Random Roar: Driven to (Not) Drink

Am I the only one who hates limited edition sodas? Like, what’s so special about soda that new flavours have to be treated like must-see television? Better buy that soda now or you won’t ever get to!

The thing I hate the most about these sodas is that often, they’re very delicious. Someone spent the time and money it took to make a good flavour and then thought, “Let’s sell this for a few months and then throw the recipe out!”

I’m getting sick of it. In the early 2000s, 7-Up introduced a new flavour, Tropical Splash. It’s one of the best sodas I’ve ever had and I purchased a lot of it. Nowhere on the label did it say it was only going to be around for a limited time, I had thought it was going to be a brand new soda flavour and it would be around for a long time. The next summer, though, Tropical Splash disappeared and a new flavour appeared, Citrus Splash. It was very similar to Tropical Splash, not quite as good but 95% good is still very delicious.

After two years of good Splash flavours, 7-Up replaced Citrus with Cranberry Splash. All it took was one bottle and I decided not to buy any more. It didn’t help that I was already annoyed at 7-Up for dropping both Tropical Splash and then Citrus Splash. After Cranberry Splash proved to be an inferior replacement, it was very easy to swear it off.

I like to think that their customer base was angered enough by Cranberry Splash that it killed the entire Splash line. Whether it did or not, I do know that after I refused to buy more than just the one disappointing bottle, the store I bought all of my soda from stopped stocking the Splashes entirely and stuck with regular 7-Up.

I imagine it’s possible that soda companies don’t want to take chances on new flavours that aren’t successful enough to justify keeping them around. Several flavours of Pepsi have been created throughout the years, most of which aren’t available any more and none of which were advertised as “limited edition”. Pepsi Blue and Pepsi Twist are the two that spring to mind the easiest, given that they had heavy marketing behind them. Blue was a berry-flavoured drink that was very delicious and was heavily marketed to youth with the notion that it was going to be the next popular and cool beverage. Think Monster drinks today, that’s how popular Pepsi Blue was claiming it was going to be. Sadly, it disappeared after a few years. As for Pepsi Twist, a lemon-flavoured cola, its ad campaign involved unzipping a fake Pepsi can and revealing it’s not Pepsi, it’s Pepsi Twist. One such commercial starred the Osbournes at the height of their family’s popularity thanks to their television show, and also featured the Osmonds. Like Pepsi Blue, the heavy focus on advertising didn’t help the drink stay on the shelves.

As a side note, if Pepsi Lime survives while both Pepsi Blue and Pepsi Twist did not, I will be very mad because Pepsi Lime is the worst soda I’ve ever had.

The bottom line is this. I’m sick of letting myself start to enjoy a new soda, only to have the rug pulled out from under me when it gets discontinued. What was so wrong about Canada Dry keeping the black currant flavour around? Now there’s a pomegranate flavour instead and I’ve decided enough is enough. I refuse to set myself up for disappointment, so I won’t be buying this drink any more. I’ll stick with sodas that have been around for decades, at least then I’ll know they won’t be going anywhere any time soon.