Diet Coke was a regular presence in our house almost as soon as it became available. Before that my family usually bought two bottles of Coca Cola each month, and I could count on drinking my share before it disappeared. Then my mom tried Diet Coke and one of those bottles changed over to the new drink. My sisters sorta would drink it too, which sometimes meant more regular Coke for me, but once that was gone I would stare at the remaining Diet Coke and wish it were something else. I found out years later that my mom felt much the same way and never actually liked it as much as regular Coke.
On the show, I start before Diet Coke existed, when Coca Cola already had a successful diet soda with Tab but was still reluctant to put the Coke name on anything except the original drink. That changed in the early 1980s with a secret project that would change what people drank around the world. Aftere that, I get into the launch, the switch in sweeteners and how Diet Coke unexpectedly became part of the story of New Coke a few years later. I also pull out newspapers from when Diet Coke first showed up near me and look at what else was going on at the time.
What interests me most about Diet Coke is that it eventually stopped feeling like a substitute for something else. It is its own thing. Coca Cola later created Coke Zero specifically for people who wanted something closer to regular Coke without the sugar, yet Diet Coke continued because its drinkers actually wanted Diet Coke.
The company has tried changing its image and introducing new flavors, but people seem happiest when it simply lets the drink stay the same. After more than forty years, it has its own taste and its own history, and there are people who are every bit as particular about it as regular Coke drinkers are about Coke. I may have spent part of my childhood wishing that bottle in the refrigerator was something else, but I understand a lot better now why it never went away.
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Production Notes
This is the 370th episode of the Retroist Podcast and episode 21 of Season 18.
I cannot taste the sweetness in common artificial sweeteners. It was a confusing conclusion to come to after years of trying diet drinks. A few sweeteners are on ther market that work better for me, but none are being used in popular diet soft drinks.
I expected the creation of Diet Coke to have a fairly settled history, but there are competing stories about who really pushed the idea inside Coca Cola. The company gives much of the credit to Jack Carew, while Sergio Zyman’s version puts him much closer to the center of things. I decided it made more sense to leave that disagreement in the episode than pick one version and pretend the other did not exist.
We would get Pepsi Free or other diet sodas if they were ons all, but Coke dominated in all forms. We even went through a Caffeine Free phase.
While I was never a big drinker of Diet Coke I was instantly taken by the packaging. Still love seeing the silver cans.
I had been looking at New Coke and thinking about doing an episode on another popular soda when Diet Coke started to become my obsession.
I have Computercide in my media library now. Can’t wait to watch it. It is on YouTube still. Sure it will be mediocre overall, but I think it might be tv movie-style fun.
Still surprised when I see that we had a Chick fil A in New Jersey that we could have went to in 1982. I didn’t know about the chain until the 2000s.
Bonus clippings will be over on Patreon soon for Supporters.
Music on the show is, as always, by Peachy.
Thanks for listening to the show and I hope you have a great weekend.
