"coca-cola" news and stories

Costco to Resume Selling Coca-Cola

by Sara Bonisteel, Posted Dec 10th 2009 @ 12:30PM

Coke at Costco.
Photo: Thomas Hawk, Flickr.

Coca-Cola will return to Costco shelves next week, the Associated Press reports.

The wholesaler dropped the popular soft drink last month due to a pricing dispute, but that's been settled, Costco says.

Costco CFO Richard Galanti told investors Thursday that Coca-Cola would be back "around Monday," the AP said.

"Our signs basically said it all -- until we can provide our members with these products at competitive prices and provide our members with value, we are not prepared to sell it and we are now going to sell it," Galanti told the AP.

Coca-Cola didn't want to make the price cuts Costco wanted in order to keep profits high for the soft drink maker, the AP said.

Were you bothered by the lack of Coca-Cola at Costco? Tell us about it in the comments below.

[Via Associated Press]

Filed under: Business, Food News, Drink Recipes

The Varied Victuals of YumSugar

COMMENTS 0

by Jose Ralat Maldonado, Posted Nov 19th 2009 @ 1:00PM

Savory Squash Pudding. Photo: YumSugar.

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

Because Thanksgiving is merrier with more, have back-up table settings waiting in the wings.

There's something for everyone in this almost meatless Thanksgiving menu.

If you want to skip the bird, try this savory squash pudding with kale and shallots.

Costco has blacklisted Coca-Cola from its wholesale empire.

During a downpour, the only thing to do is make brownies -- of course!

Coming soon: RS103-130, the mutant, near immortal apple.

How appealing is vegan tofurky & gravy soda?

Filed under: YumSugar, Holidays

Vio -- A New Fizzy Milk Drink from Coca-Cola

COMMENTS 75

by Sara Bonisteel, Posted Jul 28th 2009 @ 5:30PM

The Vio family of fizzy milk drinks. Photo: Vio.

Coca-Cola is getting into the milk business.

The soft-drink maker is currently test marketing a sweetened fizzy milk beverage called Vio. Made with sparkling water, a hint of skim milk and cane sugar, the 8-ounce beverages come in four fruit flavors: Citrus Burst, Peach Mango, Very Berry and Tropical Colada.

Ray Crockett, a spokesman for the brand, told Slashfood on Tuesday that the drink is currently in "very limited distribution and only in New York City."

Filed under: Food News, Drink Recipes, New Products

The History of Soda

COMMENTS 0

by Steven Stern, Posted Apr 9th 2009 @ 11:00AM

In the early days of American soft drinks, the line between refreshing beverage and medicine was a little blurry -- soda was sold at drug stores, and promised healing properties. We've come a long way since then, but here are the stories behind some pop brands that have become a part of pop culture.

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Secrets of Classic Drinks

by Steven Stern
In the early days of American soft drinks, the line between refreshing beverage and medicine was a little blurry -- soda was sold at drug stores, and promised healing properties. We've come a long way since then, but here are the stories behind some pop brands that have become a part of pop culture.

Coca-Cola

Secrets of Classic Drinks

Coca Cola
Now sold in more than 200 countries, the world-dominating soft drink got its start in 1886, in Atlanta drug store. Pharmacist John Pemberton introduced the product as a non-alcoholic alternative to popular French patent medicines. Though it lacked alcohol, it got its kick from cocaine; the original formula called for a whopping five ounces of coca leaf per gallon of syrup. The cocaine was nixed in 1903, but today's soft drink still gets it flavor from a stimulant-free coca leaf extract. The exact recipe, of course, is a secret. The original formula is kept in a vault at the SunTrust Bank of Atlanta.
Visit coca-cola.com

Secrets of Classic Drinks

Pepsi
Caleb Bradham introduced the number-two cola in 1898, serving it in his pharmacy in New Bern, North Carolina. His customers called it "Brad's drink." As it grew in popularity, he named the beverage Pepsi-Cola, after the pepsin included the original formula. By 1907, Bradham was selling 100,000 gallons of syrup a year. For most of the 30s and 40s, Pepsi kept its place in the soda market by selling 12-ounce bottles for the same price the competitors charged for six. "Twice as Much for a Nickel" was the drink's slogan.
Visit pepsi.com

Secrets of Classic Drinks

7-Up
The Uncola debuted with the not-as-catchy name "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda." Back in 1929, creator Charles Leiper Grigg marketed the drink, which originally contained the mood-stabilizing chemical lithium citrate, as a hangover cure. The story behind the brand name remains a mystery and various theories about the significance of the number seven have been floated. It might refer to the number of ingredients in the drink, the seven-ounce bottle, or perhaps on a cattle brand Grigg noticed. Some have even suggested the number refers to the atomic weight of lithium.
Visit 7-up.com

