60 Fun Facts About Soda

Under what name was the cola created by a New Bern, North Carolina pharmacist in 1893 first sold?

Caleb Bradham sold it as Brad's Drink from 1893, renamed it Pepsi-Cola in 1898, and incorporated the Pepsi-Cola Company on Christmas Eve 1902.

Pepsi-Cola got its name in 1898 because its formula was said to include an essence of what?

The name nodded to the digestive enzyme pepsin, as Bradham promoted the drink as a digestion aid; whether pepsin was ever in the formula is disputed.

What size nickel bottle did Depression-era Pepsi sell, twice what Coca-Cola offered?

The 'Nickel, Nickel' radio jingle looped endlessly on 'twelve full ounces, that's a lot', and profits doubled between 1936 and 1938.

PepsiCo won the right to sell Pepsi in the USSR in a 1972 barter deal for Western rights to which product?

Pepsi took the Western rights to Stolichnaya vodka in exchange, becoming the first foreign product sanctioned for sale in the USSR; 'Pepsi-stroika' later punned on Gorbachev's reforms.

In which country did the 1992 'Pepsi Number Fever' promotion's 800,000 winning caps spark deadly riots?

In the Philippines, Pepsi printed the winning number 349 on 800,000 caps by mistake; the grand prize was one million pesos, and the riots that followed killed at least five people.

Which Hollywood star sat on Pepsi's board from 1959 to 1973 after her husband, its president, died?

Joan Crawford, widow of Pepsi president Alfred Steele, joined the board in 1959 and made sure the drink appeared prominently in several of her later films.

Pharmacist Charles Alderton first mixed Dr Pepper at Morrison's drug store in which Texas city?

Customers at the soda fountain originally ordered the drink by asking for a 'Waco'.

Dr Pepper is advertised as a blend of how many flavors?

Dr Pepper is marketed as a blend of 23 flavors, a number printed on its cans and used in its advertising; the recipe itself is kept as a trade secret.

A rumor since the 1930s claims Dr Pepper contains which ingredient, something the company flatly denies?

The rumor that Dr Pepper contains prune juice has circulated since the 1930s despite the company's denials; it trades on prunes' laxative reputation.

According to a classic promotion, 'Dr Pepper Time' came at which three times of day?

The 'Drink a bite to eat at 10, 2 and 4' slogan, introduced in 1927, drew on research suggesting energy slumped at about 10:30, 2:30 and 4:30.

After Dr Pepper sued in 1972, Coca-Cola renamed its imitation drink 'Peppo' to what?

Coca-Cola launched Peppo in 1972 and renamed it Mr. Pibb the same year after Dr Pepper sued over the name; it became Pibb Xtra in 2001.

Before it was a soft drink, 'Mountain Dew' was Southern and Scots-Irish slang for what?

Mountain dew meant moonshine, homemade whiskey; the 1882 Irish song 'The Rare Old Mountain Dew' celebrates it, and early labels showed a barefoot hillbilly with a jug.

The Hartman brothers first developed Mountain Dew as a whiskey mixer in which state?

Barney and Ally Hartman of Knoxville, Tennessee, mixed it in the 1940s as a lemon-lime mixer for their bourbon after failing to find their favourite brand locally.

In what year did the Pepsi-Cola company acquire the Mountain Dew brand?

Pepsi-Cola bought the Tip Corporation of Marion, Virginia in 1964; Tip had relaunched the drink in 1961, and Pepsi took it across the US and Canada.

A 12-ounce can of Mountain Dew contains roughly how much caffeine?

A 12-ounce can of Mountain Dew has about 54 mg of caffeine, well above the roughly 38 mg in a can of Pepsi and more than half an 8.4-ounce Red Bull's 80 mg.

Until 1948, 7 Up's recipe contained which mood-stabilizing compound?

7 Up contained lithium citrate until 1948, and until 1936 was sold as '7 Up Lithiated Lemon Soda'; one theory ties the '7' to lithium's atomic mass of about 7.

What was the name of 7 Up's rooster mascot, animated by Disney in the 1950s?

Freddie taught viewers how to plan parties and even appeared in the ad breaks of the 1957 Zorro TV series.

The lemon-lime drink later renamed Sprite was developed in West Germany in 1959 under what name?

Sprite began in 1959 as Fanta Klare Zitrone ('clear lemon Fanta') in West Germany; it reached the United States in 1961 as a rival to 7 Up, and its ads later coined 'lymon'.

Fanta's name was born when Max Keith told his German team to use their what?

Keith told them to use their imagination, 'Fantasie' in German, and salesman Joe Knipp shot back 'Fanta!'; the drink was created when wartime trade embargoes cut off Coca-Cola syrup to Germany.

Wartime German Fanta was made from sugar beet, whey and which fruit by-product?

Fanta's wartime recipe used apple pomace left over from cider presses, whey from cheese-making and whatever beet sugar could be had; many Germans used it to sweeten soups and stews.

