September 20, 2017 • 44 mins
Will and Mango dig deep into the Cola Wars: from the official soda of the KKK, to the time Coke tried to convince Eisenhower to create a new currency, to the very best soda named after Jesus (not that Jesus). Featuring John Nese of Galco’s Soda Pop Stop.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I guess what will what's that man go? So you
(00:02):
know everyone in India's cricket crazy, right, So how do
you mean? Well, in India, like growing up, if you
went to almost any kids home, they figured out some
way to play mini cricket in their bedroom or their
hallway or the alley next to the house or wherever, Like,
no matter the space, there's a tiny battened ball and
a set of home rules people have for when you
come over. My point is crickets a total national obsession. Yeah,
(00:24):
And I know we've talked about this a little bit before,
you know, as opposed to hear where there's so many
proteins and college boards that that compete for all of
our attention. Right. So that's just background for the story
I wanted to tell you. When I was in India
in two thousand three, my uncle poured me a glass
of Pepsi blue and I thought, that's weird, Like they
sold it for a year or two in the States before.
But I had no idea that the blueberry flavor would
(00:46):
translate to India. So I asked, they make Pepsi blue here?
And my uncle's in advertising and super aware of campaigns,
and he said Oh yeah, Pepsi made the special blue
drink just to support India's cricket team. Yeah, so like India,
his team wears blue. So the ad story when they
introduced Pepsi Blue there was that Pepsi made this blue
drink just for the Indian market and all over like
(01:08):
all these cricket fans were happily guzzling the stuff like
out of some sort of warped patriotism. But obviously it
was like this clever way to one up Coke and
endear themselves to the market as they were phasing out
the beverage abroad. But the whole thing made me think
of the Cola Wars and the lens Pepsi and Coke
go to to outdo one another all over the world.
And that's what today's show is all about. Yeah, welcome
(01:49):
to part time Genius sim Will Pearson And as always
I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesho Ticketer and
the man on the other side of the soundproof glass
wearing a beer helmet with a Coke on one side,
and I think of Pepsi on the other as our
friend and producer Tristan McNeil Mango. I know we're going
to dig into the Cola Wars and and there's so
much good stuff here. Honestly, can't wait to talk about R. C.
(02:10):
Cola and Richard Nixon and of course the official soda
of the KKK. Honestly, there's so much good stuff we
had to leave on the cutting room floor, Like, we'll
probably have to revisit this topic. I honestly, I hope
we do. But before we get to any of that,
we should probably handle a couple of quick corrections and
notes from readers. So let's start here. There was one
that we got that the most comments about this was
(02:32):
your reading of the word pasty. Notice how I just
said it right, and your dog breed or regional treat quiz.
It was in the Dog Show episode a week or
so ago. Yeah, so I thought it was pronounced pasty
like the nipple covering in a burlesque show. But apparently
it's passed in and I think both here in Patterson
and Babs Johnson visage where we're the first to correct us,
(02:53):
and and also about our misuse of the word youper
So if you do messages with your addresses, we will
pony express you a T shirt. I like how it's
possible that you mispronounced both of their names. They definitely
they may have to issue another correction of that. All right,
And speaking of geography eras, we also made a minor
gaff in our Theme Parks episode where we told readers
that eth Link theme Park is in Amsterdam. It's actually
(03:16):
about an hour and fifteen minutes south of the city.
I love this that we hear from listeners on this
So so if you traveled all the way to Amsterdam
and you've been wandering around the city looking for a
theme park, we are so so so sorry, but also
kind of laughing at that. So the Twitter user juiced
over wrote in about that, So hit us up with
your address, juiceton, and we'll send you a shirt too.
(03:39):
And of course, for all you other listeners, if you
don't happen to get our attention on Facebook or Twitter,
you can always hit us up at part Time Genius
at how stuff works dot com or on our seven
fact hotline one eight four four pt genius, both of
which we checked constantly, and that fact hotline is still
seven right, Stevenesome, that's so exciting. Alright, So, Mago, I
know you and I don't love war, but there there
(04:01):
is one exception to this. We love Cola Wars, and
when it comes down to it, I know you and
I both fall in the coke camp. As you know,
I'm also a diet Mountain Dew fan, but I've never
asked there are there other sodas that you like? Well,
I'm certainly a coke loyalist, though I'm also a huge
root beer fan. Like as a kid, I remember thinking
it was the ultimate treat, like Snoopy drank it, Dennis
(04:23):
the Menace, all my heroes. And I also had this
dream that someday when I grew up, i'd have a
root beer seller in my house, just filled with different
types of chilled root beer. That's nice, And this actually
came true, right, don't you have a root beer? Absolutely
a bunch of kid dreaming. I'm guessing the root beer
seller was smacked between your comic book library and your
indoor petting zoo, but both of which you actually have
(04:44):
now as well. That's true. But the thing is, I
actually do love sodas. And it sounds ridiculous, but I
actually like the fizziness when you first poured into a
glass and you feel those little bubbles popping up against
your face, it is that ridiculous, but that's what I
love about it. And I like the soda reminds me
of my childhood, and and also like I'm fascinated by
new flavors. I love spicy cola variations like thumbs Up
(05:07):
from India, and I dig trying weird fruity sodas from
other countries. But I think part of the reason I've
always like Coke so much is that the brandings always
appeal to me. Like my family used to be time
more the newsweek family, and and uh, they like rolling
Stone over spin, and we've generally preferred the classic version
of things. Well, actually, since you mentioned that branding is
(05:28):
probably a good place to start with this, and you
and I have done so many coke and pepsi origin
stories over the years that I don't think either one
of us that want to get into the beginnings and
talk about cocaine and the drinks and all that stuff.
I mean, it's interesting, but we've talked a lot about it.
So for this episode, we're definitely more interested in the
fights between them. Sure, but why don't we give just
(05:48):
like a one sense background about them. So both drinks,
as most people know, started as tonics for ailments. Coke,
which launched in eight six, did have wine in it
originally and cocaine, and eventually it lost those sinful qualities
by prohibition. It was playing itself up as the great
national temperance beverage. And and the fact that it was
the right color Damasca's shot of whiskey like that didn't
(06:10):
hurt well. And of course Pepsi wasn't that far behind.
It launched in eight this was in North Carolina, and
it has a similar background as a tonic aside from
the whole cocaine did. But all right, but back to
the branding that the thing that surprised me, and this
kept coming up in our research, was how Coke has
always marketed itself as a wholesome and nostalgic brand, and
(06:31):
they've been playing up this idea that by taking a
sip you can pause and revel in the American way
of life forever, and that Pepsi has always been on
the other side of America. You know, this new, energetic,
maybe even rebellious choice. Yeah, it's it's the choice of
a new generation. I mean, I know Coke was served
on the front lines of battles and it aligned itself
with war efforts, and they also helped popularize how Santa
(06:53):
Claus looks like. Santa wasn't always depicted as this jolly
man wearing red and in early cartoons he could be
skinny and kind of scary looking and even gnome like.
But we should talk about why Coke was drawing Santa later,
because it was like this ingenious way to get people
to drink this refreshing summertime beverage in the winter. But
why do you think they stuck to this idea of
(07:13):
American wholesomeness. I was actually kind of wondering the same thing,
and you know, part of it's due to the association
with prohibition. But then I heard this Planet Money on
on how coke managed to sell for the same price
for so many years. Have you heard this episode? I mean,
I love the show, but I haven't heard that. What's
the story? It's amazing. So so for seventy years, from
eighteen eighty six until the nineteen fifties, the price of
(07:36):
coke never changed, and you think about what's gone on
in that time. You had a couple of world wars,
a financial crash, along with the Roaring twenties and some
other prosperity. So there was a lot of up and down,
and so David caston Bomb and Planet Money tried to
figure out how cokes could sustain this price for so long.
And so what's the answer. Why didn't they raise the
price from nickel when they needed to? Well, this all
(07:57):
goes back to Asa Candler, who own Coke for a
while and went on to become mayor of Atlanta. And
before he realized it'd be worth anything, Candler signed away
the bottling rights to a franchise e. You know, he
was thinking the real business would always be at the
soda fountains, and he really didn't see bowling becoming much
of a business. So the price listed on the contract
(08:18):
had no end date. It was in perpetuity. That's odd.
So Coke could never really make more money by upping
the price of their syrup. Yeah, that's right. So so
they had to sell the syrup at a fixed price.
And they also couldn't control the prices people were selling
bottle cokes for Like, if someone wanted to sell a
bottle of coke for seven cents, there wasn't much they
could do to stop them. But to take power back,
(08:39):
they did this ingenious thing. They started putting up advertising
everywhere that the price of a coke was five cents.
So I've actually seen old coke memorabilia that had coke
just five cents on it. Yeah, that's because they slapped
it everywhere. This was on signs and buildings, billboards, everywhere
they could think to put it. So their philosophy was,
you know, they couldn't tell bottlers how much to sell
(09:00):
coke for, but they could tell buyers how much to
expect a bottle for. So if anyone tried to up
the cost, the savvy coke drinker would know that they
were being fleeced. So how does this help Coke? Well
in a couple of ways. So first off, since the
cost they could sell syrup to bottlers was fixed, the
only way they could make more money was to sell
more coke, and so a national campaign advertising everywhere was
(09:24):
the only way to speed that up. It's what Coke
is invested in from early on and why they've always
had this coherent ad strategy. But secondly, and this is
what we were getting to initially with the wholesomeness. When
when you're doing all this advertising and you're appealing to
all of America from the nineteen hundreds on the easiest
way to sell is is very wholesome, but emotional campaign
(09:47):
and nostalgia is perfect for that. I mean, this is
my take on it at least. And actually there's so
much good stuff and the Planet Money episode that I
don't want to spoil it for you. From how Coke
maintain the prices soda fountains to what this to do
with the gold standards. It's a crazy story. But actually
there is one more fact I want to tell you.
Oh yeah, what's that? Well, when Coke wanted to finally
(10:09):
up the price after seventy years of charging five cents,
their vending machines only took nickels, so they had to
figure something out. But the company didn't want to raise
the price to ten cents, so they came up with
this evil, genius way to up the price in their machines.
