Metropol

Why is it that no own-brand Cola ever tastes any good? Really, I've tried almost every own-brand cola there is in the naive hope I will stumble across one that tastes as good as the Coke original, but they all have a weird taste (the same weird taste I would add) to them.

Are Coke's ingredients really that elusive and hard to copy or is there a good reason why all own-brand coke tastes like shite? I mean Virgin Cola (do they even still exist) and Pepsi have all managed to come up with something plausibly similar.

I can only drink Diet Coke, and I get very cross when its some "Coke Light" variant from the continent, as they all taste a bit different.

Someone told me once that the UK version of DC is made in France, but I don't think he was a very reliable source.

Interestly, Diet Coke's taste has a rather artificial aftertaste that interestingly enough I have got used to. I believe the idea behind Coke Zero is to do Diet Coke but with more modern, more realistic sweeteners - yet I don't like it, I've got used to the intense flavour of the original.

Anyway, not that I would want to stir up conspiracy theories... but I wonder if there is in fact some important reason why supermarkets don't want to match the taste of Coke and Pepsi exactly. I can't think for the life of me what it would be, but I find it hard to believe that after all these years of development they just can't match the flavour. Maybe there's just a following of own-brand flavour coke that I'm not aware of.

I thought coke zero was the taste of coke but no sugar, as opposed to the taste of diet coke.

Hymagumba wrote:I thought coke zero was the taste of coke but no sugar, as opposed to the taste of diet coke.

Well, you're both right. Diet Coke was supposed to be that too, but they couldn't replicate sugar taste in those days - as they only had the carcinogenic Nutra-Sweet to work with.

Also, DC was considered "gay", and butch men wouldn't touch it.

Gavin Scott wrote:I can only drink Diet Coke, and I get very cross when its some "Coke Light" variant from the continent, as they all taste a bit different.

Boring but true bit of useless info...

Coke Light and Diet Coke are different drinks, and calorie-wise Diet Coke has three times as many as Coke Light. (Okay, it's only 1.5 calories compared to half a calorie for 250ml of each.)

Andrew Wood wrote:

Gavin Scott wrote:I can only drink Diet Coke, and I get very cross when its some "Coke Light" variant from the continent, as they all taste a bit different.

Boring but true bit of useless info...

Coke Light and Diet Coke are different drinks, and calorie-wise Diet Coke has three times as many as Coke Light. (Okay, it's only 1.5 calories compared to half a calorie for 250ml of each.)

God damn it. I'm going to need more plastic surgery in that case.

Virgin Cola does still exist, I can buy it at will in my local Premier Convenience store; as well as on Virgin Trains, surprisingly enough.

Virgin Trains actually use Pepsi on board now (except in First Class where they're trying to get rid of stock of little 150ml cans) and CrossCountry now use proper Coke.

I think Virgin Cola has actually ceased to exist as it's no longer available in Iceland neither. A friend who works for Pincess Soft Drinks, who produced Virgin Cola as a licenced supplier, says that they no longer make it for Virgin and a smaller soft drinks company produced it since July 2008.

I might be wrong... he might be wrong...

EDIT:

From Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Cola

Virgin Cola is now produced by Silver Spring and is available in ASDA (not that I've seen it!)

Has anyone else seen the new Pepsi logo being used in the States?



Diet Pepsi uses a smaller "smile" and Pepsi Max (different to our version) uses a "laugh".

Oh, heard about that little disaster of a rebrand a while back, the logo and the slightly phallic 500ml bottle redesigns are the only real downsides to it, the stuff around it is quite nice and does away with the noisy designs that currently reside on cans and bottles.

And yes, it is coming your way soon, it cannot be avoided.