expect, having tasted New Coke for the first time only days before. I briefly wondered if I had gotten a bad batch, however seeing as how limited this run was, that was unlikely. What I was certain of, however, is that repeated tastings left me drinking something that vaguely tasted of sweetened hot dog water. It was what I imagined Gamer Girl Bath Water Soda to taste like. It was if I had a dog drink my Coca Cola, only to vomit it back in to the glass for my own enjoyment.
What I am saying is that drinking New Coke was like the moment that you first realize that the cool, salty ocean water you frolicked in when you went to the beach is full of fish turds and hot coral sex.
I had allowed myself to be blinded by the idea of nostalgia, to reach back to a time I look on with rose-tinted glasses to experience something I had missed out on, only to realize that I was lucky I missed it. Coca Cola was completely in the right to bring back the old formula, because if it didn’t, I firmly believe this would have rendered Coca Cola as something that only exists in business history books by the turn of the millennium. I’ve always been rather ambivalent to Stranger Things, considering I never watched the show, however this product promotion has left me with little more than sour hatred in my soul for which I imagine is a popular if unassuming Netflix series.
Stick the New Coke formula back in the Coca Cola vault, drop the vault into the bottom of the ocean, and then set it on fire. Let this piece of nostalgia stay in the past.