The taste is a turnoff, but oh the kitsch! (TaB is back)

Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | 3/5/2006 | Tanya Barrientos

[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.

[bootless]

Ugh! TaB was horrible from the get-go - remember it in my middle school years.

Now Fresca...

BTW, remember Shake-a-Puddin'? I could never get the damn stuff to work...

[mkjessup]

I'm with you, the only thing TaB was good for in my opinion, was to degrease carburetors before rebuilding them, lol. Fresca wasn't half bad, I thought it had a pretty good taste.

Now Shake-A-Puddin? I could never get that thing to work either, so don't feel bad. ;)

[Welsh Rabbit]

I always wondered how "Moxie" tasted. That was one of the first soft drinks.

Vile, truly vile. I came across some in one of those supermarket-sized liquor stores a couple of years ago, and got a bottle because I'd seen a segment on Moxie on the History Channel. I really can't describe the taste; maybe something like used motor oil mixed with turpentine.

[Sally'sConcerns]

And don't forget "ATOMIC FIREBALLS", one of *the* hottest candies around, my mouth tingles even now at the thought...

Back in those days I hadn't been exposed to much Mexican Food and the only spices my Mom used in cooking were salt and pepper. Atomic Fireballs were way too hot for me to handle! I might enjoy them today since my palate has been acclimated.

[I still care]

Thanks! I always heard it was an acquired taste. I saw that special also.

The other candy I always had (and don't see nowadays) was Bonamo Turkish Taffy. In Strawberry, Chocolate, Banana, and Vanilla. Skybars were another favorite.

I saw a special on I think the Food Channel, and my kids were amazed when I told them the order of the stuffings in Skybar. I always gave away the peanut butter one, next to last in the bar.

[AZLiberty]

Fresca was good with cyclamates. When they decided cyclamates were bad for you (or at least they were bad for mice in huge doses), Fresca switched to bitter saccharin and became undrinkable.

[MotleyGirl70]

Tab? No thanks--I'd rather drink pickle juice.

[MotleyGirl70]

My grandparents always had Fresca at their house when I was kid. I remember it having a nasty after taste.

[Starter]

They still sell them. (Well, most of them. I haven't been able to find Grape Duds in years.) There's a number of stores on the net to give you a candy fix as well. You might want to try http://www.oldtimecandy.com/ for most of those listed. (Although most gas stations seem to sell Good & Plenties.)

[Starter]

My sister used to freeze pickle juice and eat it as a snack. I'm still fairly creeped out about that.

[Cagey]

There's a new company coming out with an old name you may recognize. This company was started by the ex CEO's of Snapple and Yoo Hoo.

They also have chocolate, "clemintine", and vanilla cream.