Three Of A Kind

Well, here it is. The Coca-Cola is officially hacking me off for their pointless stupidity. Take a look at this picture. What do you see? Three 24 ounce plastic bottles of Coke. Each with a distinctively different coloured cap. One red, one white and one black. These are all readily available on my grocers shelves right now. At the same time. This is extremely confusing to me because each of these cap colours have, up till now denoted a different brand of Coke. Red for Classic, Black for the new, crappy Coke Zero and White is the cap colour for Diet Coke. Other Coca-Cola brands have different colours. It's a branding factor and one that Coke drinkers use to ID their beverage. Someone has messed with the marketting.

This isn't a case of changing a cap colour for a specific promotion, these lids have no message, no game, nothing. Just different coloured cap.

Why? Anyone out there want to let me know why these changes are happening? I know one set of guys who cannot tell me. The Coke delivery people I have talked to at stores. They have no clue why the change is occurring. A change like this makes a Coke drinker wonder. Are these bottles mislabelled? Miscapped? What? As a consumer the change gives me pause in my purchasing due to that very question. If a change without reason occurs, (like a promotion) then I have to pause and possibly delay my purchase or go elsewhere to see if the brand is correct.

That's precisely what I had to do recently with these Cokes. I am used to the red cap and when I was presented with an entire shelf of black topped Cokes with a couple of red topped far in the back of the shelf I was handed a conundrum. Checking the dates let me know that the black caps were newer and from a different lot, definitely room for some bottling plant error here. I cut my risks and bought the older red caps...better safe than stuck with a bunch of mislabelled Coke Zero.

So, guys and gals at Coca-Cola....get it together. Don't screw with what works. If you have a bunch of new marketing people working for you and they suggested this...fire them. Do it now. Why? Two words for you, people.

New Coke.

'Nuff Said!

A Trip To DogPatch

Well, the folks down at Al Capp's DogPatch have gone and done it now. They've started exportin' Kickapoo Joy Juice and let me tell you, it certainly brings back the memories. This yellow/green, lemon lime concotion not only takes you back to a better time in soda history it does it via the combined ingredients of HFCS and/or sugar and caffeine. This reminds me of what Mountain Dew used to look and taste like when I was a kid.

The Soda is not overly carbonated but the taste of citrus, from the grapefruit juice and other citrus flavours just comes right out and is enjoyable. I don't particularly care for grapefruit in most forms but this is one I can get behind. It's not too tart and not overly sweet. The most telling thing I can think of to say is that Kickapoo Joy Juice tastes like the 60's. If the people who overproduce Mt. Dew could taste this then they'd know what they should be shooting for.

Kickapoo Joy Juice is being bottled for the US market by the good people at Real Soda under license from Monarch Beverage Co. and this is a darn good partnership as far as I am concerned. Bringing back Real Soda for real people who remember what a Soda should taste like! It is refreshing, as a good soda should be. The bottle itself is a shout out to retro, as well. No twist off cap here, brother. You have to break out an honest to goodness bottle opener to get at this Soda! Nice touch, guys!

The ingredients listed on the bottle are:
Carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup and/or sugar, citric acid, sodium benzoate, concentrated grapefruit juice, caffeine, gum arabic, sodium citrate, natural falvor, EDTA, brominated vegetable oil and yellow 5 and it is 180 calories, if you care about that sort of thing. I don't.

Kickapoo Joy Juice is a blast from the past and well worth the buck or so I shelled out for it. It tastes good from the bottle and in a glass and every sip screams time travel back to a better day in Soda history in my brain. On a hot summer day I'd definitely buy another of these bottles of refreshment over many other Sodas which are currently on the market.

Kickapoo Joy Juice gets a solid 8/10! And that's pretty good!