Tried the new Diet Coke with Lime yesterday. My verdict? Stomachable while still cold, which places it certainly a step above its Lemon Equivalent, which even after its alleged 2004 flavor overhaul tastes like carbonated furniture polish. But let's be clear: it does not remotely taste like Diet Coke flavored with lime juice.
That in itself is not a problem for me. I grew up on artificial flavors and have no general objection to them. It doesn't bother me, for example, that what was consistently represented to me — and what I came to recognize and accept — as "grape" flavoring in Popsicles, bubble gum, Fun Dip (
oh, Lik-m-Aid, would that adults could enjoy your product with dignity!) bore no resemblance in taste to the fruit, white or red, of the same name.
What kills me here is not a failure of flavor semiotics, but a failure of flavor
per se. In November the Wife and I had Coca-Cola Light al Limon in Brazil. That product differed from what Coca-Cola is foisting on U.S. markets in two respects: first, it actually tasted like Coca Light infused with
lime juice, and second and more important, it was
good. Likewise, in Europe — or at least England — Coke, Inc. has for years marketed a squeeze-of-lemon cola formula that tastes a hundred times better than the Coke-and-Pledge cocktail they're serving up Stateside. What gives?
Nowhere on the Net can I find even a recognition of — much less an explanation for — these discrepancies. If I remember right, it was Coca-Cola who ran the singsong ad, "I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony." Well, it might help the cause if we were all drinking the same soft drinks.
And until that perfect harmony among nations is reached, we're supposed to have the best of everything here in America. That, so I hear, is what we get in exchange for having everyone else in the world hate us and try to blow us up. So why, in the name of citrus-twinged cola products, are
we not getting the good stuff
here?
