The State of the Soda

Although only a couple of states have official "State Soft Drinks," the folks at The Houston Press decided to give the states of the U.S. the soft drink that they felt best suited them, based on locally popular beverages in each of the 50. Here's a map showing their choices.

Our own Oklahoma entry is Coit's Root Beer, which is probably a good choice for us. We do have other cola company bottling plants in Oklahoma, but Coit's is a local product. Our neighbor to the south, Texas, is represented by the original-recipe Dr. Pepper brewed in Dublin, previously mentioned here. On a side note, the local Wal-Mart now stocks "throwback," or pure cane versions, of both Pepsi and Mountain Dew. I may take a pass on them, as I don't much care for Pepsi and the combination of real sugar and the extra caffeine in Mountain Dew may produce that wonderful-sounding medical condition known as an infarction.

Utah is represented by TaB (that's how you spell it, for real), which I didn't know that anyone sold anymore. It was the diet soda available at the cafeteria when I was in school, and sometimes the young women who wore Greek letters on their sweatshirts would be mocked by those of us who worked at the cafeteria for drinking TaB along with the two pieces of cake they piled on their trays. No, we were not worried that they would not go out with us if we mocked them. They were not going to go out with us anyway, for reasons best explained by one Mr. William James Murray in a slightly different but related setting here.

Hawaii's is -- of course -- Hawaiian Punch. Nebraska's soft drink is Kool-Aid, which makes sense not only because Kool-Aid was developed there back in the 1920s but because its state legislature declared it to be so in 1998. Maine seems to be the only other state with an official state soft drink, the locally produced soda Moxie having been given that status in 2005. And yes, the phrase "he's/she's got moxie," used to describe bold young men and tough dames in movies during the middle of the last century, does seem to stem from the name of the soda, which has a surprise bitter kick following an initially sweet taste.

There's not a lot of detail given as to what criteria were used to associate a beverage with a state, which leaves the reader to wonder why Georgia, home of Atlanta and all things Coca-Cola, is represented not by that company's signature red can but by the blue of RC Cola. Coke is instead connected to Mississippi. The other of the "big 3" cola beverages, Pepsi, represents South Dakota.