MetaChat - Look yo, it's a bunch of old food

It's not as great as I first thought. NEver mind.

But if anybody's looking, particularly Southerners, I've been meaning to post this question to MetaChat or AskMe: when I was a kid in Texas, we drank this red soda that tasted like strawberries. All my life I remembered it as Big Red, and so when I was back in the South a couple years ago I was excited to see Big Red and bought some and drank it. And it didn't taste like strawberries. It tasted like Bubble Gum. It was gross.

So the soda I remember wasn't Big Red. Anyone have any idea what it was? (If it helps, the times I remember drinking it were late 70s-mid 80s)

posted by Miko 03 August | 09:47

That's generically referred to as red pop across the Midwest (and perhaps the South?). The flavor is just "red," though some of the kids call it strawberry. I remember red pop in Indiana, just one of those things, like Nehi grape, so gross, so good, can't have a barbecue without it.

Ever encounter the Yoo-hoo rival, Chocolate Soldier?

posted by Hugh Janus 03 August | 09:52

Now i kinda want a red cream soda.
Strawberry phosphate? Maybe it will make my headache go away.
They's medicinal.

posted by ethylene 03 August | 09:57

Remember when there were phosphates in detergent? Made whites really white, and colors really colorful, and algae bloom in the watershed until the oysters were almost gone.

posted by Hugh Janus 03 August | 10:02

A-Ha! Thanks Hugh.

No, I don't remember Chocolate Soldier. Do tell.

A guy I sailed with for a week had a funny story about Yoo-Hoo. He was working some kind of schooner trip where he was aboard for 3 months, and when they provisioned for some reason the only soda they got was Yoo Hoo. Which everybody found dee-sgusting, including this guy - would never have touched it otherwise. However, in hot enough weather, they would choke it down. Gradually they got more and more used to it, until one day, this guy looked up and said "You know, I actually like this."

After that trip, he developed a jones for Yoo-Hoo and it was his refreshing drink of choice at any convenience store. He loves the stuff now.

Taste is funny. In thinking all sorts of Thanksgiving thoughts these last few days, I had this weird dream where I sat down to Thanksgiving dinner (which I love), but I was from some other culture, and everything tasted horrid to me. It was all oily, sweetish, glistening with grease, grainy/starchy and heavy. You know, like Thanksgiving dinner is. In the dream though, even though everything tasted as it should, I found it foreign and gross.

[preview] I had my first cherry phosphate last year at a soda fountain. And may I say, yum.

But then, ALL soda is medicinal! That's how we got it. The common cure for stomach ailments in my family remains Coke, to this day.

posted by Miko 03 August | 10:02

Miko, all I can think of are the old cherry sodas like Budwine and Cheerwine. The only strawberry drink I can remember was strawberry Fanta. (Being in Atlanta, though, it's possible Coca-Cola products kept a lot of smaller companies out of the market.)

on preview: you found it! We did have Faygo down here, but I don't think I ever tried one.

And Hugh, yes I've had Chocolate Soldier.

posted by BoringPostcards 03 August | 10:06

I love Yoohoo, but I find Chocolate Soldier doesn't quite add up. But it's a funny name for a drink, chocolate soldier. Say it out loud. Funny.

posted by Hugh Janus 03 August | 10:10

I like Yoo-Hoo, too! (Now THAT'S fun to say out loud!) I haven't had a Chocolate Soldier since my very very young days, can't remember anything about it except that it was chocolate-y.

posted by BoringPostcards 03 August | 10:13

Big Red was the holy grail of soda when I grew up in rural Nebraska. Not that anyone thought it tasted good, but we were all raised to be uber-fanatical about the Cornhuskers (aka the Big Red), and the soda was looked on as some sort of holy water. After we started getting our drivers' licenses, my friends and I would drive like 30 miles to another town that had a gas station that sometimes sold Big Red.

But yeah, it tasted like carbonated ass.

posted by cobra! 03 August | 10:27

I'm saddened to learn through Ye Olde Tyme Internet Grocer that Mr. Pibb is no more.

A little Googling shows that it's been replaced by some tarted-up Pibb Xtra, with added flavors. Fffffft to that.

Me, I like a soda with an honorific. They call him Mister Pibb.

posted by Elsa 03 August | 10:28

Oh, Elsa, you slay me.

Faygo, Miko? (That's fun to say too!) They had strawberry faygo.

posted by rainbaby 03 August | 10:43

I'm genuinely disappointed to realize I'll never taste Mr. Pibb again. In New England, Mr. Pibb is rare at best, so I didn't notice his demise.

