At the “trading post” in summer camp, one could request a mixture of each soda flavor they had. The concoction was referred to as Mountain Dew. This was in the mid-60s in upstate New York.
Imagine my annoyance when an actual brand of soda with that name came out. Especially since it wasn’t nearly as good.
We definitely did this as kids. Late '80s, early '90s. And we did, indeed, call it a “suicide.”
Here’s the thing: it doesn’t taste all that different from any single drink from the fountain. I guess the secret is that all soft drinks taste pretty similar. (Hint: the dominant flavor is sugar.)
At Little League baseball games, you could order a Suicide at the hotdog stand.
yeah the first time I have ever seen it was on a 50s-themed diner menu and it was on the menu as a “suicide” …my aunt still does it to this date at a fountain …
I’m told it was originally a bar thing as back in the day a lot of bar counters s was built with little gutters at the edge so if something was spilled it ran in the gutter and drained off in a pail etc and at the end of the night it was a custom to sell or give it to the skid row no hope drunks when they wanted booze some places called it a “salty dog” and it was a thing for people to dare each other drink it
We mixed Coke and Sprite/7-Up and for some reason called it “root beer” even though it tasted nothing like root beer.
We used to call that a “bar mat;” same concept, only it was all the stuff that wound up dribbled in between the raised part of the mat (see below), as the bartenders prepared drinks.
“Swamp water” was the term I heard used. I would often mix fountain Coke and Sprite as a young kid (but I would avoid adding things like root beer or orange soda).
One concoction I kind of liked as a kid was Coke + orange juice. I don’t think I had a name for it, though.
WOW! Talk about a trip on the WABAC machine.
I didn’t do suicide sodas, but many family members and friends did. I liked my sodas one flavor at a time. Mine was almost always Coca~Cola, and once in a while strawberry, orange, grape, or some other fruit flavor for a change.
However, I got many suicide Snow Cones from the neighborhood ice cream man and at other places, so did a lot of kids.
My brother used to order it at the A&W that used to be in town. They/we called it Swamp Water. I don’t recall what flavors they had. Oh my goodness that’s been about 50 + years ago, but I’m pretty sure they had root beer. 
My brother and I used to play a game when our parents were out.
We’d make “cocktails” mixing any liquid we could find in the fridge and dare each other to drink our concoctions without knowing the ingredients. Most came out drinkable, much to our disappointment. Except when milk was added. Milk made every mixture absolutely vile, so much so that we came up with a no-milk rule as it made it too easy to win our gross-out game.
And there’s only, like, five or six syrup cartridges needed to create all those flavors. At the risk of some slight hyperbole, I’d guess 99.9% of any given drink has the same ingredients as any other. Did anybody ever discover any kind of unique flavor to a suicide mix?
Nothing unique, but as I recall, mixing root beer and orange soda somehow mitigated the worst excesses of each. It wasn’t as overpoweringly sweet as root beer, and didn’t have the aftertaste of orange.
I learned about the Suicide when I was in college. It sounded horrible to me then.
After I got married and had my first home in Germany(when Mr VOW was Sgt VOW) I learned about “spezi.” You could actually order that drink from a server. A spezi is Coke mixed with orange Fanta.
To the person upthread who mentioned Coke mixed with lemon/lime soda: this concoction is similar to Pepsi Light, available in the late Seventies. That tasted a whole lot like Pepsi mixed with 7-Up.
~VOW
That’s what it was called around these parts back in the 70s/80s. I think I tried it once, under peer pressure, and decided that was more than enough for me.
I remember them, though I can’t remember if we called them suicides or if I heard about it later. Definitely didn’t call them graveyards.
I never liked them much: to my taste it just became a generically syrup-sweet drink and none of the flavors came through, except maybe citric acid if you were heavy on the mountain dew and orange. But I’ve been a curmudgeon since birth, so this tracks.
It was called a suicide when I was growing up in the 80’s I first remember seeing it as an option of snow cones.
I concur with everyone else that pretty much all sugary drinks mix pretty well together. I still often mix multiple flavors when given the opportunity, but usually with more selection in mind than having a bit of everything.
At the Taco Bell I worked at -late 80s to early 90s - we called it a Kamikazi.
Called it a graveyard growing up. I’d stay away from rootbeer and orange as they would overpower the drink.
I would get free fountain drinks at my first job, I’d mix RC Cola and Tahitian Treat Lemonade.
I’ve been 12 multiple times!
That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it! My inner 12-year-old gets me in a lot of trouble!
Yes, my kids’ stepdad taught them this recipe. He would mix all the sodas (except diet). My kids would mimic this, and they loved the taste. I was not adventurous, so was content to drink my Dr Pepper plain.