The orange Fanta that became the brand's standard flavour was first produced in 1955 in which city?

Orange Fanta was first made in Naples in 1955 by a local Coca-Cola bottler using locally grown oranges, and it became the brand's standard flavour worldwide.

Charles Hires wanted to call his drink 'root tea', but chose 'root beer' to appeal to which group?

A friend told Hires that 'root beer' would sell better to hard-drinking Pennsylvania coal miners than 'root tea'; the teetotal Hires debuted it at the 1876 Centennial Exposition.

The FDA banned the oil safrole in 1960, ending root beer's traditional reliance on which plant?

Sassafras root bark, the traditional root beer flavouring, contains safrole, which the FDA banned in 1960 as a carcinogen; most makers switched to artificial flavouring or safrole-free sassafras extract.

Which state made Moxie its official soft drink in 2005?

Maine adopted Moxie as its official soft drink in 2005; the drink dates to 1876 as 'Moxie Nerve Food', and its name gave American English the word for spunk.

Moxie's famously bitter taste comes from an extract of which root?

Moxie's bitterness comes from gentian root extract; creator Augustin Thompson claimed a rare South American plant, and E. B. White wrote that gentian root 'is the path to the good life'.

Canada Dry's popularity as a cocktail mixer took off during which period of American history?

During Prohibition (1920-33) Canada Dry's dry ginger ale masked the taste of bootleg liquor, and the 'Champagne of Ginger Ales' became a staple mixer.

Johann Jacob Schweppe founded his carbonated-water company in 1783 in which city?

Schweppe, a German-born watchmaker, founded the firm in Geneva in 1783 and moved it to London in 1792; it received a British royal warrant in 1836.

Joseph Priestley made the first carbonated water in 1767 above a vat at what kind of Leeds business?

Priestley suspended a bowl of water above the fermenting vats of a brewery next to his house in Leeds in 1767; the water took up the gas and tasted pleasantly tart.

Priestley's 1772 paper described 'impregnating water with fixed air' — the 18th-century term for which gas?

'Fixed air', Joseph Black's name for carbon dioxide, was what Priestley made by dripping oil of vitriol, now called sulfuric acid, onto chalk.

Priestley gave Cook's second voyage a method for making carbonated water, wrongly hoping it might cure what?

Priestley hoped carbonated water might prevent scurvy on Cook's 1772 voyage; it did not, but his pamphlet on 'impregnating water with fixed air' won him the Royal Society's Copley Medal.

Early bottles of Crush contained what added ingredient to create a 'fresh squeezed' illusion?

Early Orange Crush, launched in 1911 as Ward's Orange-Crush, included real orange pulp so it looked freshly squeezed; the pulp was dropped in later decades.

In what year did Pepsi launch the Pepsi Challenge blind taste tests?

The Pepsi Challenge began in 1975 in Dallas, where blind tasters preferred Pepsi; later controlled studies found only modest differences between the two colas.

How many days after New Coke's launch did Coca-Cola announce the return of the original formula?

The return of the original formula as Coca-Cola Classic was announced on July 11, 1985, 79 days after the April 23 launch; Peter Jennings interrupted General Hospital with the news.

What code name did Coca-Cola give the secret effort that developed New Coke?

Project Kansas took its name from a photo of Kansas journalist William Allen White drinking a Coke, which hung on several executives' walls.

Which world leader, a longtime Coke drinker, called New Coke a sign of capitalist decadence?

Fidel Castro, a longtime Coke drinker, called New Coke a sign of American capitalist decadence; CEO Roberto Goizueta, who had fled Cuba, said it was the only time his father agreed with Castro.

Big Red's flavor, often mistaken for bubble gum, is actually vanilla combined with which two citrus oils?

Big Red blends vanilla with lemon and orange oils; it began in 1937 as Sun Tang Red Cream Soda and became Big Red in 1969 after a golf caddy called it that.

A.G. Barr changed the name of Iron Brew to Irn-Bru in 1946 largely because of what?

New food labelling rules, a law demanding literally true labels, were on the way in 1946; the drink was neither brewed nor rich in iron, so Barr respelled it Irn-Bru.

Peru's Inca Kola gets its distinctive flavor mainly from which plant?

Inca Kola is flavoured with hierba luisa, lemon verbena; British immigrant Joseph Robinson Lindley launched it in Lima in 1935, the 400th anniversary of the city's founding.

The very first Jarritos, launched in Mexico in 1950, was what flavor?

The first Jarritos of 1950 was coffee-flavoured; founder Francisco Hill soon added tamarind, the first tamarind soda in Mexico, and the name means 'little jug'.

The Japanese marble-bottle soda ramune takes its name from which English word?

A Scottish pharmacist introduced it in Kobe in 1884, and by law only small and medium firms may make it in Japan.

Yale chemistry professor Benjamin Silliman started selling soda water in 1806 in which city?

Silliman bottled soda water with a Nooth apparatus in New Haven, Connecticut, from 1806; the business eventually failed, but it helped make soda water an American habit.