Every ninth bottle distributed was called an official blank, and
it was just an empty souvenir bottle. So it was
(10:31):
like Coke Roulette and it might just come up empty
for you. Basically, eight people in a row would get
cokes and then the ninth would be empty. I mean,
how ridiculous. And the executives were stoked because it up
the price of a coke from five cents to a
little more than six cents, but fans thought it was idiotic,
and the company quickly stopped. Obviously. Yeah, so I've got
(10:53):
to say I'm I'm not a huge Pepsi drinker, but
some of their early history is really fascinating to me too. Alright,
we'll tell us a little bit about that. Well, this
is actually in pure contrast to what you're talking about.
So unlike coke, which generally had the backing of the
temperance movement and supplied the troops and survived the Great Depression,
all without changing its price, which honestly is remarkable, Pepsi struggled.
(11:16):
Like there were a few highlights along the way, Pepsi
basically made inroads by selling their product for cheaper. The
first national ad jingle this song called Nickel Nickel, which
was animated and so popular it became this hit single.
But it also promoted the fact that Pepsi was a deal.
It was a dimes worth a soda for Justin Nickel,
and the brand wanted to appeal to consumers on the budget.
(11:37):
But what felt revolutionary to me about Pepsi was that
in a few years after this guy named Walter mac
took over the company, Pepsi started hiring black college grads
and targeting the black market in America, which is obviously
very different from what Coke would have been doing and
would not have been part of their nostalgia campaign. Yeah,
definitely not. And and to me, this is part of
(11:58):
the identity Pepsi is going to take on exciting new
rebellious And remember this is seven years before Jackie Robinson
had broken the color barrier in sports. And I should
tell you so most of the story comes from the
real Pepsi Challenge, this wonderful book by Wall Street Journal
reporter Stephanie Capparell, and she went out and found the
interns and employees who ran and worked on the Quote
(12:19):
Negro Markets team. But one of the things Caparell points
out is that athletics were so much easier to integrate,
like you were picking one or two talented athletes to
play in a game. And as heated as that was,
it didn't pose the same level of threat to America
that giving away white collar jobs to qualified black employees
seemed to. And to be clear, PEPSI being the cheaper
(12:41):
soda was already the preferred black beverage. But once Mac
hired this team, Pepsi started doing these really innovative things,
like they start using black models and ads like almost
a decade before Coke and before anyone really, And they
also featured black college graduates in their campaigns, associating Pepsi
with black excellence, and they showed his middle class black
families having fun. They basically go against all the Aunt
(13:04):
Jemima and Uncle Ben stereotyping that they referred to as
slave in the box ads, and they shifted perceptions and
the impact is felt everywhere right like, so Pepsi ads
and magazines and sponsored sections celebrating black achievements start getting
used in classrooms and colleges, and the team does almost
too good a job, like everywhere they go, and they
(13:24):
went to black churches, colleges, civic centers, and of course
bottling plants. Everywhere they go. They're successful. And to me,
this is really where the color War starts, because Pepsi
starts out selling Coke and bottle form, and Coke's contracts
with the government and fountain shops keep them ahead. But
the team is so good that Pepsi's Walter Mac, who
is a liberal and and truly believes in integration, but
(13:47):
he's really a businessman. First, he has to go out
and separate himself from the black market saying and he
uses the most harmful words, words we're not going to
say on this program, but he basically tells the white
audience of investors that Pepsi's asked rations are not going
to be a black drink, and to balance this liberal perception,
they market themselves as Southern Goodness Wow, which is crazy.
(14:08):
But from my notes, Pepsi was already the number two
coal in America, and this was even before Mac took over, right, Yeah,
so they've grown under Charles guth who who owned Loft
Candy Company and was looking for a cheaper fountain drink
than coke, so he bought the bankrupt Pepsi in one
and inserted the drink in his fountain shops and helped
it rise. But things really heated up after that period.
(14:30):
That said, one thing I love is all the early
knockoff colas that we're trying to compete around the time.
But we should probably break the chat with our special guests.
But why don't you throw me a few of those
before we do. Yeah, so cherocola, candy Cola, rock socola,
Taca cola, cocla, it's acola kiss cola. There was even
a cocola. I don't think there's any way they could
(14:50):
get away with that thing now. Actually, the dumbest I
read about was this cola meant to appeal to fans
of the KKK after Birth of a Nation came out.
It was this niche beverage called glue cocola. It's so weird,
like three k's obviously, but I mean, between the hood
and the burning crosses and all that sweltering summer heat,
what better way to cool down than when ice cold
(15:11):
Cluca cola? So stupid? You know, I really hope you
gave an all white can good question. But well, while
we looked that up, why don't we pause for a break.
Our guest today is John Nice. He's the owner of
pretty much as soda mecca that people actually make pilgrimages too.
(15:32):
It's it's called Galcos Soda pop stop in Los Angeles,
and John stocks his aisles with over seven hundred incredible
flavors of fizzy beverages. So John, welcome to Part time genius.
Well thank you very much. So when did you first
get obsessed with SODA's? Oh you know, when I was
a little kid, my uncle came up to the to
(15:53):
the holiday I think it was a Thanksgiving holiday dinner
and and he opened these courts bottles of Clicko Club.
He put them on the table and then he told
us you can't have any until you finish everything on
your plate. Well that was pretty depressing for a little
kid that never had an opportunity to drink any Sauda's before.
(16:17):
And and that's really about the place that it began.
And then when I was a little older, I went
to work with my father and the big deal was
having a Dad's root beer for lunch every single day.
Why did uh Galco start specializing in carbonated beverages? Oh well,
all you know, we we've been doing this about eighteen
(16:39):
nineteen years now. And we said we started all of this,
and what happened was we were going broke. What's really
interesting about going broke is no matter what you do,
you can't make a bad decision. They're all they're all
winning decisions. You can't make a bad decision. And the
pepsicole of what had happened was the chain store as
(17:00):
had bought the distribution channels for the little markets and
they closed them down, and when they reopened them, everything
was like ten to fifteen dollars a case more expensive.
And what they were really doing was getting rid of
the cap on supermarket pricing, because if the supermarkets sold
their products for more than a little mom and pop,
everybody knew they were charging too much. What happened was
(17:21):
we um went out and we're looking for something to do,
and we decided on on soda pop. You know, there
the coke and Pepsi had bought all the shelf space
and the supermarkets and there was no choice. And the
Pepsi Cola man came in. He said, I'm going to
give you the best buyer. If you're going to get
on a palette of Pepsi cola cans, I'm only going
to charge you five nine a case. And I looked
(17:44):
at him and I said, how much pass am I
going to make on that hundred case pellet? And he said, oh,
about thirty dollars And I said, well, thank you, but
no thank you. I'm going to send my customers down
to the supermarket down the street. They're on sale down
there for dollar nine. Well back. He looked at me
and he says, you can't do that. Pepsi colas advance
and I, I mean, your customers are gonna demand did
you carry Pepsi cola? And I said, well, my customers
(18:04):
they would be happy. I was honest with him and
tell him they can buy him toeper and I can
buy him. Why do you want to buy him from me? Well,
he turned around and walked out. And the next day
he came in with his regional manager and his area manager.
They walked around, they looked, never said a word to me,
walked out, never came back. And boy was I angry.
I was so angry. Nobody in here could talk to me.
(18:25):
And about two weeks later, the light bulb clicked on
and said, you know what, you ought to thank Pepsi
coal of reminding you that you own your shelf space.
They don't, and you can sell anything you want. And
that's when I started looking for sodas and I found
twenty five little independent brands. Right off the bat. They
were still in glass bottles, they were still using cane sugar,
and they were delicious. They weren't like the cook and
(18:48):
pepsis of the world were using. All corns are up
and really dull and flavor. And I know that everybody's
taste is different, but are are there any flavors You've
been skeptical about it first, but have been really surprised
by after you tasted them. Well as a cola. Yes, Um,
there was this call and it was called Stiffy, and
(19:09):
I'm looking at it. I'm going, h I don't know
about this. I really don't know about it. And then
I tasted it. It was lemon cola. It was so
crisp and clean. I mean it became a fan very
very soon. And then there was another one. You know,
like everybody's familiar with phentaments from England, and that's actually
(19:31):
a ginger cola and it's rude like a beer. And
somebody in the New York Times about ten fifteen years
ago called it the best cola ever made. And it's
very good, don't get me wrong. But I started wondering
how many coals had he ever tasted. This episode has
been mostly about the wars between Coke and Pepsi, but
(19:52):
we we should have done an episode on on the
wars between Pepsi and John nice. That sounds like, oh well,
come on in here. I got a letter from them
said they were gonna sue me, oh no, for carrying
cola from Mexico. And this is before they started making
it there. And I said, you know, we're gonna sue you.
And I said for what, Well, you're selling Mexican pepsi
(20:15):
And I said, and I started laughing that the assourney.
You saw that from some big law firm, Patty something
or another in Chicago. And I said, I said, you
gotta be kidding. Everybody in Los Angeles has pepsi cola
from from Mexico. And he says, yeah, but you're getting
the publicity, so we're gonna sue you. And I said, look,
(20:37):
what do you want? Oh well, I just said, send
me a letter, that's all. You gotta send me a
letter I wanted in writing. He sent me a letter,
so I framed it and put it on the wall. Well,
I did want to ask, you know, you were talking
about these family owned soda creators that put their products
and glass bottles. What makes a glass bottle so much better?
(20:58):
The way product goes into a glass bottle is the
way the product comes out. It has a much longer
shelf life, and it holds the carbonation. Everything is held
much better. Um, if you put it in plastic, it leaks.
If you put it in an aluminum, aluminum leaks. You know.
I get a big kick out of listening to these
(21:19):
beer companies tell you how great the beer cans are
today because they're lined. Well, I want you to know
the beer cans have always been lined with the protective coating.
But that doesn't keep the beer earth or the soda
pop or whatever it is in it from eating through
the lining. And it happens, and it tastes terrible. It
(21:39):
winds up tasting like tin or aluminum, one of the two,
or plastic. I don't care. But when things go into glass,
the way they go in is the way they come out.
