I tend to have lots of stuff around to quench thirst – spring water, Coke Zero, iced tea, lemonade … The other day while shopping I was kinda thirsty and perused the supermarket’s individual cold drink section. I’ve often been disappointed by many of those offerings. A bottle of lemon-lime Sprite seemed like a decent gamble, so I took it out and had a nice swig.
Very nice indeed! Long story short, as a long-time and definitely still a huge fan of Coke Zero, Sprite is a terrific thirst-quencher. I drank half of it while still shopping and on the way home. After putting all the groceries away I still felt like a thirst-quencher and thought, never mind all the stuff youi have in the house, go out to the car and get that half-bottle of Sprite! And I did. And it was worth it!
I think it’s an imitation of the original 7-Up, which to my surprise is still made. Can’t say which is better, but there’s much to recommend the lemon-lime concept. Might even work well with gin – might have to try that!
(speaking as someone who used to work in the soft drink industry)
Yes, 7 Up was the big original lemon-lime soda; Coke introduced Sprite to compete in that segment around 1960. AFAICT, Sprite is now a better seller than 7 Up, but that is probably a function of Sprite being owned by Coke, and thus having access to Coke’s distribution network, as well as Coke’s larger marketing budgets.
7 Up is owned by Keurig Dr Pepper (at least in the US), and in a lot of U.S. markets (i.e., cities/metro areas) that company doesn’t have its own bottler/distributor network. They rely on either the Coke or the Pepsi bottler in those markets to distribute their sodas (Dr Pepper, 7 Up, A&W, Canada Dry, Squirt, etc.). In a market where 7 Up is bottled/distributed by the local Coke bottler, that bottler is likely to give Sprite preferential treatment, particularly at fountains, where they are only going to place one lemon-lime soda.
Parenthetically: Pepsi has also tried and tried to crack the code in the lemon-lime segment; their current offering is Starry, which replaced Sierra Mist, which replaced Slice, which replaced Teem…
This has, historically, been a fairly big part of sales of lemon-lime sodas, in general: for use as a mixer in cocktails.
Beyond that, a lot of people tend to pigeon-hole lemon-limes (and ginger ales) as being “what you drink when you are sick, or have an upset stomach.” Which, unless you are very sickly, also means “I don’t regularly drink it.”
I’m a 7-Up fan, it has a cleaner taste to me. And is not a cloying as Sprite.
Not a fan of Coke Zero either - strictly Diet Coke for me unless it’s not available. We went to Italy last year, Diet Coke is not available there - had to settle for Coke Zero. Le sigh…
One thing that pisses me off immensely is the packaging and the availability thereof. My standard Coke Zero is in small 300 ml plastic bottles in cases of 8 which for weeks now has no longer been available at local stores. There have been droughts of the Coke Zero plastic bottle cases before, so they may come back.
The bottle of Sprite that I so enjoyed the other day was 500 ml. Grocery shopping today, no such thing was available (nor Coke Zero, either, in the 300 ml cases). I bought a case of 710 ml bottles of Sprite, which is about twice as big as I’d prefer, but can still be guzzled and the remainder put away in the fridge.
Ah, now there’s a question! When I picked up the individual bottle of Sprite at the first supermarket, I was just panting with thirst (you know how dogs get!) and didn’t care about “diet”. I’m sure I got a major sugar dose from it!
Shopping today, I was just looking for any non-gigantic cases of bottled Sprite. No, these are not diet, and I’m not sure if any diet versions were available. Apparently there is such a thing as “Sprite Zero Sugar”, but if the store had it, I didn’t see it. It’s something I should keep an eye out for in the future, though.
That’s exactly my take. 7-Up to me is “lighter” and a bit more refreshing than Sprite. However, when it comes to clear sodas, I like the oft-forgotten grapefruit citrus sodas like Squirt and Fresca. Or 50/50 back when it was around.
Oh, Fresca is readily available where I’m at. I don’t think it’s ever been that hard to find. It just ends up being the butt of jokes for some reason. The ingredients list does include concentrated grapefruit juice.
Jarritos is where it’s at when I really want a straight-up grapefruit soda.
Mountain Dew was originally created solely as a mixer, before later becoming a soft drink to be consumed on its own.
Because soft drinks were sold mainly regionally at that time, Barney and Ally couldn’t find a lemon-lime soda to sell, one that could be used as a mixer for cocktails. So they asked for the help of William “Billy” Jones with the Tip Corp. in Marion, Va., to help formulate a simple, clear mixer.
Then they “privately bottled a lemon-lime mixer they jokingly called Mountain Dew, a nickname for moonshine coined in the 19th century. They had a hillbilly label printed up, but only bottled the 7UP-style drink for their own after-hours consumption,” McRary writes.
It’s noted that it was also made in imitation of 7-Up, presumably because that beverage had been frequently used as a mixer by that point.
Not Bubble-Up by any chance? I remember having it at a pizzeria on Lake Street in Minneapolis when I was a wee lad. I don’t recall ever seeing it anywhere else.
The 7-Up of today doesn’t taste the same to me as it did when I was growing up. I remember it being fairly smooth and creamy, while it now has a sharper citrus bite.
Until I was around seven years old, my dad lived in the back of his business/workshop on Chicago Avenue in MPS. It had a loading dock out back that provided cold storage during Minnesota winters. When we put six-packs of 7-Up (the only kind of soda pop he ever bought) out on the dock, the contents would freeze solid. The glass didn’t break, but the bottle caps rose to remarkable heights on top of columns of ice. It looked as though mushrooms had sprouted.
Now that is an interesting thing and more complicated than you’d think. Historically (ie: when I was inter-railing in the late 80s), countries were Coke OR Pepsi, communistic ones (I didn’t go behind iron curtain, but true of Yugoslavia), were Pepsi.
But when living in Belgium in the 00s, you ordered “Cola Light” or “Coke Light” which was packaged the same as diet coke, but apparently it wasn’t exactly the same, there was some sort of ingredient they used which Diet coke didn’t, but it’s not quickly googleable at the moment so it might have been bullshit from someone.
But when Coke Zero came across the appeal of a more universally languaged variant seems to have won out a lot. I suspect I didn’t really notice if I got Diet Pepsi or Coke when I ordered Cola light though, so perhaps it worked well that way too (especially with some countries being Pepsi ones vs Coke ones).
I’m a big fan, too, since I decided to lose some weight, and my doc told me to avoid alcohol.
I tried to like some N/A beers (one was labeled “Hop-Infused Tap Water”, and I realized that was why I’d never like the fakes as much as the real thing).
Sure, my hard-drinkin’ friends have to get used to someone NOT getting drunk, but I’m all in on “sody pop”!
Ahh, a Diet Starry with a shot of cranberry juice to cut the diet taste… (or a Coke Zero with a splash of Cap’n Morgan as a treat) … so refreshing.
Loved lemon-lime sodas when I was younger, but my tastebuds just don’t care for them anymore.
Ftr, I love Coke Zero, but my pops of choice at home these days are Squirt and ginger ale. My wife grabbed a 2 liter of Cherry 7-Up recently, and I quite enjoyed it, but not enough to ask her to get more. Sticking with the Squirt and ginger ale for the time being.
For citrus soda I buy Squirt or Jarritos grapefruit when I find it. One thing I like about Squirt is that it typically has less sugar than most other non-diet sodas.
And it mixes really well with tequila and gin.
It does have grapefruit juice in it so if you take certain meds you can’t drink it.
