A Crystal Clear Guilty Pleasure
I have a confession to make. A post by Amy brought this small footnote of my life to full recollection. Yes, it’s true: I was one of the 100 people in America that loved Crystal Pepsi. Not only loved it but bough A LOT of it. I’d be horrified to know exactly how much I spent on it during the sixth month span I was really into it.
Every morning on my way to school during the my senior year driving through the early morning mists, I stopped at the APlus convenience store on the corner of Rt. 20 and 98. I forked over my $1.59 (if memory serves correctly) for both, and climbed into the S-10 blazer and picked up my high school girlfriend. She’d get in, and I’d hand a bottle to her for her lunch later in the day. At first, I think Jennie was concerned with my mania for it and it met with an initial Jonestown resistance. She eventually embraced it after she realized it wasn’t mind altering and it actually tasted pretty good. We had it at lunch nearly every day.
In the Spring, the vending machines in the Cafeteria got Crystal Pepsi as part of the standard offering. I don’t think I had spare change by the afternoon at any day during that last semester. Pretty much with every meal, every snack, every hint of thirst went hand-in-hand with my equivalent of transparent nicotine. My graduation was right around when Pepsi pulled the product from the shelves and with the sole exception of encountering a six-pack at Phar-Mor late in the summer, that was the end of my taste buds’ torrid affair with Crystal Pepsi.
The allure of it is really hard to articulate. Reports that you may read on the web that the transparent cola tasted “just like Pepsi” are erroneous. It tasted “like Pepsi” in the sense that Canadian football is “like American football.” There are some distinct similarities, but it had its own effervescent qualities. If your curiosity is insatiable and you have about $20 you too can find out what it tastes like! Nothing quite exemplifies disposable income and early 90’s nostalgia than 15-year old soft drinks in stasis on E-bay.
Oh man… I just don’t know what to say about this. Oh alright, I was into the whole cola fads of the early 90’s also. Mostly because I just wanted to try them. I never had the love affair you did with Crystal Pepsi.
On a side note, I still have 2 bottles of Zima from an early 1994 party at the Manor Motel with a bunch of Villa girls before some spirit day thing. The fluid, once clear, is now yellow.
I very much miss Josta, another failed Pepsi product. Caffeinated with guarana berries instead of cola beans, it was about a decade ahead of its time. :(
Aww, that’s sweet that you bought your girlfriend pop every day. [I'm such a sucker for little things like that.]
I can’t even imagine keeping a bottle of Crystal Pepsi in my house for fifteen years, let alone thinking to sell it on eBay.
My wife liked Josta too.
I was a big fan of C-2, which was regular-formula Coke with half the sugar. Or half the high-fructose corn syrup, if you want to be technical.
Unfortunately, I was the only one. Like many, many other products I’ve embraced through the years, C-2 is now extinct. Except, for some reason, in the Phillipines.
On another note — it’s Kosher Coke season.
The only solace I can offer is, I have 3 or 4 cases of Vanilla Coke in my basement that Amy can neither bare to drink, nor part with.
They still make it in certain regions I think, but around here it’s like currency.
Ah Woy, in a different place and in a different time, we could have sat down and enjoyed our Crystal Pepsi together. I loved that nasty crap. Not enough to drink some that is 15 years old, mind you, but I loved it.
I love Vanilla Coke. :)
Spoon: Ah, Zima… the trendy drink of the early 90’s. Yes, I even had a few then. Now, not so much. PittGirl will kick my ass if she sees I wrote that.
FD: I don’t know Josta, but I know Shasta. :) And it sounds like you could barter for some Vanilla Coke with Jim.
Bob: Mazal Tov!
BBM: Yeah, I don’t think even if I was given some as a gift that I would drink a sealed 15-year old bottle of it.
http://www.murrayhead.com/josta/jostaw.html
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