Posted on 03/04/2006 6:16:14 PM PST by wjersey
I am writing this under the influence of my favorite drug.
Caffeine.
Not from coffee (far too predictable).
Not from tea (much too serene).
I'm doing TaB. The new TaB. Repackaged, reissued and reformulated as an "energy" drink, it's Red Bull meets Hilary Duff. An instant buzz for the instant-messaging set.
It's cosmo pink, a little fizzy, and candy sweet. Nothing like the TaB of yore.
I'm not sure how I feel about the makeover.
Anybody old enough to remember the bad old days of diet drinks knows that original TaB holds a sacred spot in cola history.
As one of the first - and worst-tasting - drinks ever invented, TaB will forever linger in the minds and taste buds of millions of baby boomers.
It stained your teeth. It left your mouth feeling like a used ashtray. It didn't even attempt to be sweet. It tasted like the bumper of a Buick.
Learning to love it was a rite of passage.
TaB was practically a gateway drug, leading straight to cigarettes, diet pills, and every other midcentury method of staying Twiggy-thin.
It was loaded with saccharin, and cyclamates, the sweetener that was banned by the FDA in 1970 because it caused cancer in lab rats.
So the Coca-Cola company drained the cyclamates out, but left the saccharin. And when that sweetener was bad-mouthed by the feds, TaB lost most of its followers, and all of its marketing.
Old-school TaB is still around, incidentally, but incredibly hard to find. And like Mick Jagger and Cher, it still has groupies - true-bluers who hoard it in their basements.
I'm not part of that cult.
But I am, admittedly, diet-soda dependent. I drink it at breakfast. And lunch. And throughout the workday.
Which is why the new TaB intrigued me.
A spokesman for Coca-Cola told me it's going be marketed to young people as vintage chic. Like toe socks. And Farrah Fawcett posters.
Nothing like having your entire youth distilled into comic kitsch.
The target audience, the spokesman says, is women in their 20s and 30s who, for some reason, just aren't warming up to energy drinks with names like Pimp Juice and WhoopAss.
I guess that's why Coca-Cola decided to stick with TaB's lipstick-pink can of old and the sock-it-to-me logo.
Very Barbie.
The television ads start running tomorrow, during the Academy Awards. They show women dashing about, getting errands done with the happy help of their supercaffeinated TaB. About 80 milligrams per can, to be exact, compared with regular diet soda, which has about 31.
The new TaB also lists yummy things like carnitine, guarna extract and taurine in tiny print under ingredients. The clyclamates of the cyber generation.
So, how's the stuff taste?
Sort of like a melted Jolly Rancher candy with a double shot of NyQuil.
Plenty bad enough to be called TaB.
Tab was always chalky tasting. Diet Pepsi is ever so much better.
Tab Baaaaaah!
Now JOLT! Cola that's the thing!
"All the sugar and twice the caffine of your ordinary cola!"
This sounds simply SUPER!
I always wondered how "Moxie" tasted. That was one of the first soft drinks.
Does anyone else remember "fizzies"?
I remember "Fizzies", sure do! The root beer flavor was (IMHO) the BEST. :)
Now here's one for you: do you remember an instant milk shake mix called "Great Shakes"? A little triangular shaped envelope with malted milk and chocolate flavoring, it came with it's own shaker, you add a cup of milk, pop the lid on, shake-shake-shake, and presto-change-o, you had a really good (to me) milk shake! :)
MMMMMMMMMM!
"Plenty bad enough to be called TaB."
LOL
YUP! I remember!
Insisting on printing it TaB is irritating at the least. It's Tab, according to the maker.
Sure. I never liked them. Lol.
At least TaB didn't claim to be (diet) Coke. You knew you weren't getting anything close to the Real Thing. Diet Coke isn't much closer, but they lost the truth in advertising.
OMG...I haven't thought of those in...um...a real long time! I googled them...good news for all you Fizzie lovers.....
Chuck Norris recently had the idea to sell his urine as a canned beverage. We know this beverage as Red Bull.
L
I bought two of them today on my way into work... I have to say, they dont taste too bad. :o)
MM
LOL
I love Fresca, and now they have peach and black cherry...YUM :o)
MM
I remember fizzies, I loved the root beer flavor! Necco wafers, banana flavored chewy wrapped candy (forerunner of Starbursts), chuckles, Slo-Pokes, Kits, Bit O Honey, Pixie Stix, Black Jack gum or teaberry gum, Root Beer Barrels, bubble gum cigars or candy cigarettes, Bit o Honey, wax teeth, the little wax bottles with liquid inside, Good N Plenty, Sweetarts, jawbreakers and many more!
I wonder if they sell any of this stuff in stores nowaday. My sister was hooked on the big Sweetart.
And don't forget "ATOMIC FIREBALLS", one of *the* hottest candies around, my mouth tingles even now at the thought...
Lou: You gonna order something, kid?
Marty McFly: Ah, yeah... Give me a Tab.
Lou: Tab? I can't give you a tab unless you order something.
Marty McFly: Alright, give me a Pepsi Free.
Lou: You want a Pepsi, pal, you're gonna pay for it
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