I had a bottler called me about a year ago
and said that he found some of his ginger ale
that was made about thirty or forty years ago up
in the attic, a couple of bottles, and if the
(22:00):
young kid was going to throw him out, and he said, no,
don't do that, just put him in a refrigerator. He
put him in a refrigerator and he tasted them the
next day, and they were really The young kid was
very surprised that that it's still had flavor and it
still tasted okay. I mean it wasn't great, but it
was okay. So I'm curious if you carry any of
(22:20):
these novelty products that we sometimes see, Like we've read
about this disgusting ranch soda, and I don't know if
there's there's any of these that you decide to carry,
or any of them that you actually like. No, I
don't carry them. You're gonna buy them one time and
you'll never buy him again. I don't have time or
shall space enough she'll space to carry that kind of
a product. If you want to try something that's very different, okay, um,
(22:44):
how about a spruce spirit that tastes like a pine tree.
One fellow walks and he tasted, and he goes, this
is my new favorite soda. The next person that comes
along and taste it says, this is the closest thing
to drinking turpentine I have ever tasted, And then you
take them a moxi if you sip it. The one
we have is a cane sugar formula, not the corns
(23:05):
of versions that are made by Coca Cola. New England.
Up in New England, um ours is actually a cane
sugar version. And if you sip it you may get
a cola, root beer, cinnamon, vanilla, liquorice, black cherry flavor.
You might get one, you might get two or three,
um the other and UM. You know, if you drink
(23:28):
it like so like people drink sodas today, you're gonna
get carbon add cost medicine. So it just depends. There
are such things as sipping sodas now, those type of things.
I will say, you want to try it, you want
to know, you can try at one time. You never
have to taste it again. So I've heard that you
carry kosher coke, and and what makes the taste of
(23:48):
kosher CoA so special? Well number one Coca Cola um
has been trying to sell to me. I haven't carried
kosher coke in since the last time. They wouldn't sell
me any They wouldn't sell me the kosher coke, and
(24:10):
I finally they finally called me about four days before
passover and said we have a palette. Would you like it?
And I said sure, I'll take it. And the kosher
coke is made with cane sugar. The coke. You know,
in order to um, in order to be kosher, it
cannot have spout of sprouted grains. And if so, if
(24:32):
it's made with corn syrup, it'll be sprouted grain and
they can't have anything sprouted anyway. So I tasted, Oh
my goodness, honestly and truly, it was the Coca cor
I remember from you know, thirty years before. It was
just bang, it hit, and it went on. And then
(24:53):
about two weeks after passover, they went out of coat.
So they came in to pick them all up, and
I wouldn't let them pick him up. I just said no,
I said, this is Coca cola. The new here I got.
I got kosher coke, and it wasn't the same. So John, Now,
normally we threw our guests into a fun quiz, but
because we really want a list of amazing sodas we
(25:16):
have to try, what we've decided to do is we're
gonna do a speed round. We're gonna ask you to
name a great soda that we should try in that category,
and we're gonna try to keep these fasts. So so
give us a name and a one sentence on why
that's soda? If that sounds good to you. Are you
ready far away? All right? How about a banana flavored soda? Yes,
and it's called Troppy Call. They changed it from banana
(25:39):
in it a Tropi call and that tastes like um
oh um, jolly rancher banana soda. How about cucumber next
on the list? Okay, Well, Cucumber actually won the Soda
the Year competition, and we had it five years before
anybody else knew anything about it. Nobody would give him
(26:00):
a chance. And it's just incredible hours, just pops with flavor.
It's just crisp and clean. And we're still the only
ones to carry the original formula. It's called it's called
Mr Cucumber, Mr Cucumber. I like that. Well, how about
your favorite flower flavored soda? The rose is still my favorite.
(26:22):
It's very light, very crisp, very delicate. When it first
came on the market, Billy's from Romanian and he told
me he made it with Romanian rose petals and I'm thinking, oh,
no perfume. And then he sent me some sample bottles
and I wanted to know why. The people in the
United States has never been exposed to anything like this before.
It's just delicious. How about your favorite international soda. I
(26:44):
like the Africa from Germany. You know, Africa actually was
here in and then about ten or fifteen years ago
it went away for a while, and now it's back
and it's a it's actually one of the first dry
SODA's made. And then finally, how about your favorite soda
from a small family in the US. A bottler in Pennsylvania,
(27:06):
and they do a red ribbon Pennsylvania Punch. That's actually
the original formula, Delaware Punch. And everybody out here has
been looking for Delaware punch. And of course it's now
part of Coca Cola, and they only make it, I
think in East Texas, and they used corn syrup and
when you taste it, it burns the back of your
(27:27):
throat and you'll throw it away. If you go to Mexico,
you'll find the Delaware punch from about Guadalajara South And
this is the original formula. The little bottler found the formula.
If I told you the story, you would laugh forever
on it. We'll have to hear that. Well. I hope
everyone who visits l A will get a chance to
stop by Galco's or purchase some of the amazing SODA's
online at Soda pop stop dot com. But John has
(27:50):
been such a pleasure chatting with you. Thanks so much
for joining us on Part Time Genius. You're very welcome,
and thank you very much for calling. Welcome back to
Part Time Genius. So before the break, we were talking
(28:10):
about Pepsi making in roads in the African American community.
And you know, it's funny to think about Pepsis supporting
Beyonce while coke was a Taylor Swift drink. But it
isn't as clear cut as that. And for years you
were telling me that Pepsi was actually considered a Republican drink, right, Yeah,
it's strange. So Pepsi first got known as a Republican
brand when it gave money to Joseph McCarthy like, which
(28:32):
Hunt McCarthy, Yeah, the same. So Pepsi wasn't interested in
his politics, but they were interested in the fact that
he had a seat on the Sugar Committee. And when
it got out that Pepsi had paid him twenty thou
dollars through a lobbyist, McCarthy defended himself by saying, quote,
I don't answer charges, I make them nice. Yeah, and
he got the nickname the Pepsi Cola Kid after that.
(28:53):
But for the most part, presidents like FDR JFK. Carter
mostly Democrats, with the exception of Eisenhower. They were all
loyal to Coca Cola. Johnson even had a button at
his Oval office desk that dispensed coke for him. But
you were saying before that Nixon was a Pepsi man. Yeah,
he definitely was. And I didn't know any of this
before we did the show, but this might be my
(29:14):
favorite story in here. When he was VP, Nixon was
pals with this guy, Donald Kendall, who's this executive Pepsi
at the time, and it's unclear whether there was money
being exchanged or not, but they're definitely good friends. And Kendall,
who isn't supposed to be there, finds his way to Russia,
where Nixon is about to meet with Kristef for the
famous Kitchen debates, and before the event, Kendall tells Nixon
(29:36):
it'd be great for Pepsi if a bottle could find
its way into Christof's hands, and Nixon says, quote, don't worry,
I'll do it, and he does. Like he actually convinces
Kristef to take a swig of Pepsi, and Pepsi of
course gloats about this because the picture ends up on
the front page of American papers and papers all over
the globe, and it seems like they've taken it to
(29:57):
the USSR and Christef's finally getting a taste of democracy.
But then it gets crazier that well, Nixon loses a
bid for the presidency in nineteen sixty and then one
for California governor in nineteen sixty two, so he's wondering
if he even has a shot in politics anymore, though
he's still clearly ambitious, and he goes looking for a
law job. He wants something prestigious and pays well, but
(30:19):
it has to be part time so he can still
campaign and test the waters. And his boy Donald Kendall
hasn't forgotten him. So Kendall spreads the word that any
law firm that picks up Nixon will win Pepsi's business,
and then Pepsi partly pays for Nixon to go on
a world tour, and at every spot he visits and
meets with prime ministers and presidents, he's not only appearing
(30:40):
on newsreel and and he looks presidential which is great
for his upcoming campaign, but he opens the door for
Pepsi to enter each of those markets. And when Nixon
enters the White House in his first month, he appoints
Kendall head of the National Alliance of Businessmen. He helps
smooth the deal with the Soviets where we trade Pepsi
bottling rights for vodka, and he switches out all the
(31:01):
Coke products in the White House for Pepsi, something that
doesn't get reversed until Jimmy Carter comes into office. Wow.
And you know, I mean, I guess none of this
is illegal, but it definitely feels ethically murky. Well, being
in with politicians is a good strategy, especially when you're
at war. And and Coke and Pepsi definitely were all right.
So so we haven't talked as much about Coke's dominance,
(31:21):
and they've clearly used the same, if if not maybe
even smarter tactics from time to time. And they're they're
advertising was of course genius, you know, to teach the
world the Seeing Anthem, which I think we all know
was written by Don Draper, at least that's what I
learned from Madman. But but they did quite a bit
of embracing of flower power and then they're mean Joe
Green ad. But you know, their business intelligence was also
(31:44):
super savvy. Jimmy Carter referred to Coke as a built
in state department because if they're incredible connections and international intel.
They were in China, you know, talking with politicians six
years before an American embassy was even established there. And
when Carter gave Portugal a own, Portugal, who had had
a sixty year ban on Coke, suddenly opened their gates.
(32:05):
I mean there's a lot of dirty tactics and smart
business at work from Coke's and to secure their dominance.
But I think the single biggest blow to Coke and
the col O wars, I mean it's got to be
the Pepsi challenge, Oh definitely. I mean it led to
Coke's biggest crisis of confidence New Coke. Yeah, and and
and let's talk a little bit about why the Pepsi
challenge was so effective. To begin with, it equated a
(32:27):
sip and a blind taste test with a soda preference.
I mean that's genius. And and Pepsi was sweeter than Coke,
so it almost always won the test. And because it
was so simple to do. People started doing this at
home with their friends and and choosing pepsi. According to
a Slate piece, by nineteen eighty three, pepsi was out
selling coke in supermarkets and it was just because of
(32:49):
the fast food tie ins and larger infrastructure of soda
machines that helped Coke manage to keep this lead. So
the ads for Coke do in this period are baffling.
