Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed ban of greater-than-16-ounce sugary drinks in New York City gave me pause for thought. And it was not the pause that refreshes.
Granted, I am a New Jersey resident. But quite often I cross the river into the big town, and when I get there, I like to enjoy a lovely beverage. The choice of liquid varies, based on time of day, mood, temperature, and location. But there are four drinks I return to again and again. In many ways I consider these perfect beverages. They are: water, beer, orange juice, and sodey-pop.
I’ve enjoyed cola beverages as long as I can remember, with a probably marketing-driven preference for Coke. (I was surprised and impressed at a visit to Plainsboro’s Pizza Barn, age 12 or so, when the waitress told my buddy John that they served Pepsi, not Coke, and he boldly chose to go beverage-free.) On a trip to the Soviet Union after high school, we were intrigued to learn that Pepsi (or “NENCH” as it looked to us) had cornered that market. As an adult, I feel that Coke is a little more bubbly and Pepsi is a little more sweet, but to paraphrase Stephen Stills, if you can’t drink the soda you love, drink the one you’re with.
I can’t do diet sodas; never cared for that aftertaste. And those “refined” sugar-free varieties aren’t my cup of tea either. It was a hotel vending machine in Vegas where I first spotted Coke Zero. Did not care for it. More recently I was tricked by Pepsi Max’s packaging—entirely too similar to regular Pepsi—and I did not enjoy that either.
Size-wise, it was pretty straightforward for a long while. At home we had two-liter bottles. Out and about, there was a 12-ounce can. And if you were thirstier, there was a squat, foam-wrapped 16-ounce bottle.
And then something changed when I was in college in Pittsburgh. (Supposedly they call it “pop” out there but I can’t say I heard that a lot.) I think it was my senior year, and I actually remember the day. It was sunny, my friend Tom was working at the Carnegie Museum, so maybe I was going to visit him. I was headed toward the Oakland neighborhood and stopped at a convenience store for a refreshing soda. And there it was: the 20-ounce bottle.
Were they allowed to do that? Just change the size? There hadn’t been a major marketing campaign or any sort of announcement. Was it a regional test, like the McRib? Soon enough, though, the 20-ouncer became the industry standard.
So to Bloomberg’s point, I didn’t want to drink more, but oh I adjusted to it very well. And there has been many a time, standing in front of the refrigerated case, when I am confronted with a choice of can or bottle. And often, when hot and thirsty, that aluminum can would just not do. The quaint old smaller glass bottle, meanwhile, had long since become a commemorative relic, emblazoned with the opening date of a Disney park or to mark the occasion of Cal Ripken’s consecutive-games streak. And yes, Mayor Mike, sometimes, in the dead of summer here in Hoboken, my old roommate Joe and I would go to the Quick Chek where they sold a ridiculously large Big Gulp-esque vat of soda (“depth-charge size” as I recall some comedian describing movie-concession drinks) for mere pennies. Forgive me, they were delicious, so sweet and so cold.
The 20-ounce Coke and I became great friends. I am not a daily coffee drinker (though I enjoy it in social settings) so I guess cola has provided my caffeine fix. For a long stretch, I’d get a bottle every day with lunch at the office cafeteria. Then the Atkins Diet became all the rage. (I remember a New York Times Magazine issue with a big piece of steak on the cover.) I wasn’t going to give up bread—there would be nothing left for me to eat. But I figured I could skip the lunchtime Coke and switch to water. Except on Fridays; Fridays are well-established as fun eating days, dating back to the rectangular slabs of pizza in the school cafeteria. The experiment worked: Maybe there was some exercise involved, but I did lose weight.
I did not forsake you, 20-ounce Coke, as lunch is only one small period of the day. And you taste so good with a chicken parm hero, or cheese fries, or a nice triangular slice of pizza. In fact, my relationship with the bottle reached a whole new level with “My Coke Rewards.” I think it may have been the cigarette companies that innovated these customer-loyalty incentive programs. But I was all in, saving those little red caps. Often you have to peel off the cap’s little rubbery lining to be able to read the number inside. Then you enter it in your account on the Coke website, but only a certain quantity were allowed per day (10 perhaps?).
