I pity anyone picking either Coke OR Pepsi. You know why that junk is served cold? Because cold numbs the taste buds to and it tricks you into thinking that what you’re drinking isn’t crap. It’s also why piss-water beer bottles and cans or whatever have those labels that tell you when it’s “good” to drink them.
Skull025
I LIKE MY BURNING SENSATION. FROM A NICE, HOT, GLORIOUS CUP OF COCA-****ING-COLA. THAT’S RIGHT, I DRINK THE **** JUICE OF THE COKE FACTORY! AND IT IS DELICIOUS.
Dibullba
Almost makes me think of Julian Smith. He has some hot koolaid >.>…… I MADE THIS FOR YOU!!!!
I’m sorry, but being served cold isn’t a sign of bad quality. Ice cream is served cold, but that’s not to hide bad flavours.
The simple fact of the matter is that every item has an ideal service temperature. It comes down to texture and mouth feel in a lot of situations, but anyone who prepares something for consumption knows that it will taste best a certain way.
tha mojster
Preference also has something to do with how its served, I drink the shit out of coke or pepsi depending on mood and i prefer it at room temp, though nothing beats mountain dew in flavor, just too bad it gives me chest pains these days.
Iced Tea, for example, is served cold not to hide flavour but because cold drinks are more refreshing, especially on hot days.
In short, Joe H, you’re being stupid.
Joe H
If you think that colder temp foods don’t numb the palette, then you’re the one being dumb. http://www.wikihow.com/Dull-Your-Taste-Buds
Ice cream is served cold because of function, not taste. The contents of a banana split would fall to the bottom of a thick sweet milk drink if you put it in while warm. Or whatever condiments you put on it.
Any beer worth drinking is worth drinking warm. Same for soda. Same for tea. Sorry if you’re drinking and eating stuff that needs to be chilled to mask the flavor.
Solegitrr
Wow. Just… wow. I’ve seen people fight a lot of really stupid battles
on the internet, but never before have I seen someone claim that ALL
cold beverages are only cold to mask their shitty flavor. You, sir, win the
coveted Tinfoil Tiara for the day.
Joe H
Tinfoil tiara? You insult me ma’am. There’s no way a tiara of any sort could stop the gub’ment mind control rays; doesn’t there’s a big hole on the top of it. Uh doi!
Joe H
Damnit. Didn’t click stop in time when I noticed the extra word in there. Oh well.
Joe H
Tinfoil tiara? You insult me ma’am. There’s no way a tiara of any sort could stop the gub’ment mind control rays; there’s a big hole on the top of it. Uh doi!
JustDucky
But… wine is best served chilled regardless of quality. In fact, a good wine must be chilled in order to deliver all of its aromas.
White wine is, ideally, served at “cellar” temperature or a little below 50º F though some people recommend a temperature a bit closer to 60º F.
Red wine should be -very- slightly chilled as well, depending on the temperature at which it is stored. A complex red should be served at around 65º F.
Beers, similarly, should be served chilled. In fact, they should be served cooler than wines. For example, a pilsner should be served a bit above 40º F while IPAs and Stouts should be around 55º F.
Well, firstly, the link you provide to prove that “cold temperatures dull flavours” is a wiki page and the link it provides to say that cold temperatures is an article about how colder temptures and water enhance the flavour of whiskey. It seems a pointless link to provide and doesn’t help your argument whatsoever.
Secondly, your argument would also imply that milkshakes are cold just to dull your taste buds. Functionally, it’s not much different than drinking melted ice cream. I’ve also never met anyone who drank milkshakes to cool down.
So, in short, you’re being deliberately obtuse. Your argument is fruitless. There are a multitude of reasons to have cold drinks, and you cannot state that a drink doesn’t taste good if it’s intended to be served cold.
phlebas
I hear some philistines even drink vintage champagne chilled. That stuff must be rank, eh?
Chris K
Dear God. The pseudoscience here offends me at every possible level.
Yes, tastes are dulled at colder temperatures. This is true. However, beer and soda have something else in common: They have carbon dioxide dissolved into them. (Sometimes nitrogen in certain beers, but that’s only marginally relevant to the point here.)
