Wednesday - May 06, 2009

A throwback to decent taste

I picked up a pack of the “new” Pepsi Throwback and one of the new Mountain Dew Throwback. Both are made with sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. And both taste far better than any other soda the company has sold in years. Neither one is overly fizzy. And here I was thinking that my middle aged taste buds had finally just given out, after too many visits to the Thai restaurants or whatever. No, it wasn’t me. It was the product. High Fructose Corn Syrup, HFCS, tastes like limp shit. It dulls all the other flavors. Really, it does. And the crap is in almost everything we eat.

I’m not really a Pepsi person. Never was. But I’ve given up on Coke. Of any flavor, color, or derivative. It just sucks. Every time I have some, a little taste bud memory in the back of my brain compares it to the 10 ounce ice cold can of Coke I got from a vendor on the beach of some Caribbean island in 1982. And there is just no comparison. Memory wins, always.

Don’t get your soda hopes up too much though. Pepsi’s new Throwback line still isn’t made with cane sugar. It’s made with beet sugar. In theory, sucrose is sucrose, so both should taste the same. But I bet they don’t really. But even beet sugar is one HUGE step in the right direction. Try some, you’ll see. It beats HFCS by a mile.

Per Beverage Industry magazine, the names will be Pepsi Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback:

In the middle of April, PBV [Pepsi Bottling Ventures] also will begin distributing Pepsi Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback, which features those brands formulated with sugar.

This is a big deal since mainstream soft drinks in the United States are sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). Typically, the only way to get soda from the “big guys” with real sugar is to import it (i.e., Mexican Coke) or wait till Passover (Kosher Coke, Kosher Pepsi).

Pepsi has been experimenting elsewhere with sugar-sweetened drinks. We reported last February about two such entries… Pepsi Raw in the UK and Mexico’s Pepsi Retro. It’s nice to see some of this finally coming to the States.

Enjoy Pepsi as it was meant to be made — with sugar — with Pepsi Throwback. Featuring an old-school Pepsi logo instead of the modern smiling circle that adorns current cans, the drink will be sweetened with sugar, instead of the ultra-nasty High Fructose Corn Syrup, giving you that true cola taste without the need to import. For those with more extreme tastes, Mountain Dew Throwback will also be available, retro logo intact.

And for all us nationalists, that beet sugar comes from Wyoming. I appreciate that.

But why not cane sugar? What the hey, Mexican soda is made with cane sugar. English soda is made with cane sugar. Heck, even Chinese soda is made with cane sugar. Why not American soda? Because of politics. Because of price supports for the corn farmers. Because of some nasty legislation that’s a bit older than I am, making it nearly impossible to import cane sugar into the USA at a decent price. It’s a load of crap, all of it. But it’s been going on since before I was born, so nobody knows any different. Except that the rest of the world pays less than half what we do for sugar. Hey Obama, you want to clean up government? Here’s a good place to start. CAFTA, NAFTA, free trade, opportunity for all our little island neighbors, the whole thingy. It’s time to end the Stamp Act Sugar Act.

Now if I could just get one of the big soda companies to market a proper ginger beer. Never had one? It’s ginger ale with about 10 times as much ginger. And it’s what your bottle of golden rum wants to dance with, over ice.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/06/2009 at 10:25 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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