Electric Dirt Farmer

This review of the latest addition to the Coca-Cola family came through my aggregator today. I knew there were a lot of different versions of Coke on the market, but I didn’t realize just how many there were.

Just to recap, here is a list of the current Coke line up:

1. Coca-Cola
2. Caffeine-free Coke
3. Coke with lime
4. Vanilla Coke
5. Cherry Coke
6. Diet Coke
7. Caffeine-free Diet Coke
8. Diet Cherry Coke
9. Diet Coke with lemon
10. Diet Coke with lime
11. Vanilla Diet Coke
12. Diet Coke with Splenda
13. C2

I actually think that some of these are a good ideas, specifically Coke with Lime. I’m a huge Classic Coke fan, and I really like Coke with Lime. I find that the taste is complementary to that of the regular variety. I don’t expect every Coke fan to like it, but lately I’ve been keeping both in my fridge and alternating between the two.

On the other hand, stuff like Vanilla Coke has never made sense to me. The taste is sodissimilarr that it’s really an entirely different drink. Sure, it’s “cola” but so are a lot of other soft drinks, including several sold by the Coca-Cola Company that are not Coke. As I noted I am a huge fan of Coke but I never drink Diet Coke or any of its siblings because they don’t have all of what I like about Coke: the taste, the bite, and the caffeine.

Well, now I guess the folks at Coca-Cola have a new New Coke that they’re calling Coke Zero. I have nothing else to say about that so I’ll just quote Laura Ries again (from the same Origin of Brands post).

Zero does zero for the Coke brand. It is just a further watering down of the Coke brand in the mind of the consumer. Pretty soon, Coke will be so watered down you might as well just call it Dasani.

Yeah, what she said.