Look at the solubility curve of CO2 in water. LOOK AT IT. More cold = more bubbles. More bubbles = more effervescence. This is actually a key textural component to sodas and beers, as the flavor profile DOES change as the drink goes flat.
This meesage brought to you by Science: Breaking Tinfoil Hats Via The Application Of Facts Since The Dawn Of Tinfoil Hats.
Reepicheep-chan
Well, also if the nature of the thing is to have more flavor than ideal you would serve it cold. Warm ice-cream is too sweet for most people to enjoy, serving it cold makes it feel less sweet. Alternatively: ice cream is as sweet as it is so it still tastes sweet even when cold. One of those things >.<
I can’t comment on beer, but I’ve drank a lot of tea and a whole lot of soda, and I’ve never found any that tastes better warm than cold and I doubt you could name one that I would agree with. In fact I want all my drinks ice cold. Milk and water and juice and slushies and cough medicine and crushed ants and human blood (long story) and liquefied salad (longer, grosser story) and everything else. I don’t know how you would measure, let’s say, pepsi as “not worth drinking” if you do in fact enjoy drinking it when it’s cold, and enjoy it a great deal more than a number of other cold beverages.
Also a funny thing, I’ll take pepsi over coke any day, but I find coke tastes marginally tolerable at room temperature and pepsi doesn’t.
Joe H
And when I say “warm beer I mean between 45 and 55 degrees. The content make up of some beers become unstable and separate if they get any warmer.
Unless specified, all temperatures are assumed to be kelvin.
mrelegos
Heh, 45 Kelvin beer…
slicedtoad
I sorta agreed with you on some of what you said until you mentioned the beer being warm thing.
Thank you for specifying a temperature, since 45-55 is not ‘warm’. I’ve been trying to imagine a room temperature Guinness and it’s left me sad.
As to the other things, cold is sometimes used to mask flavors, sometimes it’s part of the drink. I agree that coke is a pretty low quality drink (still better than pepsi) but really we only drink it for the sugar/caffeine buzz and the wonderfully acidic burn it leaves in your stomach.
LaurelRaven
Real Coke is actually a pretty damned good drink. I’m referring, of course, to the Coke made with real sugar (here, we refer to that as “Mexicoke”) rather than High Fructose Corn Syrup. The stuff we serve in the US is actually pretty terrible, when you think of it…though, I’m still a fan of Coke over Poopsy.
Reepicheep-chan
Oh yes. Pepsi or Coke, it matters little compaired to whether of not it is made with real sugar. Mexicoke is easier for me to get my hands on, so mexicoke it is.
tha mojster
I love mexicoke, theres a beer store near me that sells the pint glass bottles, and to be honest most information ive found is that the containment unit used to store any liquid beverage affects taste, like beer from a bottle is better than from a can, so is soda, better from a glass bottle than from any other container.
tahrey
If I presume Farenheit, then your definition of “warm” beer is… 7 to 12 celcius.
Really? You must be quite the fan of Coors Lite and all that kind of cack. Y’know… beer that actually needs to advertise in order to get sales.
The recommended temperature of a fridge is 4 to 8’C (39.2 to 46.4’F), so by that scale if your fridge was running at the upper range of that, or if it was around the middle of the range and you let the beer sit for more than a few seconds (or, horrors, poured it out into a glass that was not itself refrigerated), you’d end up drinking it warm.
Tap water, when allowed to run for a while and so be at least cool if not “cold”, is generally taken (by industry standards) to be 15’C, or 59’F. Now, that may not be ideal serving temperature for beer, but it would still be reasonably palatable (especially if an ale or bitter rather than a lager), and if we dropped it, say, 5’C further to 10’C (about the temperature of tapwater coming from an underground feedpipe in winter, enough to make your bones ache a bit if you hold your hand under it for more than a few seconds), it’d be just fine. The typical “super chill” beer that have their own special gimmicky pumps at the bar themselves tend to “only” go down to about 4-5’C…
tl;dr version – if you can’t gulp your last half-pint in a hurry without getting brainfreeze as your buddies head for the door having spotted the last bus coming up the road a few minutes early, then it’s too cold.
Kat
I drink both of them warm. Also Dr. Pepper and rootbeer.