In which US region is 'coke' commonly used as a generic word for any soft drink?

Generic 'coke' is the usage across the South, strongest in Texas and the Deep South; the 2003 Harvard Dialect Survey found 'soda' leading nationally, 'pop' at 25 percent and 'coke' at 12 percent.

The earliest known use of 'pop' for a fizzy drink is an 1812 letter by which poet?

Robert Southey wrote in an 1812 letter of a drink 'called pop because pop goes the cork when it is drawn'; 'soda pop' is first recorded in 1863.

Ermal Fraze was inspired to invent the pull-tab after being forced to open a can at a picnic with what?

At a 1959 picnic Fraze had to open a can on a car bumper after forgetting an opener; his pull-tab first appeared on Iron City beer in 1962.

Which company was the first to sell soft drinks in all-aluminum cans?

Royal Crown put its cola in all-aluminum cans in the mid-1960s, a decade after becoming the first soft drink sold in steel cans in 1954.

Coca-Cola picked the name of its 1963 diet cola Tab from over 185,000 four-letter words generated by what?

Coca-Cola's marketing department had an IBM computer, a 1401, generate the four-letter candidates; Tab won for the pun on keeping tabs on your weight.

Faygo's first three flavors came from recipes the founding brothers had used in Russia for what?

Bakers Ben and Perry Feigenson adapted their Russian cake frosting recipes for Faygo's first flavours, strawberry, grape and fruit punch, in Detroit in 1907; the Faygo name came in 1921.

A 'Boston cooler' is a float made with vanilla ice cream and which Detroit ginger ale?

Vernors, created by Detroit pharmacist James Vernor in 1866, is the ginger ale blended with vanilla ice cream in a Boston cooler.

In the 1950s South, RC Cola paired with which snack made a classic 'working man's lunch'?

An RC Cola and a Moon Pie made a cheap 'working man's lunch'; RC began in Columbus, Georgia, where grocer Claud Hatcher refused to keep buying Coca-Cola syrup at full price.

Coca-Cola created Tab in 1963 to compete with which successful rival diet cola?

Diet Rite, launched in 1958, had become a national hit by 1962, prompting Coca-Cola's Tab; Tab hung on until 2020, long after Diet Coke arrived in 1982.

What sent the Pepsi-Cola Company into bankruptcy in 1923?

Caleb Bradham had been speculating on sugar prices, buying heavily as wartime prices peaked, and was wiped out when they collapsed; Charles Guth of the Loft candy chain bought the assets in 1931.

PepsiCo was created in 1965 by merging Pepsi-Cola with which snack company?

Pepsi-Cola merged with Frito-Lay in June 1965 to form PepsiCo, which is why Doritos and Lay's chips sit alongside its colas.

A vitamin-enriched 'Pepsi Perfect' appeared in which 1989 film?

Pepsi Perfect appeared in Back to the Future Part II, and Pepsi released a limited run of real bottles in October 2015 to mark the date Marty McFly arrives in the future.

What was Crystal Pepsi, launched in test markets in 1992?

Crystal Pepsi was a clear, caffeine-free cola; it took about one percent of US soft-drink sales in its first year before fading, and fans got it revived briefly in 2016.

Which product did Coca-Cola launch in December 1992 as an admitted 'kamikaze' attack on Crystal Pepsi?

Tab Clear was launched in December 1992 to muddy the clear-cola category; Coca-Cola's Sergio Zyman later called it a deliberate 'kamikaze' attack, and both clear colas were gone within about a year.

How many Pepsi Points did a 1996 commercial jokingly price a Harrier jump jet at?

The ad priced the Harrier at 7,000,000 points; John Leonard sent 15 labels and a cheque for $700,008.50 to buy the rest at 10 cents a point, and Judge Kimba Wood ruled no reasonable person could take the offer seriously.

What was the 2022 Netflix documentary about the man who tried to claim a fighter jet with soda loyalty points?

Pepsi, Where's My Jet? (Netflix, 2022) retold John Leonard's 1996 attempt; the court called the commercial mere puffery and Pepsi returned his cheque.

Coca-Cola grew out of Pemberton's French Wine Coca, a tonic inspired by which successful coca wine?

Pemberton modelled French Wine Coca on Vin Mariani, Angelo Mariani's Bordeaux-and-coca-leaf tonic of 1863; when Atlanta went dry in 1886 he reworked it into a non-alcoholic 'temperance drink'.

Coca-Cola was first sold for five cents a glass on 8 May 1886 at which Atlanta business?

The first glasses were poured at Jacob's Pharmacy on Marietta Street; Pemberton ran the first advertisement three weeks later, on May 29, 1886, in the Atlanta Journal.

Before securing the Coca-Cola name in 1888, Asa Candler sold his version as 'Koke' and what else?

Candler marketed his version as Yum Yum and Koke in 1887 while Pemberton's son Charley held the Coca-Cola name; Candler secured full rights by 1888.