Secrets of Classic Drinks

Dr. Pepper
The US Patent office says that Dr Pepper was served for the first time on December 1, 1885, making the mysteriously-flavored soft drink a year older than Coke. Invented by Charles Alderton, a pharmacist at Morrison's Old Corner Drug Store in Waco, Texas, it went national at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. When most soft drinks switched to high-fructose corn syrup as a sweetener in the 1980s, a few Dr Pepper bottlers refused to give up on cane sugar -- most famously, the plant in Dublin, Texas. "Dublin Dr Pepper" is highly sought after, but only available in the Dublin area, and at the Dr Pepper museum in Waco.
Visit drpepper.com

Secrets of Classic Drinks

Moxie
Four years ago, Moxie was declared the official state soft drink of Maine, after being a part of New England history since 1876. Vermont-born president Calvin Coolidge was a fan, as was Red Sox hero Ted Williams. The strangely bitter soda was originally marketed as a medicine, promising to cure softening of the brain, and promote "spunk."
Visit moxie.info

Secrets of Classic Drinks

Cheerwine
The bright red, ultra-sweet, super-carbonated soda has been a favorite in the Carolinas since 1917. Company founder L.D. Peeler originally got the recipe for the cherry-flavored soda from a Saint Louis salesman. The "Nectar of the Tarheels" has found its way into recipes for everything from ice cream to barbecue sauce.
Visit cheerwine.com

Secrets of Classic Drinks

Manhattan Special
This dark, sweet espresso-flavored soda actually comes from Brooklyn; it's made in a plant on Manhattan Avenue, in Williamsburg. New York's Italian-American community has been drinking it since 1895, when an immigrant named Michael Garavuso came up with the recipe. After more than a century as a local niche product, the soft drink's makers are now trying to find a wider market. Last year Manhattan Special was sold online for the first time.
Visit manhattanspecial.com

Secrets of Classic Drinks

Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray
Famous 20th-century gossip columnist Walter Winchell called it "Jewish Champagne." First made on New York's Lower East Side around the 1870s, this vegetable-flavored soda has long been the chosen accompaniment for towering deli sandwiches. While the drink may originally have been sold as a health tonic, no one is sure who Dr. Brown was, or if even if he really existed.
Visit Cel-Ray on Wikipedia

Secrets of Classic Drinks

RC Cola
First introduced as "Chero-Cola" in 1905, this was the first of a line of Royal Crown soft drinks created in Columbus, Georgia. By the 1950s, RC became a Southern staple, the classic match for a marshmallow-filled Moon Pie. Salted peanuts, dropped right into the bottle, are also a popular combination. In 1958, the Royal Crown Company introduced Diet Rite, the first low-calorie cola to hit the market.
Visit rccolainternational.com

Secrets of Classic Drinks

Filed under: Drinks

The End of Classic Pop

COMMENTS 6

by Sara Bonisteel, Posted Feb 2nd 2009 @ 4:00PM

Coke Classic has left the building.

Nearly 25 years after Coca-Cola added "Classic" to its original formula in order to differentiate it from the short-lived New Coke, the company has admitted defeat.

Company officials confirmed Friday that they're phasing out the Classic tag from American cans and bottles this year to streamline global branding, finally putting to rest the New Coke fiasco of the mid-'80s.

"It felt like the right time," Scott Williamson, a spokesman for Coke, told Slashfood on Monday.

Coke fans surely remember the spring of 1985, when the company shelved Dr. John S. Pemberton's original 1886 Coca-Cola recipe for a formula that performed better in taste tests and tasted, as I recall, a great deal like its chief competitor Pepsi, which naturally caused a furor among the soft drink's legion of fans.

"In the real world, they had a deep emotional attachment to the original, and they begged and pleaded to get it back," the company says on its Web site.

"Critics called it the biggest marketing blunder ever. But the Company listened, and [77 days later] the original formula was returned to the market as Coca-Cola classic®."

Williamson said that "classic" will remain in small print on the side of the bottles in the phrase "Coke Classic Original Formula."

"When people think Coke, they think Classic," Williamson said. "So more than two decades after we introduced that word, its reason for being as a descriptor has essentially disappeared."

About time they realized Classic has been the standard all along.

Filed under: Business, Trends, Food News, Drink Recipes