*single tear*

As for the so-called doctor, that Pepper is nothing but a gussied-up snake oil huckster, and he knows it.

Appropriately enough for this conversation, I had Barq's instead of coffee this morning. Mmmm.

posted by Elsa 03 August | 10:52

Elsa, I've had Mr. Pibb in tons of restaurants in the south, particularly in central FL...are you sure it's gone, or maybe only sold in the fountain variety now.

Miko - All I really have to add is that Moxie is an abomination against man. Diet Moxie doubly so.

posted by SassHat 03 August | 11:05

Oh, I agree, SassHat, it's vile; but my brother and his wife took a contrarian liking to it when they visited me, so I plan to load them down with merch when I see them later this month.

posted by Miko 03 August | 11:19

SassHat, I just might have to scope out some fast food places to see if I can track down the Mister. The Coca-Cola website lists the two as one product "Pibb Xtra/Mr Pibb," touting the replacement as having a bold "Cherry Spice" flavor. Oh, and it's beneficial to teens:

The soft drink enables them to have an uninhibited, fun and unconventional attitude and touts the sweet, refreshing bold taste they need to express their independence.

Wow. Soda's better than proper education and self-esteem counseling combined!

posted by Elsa 03 August | 11:21

touts: I don't think it means what they think it means.

posted by Miko 03 August | 11:45

That's a perfectly cromulent usage of "touts."

posted by Elsa 03 August | 12:00

Pibb Xtra is not exactly the same as Mr. Pibb, but it's very, very close. At the time Pibb Xtra was introduced (shortly after Mr. Pibb got a hip, vaguely-OK Cola-esque label makeover, featuring, no shit, the slogan 'Put it In Your Head') I drank a lot of soda from that family, and my impression was that the 'Xtra' referred to caffeine, so as to better compete with the 800-pound gorilla that is Dr. Pepper. I could be wrong about that, though. Here's one thing I'm sure of: back in the '70s, Mr. Pibb was advertised with the slogan 'It Goes Down Good.' Also, Mountain Dew used to be marketed as, and there's no better way to say this, a hillbilly drink.

posted by box 03 August | 12:39

My two cents: Big Red definitely tasted better when I was a kid (pre-corn syrup era, perhaps?), Mr. Pibb was always just a watered-down version of Dr Pepper (but I liked it, probably more for its name and the look of the can than the taste), and Tab was tolerable, but only when sipped from a glass bottle while sitting on my granny's porch in Port Aransas, Texas.

posted by Atom Eyes 03 August | 13:08

Also, Mountain Dew used to be marketed as, and there's no better way to say this, a hillbilly drink.

Yee-ha! Surely the name itself is a reference to moonshine, yes? I always associated Mountain Dew with back-country revenue-dodgin'.

I'm glad to hear that Pibb remains Pibberiffic, Xtra or not. Thanks, box!

posted by Elsa 03 August | 13:12

Well, they call it that good ol' mountain dew and them that refuse it are few; I'll hush up my mug if you'll fill up my jug with that good ol' mountain dew.

posted by Hugh Janus 03 August | 13:16

i had one of those Tab energy drinks when they first came out.
It tasted like the seventies: chemically questionably and strangely metallic.

posted by ethylene 03 August | 13:22

Whenever I get to my old home town of Charlotte, NC, I stock up on Cheerwine and Sundrop. That, and barbecue. Damn, but I love me some NC barbecue.

posted by mrmoonpie 03 August | 15:21

Miko, Goya makes a strawberry soda--might that be what you remember?

posted by mrmoonpie 03 August | 15:23

Ah, Kaboom cereal... I didn't miss you until I saw you exploded by Vivica A. Fox (rrrrowr!) in Kill Bill.

posted by Specklet 03 August | 16:35

I think OK Soda was an attempt to sell red soda to the rest of America. It didn't work. Old roommate of mine got flagged down on the side of the road by the OK Soda guy, who promptly loaded his trunk with a couple cases of the stuff, free, so we drank it all summer long. By the end of the summer we were mostly in agreement with the joke we'd been telling all summer, which was that it tasted "OK."

posted by ikkyu2 03 August | 17:07

Funny stuff, ikkyu2. Reminds me of me and my college roommate's interpretation of Nancy Reagan's famous slogan: "Just say no."

posted by mrmoonpie 03 August | 17:21

03 August 2007