I mean, there's there's one, and I'll post this on Facebook,
but it's a response to the pepsi challenge from a
good old boy making fun of the challenge. He's just
like sitting in a chair and saying, we don't need
the challenge. And and the initial strategy was simply to
(33:11):
poke fun at it and try to swat it away.
And and that clearly didn't work because by the mid
eighties Coke was terrified. I mean, they've been playing with
the idea of changing their formula, but now felt like
a good time. And this secrecy was amazing. I was
just reading about some of this, and so anyone that
worked on the ad campaign at McCann Erickson had to
sign a special confidentiality agreement forbidding them to talk about
(33:35):
it with their friends, or their colleagues or their spouses.
They even had special briefcases meant for carrying the cans
and all the paraphernalia. There were security firms hired and
special offices employed. Even people who worked for Coke didn't
know that this was in the works. And so after
testing a new formula on two hundred thousand people in
blind taste tests, then they watched them prefer this drink
(33:58):
over the classic. They felt eight about new coke, and
of course you know what happens next. Yeah, new Coke,
new Coax exactly, and that the press conference announcing the change,
bottlers were not thrilled, and PEPSI basically saw this as
a victory in the coal war. They take out this
full page newspaper ad and several papers and it says,
(34:18):
after eighties, seven years of going eyeball to eyeball, the
other guy blames I kind of love that, honestly, And
they give everyone in the company the Friday off since
it's just been this long battle, and then they see
that they deserved it. I love that, And and obviously
that gloating had to hurt, but not as much as
the customer response. Right, Well, it's amazing. I mean, there's
no amount of parades or fireworks or smart ads could
(34:41):
turn it around. And the press wrote nasty reviews of
the new beverage. According to this Sabotage Times article, Coke
ads were booed when they were played on the big
screen at Houston Astroca. Apparently customers filed a class action
demanding the old formula back. And that wasn't the worst part.
Coke got forty thousand complaint letters and was receiving eight
(35:02):
thousand angry calls every day. It was just insane, that's ridiculous.
But when they pulled a Domino's and fest up to
their mistake and re released the classic formula, that turned
things around, right. It was a big deal. If you
may remember this that Peter Jennings interrupted General Hospital to
announce the breaking news when it happened, and it couldn't
have made Coke fans happier. So returning to the original
(35:26):
formula was this massive marketing coup and and Coke sales
shot up immediately. So we definitely have a few more
topics to hit. And again, there's so much good stuff
it's hard to hit it all, but I do want
to talk for a second about the non blind study
where tasters did the Pepsi challenge but knew what they
were drinking. So in the blind study, both soft drink
stimulated the same part of the brain, the part that's
(35:48):
used to determine flavor. But when the drinks were uncovered,
as Slate reports, Coke saw the spike in the prefrontal cortex,
which some scientists think is because of all the associations
and emotions and all the advertising related attachments we have
with coke, which is pretty nuts, right, It definitely isn't.
But I think we have time for one more political story,
(36:09):
and why don't we tap a Republican hero this time,
and that's Ronald Reagan. So Reagan has kind of a
funny story, like he didn't think pepsi selling to communists
was that big a deal, and so he wanted to
see open markets. So in his speech he dismissed the
small time thinking of selling pepsi to Siberians. So he
was a coke guy then, right, Well not exactly. While
(36:30):
Pepsi was signing talents like Michael Jackson, they were simultaneously
signaling to the public that they were this Republican brand,
but from what I can tell, Reagan was impartial, and
both brands were sending space on the Challenger, which I'm
not sure would have happened on Nixon or Carter's watch.
Can't you just take a can of sewed up into space? No?
I mean Coke changed their formula again to make something
(36:52):
more aerodynamically flavorful, and NASA was happy to put it
in astronaut's hands. And then Pepsi found out about this,
and and they end a supposed fourteen million dollars developing
their own can, which kind of looked like a bottle
of shaving cream. And when NASA, like when they launched
with four cans of coke for the day shift and
four cans of Pepsi for the night shift, it turned
(37:14):
into this total disappointment. Oh yeah, why is that so?
According to Smithsonian Magazine, the astronauts and the Spirit of
Scientific Inquiry staged a Pepsi challenge of their own, and
their verdict was blaw on both counts, out the soda
didn't remind them of home, and both cans were a
waste of time, hard to place the astronauts you know.
(37:35):
Of course, the cola wars would continue after this and
Pepsi would branch into snack foods and fast food joints,
and both brands would buy up a bunch of competitors abroad,
invest in their diet sodas, and branch into waters. But
you know, today, Cola wars feel like a thing of
the past, to be honest, and something you might tell
your kids about in passing, like rotary phones or floppy
(37:56):
disk And of course R C. Colas I knew you'd
slipped in Arci Cola in here somewhere. Well, I just
had to. I mean, it's two interesting, so just quickly
to talk about this. So so Arcicola also started in
Georgia in the early nine hundred's. Actually this was in
the forties. It launched something that sounds eerily familiar. These
were these public taste tests where arc Cola went head
(38:18):
to head with Coke and Pepsi. Now all the contests
were rigged, but they were organized across the nation. And
of course arc was also quick to capitalize on celebrities
and they got Being Crosby and Shirley Temple, I think
Lucy old Ball, all these big names to shill for it.
But the biggest and smartest thing Arcicola, ever, did, was
basically to launch the diet cola market with the diet
(38:41):
right in nineteen sixty two. So this idea of a
healthy soda, it's stunned the competitors. And it was another
twenty years before diet coke came out. So what happened
with arc Cola, Like, why didn't they win the cola wars?
Have you tasted one? Actually, what happened is the sugar
lobby came out with uns blazing and set their scientists
(39:01):
to destroy cyclamate, which was the sweetener that was being used.
A report showed that the sweetener caused cancer and rats.
I mean forget the fact that rats were basically being
subjected the equivalent of five hundred diet rites a day.
And so America banned the additive that actually is still
being sold in some parts of Europe today. Does then
Arci Cola made another mistake when they bought and mismanaged Arby's,
(39:25):
and and then there were some tax of Asian charges
And now you mostly find Arci Cola and the onion
headlines like this one from it says m R. C.
Colas celebrates its tenth purchase. So my favorite onion story
about coke is uh, Pepsi CEO's wife buys coke when
she's mad at him. It's how when he comes home
(39:45):
from work the next morning, the fridge might be fully
stocked with diet cokes and and we could obviously trade
onion stories for a while, but let's trade some facts instead.
It's time for the fact off. All right, I'll kick
us off here. So did you know that when Coke
(40:06):
wanted to up the price of coke from five cents
and they didn't want to move to ten cents, they
asked Eisenhower to commission a seven and a half cent corn.
Though he was hunting buddies with the Coke CEO and
even a fan of coke, he clearly didn't see a
reason for doing this. So one of Pepsi's best selling
products in China is Pepsi Cola chicken flavored lace chips,
(40:28):
which feels like the holy Grail of synergy. Oh man,
if they could just make a taco shell out of it.
So apparently cooking chicken in a cola soy sauce mixes
like super popular in the country, and so the flavor
isn't as unusual as you might think. Actually, I have
to be honest, I would try that, just like I
have so many of their other products. But over the years,
Cocus had plenty of celebrities endorsed the product, from lebron
(40:51):
to David Bowie, Christina Aguilera to the Beatles. But perhaps
the one I would have never guessed, Elvis was a cokeman.
And of course Pepsi has their own arsenal of stars,
from Madonna to Michael Jackson to Beyonce. But I'm going
to take this back to when Pepsi went to Russia
and the Nixon era. So apparently the Soviets were super
excited about the beverage because they thought it would decrease
(41:13):
alcoholism and coal has had obviously been these liquid mascots
of temperance over the years. But when Donald Kendall was
taken to soci to see how Russians were taking to
the drink, he realized no one was drinking Pepsi straight.
It was only being used as a mixer for vodka.
So while Coke was happy to allow bottling of the
product in Germany up until the US created this trade
(41:34):
embargo in World War Two. That's when they stopped the
head of Coca Cola and Deutsche Land. Max Keith had
to come up with this new product. He was super
resourceful and so he used what he called the leftovers
of leftovers this is way and the pulp residue from
cider mills, and he created a new line of sodas,
which you might know now as Fanta. Oh that's crazy.
(41:55):
So speaking of Germany, the absolute weirdest thing I found
online was these fobs for your watch that were produced
by Coke and they were in swastika shapes. Oh, that's weird.
Did have anything to do with like a Nazi allegiance
or something. No, So that's the craziest part. These were
manufactured in the nineteen twenties, and that's because the swastika
was obviously hijacked by the Nazis, But before then it
(42:16):
was this Hindu and Buddhist good luck symbol and it
was seen that way around the world. Wow, that's pretty
creepy and weird. Alright, So here's what I think you'll like.
Just like Coke and PEPSI couldn't displace Vita Cola from
formerly East German regions, or like you were saying earlier,
that thumbs up in India. One soft drink they couldn't
beat in Brazil comes from a coke distributor and it's
(42:37):
it's it's so called pink Dream, and it's a beverage
called Guarana, Jesus or Hazer's. It's it's definitely Hazers. I
got too excited by Jesus name stamped on a can.
But the flavor comes from the guarana plant, which is
a stimulant, and according to the drink's creator, taste isn't
the only thing it stimulates. So I also love the
idea of this pink soda with Jesus's name on the
(42:59):
side of it. So I think you win this week's
fact off. But listeners, thank you so much for tuning in.
And if you have a great coke or pepsi fact
we missed, be sure to shoot us a note on Facebook, Twitter,
or call into our seven fact hotline at one eight
four four pt. Genius. By the way, do you know
what my favorite soda name is? No, not grape Pico,
(43:20):
It's Beverly Supposedly it's the worst tasting soda at Coca
Cola World, Like, we should go check it out. Thanks
again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of
(43:41):
how stuff works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant
people who do the important things we couldn't even begin
to understand. Christa McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown
made the theme song and does the MIXI mixy sound.
