Ain't nothing like the real thing

[juthwara]

(will update on our weekend tomorrow - too darn tired and emotionally exhausted to deal with it now)

We discovered last week that our local store has Diet Coke with Splenda in cute little 12 ounce bottles. This excited me greatly, since I've always wanted to be able to keep up with my Coke habit without having to worry about the sugar. Unfortunately, Diet Coke has always tasted like malted battery acid with a chalk chaser to me, so I've been hoping ever since Splenda came on the market that Coke would see the light and start using it.

So, with baited breath, we bought two bottles and tasted them.

Well, I will give them credit. It certainly didn't have the awful Nutrasweet aftertaste. And it didn't taste like a diet cola. If you had given it to me in a blind taste test and asked me if it were diet, I would have been hard pressed to decide if it was.

Unfortunately, it just didn't taste like Coke. It was basically what Diet Coke would taste like if you removed the Nutrasweet and put in a better sweetener; it was malted battery acid without the chalk chaser.

Sadly, I'm not quite the big fan of malted battery acid, so I won't be partaking of more Diet Coke with Splenda. I know from experience that my inability to give up Coke stems from the fact that I really do like the taste of it and any attempts to get myself to like something else that doesn't taste as good is doomed to failure (Diet Rite comes to mind - it's a perfectly good beverage if you like something that tastes like a thin version of Pepsi. I don't like actual Pepsi, so a watered down version of it that doesn't even have the redeeming virtues of caffeine or sugar just doesn't do it for me). I really don't get why Coke doesn't just try making a diet version of Coke that actually tastes like Coke. Dr. Pepper is constantly advertising about how their diet version is so constantly evolving into tasting like the real thing that shortly you will only be able to tell the difference through DNA testing. But then again, I suppose Coke executives proved nearly twenty years ago that they were clearly drinking something far more exotic than what they offer for sale to the general public, so I suppose their thought processes are far too esoteric for us mere mortals who don't consume hallucinogens to understand.

Comments

I feel ya...

[kristeljohns.livejournal.com]

My Coke devotion constantly reaches ever more extreme heights, as I am now in a place mentally where it's not just Coke, but where you get the Coke that matters.

For example: Coke in a can, though convenient, doesn't taste as good as Coke in a plastic bottle, which is, unfortunately, more expensive.

Neither of them taste as good as Coke out of a fountain machine, but different places have their mix set to different levels, so 7-11 and Burger King and Arby's tend to have very sweet Coke without a lot of zing, while McDonald's and Wendy's usually have a Coke that leaves a decent burning sensation on the palate.

Unfortunately, these are so much more expensive than cans and bottles that it borders on highway robbery and becomes relegated to the "treat" category. Paul and I have been known to look at each other and have the following conversation:

"Wanna go out and grab a treat?"
"Sure, what do you want? Ice cream sundae? Frappacino?"
"McDonald's Coke!"

(this is not an exaggeration...we decided just tonight as we were transcribing my Anatomy & Physiology lecture notes onto flashcards to make a McDonald's Coke run.)

At least, when I do make up my mind to settle for Coke out of a can, I can still swig it out of a can. My Aunt Bonnie has gotten to the point where, not only can it not be in the can, but you have to pour it very slowly and gently down the side of the glass, then add the ice cubes (rinsing them off first, not straight out of the freezer) ever so carefully so as to preserve every friggin' molecule of fizz possible. Her daughter Kathleen now refuses to prepare a glass of Coke for her because she's absolutely impossible to please on that front.

So at least I know it's not just me...

[gonzothegreat.livejournal.com]

Yea, I'd heard they were going to do that, but wasn't sure how'd it taste. Pepsi Edge (what a stupid naaaame) had it in, and that wasn't bad, but Pepsi One still sucks... Splenda is great, but I fear there are some things it don't belong in.

[juthwara.livejournal.com]

It's not the Splenda - as I said, you can't tell that it's a diet drink. It's that they use a different taste profile for Diet Coke, so even if you made it with sugar, it still wouldn't taste like Coke - it's a completely different drink. That's what I don't understand.

[strephon.livejournal.com]

I think the reason Diet Coke tastes the way it does is that the Coca-Cola corporation introduced it as an alternative to Tab. Cecil Adams goes into this in some detail in the first "Straight Dope" book; the upshot is that while Tab was selling well, they wanted to extend the Coke brand, have a diet drink they could market differently (i.e. not focusing on the diet angle), and have a product that was sweetened with NutraSweet rather than saccharin. So it wasn't so much a matter of messing up Coke as not wanting to mess up whatever made Tab successful (with its "bizarre petrochemical taste," as Cecil puts it).

Fun fact: in the early '90s Coca-Cola marketed Tab Clear. Even as someone who kind of liked Pepsi Clear (at least more than regular Pepsi), I have to blink at that one a little...