It was a very calming, Zen-like procedure for me. And it did pay off. I earned a UCLA-logo basketball (first one I’d owned since a cheap, plastic Bob Love-autograph model I had in my youth) and later, a gym bag. I only used the basketball once, at a park in Secaucus with my buddy Steve. That ball still sits in the trunk of my car, with its outer panels sadly peeling off. But I still use the handy gym bag. Well, I’ve really been meaning to go to the gym, anyway. This week, I promise.
Getting a prize wipes out your point total, and it’s a drag to start all over again. I’m not even 100% sure that the program still exists. But I still maniacally collect the little red caps—I have a big plastic bag full of them. I haven’t thrown out a Coke cap in years. It annoys me when they take them from you at sports stadiums. That’s my cap, mine! I imagine concession employees pooling them together for the big-ticket Rewards items. I suppose I should log in to the Coke website and enter this sackful of codes. Maybe I’ll do that instead of going to the gym.
Up in Boston recently, I purchased a bottle of Coke. It was a slimmer bottle—16 ounces!—and I immediately pointed this out to my friend Chelsea. Another regional experiment? Or yet another example of shrinking products? They can’t do this to me. I can’t go back now.
Bloomberg needs to acknowledge this. If the sugary-drink manufacturers can’t sell a 20-ounce beverage in delis, stadiums, movie theaters, and restaurants, they will sell a 16-ounce version. And they will charge us the same price as the 20-ouncer. Oh, we can try to walk away. But that humid, scorching day will come. Not a cloud in the sky. Sweat stinging your eyes. Then you hear it, that hiss of a newly opened bottle, see that beautiful condensation dripping down the sides. We’ll never, ever win. When you’re parched, they’ve got you by the throat.
Notes and reflections on your fizzy blog: I know you will be comforted to learn that you are not alone in your distress and confusion over the size switching antics of the big players in the fizzy pop market. Here in the UK we have also suffered the ignominy of an unscheduled size change, as reported here in BeverageDaily.com – your go-to publication for up-to-the-minute news on hot trends in the drinks industry: http://www.beveragedaily.com/Processing-Packaging/Britvic-and-PepsiCo-switch-up-to-600ml-bottles
To summarise for those who don’t wish to peruse the article, my Pepsi Max went from 500ml to 600ml in 2010. But you will note that this was a result of the deep seated philanthropic urges of Coke and Pepsi et al who are trying to encourage us to drink more brain rotting, bone depleting diet pop rather than the one that does you no basic harm as long as you don’t mind downing half a bag of sugar in the process (compare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame_controversy and http://www.sugarstacks.com/beverages.htm. I neither endorse or refute any of the information in either of these sites). BUT BUT BUT along with the change of size came an inevitable change of price. My cheapest Pepsi Max when from about 90p to £1.10 while the most expensive one I might flirt with buying jumped to £1.60. Hmmmm… need to look out for a buy-one-get-one-free deal there. And don’t even get me started on Motorway Service Stations (translated as rest stops or service areas) where a 600ml of pop can top out at well over £2. Meanwhile, my visits to America come with a virtual guarantee that I will be able to pick up a Pepsi pretty much anywhere, whereas it’s harder to come by here in the deep South West and indeed in the UK as a whole where Coke has a strangle hold on the market (although a strangle hold might make it hard to swallow, so perhaps Coke should switch to a firm grip on the fridges of its concessions). So take heart, Jack, we are all at the mercy of the ‘drinks majors’, as they are known. They change their sizes, they change their prices, then Mayors change their minds and bottles change their sizes. But we all stay thirsty. Pepsi Max every time.
I got a shout out! Also, I found this to be very educative.
I’ll drink to that!