Jerry Roland does the exact producer thing. Gay Bluesier is
our lead researcher, with support from the Research Army including
Austin Thompson, Nolan Around and Lucas Adams and Eve. Jeff
(44:01):
Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us. Do we do?
We forget Jason? Jason who
I guess what will what's that man go? So you
(00:02):
know everyone in India's cricket crazy, right, So how do
you mean? Well, in India, like growing up, if you
went to almost any kids home, they figured out some
way to play mini cricket in their bedroom or their
hallway or the alley next to the house or wherever, Like,
no matter the space, there's a tiny battened ball and
a set of home rules people have for when you
come over. My point is crickets a total national obsession. Yeah,
(00:24):
And I know we've talked about this a little bit before,
you know, as opposed to hear where there's so many
proteins and college boards that that compete for all of
our attention. Right. So that's just background for the story
I wanted to tell you. When I was in India
in two thousand three, my uncle poured me a glass
of Pepsi blue and I thought, that's weird, Like they
sold it for a year or two in the States before.
But I had no idea that the blueberry flavor would
(00:46):
translate to India. So I asked, they make Pepsi blue here?
And my uncle's in advertising and super aware of campaigns,
and he said Oh yeah, Pepsi made the special blue
drink just to support India's cricket team. Yeah, so like India,
his team wears blue. So the ad story when they
introduced Pepsi Blue there was that Pepsi made this blue
drink just for the Indian market and all over like
(01:08):
all these cricket fans were happily guzzling the stuff like
out of some sort of warped patriotism. But obviously it
was like this clever way to one up Coke and
endear themselves to the market as they were phasing out
the beverage abroad. But the whole thing made me think
of the Cola Wars and the lens Pepsi and Coke
go to to outdo one another all over the world.
And that's what today's show is all about. Yeah, welcome
(01:49):
to part time Genius sim Will Pearson And as always
I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesho Ticketer and
the man on the other side of the soundproof glass
wearing a beer helmet with a Coke on one side,
and I think of Pepsi on the other as our
friend and producer Tristan McNeil Mango. I know we're going
to dig into the Cola Wars and and there's so
much good stuff here. Honestly, can't wait to talk about R. C.
(02:10):
Cola and Richard Nixon and of course the official soda
of the KKK. Honestly, there's so much good stuff we
had to leave on the cutting room floor, Like, we'll
probably have to revisit this topic. I honestly, I hope
we do. But before we get to any of that,
we should probably handle a couple of quick corrections and
notes from readers. So let's start here. There was one
that we got that the most comments about this was
(02:32):
your reading of the word pasty. Notice how I just
said it right, and your dog breed or regional treat quiz.
It was in the Dog Show episode a week or
so ago. Yeah, so I thought it was pronounced pasty
like the nipple covering in a burlesque show. But apparently
it's passed in and I think both here in Patterson
and Babs Johnson visage where we're the first to correct us,
(02:53):
and and also about our misuse of the word youper
So if you do messages with your addresses, we will
pony express you a T shirt. I like how it's
possible that you mispronounced both of their names. They definitely
they may have to issue another correction of that. All right,
And speaking of geography eras, we also made a minor
gaff in our Theme Parks episode where we told readers
that eth Link theme Park is in Amsterdam. It's actually
(03:16):
about an hour and fifteen minutes south of the city.
I love this that we hear from listeners on this
So so if you traveled all the way to Amsterdam
and you've been wandering around the city looking for a
theme park, we are so so so sorry, but also
kind of laughing at that. So the Twitter user juiced
over wrote in about that, So hit us up with
your address, juiceton, and we'll send you a shirt too.
(03:39):
And of course, for all you other listeners, if you
don't happen to get our attention on Facebook or Twitter,
you can always hit us up at part Time Genius
at how stuff works dot com or on our seven
fact hotline one eight four four pt genius, both of
which we checked constantly, and that fact hotline is still
seven right, Stevenesome, that's so exciting. Alright, So, Mago, I
know you and I don't love war, but there there
(04:01):
is one exception to this. We love Cola Wars, and
when it comes down to it, I know you and
I both fall in the coke camp. As you know,
I'm also a diet Mountain Dew fan, but I've never
asked there are there other sodas that you like? Well,
I'm certainly a coke loyalist, though I'm also a huge
root beer fan. Like as a kid, I remember thinking
it was the ultimate treat, like Snoopy drank it, Dennis
(04:23):
the Menace, all my heroes. And I also had this
dream that someday when I grew up, i'd have a
root beer seller in my house, just filled with different
types of chilled root beer. That's nice, And this actually
came true, right, don't you have a root beer? Absolutely
a bunch of kid dreaming. I'm guessing the root beer
seller was smacked between your comic book library and your
indoor petting zoo, but both of which you actually have
(04:44):
now as well. That's true. But the thing is, I
actually do love sodas. And it sounds ridiculous, but I
actually like the fizziness when you first poured into a
glass and you feel those little bubbles popping up against
your face, it is that ridiculous, but that's what I
love about it. And I like the soda reminds me
of my childhood, and and also like I'm fascinated by
new flavors. I love spicy cola variations like thumbs Up
(05:07):
from India, and I dig trying weird fruity sodas from
other countries. But I think part of the reason I've
always like Coke so much is that the brandings always
appeal to me. Like my family used to be time
more the newsweek family, and and uh, they like rolling
Stone over spin, and we've generally preferred the classic version
of things. Well, actually, since you mentioned that branding is
(05:28):
probably a good place to start with this, and you
and I have done so many coke and pepsi origin
stories over the years that I don't think either one
of us that want to get into the beginnings and
talk about cocaine and the drinks and all that stuff.
I mean, it's interesting, but we've talked a lot about it.
So for this episode, we're definitely more interested in the
fights between them. Sure, but why don't we give just
(05:48):
like a one sense background about them. So both drinks,
as most people know, started as tonics for ailments. Coke,
which launched in eight six, did have wine in it
originally and cocaine, and eventually it lost those sinful qualities
by prohibition. It was playing itself up as the great
national temperance beverage. And and the fact that it was
the right color Damasca's shot of whiskey like that didn't
(06:10):
hurt well. And of course Pepsi wasn't that far behind.
It launched in eight this was in North Carolina, and
it has a similar background as a tonic aside from
the whole cocaine did. But all right, but back to
the branding that the thing that surprised me, and this
kept coming up in our research, was how Coke has
always marketed itself as a wholesome and nostalgic brand, and
(06:31):
they've been playing up this idea that by taking a
sip you can pause and revel in the American way
of life forever, and that Pepsi has always been on
the other side of America. You know, this new, energetic,
maybe even rebellious choice. Yeah, it's it's the choice of
a new generation. I mean, I know Coke was served
on the front lines of battles and it aligned itself
with war efforts, and they also helped popularize how Santa
(06:53):
Claus looks like. Santa wasn't always depicted as this jolly
man wearing red and in early cartoons he could be
skinny and kind of scary looking and even gnome like.
But we should talk about why Coke was drawing Santa later,
because it was like this ingenious way to get people
to drink this refreshing summertime beverage in the winter. But
why do you think they stuck to this idea of
(07:13):
American wholesomeness. I was actually kind of wondering the same thing,
and you know, part of it's due to the association
with prohibition. But then I heard this Planet Money on
on how coke managed to sell for the same price
for so many years. Have you heard this episode? I mean,
I love the show, but I haven't heard that. What's
the story? It's amazing. So so for seventy years, from
eighteen eighty six until the nineteen fifties, the price of
(07:36):
coke never changed, and you think about what's gone on
in that time. You had a couple of world wars,
a financial crash, along with the Roaring twenties and some
other prosperity. So there was a lot of up and down,
and so David caston Bomb and Planet Money tried to
figure out how cokes could sustain this price for so long.
And so what's the answer. Why didn't they raise the
price from nickel when they needed to? Well, this all
(07:57):
goes back to Asa Candler, who own Coke for a
while and went on to become mayor of Atlanta. And
before he realized it'd be worth anything, Candler signed away
the bottling rights to a franchise e. You know, he
was thinking the real business would always be at the
soda fountains, and he really didn't see bowling becoming much
of a business. So the price listed on the contract
(08:18):
had no end date. It was in perpetuity. That's odd.
So Coke could never really make more money by upping
the price of their syrup. Yeah, that's right. So so
they had to sell the syrup at a fixed price.
And they also couldn't control the prices people were selling
bottle cokes for Like, if someone wanted to sell a
bottle of coke for seven cents, there wasn't much they
could do to stop them. But to take power back,
(08:39):
they did this ingenious thing. They started putting up advertising
everywhere that the price of a coke was five cents.
So I've actually seen old coke memorabilia that had coke
just five cents on it. Yeah, that's because they slapped
it everywhere. This was on signs and buildings, billboards, everywhere
they could think to put it. So their philosophy was,
you know, they couldn't tell bottlers how much to sell
(09:00):
coke for, but they could tell buyers how much to
expect a bottle for. So if anyone tried to up
the cost, the savvy coke drinker would know that they
were being fleeced. So how does this help Coke? Well
in a couple of ways. So first off, since the
cost they could sell syrup to bottlers was fixed, the
only way they could make more money was to sell
more coke, and so a national campaign advertising everywhere was
(09:24):
the only way to speed that up. It's what Coke
is invested in from early on and why they've always
had this coherent ad strategy. But secondly, and this is
what we were getting to initially with the wholesomeness. When
when you're doing all this advertising and you're appealing to
all of America from the nineteen hundreds on the easiest
way to sell is is very wholesome, but emotional campaign
(09:47):
and nostalgia is perfect for that. I mean, this is
my take on it at least. And actually there's so
much good stuff and the Planet Money episode that I
don't want to spoil it for you. From how Coke
maintain the prices soda fountains to what this to do
with the gold standards. It's a crazy story. But actually
there is one more fact I want to tell you.
Oh yeah, what's that? Well, when Coke wanted to finally
(10:09):
up the price after seventy years of charging five cents,
their vending machines only took nickels, so they had to
figure something out. But the company didn't want to raise
the price to ten cents, so they came up with
this evil, genius way to up the price in their machines.