Whilst cold does have a numbing effect on the taste buds (which is why, for example, most ice cream recipes call for a lot of sugar to compensate for the effect,) what is drunk hot or cold is more a function of culture than anything. The idea of putting ice in drinks is mostly an American thing. In many parts of the world, all sodas are drunk at room temperature, and some cultures think that hot drinks, not cold, cool you down in warm weather.
TheLurkerAbove
Please explain the popularity of HOT Coca-cola with lemon or ginger in Asia then.
Valdrax
Explain the fascination with bittermelon, jackfruit, and durian over there first, and I’ll accept that “Asia” is always a reliable authority on good taste.
(Also, isn’t that more of a cold remedy than a common drink?)
ajm5007
I ask for my Pepsi without ice, and Coke is not an acceptable substitute.
fatemaster1
I would also like to add that people picking Coke or Pepsi are clearly brain washed, just because they are made by two different companies doesn’t mean they are different products! They are exactly the same people! Just as there is no difference between 7-up and Sprite!
The worst is when you order a Coke, you’re waiting for your meal, and you take a sip of your drink expecting it to be Coke an suddenly it’s, “Bleagh! Pepsi, my old enemy!” Then you have to flag down the server and get it replaced with a Mountain Dew or something. It’s a quadruple annoyance, since you drank something you don’t like, you have to flag someone down to replace your drink, you have nothing good to drink until it’s replaced, and you’ve got that awful taste in your mouth until then.
It just makes me want to shake the person and say, “Coke is a brand name! It’s not a generic name for ‘dark-colored soft drink’!”
Wizard
They’re in Indiana, where “Coke” is actually a generic term for and all soft drinks. We Hoosiers don’t talk English real good.
This. I grew up in Indiana. “Seven-Up” is a legitimate answer to, “What kind of coke do you want?”.
Valdrax
I grew up in Georgia, home of Coca-Cola, and I’ve always been mystified by the assertion that Southerners will use “Coke” to mean any soft drink. It’s not a Southern thing — it’s your thing. It’s all your faults! ALL YOUR FAULTS! AAAAAH!!! /jumps through plate glass, screaming
DarkVeghetta
In Romania, once the Iron Curtain fell, Coca Cola was quick to be widely available in the newly-established private stores, but Pepsi was largely absent for yet a few years (1-3-ish). Coca Cola was so popular that every pop/soda drink was being referred to as ‘a cola’, eventually ‘Pepsi cola’ became a thing. It’s been quite a few years now and it’s far less common for people to call Pepsi ‘Pepsi cola’, but it’s still an acceptable turn of phrase.
Just goes to show how important it is to be the first on the scene in a new market. Incidentally, same applies to people and relationships – your first will likely mark you and your preferences for life.
Rex Hondo
Must be a southern, or at least rural Indiana thing. Don’t really hear it spoken that way around Indianapolis.
308 thoughts on “Pepsi”
Skull025
God damn it PEPSI IS NEVER AN ALTERNATIVE.
derick
thank you
Viktoria
True. Coke is the alternative. Pepsi is the first pick.
(RC is the kid at gym class listening to even Water and Bud Light get picked before him).
Skull025
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Joe H
I pity anyone picking either Coke OR Pepsi. You know why that junk is served cold? Because cold numbs the taste buds to and it tricks you into thinking that what you’re drinking isn’t crap. It’s also why piss-water beer bottles and cans or whatever have those labels that tell you when it’s “good” to drink them.
Skull025
I LIKE MY BURNING SENSATION. FROM A NICE, HOT, GLORIOUS CUP OF COCA-****ING-COLA. THAT’S RIGHT, I DRINK THE **** JUICE OF THE COKE FACTORY! AND IT IS DELICIOUS.
Dibullba
Almost makes me think of Julian Smith. He has some hot koolaid >.>…… I MADE THIS FOR YOU!!!!
Frostbite
I would follow you into battle Skull
Robert
Frostbite, I’m pretty sure skull has herpes.
Baroncognito
I’m sorry, but being served cold isn’t a sign of bad quality. Ice cream is served cold, but that’s not to hide bad flavours.
