Coke Are It...

Do you ever feel like you've reached the end of the information superhighway? Sometimes when I'm surfing around looking for collector sites for Coca-Cola bottles or cans all I come up with are sites that haven't been updated for 5 years or countless links and sites that just don't work. The Net is clogged with a zillion of them. I figure sooner or later I'll be searching Google and a great big graphic with a 'Do Not Enter' symbol will suddenly flash on the screen indicating that I've reached the end of the road - there's nothing to do but turn back from whence I came.

And then I discovered the world of blogging. Reading a person's blog, no matter what the topic, is a bit surreal. And the best ones are the blogs that are written to no one in particular. It's a bit like peeking into someone's diary or reading their personal mail. But I digress.

Today was a weird day... I was interviewed by a reporter from the National Post (Sarah Lazarovic) about the return of The Pop Shoppe to the Canadian market, and the rich history that it had in the 1970s and early 80s. She found it a bit ironic that I never drank soda pop as a kid (my parents never kept pop in the house and we were rarely aloud to have it), but now I have a large collection of Coca-Cola and Pop Shoppe stuff... and I drink Diet Coke like it's water. The story she's working on about Pop Shoppe will appear in the Saturday section of the N.P. in a couple of weeks, so keep an eye out for that.

The other day I took a stroll through the beverage section in Wal-Mart and also my local grocery store as I do every so often. A few things surprised me. First, at Wal-Mart, 2L bottles of most Coke products were $1.69 but a 2L bottle of Diet Coke with Lime was $2.29. Huh? What's up with that?

Meanwhile over at Sobey's, the Star Wars Pepsi promotion is gearing up (minus the commemorative cans this time around) and for once, Pepsi has beat Coke to the punch in something: the release of the 355mL plastic bottles. Of course, my first question would be - what's the point? You can buy a case of 8 355mL plastic bottles for the same price as a 12 pack of 355mL tins. Does this make logical sense to anyone? If it does, maybe you can explain it to me since I'm obviously a little slow. Apparently Coke understands it totally since a press release crossed my desk last week promoting THEIR new 355mL mini bottles that will be available here in Canada shortly.

Issue #37 of Soda Pop Dreams (print edition) is already shaping up to be one of our best. A few stories already submitted about some old bottling companies, a story about returnable glass bottles (with great photos), and some tidbits about RC Cola, what Bill Gates' beverage of choice is, a Pepsi glass bottling line that's throwing the towel in, and so much more!! For those of you in the Toronto area, I'll be at the annual Ontario Chapter of the Coca-Cola Collectors Club Yard Sale on Sunday, June 12th - admission is free and there will be tons of Coke memorabilia there for sale. Look for a write-up and photos about this event also coming up in Issue #37 of Soda Pop Dreams (http://www.sodapopdreams.org).

That's it for now. Take care, visit our site often, and Happy Collecting!

The Cola Wars... all is fair in love and soft drinks.

It seems there's just no down time for this editor/publisher these days. I finished the latest edition of The Soda Spectrum Series (for Coke bottle collectors) - http://www.sodaspectrum.com (shameless plug), then it was on to Soda Pop Dreams Magazine and the New Coke feature; in 10 days, I hope to have our new soda can publication finished and ready for the printer (yes, an ENTIRE MAGAZINE dedicated to soda can collectors). Then I get to change gears for a few weeks and work on some non-soda pop magazine stuff before starting the next cycle. Whew!!

I live in the very small town of Rosseau, Ontario (population 400). The other night when I walked down to the post office I happened to glance over at the General Store where two soda machines sit - one Coke, one Pepsi. They both face the road, spaced evenly... with both of them lit up it looked like a scene right out of a cola commercial. It got me to thinking about the Cola Wars.

Have you ever noticed that Coke and Pepsi seem to be ever-closely neck and neck in the beverage cooler? One can't sneeze without the other offering a tissue. Case and point: _________ with Lime. First it was Diet Coke with Lime, then more recently Coca-Cola with Lime. Now, Pepsi is following suit with its own Lime Pepsi concoction. A couple of years ago we had the introduction of Vanilla Coke, then came Pepsi Vanilla. Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi; Cherry Coke, Wild Cherry Pepsi; Coca-Cola C2, Pepsi Edge; tomato, tomAAto. My question, gentle readers, is when is enough, well, enough? At what point is there just no more space in the beverage cooler for these extension brands to exist? I have a feeling we're more likely to see more coolers added to convenience and grocery stores than we are to see the Cola Wars reduced to the almighty Coca-Cola and Pepsi anchor brand colas. And why not? If it gets more people drinking X-brand then why not add more extensions. Personally, I'm banking on Diet Chocolate Fudge Coke or Bubblegum Pepsi. Don't laugh - it could very well happen in my lifetime!!

It's just sad that stores will have to resort to adding entire new wings just to accomodate the ever-expanding beverage aisle. Thank God I'm a card-carrying Diet Coke man... otherwise I'd be just another confused consumer.

New Coke's 20th Anniversary

Coming up in a few weeks is the 20th Anniversary of the introduction of New Coke. My God, has it really been that long already? 1985 was a very different time than nowadays. There was no internet, styles and tastes were different, and people knew what they liked. And didn't like.

I just finished the feature story for the upcoming edition of Soda Pop Dreams Magazine (print edition), dedicated to the New Coke 20th Anniversary, and I was amazed at how different the recollections of New Coke were by our readers. Many different perspectives (from bottlers, advertisers, grocery store clerks, consumers, etc.). If YOU remember New Coke, do me a favor and post a comment at the bottom of this blog...

I had a chance to talk to a couple of great sources. First, there was Mark Pendergrast, author of "For God, Country, and Coca-Cola". What a great source! Mark's book about the history of Coca-Cola has an entire chapter devoted to the New Coke disaster, and it was certainly interesting to hear his thoughts 20 years later. The other source I spoke with was Bill Baver, a former Coca-Cola employee who retired a year before New Coke was launched. Bill is certainly an outspoken and colorful character and his recollections and thoughts are pure gold.

Probably my personal favorite 'story' of New Coke was the one where the Coca-Cola deliveryman was stocking New Coke on a grocery store shelf in May 1985. An elderly woman approached and assaulted him with her umbrella. "You bastard," she yelled, "you ruined it - it tastes like shit!" When a nearby Pepsi driver snickered at the scene, she blasted him as well. "You stay out of it! This is family business," she scolded. "Yours is worse than shit!"

While most of the world was seemingly have a nervous breakdown about New Coke being launched and the old Coke disappearing, it didn't personally affect me much at the time. I was 12-years-old when New Coke came out and we weren’t allowed to drink pop much back then. But when I delivered on my paper route, I always stopped at the corner store and drank a pop and remember seeing the “NEW” silver banner across Coke cans – I think it was totally lost on me at the time. How ironic it is that now soda pop and its history is the majority of what I write about.

If you're not a subscriber of Soda Pop Dreams Magazine, now's a great time to join us (or, if you'd rather just buy Issue #36 for the New Coke stuff, there's a link on our website to do just that).

Thanks for reading this week's blog.... for those of you subscribers out there, I hope you enjoy the New Coke feature story in the upcoming edition (due to go into the mail April 13th). See ya, and Happy Collecting!