Every ninth bottle distributed was called an official blank, and
it was just an empty souvenir bottle. So it was
(10:31):
like Coke Roulette and it might just come up empty
for you. Basically, eight people in a row would get
cokes and then the ninth would be empty. I mean,
how ridiculous. And the executives were stoked because it up
the price of a coke from five cents to a
little more than six cents, but fans thought it was idiotic,
and the company quickly stopped. Obviously. Yeah, so I've got
(10:53):
to say I'm I'm not a huge Pepsi drinker, but
some of their early history is really fascinating to me too. Alright,
we'll tell us a little bit about that. Well, this
is actually in pure contrast to what you're talking about.
So unlike coke, which generally had the backing of the
temperance movement and supplied the troops and survived the Great Depression,
all without changing its price, which honestly is remarkable, Pepsi struggled.
(11:16):
Like there were a few highlights along the way, Pepsi
basically made inroads by selling their product for cheaper. The
first national ad jingle this song called Nickel Nickel, which
was animated and so popular it became this hit single.
But it also promoted the fact that Pepsi was a deal.
It was a dimes worth a soda for Justin Nickel,
and the brand wanted to appeal to consumers on the budget.
(11:37):
But what felt revolutionary to me about Pepsi was that
in a few years after this guy named Walter mac
took over the company, Pepsi started hiring black college grads
and targeting the black market in America, which is obviously
very different from what Coke would have been doing and
would not have been part of their nostalgia campaign. Yeah,
definitely not. And and to me, this is part of
(11:58):
the identity Pepsi is going to take on exciting new
rebellious And remember this is seven years before Jackie Robinson
had broken the color barrier in sports. And I should
tell you so most of the story comes from the
real Pepsi Challenge, this wonderful book by Wall Street Journal
reporter Stephanie Capparell, and she went out and found the
interns and employees who ran and worked on the Quote
(12:19):
Negro Markets team. But one of the things Caparell points
out is that athletics were so much easier to integrate,
like you were picking one or two talented athletes to
play in a game. And as heated as that was,
it didn't pose the same level of threat to America
that giving away white collar jobs to qualified black employees
seemed to. And to be clear, PEPSI being the cheaper
(12:41):
soda was already the preferred black beverage. But once Mac
hired this team, Pepsi started doing these really innovative things,
like they start using black models and ads like almost
a decade before Coke and before anyone really, And they
also featured black college graduates in their campaigns, associating Pepsi
with black excellence, and they showed his middle class black
families having fun. They basically go against all the Aunt
(13:04):
Jemima and Uncle Ben stereotyping that they referred to as
slave in the box ads, and they shifted perceptions and
the impact is felt everywhere right like, so Pepsi ads
and magazines and sponsored sections celebrating black achievements start getting
used in classrooms and colleges, and the team does almost
too good a job, like everywhere they go, and they
(13:24):
went to black churches, colleges, civic centers, and of course
bottling plants. Everywhere they go. They're successful. And to me,
this is really where the color War starts, because Pepsi
starts out selling Coke and bottle form, and Coke's contracts
with the government and fountain shops keep them ahead. But
the team is so good that Pepsi's Walter Mac, who
is a liberal and and truly believes in integration, but
(13:47):
he's really a businessman. First, he has to go out
and separate himself from the black market saying and he
uses the most harmful words, words we're not going to
say on this program, but he basically tells the white
audience of investors that Pepsi's asked rations are not going
to be a black drink, and to balance this liberal perception,
they market themselves as Southern Goodness Wow, which is crazy.
(14:08):
But from my notes, Pepsi was already the number two
coal in America, and this was even before Mac took over, right, Yeah,
so they've grown under Charles guth who who owned Loft
Candy Company and was looking for a cheaper fountain drink
than coke, so he bought the bankrupt Pepsi in one
and inserted the drink in his fountain shops and helped
it rise. But things really heated up after that period.
(14:30):
That said, one thing I love is all the early
knockoff colas that we're trying to compete around the time.
But we should probably break the chat with our special guests.
But why don't you throw me a few of those
before we do. Yeah, so cherocola, candy Cola, rock socola,
Taca cola, cocla, it's acola kiss cola. There was even
a cocola. I don't think there's any way they could
(14:50):
get away with that thing now. Actually, the dumbest I
read about was this cola meant to appeal to fans
of the KKK after Birth of a Nation came out.
It was this niche beverage called glue cocola. It's so weird,
like three k's obviously, but I mean, between the hood
and the burning crosses and all that sweltering summer heat,
what better way to cool down than when ice cold
(15:11):
Cluca cola? So stupid? You know, I really hope you
gave an all white can good question. But well, while
we looked that up, why don't we pause for a break.
Our guest today is John Nice. He's the owner of
pretty much as soda mecca that people actually make pilgrimages too.
(15:32):
It's it's called Galcos Soda pop stop in Los Angeles,
and John stocks his aisles with over seven hundred incredible
flavors of fizzy beverages. So John, welcome to Part time genius.
Well thank you very much. So when did you first
get obsessed with SODA's? Oh you know, when I was
a little kid, my uncle came up to the to
(15:53):
the holiday I think it was a Thanksgiving holiday dinner
and and he opened these courts bottles of Clicko Club.
He put them on the table and then he told
us you can't have any until you finish everything on
your plate. Well that was pretty depressing for a little
kid that never had an opportunity to drink any Sauda's before.
(16:17):
And and that's really about the place that it began.
And then when I was a little older, I went
to work with my father and the big deal was
having a Dad's root beer for lunch every single day.
Why did uh Galco start specializing in carbonated beverages? Oh well,
all you know, we we've been doing this about eighteen
(16:39):
nineteen years now. And we said we started all of this,
and what happened was we were going broke. What's really
interesting about going broke is no matter what you do,
you can't make a bad decision. They're all they're all
winning decisions. You can't make a bad decision. And the
pepsicole of what had happened was the chain store as
(17:00):
had bought the distribution channels for the little markets and
they closed them down, and when they reopened them, everything
was like ten to fifteen dollars a case more expensive.
And what they were really doing was getting rid of
the cap on supermarket pricing, because if the supermarkets sold
their products for more than a little mom and pop,
everybody knew they were charging too much. What happened was
(17:21):
we um went out and we're looking for something to do,
and we decided on on soda pop. You know, there
the coke and Pepsi had bought all the shelf space
and the supermarkets and there was no choice. And the
Pepsi Cola man came in. He said, I'm going to
give you the best buyer. If you're going to get
on a palette of Pepsi cola cans, I'm only going
to charge you five nine a case. And I looked
(17:44):
at him and I said, how much pass am I
going to make on that hundred case pellet? And he said, oh,
about thirty dollars And I said, well, thank you, but
no thank you. I'm going to send my customers down
to the supermarket down the street. They're on sale down
there for dollar nine. Well back. He looked at me
and he says, you can't do that. Pepsi colas advance
and I, I mean, your customers are gonna demand did
you carry Pepsi cola? And I said, well, my customers
(18:04):
they would be happy. I was honest with him and
tell him they can buy him toeper and I can
buy him. Why do you want to buy him from me? Well,
he turned around and walked out. And the next day
he came in with his regional manager and his area manager.
They walked around, they looked, never said a word to me,
walked out, never came back. And boy was I angry.
I was so angry. Nobody in here could talk to me.
(18:25):
And about two weeks later, the light bulb clicked on
and said, you know what, you ought to thank Pepsi
coal of reminding you that you own your shelf space.
They don't, and you can sell anything you want. And
that's when I started looking for sodas and I found
twenty five little independent brands. Right off the bat. They
were still in glass bottles, they were still using cane sugar,
and they were delicious. They weren't like the cook and
(18:48):
pepsis of the world were using. All corns are up
and really dull and flavor. And I know that everybody's
taste is different, but are are there any flavors You've
been skeptical about it first, but have been really surprised
by after you tasted them. Well as a cola. Yes, Um,
there was this call and it was called Stiffy, and
(19:09):
I'm looking at it. I'm going, h I don't know
about this. I really don't know about it. And then
I tasted it. It was lemon cola. It was so
crisp and clean. I mean it became a fan very
very soon. And then there was another one. You know,
like everybody's familiar with phentaments from England, and that's actually
(19:31):
a ginger cola and it's rude like a beer. And
somebody in the New York Times about ten fifteen years
ago called it the best cola ever made. And it's
very good, don't get me wrong. But I started wondering
how many coals had he ever tasted. This episode has
been mostly about the wars between Coke and Pepsi, but
(19:52):
we we should have done an episode on on the
wars between Pepsi and John nice. That sounds like, oh well,
come on in here. I got a letter from them
said they were gonna sue me, oh no, for carrying
cola from Mexico. And this is before they started making
it there. And I said, you know, we're gonna sue you.
And I said for what, Well, you're selling Mexican pepsi
(20:15):
And I said, and I started laughing that the assourney.
You saw that from some big law firm, Patty something
or another in Chicago. And I said, I said, you
gotta be kidding. Everybody in Los Angeles has pepsi cola
from from Mexico. And he says, yeah, but you're getting
the publicity, so we're gonna sue you. And I said, look,
(20:37):
what do you want? Oh well, I just said, send
me a letter, that's all. You gotta send me a
letter I wanted in writing. He sent me a letter,
so I framed it and put it on the wall. Well,
I did want to ask, you know, you were talking
about these family owned soda creators that put their products
and glass bottles. What makes a glass bottle so much better?
(20:58):
The way product goes into a glass bottle is the
way the product comes out. It has a much longer
shelf life, and it holds the carbonation. Everything is held
much better. Um, if you put it in plastic, it leaks.
If you put it in an aluminum, aluminum leaks. You know.
I get a big kick out of listening to these
(21:19):
beer companies tell you how great the beer cans are
today because they're lined. Well, I want you to know
the beer cans have always been lined with the protective coating.
But that doesn't keep the beer earth or the soda
pop or whatever it is in it from eating through
the lining. And it happens, and it tastes terrible. It
(21:39):
winds up tasting like tin or aluminum, one of the two,
or plastic. I don't care. But when things go into glass,
the way they go in is the way they come out.