The simple fact of the matter is that every item has an ideal service temperature. It comes down to texture and mouth feel in a lot of situations, but anyone who prepares something for consumption knows that it will taste best a certain way.
tha mojster
Preference also has something to do with how its served, I drink the shit out of coke or pepsi depending on mood and i prefer it at room temp, though nothing beats mountain dew in flavor, just too bad it gives me chest pains these days.
Baroncognito
Iced Tea, for example, is served cold not to hide flavour but because cold drinks are more refreshing, especially on hot days.
In short, Joe H, you’re being stupid.
Joe H
If you think that colder temp foods don’t numb the palette, then you’re the one being dumb.
http://www.wikihow.com/Dull-Your-Taste-Buds
Ice cream is served cold because of function, not taste. The contents of a banana split would fall to the bottom of a thick sweet milk drink if you put it in while warm. Or whatever condiments you put on it.
Any beer worth drinking is worth drinking warm. Same for soda. Same for tea. Sorry if you’re drinking and eating stuff that needs to be chilled to mask the flavor.
Solegitrr
Wow. Just… wow. I’ve seen people fight a lot of really stupid battles
on the internet, but never before have I seen someone claim that ALL
cold beverages are only cold to mask their shitty flavor. You, sir, win the
coveted Tinfoil Tiara for the day.
Joe H
Tinfoil tiara? You insult me ma’am. There’s no way a tiara of any sort could stop the gub’ment mind control rays; doesn’t there’s a big hole on the top of it. Uh doi!
Joe H
Damnit. Didn’t click stop in time when I noticed the extra word in there. Oh well.
Joe H
Tinfoil tiara? You insult me ma’am. There’s no way a tiara of any sort could stop the gub’ment mind control rays; there’s a big hole on the top of it. Uh doi!
JustDucky
But… wine is best served chilled regardless of quality. In fact, a good wine must be chilled in order to deliver all of its aromas.
White wine is, ideally, served at “cellar” temperature or a little below 50º F though some people recommend a temperature a bit closer to 60º F.
Red wine should be -very- slightly chilled as well, depending on the temperature at which it is stored. A complex red should be served at around 65º F.
Beers, similarly, should be served chilled. In fact, they should be served cooler than wines. For example, a pilsner should be served a bit above 40º F while IPAs and Stouts should be around 55º F.
Plasma Mongoose
This is why I drink water icy cold, to mask the taste.
Anickel4u
M’am you are quite something……
Baroncognito
Well, firstly, the link you provide to prove that “cold temperatures dull flavours” is a wiki page and the link it provides to say that cold temperatures is an article about how colder temptures and water enhance the flavour of whiskey. It seems a pointless link to provide and doesn’t help your argument whatsoever.
Secondly, your argument would also imply that milkshakes are cold just to dull your taste buds. Functionally, it’s not much different than drinking melted ice cream. I’ve also never met anyone who drank milkshakes to cool down.
So, in short, you’re being deliberately obtuse. Your argument is fruitless. There are a multitude of reasons to have cold drinks, and you cannot state that a drink doesn’t taste good if it’s intended to be served cold.
phlebas
I hear some philistines even drink vintage champagne chilled. That stuff must be rank, eh?
Chris K
Dear God. The pseudoscience here offends me at every possible level.
Yes, tastes are dulled at colder temperatures. This is true. However, beer and soda have something else in common: They have carbon dioxide dissolved into them. (Sometimes nitrogen in certain beers, but that’s only marginally relevant to the point here.)
Look at the solubility curve of CO2 in water. LOOK AT IT. More cold = more bubbles. More bubbles = more effervescence. This is actually a key textural component to sodas and beers, as the flavor profile DOES change as the drink goes flat.
This meesage brought to you by Science: Breaking Tinfoil Hats Via The Application Of Facts Since The Dawn Of Tinfoil Hats.
Reepicheep-chan
Well, also if the nature of the thing is to have more flavor than ideal you would serve it cold. Warm ice-cream is too sweet for most people to enjoy, serving it cold makes it feel less sweet. Alternatively: ice cream is as sweet as it is so it still tastes sweet even when cold. One of those things >.<
Jenny Creed
I can’t comment on beer, but I’ve drank a lot of tea and a whole lot of soda, and I’ve never found any that tastes better warm than cold and I doubt you could name one that I would agree with. In fact I want all my drinks ice cold. Milk and water and juice and slushies and cough medicine and crushed ants and human blood (long story) and liquefied salad (longer, grosser story) and everything else. I don’t know how you would measure, let’s say, pepsi as “not worth drinking” if you do in fact enjoy drinking it when it’s cold, and enjoy it a great deal more than a number of other cold beverages.
