No, not the interchange.
When I was a kid in the early-'70s, one of the best things on a hot day was an Orange Crush soda. I’ve had four or five bottles of Orange Crush over the last decade, and they just didn’t taste the same.
Is it because I’m an adult now, and no longer living in those halcyon days of youth? Did my tastes change? Or did the recipe change sometime in the last 30 years?
It’s been a very long time for me, too. Others that I recall from long ago:
Buffalo Rock Ginger Ale
Frostie Old Fashioned Root Beer
Cheerwine (maybe five years)
Wikipedia has enough pages on the old drinks that I could probably get help on a few others that aren’t leaping to mind.
The ice cream man sold White Rock sodas. We kids thought we were getting away with something because the logo featured a bare-breasted woman.
While living in the middle of the Mojave Desert, dad used to like to keep a variety of canned sodas in the fridge – cola, cream soda, grape soda, orange soda, root beer, and lemon-lime. It was all Cragmont, which was carried by Safeway.
But Orange Crush (in the bottle, natch) was the best.
We made ice cream from Orange Crush in the 70’s. Drank a lot of Orange Crush too.
I agree the stuff they sell today doesn’t have much orange taste. It’s just too sweet. I make my own with 12oz OJ and a half can (5 oz) sprite.
I don’t think that the formula to Orange Crush has changed – tastes the same to me as it always did.
And it was Honey Cream Crush that was the best.
It was probably made with real sugar back then and is made with high fructose corn syrup now, like other sodas.
Crush has been sold at least twice since the 1970’s. Dr Pepper Snapple Group currently owns it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone tried to cut costs by changing the recipe or simply adding more carbonated water.
I liked Orange Crush. Never cared for the other flavors.
That was my guess too. Pop with real sugar seem to have a sharper taste to it than pop with corn syrup. Incidentally, I think you can still find Orange Crush with real sugar in specialty soda shops. They may be Mexican or European imports.
Also, I could be mistaken but I seem to recall that the old formula for Orange Crush also had a little bit of orange juice in it.
Anyway, according to the Crush website, the current ingredients for Orange Crush are as follows:
I remember for a time the “new” Orange Crush formula used to contain wood resin. A lot of flavored pops still have this but it looks as though that is no longer the case with Orange Crush (although “brominated soybean oil” doesn’t sound much better).