The Soda Wars
by Gregory Herbowy
Remember Surge®? Lime-green and loaded with
caffeine, Surge® was Coca-Cola's® belated answer to Pepsi's®
Mountain Dew®, the drink of choice for fun-loving youngsters
everywhere. Remember the commercials? Hopped-up teenagers tearing
loose through junkyards and back alleyways, fighting tooth and
nail for just one 12-ounce can of Surge®. Remember?
Don't feel badly if you don't. Surge's®
time in the sun was brief -- its hasty retreat from the supermarket
shelves began not long after its noisy introduction in January
1997. It just couldn¹t compete. Despite strong early sales
and initial curiosity, Surge® never found a permanent place
among our collective cravings and soon gave all indications of
being just another casualty in "The Cola Wars" - Coca-Cola®
and Pepsi's® ongoing struggle for marketplace domination.
But something interesting happened on the way
to extinction -- Surge® stumbled onto a murky middle ground
and has yet to completely go away. Sure, its distribution may
have become a small fraction compared to its early ubiquity. But
somehow it hangs on, as an oddity to be discovered in out-of-the
way rest stops, maybe, or vending machines in faraway places.
Or at Utica's own AMF Pin-O-Rama bowling lanes, 1724 Genesee St.,
where against all odds, Surge® is still offered at the soda
fountain.
"Some people still like it," notes
Manager Andy Weimer when asked why he still carries the rare drink.
A very few people, it would seem: Surge® sells glacially.
While one bag of Coca-Cola® syrup -- enough for 5 gallons
of soda -- is exhausted in 5 or 6 days, the same amount of Surge®
lasts 5 to 6 weeks. The counter people even seem surprised, and
not a little suspicious, when it¹s ordered. "Surge®?"
asks one, incredulously. "Makes you go sterile, doesn't it?"
The local bottler in Syracuse has long given
up on Surge®. A Coca-Cola® spokesperson, when pressed
for specifics of the soda's current distribution, only offers
this vague non-answer: "Surge's® presence in a particular
market is contingent upon local bottlers' and/or retailers' need
for it to compliment their local beverage portfolio," a contingency
that applies to nowhere near here, if my own not infrequent travels
around the state have taught me anything. So it's a pretty safe
bet that the AMF Pin-O-Rama snack bar is the last place in the
Mohawk Valley where you can still taste Surge®, the "fully
loaded citrus soda." What a strangely interesting, unique
distinction. Historical, almost. The rabid online community of
Surge® preservationists (check them out at SaveSurge.org)
would be proud.
As some of you soda fans may know, the recent
monster success of Code Red Mountain Dew® has egged on the
two soft drink giants to again go out on limbs and roll out their
new, sometimes bizarre flavors. Coca-Cola's® got its Vanilla
Coke®, and Pepsi® is readying for the imminent release
of its Pepsi Blue®, a berry-flavored cola. The lessons of
New Coke® and Crystal Pepsi® have gone unlearned, it would
seem. But for the curious, it¹s a magical time to be a consumer.
If Surge's® present-day scarcity is any indication, I suggest
you try them while you can. AMF Pin-O-Rama's wildcard slot is
spoken for.
Editor's note: Gregory Herbowy, a Central New
York native, currently resides in Brooklyn and is a graduate of
New Hartford High School and Boston College.
*Mountain Dew, Code Red Mountain Dew, Crystal
Pepsi and Pepsi Blue are registered trademarks of the Pepsi-Cola
Company.
*Surge, New Coke and Vanilla Coke are
registered trademarks of the Coca-Cola Company.