I had a bottler called me about a year ago
and said that he found some of his ginger ale
that was made about thirty or forty years ago up
in the attic, a couple of bottles, and if the
(22:00):
young kid was going to throw him out, and he said, no,
don't do that, just put him in a refrigerator. He
put him in a refrigerator and he tasted them the
next day, and they were really The young kid was
very surprised that that it's still had flavor and it
still tasted okay. I mean it wasn't great, but it
was okay. So I'm curious if you carry any of
(22:20):
these novelty products that we sometimes see, Like we've read
about this disgusting ranch soda, and I don't know if
there's there's any of these that you decide to carry,
or any of them that you actually like. No, I
don't carry them. You're gonna buy them one time and
you'll never buy him again. I don't have time or
shall space enough she'll space to carry that kind of
a product. If you want to try something that's very different, okay, um,
(22:44):
how about a spruce spirit that tastes like a pine tree.
One fellow walks and he tasted, and he goes, this
is my new favorite soda. The next person that comes
along and taste it says, this is the closest thing
to drinking turpentine I have ever tasted, And then you
take them a moxi if you sip it. The one
we have is a cane sugar formula, not the corns
(23:05):
of versions that are made by Coca Cola. New England.
Up in New England, um ours is actually a cane
sugar version. And if you sip it you may get
a cola, root beer, cinnamon, vanilla, liquorice, black cherry flavor.
You might get one, you might get two or three,
um the other and UM. You know, if you drink
(23:28):
it like so like people drink sodas today, you're gonna
get carbon add cost medicine. So it just depends. There
are such things as sipping sodas now, those type of things.
I will say, you want to try it, you want
to know, you can try at one time. You never
have to taste it again. So I've heard that you
carry kosher coke, and and what makes the taste of
(23:48):
kosher CoA so special? Well number one Coca Cola um
has been trying to sell to me. I haven't carried
kosher coke in since the last time. They wouldn't sell
me any They wouldn't sell me the kosher coke, and
(24:10):
I finally they finally called me about four days before
passover and said we have a palette. Would you like it?
And I said sure, I'll take it. And the kosher
coke is made with cane sugar. The coke. You know,
in order to um, in order to be kosher, it
cannot have spout of sprouted grains. And if so, if
(24:32):
it's made with corn syrup, it'll be sprouted grain and
they can't have anything sprouted anyway. So I tasted, Oh
my goodness, honestly and truly, it was the Coca cor
I remember from you know, thirty years before. It was
just bang, it hit, and it went on. And then
(24:53):
about two weeks after passover, they went out of coat.
So they came in to pick them all up, and
I wouldn't let them pick him up. I just said no,
I said, this is Coca cola. The new here I got.
I got kosher coke, and it wasn't the same. So John, Now,
normally we threw our guests into a fun quiz, but
because we really want a list of amazing sodas we
(25:16):
have to try, what we've decided to do is we're
gonna do a speed round. We're gonna ask you to
name a great soda that we should try in that category,
and we're gonna try to keep these fasts. So so
give us a name and a one sentence on why
that's soda? If that sounds good to you. Are you
ready far away? All right? How about a banana flavored soda? Yes,
and it's called Troppy Call. They changed it from banana
(25:39):
in it a Tropi call and that tastes like um
oh um, jolly rancher banana soda. How about cucumber next
on the list? Okay, Well, Cucumber actually won the Soda
the Year competition, and we had it five years before
anybody else knew anything about it. Nobody would give him
(26:00):
a chance. And it's just incredible hours, just pops with flavor.
It's just crisp and clean. And we're still the only
ones to carry the original formula. It's called it's called
Mr Cucumber, Mr Cucumber. I like that. Well, how about
your favorite flower flavored soda? The rose is still my favorite.
(26:22):
It's very light, very crisp, very delicate. When it first
came on the market, Billy's from Romanian and he told
me he made it with Romanian rose petals and I'm thinking, oh,
no perfume. And then he sent me some sample bottles
and I wanted to know why. The people in the
United States has never been exposed to anything like this before.
It's just delicious. How about your favorite international soda. I
(26:44):
like the Africa from Germany. You know, Africa actually was
here in and then about ten or fifteen years ago
it went away for a while, and now it's back
and it's a it's actually one of the first dry
SODA's made. And then finally, how about your favorite soda
from a small family in the US. A bottler in Pennsylvania,
(27:06):
and they do a red ribbon Pennsylvania Punch. That's actually
the original formula, Delaware Punch. And everybody out here has
been looking for Delaware punch. And of course it's now
part of Coca Cola, and they only make it, I
think in East Texas, and they used corn syrup and
when you taste it, it burns the back of your
(27:27):
throat and you'll throw it away. If you go to Mexico,
you'll find the Delaware punch from about Guadalajara South And
this is the original formula. The little bottler found the formula.
If I told you the story, you would laugh forever
on it. We'll have to hear that. Well. I hope
everyone who visits l A will get a chance to
stop by Galco's or purchase some of the amazing SODA's
online at Soda pop stop dot com. But John has
(27:50):
been such a pleasure chatting with you. Thanks so much
for joining us on Part Time Genius. You're very welcome,
and thank you very much for calling. Welcome back to
Part Time Genius. So before the break, we were talking
(28:10):
about Pepsi making in roads in the African American community.
And you know, it's funny to think about Pepsis supporting
Beyonce while coke was a Taylor Swift drink. But it
isn't as clear cut as that. And for years you
were telling me that Pepsi was actually considered a Republican drink, right, Yeah,
it's strange. So Pepsi first got known as a Republican
brand when it gave money to Joseph McCarthy like, which
(28:32):
Hunt McCarthy, Yeah, the same. So Pepsi wasn't interested in
his politics, but they were interested in the fact that
he had a seat on the Sugar Committee. And when
it got out that Pepsi had paid him twenty thou
dollars through a lobbyist, McCarthy defended himself by saying, quote,
I don't answer charges, I make them nice. Yeah, and
he got the nickname the Pepsi Cola Kid after that.
(28:53):
But for the most part, presidents like FDR JFK. Carter
mostly Democrats, with the exception of Eisenhower. They were all
loyal to Coca Cola. Johnson even had a button at
his Oval office desk that dispensed coke for him. But
you were saying before that Nixon was a Pepsi man. Yeah,
he definitely was. And I didn't know any of this
before we did the show, but this might be my
(29:14):
favorite story in here. When he was VP, Nixon was
pals with this guy, Donald Kendall, who's this executive Pepsi
at the time, and it's unclear whether there was money
being exchanged or not, but they're definitely good friends. And Kendall,
who isn't supposed to be there, finds his way to Russia,
where Nixon is about to meet with Kristef for the
famous Kitchen debates, and before the event, Kendall tells Nixon
(29:36):
it'd be great for Pepsi if a bottle could find
its way into Christof's hands, and Nixon says, quote, don't worry,
I'll do it, and he does. Like he actually convinces
Kristef to take a swig of Pepsi, and Pepsi of
course gloats about this because the picture ends up on
the front page of American papers and papers all over
the globe, and it seems like they've taken it to
(29:57):
the USSR and Christef's finally getting a taste of democracy.
But then it gets crazier that well, Nixon loses a
bid for the presidency in nineteen sixty and then one
for California governor in nineteen sixty two, so he's wondering
if he even has a shot in politics anymore, though
he's still clearly ambitious, and he goes looking for a
law job. He wants something prestigious and pays well, but
(30:19):
it has to be part time so he can still
campaign and test the waters. And his boy Donald Kendall
hasn't forgotten him. So Kendall spreads the word that any
law firm that picks up Nixon will win Pepsi's business,
and then Pepsi partly pays for Nixon to go on
a world tour, and at every spot he visits and
meets with prime ministers and presidents, he's not only appearing
(30:40):
on newsreel and and he looks presidential which is great
for his upcoming campaign, but he opens the door for
Pepsi to enter each of those markets. And when Nixon
enters the White House in his first month, he appoints
Kendall head of the National Alliance of Businessmen. He helps
smooth the deal with the Soviets where we trade Pepsi
bottling rights for vodka, and he switches out all the
(31:01):
Coke products in the White House for Pepsi, something that
doesn't get reversed until Jimmy Carter comes into office. Wow.
And you know, I mean, I guess none of this
is illegal, but it definitely feels ethically murky. Well, being
in with politicians is a good strategy, especially when you're
at war. And and Coke and Pepsi definitely were all right.
So so we haven't talked as much about Coke's dominance,
(31:21):
and they've clearly used the same, if if not maybe
even smarter tactics from time to time. And they're they're
advertising was of course genius, you know, to teach the
world the Seeing Anthem, which I think we all know
was written by Don Draper, at least that's what I
learned from Madman. But but they did quite a bit
of embracing of flower power and then they're mean Joe
Green ad. But you know, their business intelligence was also
(31:44):
super savvy. Jimmy Carter referred to Coke as a built
in state department because if they're incredible connections and international intel.
They were in China, you know, talking with politicians six
years before an American embassy was even established there. And
when Carter gave Portugal a own, Portugal, who had had
a sixty year ban on Coke, suddenly opened their gates.
(32:05):
I mean there's a lot of dirty tactics and smart
business at work from Coke's and to secure their dominance.
But I think the single biggest blow to Coke and
the col O wars, I mean it's got to be
the Pepsi challenge, Oh definitely. I mean it led to
Coke's biggest crisis of confidence New Coke. Yeah, and and
and let's talk a little bit about why the Pepsi
challenge was so effective. To begin with, it equated a
(32:27):
sip and a blind taste test with a soda preference.
I mean that's genius. And and Pepsi was sweeter than Coke,
so it almost always won the test. And because it
was so simple to do. People started doing this at
home with their friends and and choosing pepsi. According to
a Slate piece, by nineteen eighty three, pepsi was out
selling coke in supermarkets and it was just because of
(32:49):
the fast food tie ins and larger infrastructure of soda
machines that helped Coke manage to keep this lead. So
the ads for Coke do in this period are baffling.
I mean, there's there's one, and I'll post this on Facebook,
but it's a response to the pepsi challenge from a
good old boy making fun of the challenge. He's just
like sitting in a chair and saying, we don't need
the challenge. And and the initial strategy was simply to
(33:11):
poke fun at it and try to swat it away.
