While I can claim to be a soda glutton and relative aficionado of all things carbonated, I don’t tend to consider myself an expert on the chemistry behind your average soda pop.
One thing I do know and recall in my 42 years is the very controversial swap from cane (aka real) sugar to corn syrup in the 80’s when corn syrup became a cheaper commodity than cane sugar. This crappy time in history is what caused “Coca-Cola” to become “New Coke”, which failed and in a panic, the Coca Cola company gave us “Coca-cola Classic” (which is now just called Coke for all intents and purposes).
The problem is, Coca-Cola Classic is not, nor has it EVER been nearly as good as the original cane sugar Coca-Cola that we all grew up with. This I recalled vividly during a trip to Mexico about 10 years ago now where they never changed the formula from the original. You can still buy “Mexican Coca Cola” in specialty soda shops if you’d care to try.
PepsiCo, while not stupid enough to foist “New Pepsi” on the public, was similarly affected by the great sweetener migration in the eighties. Pepsi in a can is not the same today as it was 25 years ago, mostly due to the corn syrup sweetener.
Enter “Pepsi Throwback”.
A new trial product from PepsiCo, intended (I presume) to test the waters for bringing back real sugar to the brand. In a nearly identical blue can, it’s easy to overlook at the grocery store, but curious, I bought a 12 pack the other day just to see whether sugar vs syrup made as big a difference as I remember.
Let me just say “wow” and get it over with. I don’t know whether or not this is the original formula Pepsi, but the difference between the two is both subtle, and striking. Sort of like the difference I suppose in Sweet Tea, and tea sweetened with Splenda. Try this. Take two cans, one Pepsi, one Throwback. Chill them identically, then try them side by side and let me know what you think.
All I can say is that I hope Coca-Cola realizes that Cane sugar is now cheaper than syrup and brings back the 80’s formula Coke.
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