Please give your location. If you’re in the US please give a region as I expect it to be more fractious there. If we assume Coke and Pepsi are the top 2 colas in terms of name recognition/sales, (not necessarily your personal taste, not judging your personal tastebuds), what is the 3rd cola? Also, maybe it’s not even a 3rd cola, it’s made parity with or exceeded the big 2. Only colas, not other flavoured fizzy drinks like Dr Pepper.
Living in England I’d say Barr’s has to be the de facto 3rd cola.
RC, Chicago. Like, where I live, it’s not unlikely if you order a pizza from a local joint, you’ll get a free 1 liter RC (Royal Crown) cola included with your order.
I don’t think there is a 3rd cola in any of the places I have lived (Arkansas and New Mexico), at least not in modern times. The closest things I can think of are store brands like Big K or Great Value, but they are only distributed in their respective stores. Long ago I had some cola bottles from way back in my bottle collection with names like Clem’s and Double Cola but they haven’t been around in like forever. I bought a piñon flavored cola the other day but I think that is just a novelty thing. You don’t see them much. I haven’t tried it yet.
Edited to add: Oh yeah, RC Cola, at least in Arkansas. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. Usually associated with Moon Pies. I don’t see it much in New Mexico.
I don’t drink soda (don’t like it, nothing beyond that) so I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to it, but I’d say it’s RC here (Milwaukee) as well.
If you were to go back to some time between the 70s and about 5 years ago, a local brand called Black Bear probably would have been in third place in the Milwaukee area. In addition to being in stores, it was also in a lot of soda guns and it’s what you would get if you didn’t specifically say Coke/Pepsi when you asked for a drink. I know a lot of people didn’t realize that and didn’t know why their drinks tasted a little off at certain bars.
Was also gonna say Dr. Pepper for here in Texas, but you specifically excluded that. I believe RC is available down here, though not nearly as prevalent as it is in the Midwest. You might also get some Tab.
Suburban Chicago, and pretty much the same around here. A lot of the little mom-and-pop hot dog/Italian Beef/gyros places have the Dr Pepper brands on their fountain (Dr Pepper, RC, Diet Rite, 7 Up, etc.)
Yeah, here in Texas as far as sodas go, it’s Coke, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, and then I’d guess it’s some variety of lemon-lime soda like Sprite, 7Up, etc…
A third name-brand cola would probably be RC, but considering how uncommon it is, I also wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if one of the major grocery chains’ house-brand cola is actually third by sales volume. Or it could be something like Jarritos cola, or some other Mexican import that is mostly limited to the Hispanic community.
Here in Portland RC is rare(except for Chinese restaurants, where it might be the only cola they have), so I would say whatever the store brand might be.
In Alberta, Canada, there used to e something called Jolt cola—all the sugar and twice the caffeine! Haven’t seen it in ages. I’m guessing one of those high octane drinks like Monster is probably up there, but as for colas, probably the Complements Safeway brand in these here parts.
When I drank sugared sodas I always liked RC best.
One of my sons is a VP for a distribution company and told me once that RC barely moves anymore. When it comes to cola sales (after Coke and Pepsi) mainstream it’s Diet Rite but after that it’s a hodge podge of store brands and brands like
Faygo.
Gawd am I pissed that Black bear went out. They had great flavored sodas. They had a diet green lime and a diet blue raspberry that were out of this world!
I remember Jolt. I’m thinking it was the introduction of all those high caffeine energy drinks that killed a lot of it’s sales.
We sold Black Bear for as long as we’ve been in business (40 years). People genuinely liked it and it was local, but I think a big selling point was the price. When they closed up, we were still selling it for less than a dollar. Trying to get people that would stop in and buy a dozen of them to switch over to Jones’ was never going to work.
And, the owners shopped at our store as well. In fact, Phil Caruso lived across the street so he and his wife were in all the time. The owner (up until recently) of Calypso/King Juice also lives nearby and shops here.
I was getting it at Woodmans for 49 cents per 16 ounce bottle. Woodmans is out of the way and I hardly ever go there. So I would buy an entire case of it half lime half blue raspberry. Nobody else I know of has a diet lime or diet blue raspberry.
Second largest city/Nebraska. RC is a very, very distant third, not always offered alongside of Coke/Pepsi [Diet Rite cola is RC’s diet version of their sugared RC]. Shasta cola (which I really like) is close behind RC, again hard to find. If you are lucky a store will carry Shasta as an ersatz store brand. If I see it, I buy every can on the shelf and send the stocker back to see if there is more in back stock.
So, IMHO, Coke & Pepsi
(Big gap)
RC (inc. Diet Rite)
Shasta
Lived a lot of years in Boston through 1985, line-up was the same, but RC/Diet Rite and Shasta were not so distant a 3rd/4th.
Also in Alberta, and that sounds about right. After Coke and Pepsi, it’s store-brand stuff. I haven’t seen RC for forty years, and Jolt for twenty. If you want a cola that’s neither Coke nor Pepsi, you’re drinking store-brand stuff.
Afri-Cola, at 250 mg/L, has a caffeine content reasonably up there (certainly compared to Coke and Pepsi and even Jolt) even if it’s not quite Red Bull.
RC Cola, definitely. A couple of local restaurants have it. I’m guessing it’s vastly cheaper because one was a little Middle Eastern place with about 5 tables.