And and that clearly didn't work because by the mid
eighties Coke was terrified. I mean, they've been playing with
the idea of changing their formula, but now felt like
a good time. And this secrecy was amazing. I was
just reading about some of this, and so anyone that
worked on the ad campaign at McCann Erickson had to
sign a special confidentiality agreement forbidding them to talk about
(33:35):
it with their friends, or their colleagues or their spouses.
They even had special briefcases meant for carrying the cans
and all the paraphernalia. There were security firms hired and
special offices employed. Even people who worked for Coke didn't
know that this was in the works. And so after
testing a new formula on two hundred thousand people in
blind taste tests, then they watched them prefer this drink
(33:58):
over the classic. They felt eight about new coke, and
of course you know what happens next. Yeah, new Coke,
new Coax exactly, and that the press conference announcing the change,
bottlers were not thrilled, and PEPSI basically saw this as
a victory in the coal war. They take out this
full page newspaper ad and several papers and it says,
(34:18):
after eighties, seven years of going eyeball to eyeball, the
other guy blames I kind of love that, honestly, And
they give everyone in the company the Friday off since
it's just been this long battle, and then they see
that they deserved it. I love that, And and obviously
that gloating had to hurt, but not as much as
the customer response. Right, Well, it's amazing. I mean, there's
no amount of parades or fireworks or smart ads could
(34:41):
turn it around. And the press wrote nasty reviews of
the new beverage. According to this Sabotage Times article, Coke
ads were booed when they were played on the big
screen at Houston Astroca. Apparently customers filed a class action
demanding the old formula back. And that wasn't the worst part.
Coke got forty thousand complaint letters and was receiving eight
(35:02):
thousand angry calls every day. It was just insane, that's ridiculous.
But when they pulled a Domino's and fest up to
their mistake and re released the classic formula, that turned
things around, right. It was a big deal. If you
may remember this that Peter Jennings interrupted General Hospital to
announce the breaking news when it happened, and it couldn't
have made Coke fans happier. So returning to the original
(35:26):
formula was this massive marketing coup and and Coke sales
shot up immediately. So we definitely have a few more
topics to hit. And again, there's so much good stuff
it's hard to hit it all, but I do want
to talk for a second about the non blind study
where tasters did the Pepsi challenge but knew what they
were drinking. So in the blind study, both soft drink
stimulated the same part of the brain, the part that's
(35:48):
used to determine flavor. But when the drinks were uncovered,
as Slate reports, Coke saw the spike in the prefrontal cortex,
which some scientists think is because of all the associations
and emotions and all the advertising related attachments we have
with coke, which is pretty nuts, right, It definitely isn't.
But I think we have time for one more political story,
(36:09):
and why don't we tap a Republican hero this time,
and that's Ronald Reagan. So Reagan has kind of a
funny story, like he didn't think pepsi selling to communists
was that big a deal, and so he wanted to
see open markets. So in his speech he dismissed the
small time thinking of selling pepsi to Siberians. So he
was a coke guy then, right, Well not exactly. While
(36:30):
Pepsi was signing talents like Michael Jackson, they were simultaneously
signaling to the public that they were this Republican brand,
but from what I can tell, Reagan was impartial, and
both brands were sending space on the Challenger, which I'm
not sure would have happened on Nixon or Carter's watch.
Can't you just take a can of sewed up into space? No?
I mean Coke changed their formula again to make something
(36:52):
more aerodynamically flavorful, and NASA was happy to put it
in astronaut's hands. And then Pepsi found out about this,
and and they end a supposed fourteen million dollars developing
their own can, which kind of looked like a bottle
of shaving cream. And when NASA, like when they launched
with four cans of coke for the day shift and
four cans of Pepsi for the night shift, it turned
(37:14):
into this total disappointment. Oh yeah, why is that so?
According to Smithsonian Magazine, the astronauts and the Spirit of
Scientific Inquiry staged a Pepsi challenge of their own, and
their verdict was blaw on both counts, out the soda
didn't remind them of home, and both cans were a
waste of time, hard to place the astronauts you know.
(37:35):
Of course, the cola wars would continue after this and
Pepsi would branch into snack foods and fast food joints,
and both brands would buy up a bunch of competitors abroad,
invest in their diet sodas, and branch into waters. But
you know, today, Cola wars feel like a thing of
the past, to be honest, and something you might tell
your kids about in passing, like rotary phones or floppy
(37:56):
disk And of course R C. Colas I knew you'd
slipped in Arci Cola in here somewhere. Well, I just
had to. I mean, it's two interesting, so just quickly
to talk about this. So so Arcicola also started in
Georgia in the early nine hundred's. Actually this was in
the forties. It launched something that sounds eerily familiar. These
were these public taste tests where arc Cola went head
(38:18):
to head with Coke and Pepsi. Now all the contests
were rigged, but they were organized across the nation. And
of course arc was also quick to capitalize on celebrities
and they got Being Crosby and Shirley Temple, I think
Lucy old Ball, all these big names to shill for it.
But the biggest and smartest thing Arcicola, ever, did, was
basically to launch the diet cola market with the diet
(38:41):
right in nineteen sixty two. So this idea of a
healthy soda, it's stunned the competitors. And it was another
twenty years before diet coke came out. So what happened
with arc Cola, Like, why didn't they win the cola wars?
Have you tasted one? Actually, what happened is the sugar
lobby came out with uns blazing and set their scientists
(39:01):
to destroy cyclamate, which was the sweetener that was being used.
A report showed that the sweetener caused cancer and rats.
I mean forget the fact that rats were basically being
subjected the equivalent of five hundred diet rites a day.
And so America banned the additive that actually is still
being sold in some parts of Europe today. Does then
Arci Cola made another mistake when they bought and mismanaged Arby's,
(39:25):
and and then there were some tax of Asian charges
And now you mostly find Arci Cola and the onion
headlines like this one from it says m R. C.
Colas celebrates its tenth purchase. So my favorite onion story
about coke is uh, Pepsi CEO's wife buys coke when
she's mad at him. It's how when he comes home
(39:45):
from work the next morning, the fridge might be fully
stocked with diet cokes and and we could obviously trade
onion stories for a while, but let's trade some facts instead.
It's time for the fact off. All right, I'll kick
us off here. So did you know that when Coke
(40:06):
wanted to up the price of coke from five cents
and they didn't want to move to ten cents, they
asked Eisenhower to commission a seven and a half cent corn.
Though he was hunting buddies with the Coke CEO and
even a fan of coke, he clearly didn't see a
reason for doing this. So one of Pepsi's best selling
products in China is Pepsi Cola chicken flavored lace chips,
(40:28):
which feels like the holy Grail of synergy. Oh man,
if they could just make a taco shell out of it.
So apparently cooking chicken in a cola soy sauce mixes
like super popular in the country, and so the flavor
isn't as unusual as you might think. Actually, I have
to be honest, I would try that, just like I
have so many of their other products. But over the years,
Cocus had plenty of celebrities endorsed the product, from lebron
(40:51):
to David Bowie, Christina Aguilera to the Beatles. But perhaps
the one I would have never guessed, Elvis was a cokeman.
And of course Pepsi has their own arsenal of stars,
from Madonna to Michael Jackson to Beyonce. But I'm going
to take this back to when Pepsi went to Russia
and the Nixon era. So apparently the Soviets were super
excited about the beverage because they thought it would decrease
(41:13):
alcoholism and coal has had obviously been these liquid mascots
of temperance over the years. But when Donald Kendall was
taken to soci to see how Russians were taking to
the drink, he realized no one was drinking Pepsi straight.
It was only being used as a mixer for vodka.
So while Coke was happy to allow bottling of the
product in Germany up until the US created this trade
(41:34):
embargo in World War Two. That's when they stopped the
head of Coca Cola and Deutsche Land. Max Keith had
to come up with this new product. He was super
resourceful and so he used what he called the leftovers
of leftovers this is way and the pulp residue from
cider mills, and he created a new line of sodas,
which you might know now as Fanta. Oh that's crazy.
(41:55):
So speaking of Germany, the absolute weirdest thing I found
online was these fobs for your watch that were produced
by Coke and they were in swastika shapes. Oh, that's weird.
Did have anything to do with like a Nazi allegiance
or something. No, So that's the craziest part. These were
manufactured in the nineteen twenties, and that's because the swastika
was obviously hijacked by the Nazis, But before then it
(42:16):
was this Hindu and Buddhist good luck symbol and it
was seen that way around the world. Wow, that's pretty
creepy and weird. Alright, So here's what I think you'll like.
Just like Coke and PEPSI couldn't displace Vita Cola from
formerly East German regions, or like you were saying earlier,
that thumbs up in India. One soft drink they couldn't
beat in Brazil comes from a coke distributor and it's
(42:37):
it's it's so called pink Dream, and it's a beverage
called Guarana, Jesus or Hazer's. It's it's definitely Hazers. I
got too excited by Jesus name stamped on a can.
But the flavor comes from the guarana plant, which is
a stimulant, and according to the drink's creator, taste isn't
the only thing it stimulates. So I also love the
idea of this pink soda with Jesus's name on the
(42:59):
side of it. So I think you win this week's
fact off. But listeners, thank you so much for tuning in.
And if you have a great coke or pepsi fact
we missed, be sure to shoot us a note on Facebook, Twitter,
or call into our seven fact hotline at one eight
four four pt. Genius. By the way, do you know
what my favorite soda name is? No, not grape Pico,
(43:20):
It's Beverly Supposedly it's the worst tasting soda at Coca
Cola World, Like, we should go check it out. Thanks
again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of
(43:41):
how stuff works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant
people who do the important things we couldn't even begin
to understand. Christa McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown
made the theme song and does the MIXI mixy sound.
Jerry Roland does the exact producer thing. Gay Bluesier is
our lead researcher, with support from the Research Army including
Austin Thompson, Nolan Around and Lucas Adams and Eve. Jeff
(44:01):
Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us. Do we do?
We forget Jason? Jason who
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