The Diet Dr Pepper Challenge

Doc had talked a couple weeks ago about Diet Dr Pepper tasting as good as regular Dr Pepper, and this got me thinking about the Cola Wars back in the 80s.

I barely remember commercials of the Pepsi Challenge to see if people liked the taste of Pepsi over Coca-Cola which I will not refer to as Coke.

I was reading a book that talked about this and they had professional food taste testers comment. Pepsi is sweeter and if you take one sip you are going to like Pepsi over Coke. However, Coke remained the leader. Why? Well, most people are not just going to open up a can of soda-pop (this is my way of preventing the pop v. soda war) take one sip and walk away from it. We are going to drink the entire can. Most people don’t want that initial sweetness for their entire soda-pop drinking experience and hence go back to drinking Coke.

Now it looks like Dr Pepper is doing a little soda-pop war of their own by saying their unleaded is as good as the leaded. Diet Dr Pepper was the first diet soda-pop I actually enjoyed. Other diet drinks were too icky and regular was too sweet. If you are going to do the Dr Pepper challenge enjoy a can of each to make your decision. My advice would be to split in half and take the challenge with a friend. Have fun!

-Disaster Chick, Weekly Correspondent