So long, Howdy
Look beyond the big-name brands of soda pop and you will find a whole world of lesser-known flavors. Thousands of new beverages are introduced every year around the world.
But not all of these products will survive. Every year, many of these new drinks and even some older brands will go extinct. And perhaps a secret recipe and a unique flavor will be lost along with it.
Sometimes we assume these extinct sodas were rejected by the public due to poor taste or poor quality. In a level competitive field the losers must have been defective and the winners superior, right? But most often this is a simpleminded way of looking at business. Maybe it was sloppy bookkeeping, or poor marketing decisions, or sudden materials expenses, any of these factors could have doomed these businesses, without any input from the consumer.
So why do many people insist that the big-name brand is superior just for being bigger? Have they really assessed the entire field? It is to the advantage of the larger companies to shut out the competition so that we will not be able to ask this question. Coke and Pepsi have bought up their rivals, or enticed schools and businesses into contracts which exclude competitors. Does this really give the public a chance to enjoy the soda brands it chooses?
So raise a glass to the long-lost sodas of the past. Many of these brands existed in the first half of the 20th century, before the large soda brands had become large enough to bully the smaller ones, when local bottlers were able to experiment with new flavors and advertising was a much smaller factor for success.
Here are a few brands you will never have the pleasure of tasting again:
 | Ace High Alka Vichy All Star Kola Almond Smash Apple Jackie Atomicola Bat Juice Batter Up Bikini Cola Birchola Birdie Blackhawk Ginger Ale Black Kow Booth Jr. Grape Soda Boulevard Ginger Ale Brandimist Buck-A-Roo Budd Kola Buster Cola Celery-Cola Cheer Up Cheri Keeta Cherry Dee-Light Chocolate Mello Malt Choc-A-Fizz Chum Chocolate Cinderella Punch Clearfield Clove Cola Colonial Orange Soda Cream Puncho Creme De Menthe Cola Crown Brew Dixie Fizz Donner Ginger Ale Double Seven Drink-1-Mor Drinkola Fizz-Ade Frid-Gee Gingerbrau Golden West Cola Grape Shrub Grap-O-Cola Henson’s Hi-Dive Hi-Spot I-C Jurk Kik Korker Lady Adair Lemmy Lindy Little Joe Moko Natural Set-Up Nichol Kola NuGrape Nutmeg Club Pal Penn Treaty Orange Soda Pep Plezol Quiky Rummy S & S Ginger Ale Smarty Sparkling Life Spiffy Cola Sperky Strike Stubby Sugar Boy Sweetie Texas Punch Twin Cola Wink Zimba Cola |           |
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