I have a copy of an American food guide from 1979 which gives macronutrient and calorie counts for many foods from that time. I occasionally use it to find how much protein or carbs are in something, since it is more accurate than many internet sites. But it is outdated.
Some of the beverages, in particular, are oddities I’ve never heard of or seen. Tell me about Purple Passion, Teem, Cactus Cooler and Upper 10.
There were a lot more regional soft drinks back then, and I recognize some of those names. However, Teem and Upper 10 were made by the major soft drink companies (Pepsi and RC Cola, respectively), as lemon-lime sodas, and alternatives to Seven Up and Sprite.
Pepsi killed Teem at some point, as they introduced a different lemon lime soda, Slice, in the '80s. RC was bought by the parent company of Seven Up in 2000, which is probably why Upper 10 was killed.
The only one I remember is Cactus Cooler. I think it was a Mountain Dew knockoff (or maybe Mountain Dew was a knockoff of Cactus Cooler.)
Jolly Good soda was a Wisconsin specialty. It disapeared for while but now is back:
Brian
Not really. Cactus Cooler was a Canada Dry product and is orange-pineapple in flavor. It was introduced in the mid-60s. Now it is part of Dr Pepper and still around in the South West. Mountain Dew was introduced back in the 40s and never, to my knowledge, had a pineapple component. Just that nasty fake citrus twang.
There was a local soft drink my family used to drink in Chicago in the 1960s called Green River. It was a terrifying fluorescent green color. Apparently the drink’s name, rather than any actual river, was the inspiration for the Creedence Clearwater Revival song.
I’d kill for one of those.
It’s still available in Chicago, though the bottled version tends to only show up in grocery stores around St. Patrick’s Day. But, there are some restaurants (like the gyros place a few blocks from my house) which have it on their fountain.
I was hoping for someplace closer to SeaTac.
I remember Green River as a soda-fountain drink from the late '60s; never seen it bottled. I do remember Teem and Cactus Cooler, too.
It’s not cheap, but Amazon will ship you a couple of bottles.
Rocket Fizz in Seattle might have it. The store down here in Santa Barbara had all sorts of uncommon/retro sodas before it closed.
Perhaps he’s referring to the Green River area by SeaTac, of Green River Killer fame.
Yay! Someone got my lame joke.
I feel like Cactus Cooler was a staple of my teenage years. I miss it dearly. So delicious.
Them’s fightin’ words.
Vernors…mmmmm…
I remember Cactus Cooler and would have thought it was a Mountain Dew clone too. Must be misremembering that.
One product that was Mountain Dew simply rebranded was Kickapoo Joy Juice. There was a now-defunct amusement park in Arkansas called Dogpatch USA, with a Li’l Abner theme. It was a couple hour’s drive from my grandmother’s place, so we went there once or twice. The vending machines all had Kickapoo Joy Juice, which again was just Mountain Dew. And I’m pretty sure I remember a limited-time promotion where it was also Kickapoo Joy Juice in Texas too, maybe a nationwide promotion.
they still make and sell cactus cooler … try walmart …
cactus cooler where to buy - Search
not much om the wiki tho
I dont care for it much because it taste like that fake orange flavor they use for baby asprin
Threes an interesting story about mountain dew … back in the 40s and 50s there wasn’t an exact recipe for it So the local bottlers tried to get as close as they could but it was said it never tasted the same from area to area … and apparently there were convention type gatherings when people would trade bottles of it
Well when PepsiCo bought in the late 60s it they had one big bottler meeting and everyone brought their version and had a big vote on which one tasted the best and that’s the formula they’ve used since the 60s supposedly… and they’ve never said whos version of it they used …
Wikipedia’s page about Teem:
the can image came from the soda can collection my brother used to have.
I remeber when slice first came out it was pepsi’s version of fantas 31 flavors …