Also a funny thing, I’ll take pepsi over coke any day, but I find coke tastes marginally tolerable at room temperature and pepsi doesn’t.
Joe H
And when I say “warm beer I mean between 45 and 55 degrees. The content make up of some beers become unstable and separate if they get any warmer.
KishinD
Centigrade, of course.
Baroncognito
Unless specified, all temperatures are assumed to be kelvin.
mrelegos
Heh, 45 Kelvin beer…
slicedtoad
I sorta agreed with you on some of what you said until you mentioned the beer being warm thing.
Thank you for specifying a temperature, since 45-55 is not ‘warm’. I’ve been trying to imagine a room temperature Guinness and it’s left me sad.
As to the other things, cold is sometimes used to mask flavors, sometimes it’s part of the drink. I agree that coke is a pretty low quality drink (still better than pepsi) but really we only drink it for the sugar/caffeine buzz and the wonderfully acidic burn it leaves in your stomach.
LaurelRaven
Real Coke is actually a pretty damned good drink. I’m referring, of course, to the Coke made with real sugar (here, we refer to that as “Mexicoke”) rather than High Fructose Corn Syrup. The stuff we serve in the US is actually pretty terrible, when you think of it…though, I’m still a fan of Coke over Poopsy.
Reepicheep-chan
Oh yes. Pepsi or Coke, it matters little compaired to whether of not it is made with real sugar. Mexicoke is easier for me to get my hands on, so mexicoke it is.
tha mojster
I love mexicoke, theres a beer store near me that sells the pint glass bottles, and to be honest most information ive found is that the containment unit used to store any liquid beverage affects taste, like beer from a bottle is better than from a can, so is soda, better from a glass bottle than from any other container.
tahrey
If I presume Farenheit, then your definition of “warm” beer is… 7 to 12 celcius.
Really? You must be quite the fan of Coors Lite and all that kind of cack. Y’know… beer that actually needs to advertise in order to get sales.
The recommended temperature of a fridge is 4 to 8’C (39.2 to 46.4’F), so by that scale if your fridge was running at the upper range of that, or if it was around the middle of the range and you let the beer sit for more than a few seconds (or, horrors, poured it out into a glass that was not itself refrigerated), you’d end up drinking it warm.
Tap water, when allowed to run for a while and so be at least cool if not “cold”, is generally taken (by industry standards) to be 15’C, or 59’F. Now, that may not be ideal serving temperature for beer, but it would still be reasonably palatable (especially if an ale or bitter rather than a lager), and if we dropped it, say, 5’C further to 10’C (about the temperature of tapwater coming from an underground feedpipe in winter, enough to make your bones ache a bit if you hold your hand under it for more than a few seconds), it’d be just fine. The typical “super chill” beer that have their own special gimmicky pumps at the bar themselves tend to “only” go down to about 4-5’C…
tl;dr version – if you can’t gulp your last half-pint in a hurry without getting brainfreeze as your buddies head for the door having spotted the last bus coming up the road a few minutes early, then it’s too cold.
Kat
I drink both of them warm. Also Dr. Pepper and rootbeer.
Buckybone
Damned agnostics…
DarkVeghetta
xD Alright, that was pretty funny/insightful.
Hoop
careful toughguy. don’t cut yourself on that edge
Bunk
I prefer 99% of soda to be at room temperature.
Whittier
Whilst cold does have a numbing effect on the taste buds (which is why, for example, most ice cream recipes call for a lot of sugar to compensate for the effect,) what is drunk hot or cold is more a function of culture than anything. The idea of putting ice in drinks is mostly an American thing. In many parts of the world, all sodas are drunk at room temperature, and some cultures think that hot drinks, not cold, cool you down in warm weather.
TheLurkerAbove
Please explain the popularity of HOT Coca-cola with lemon or ginger in Asia then.
Valdrax
Explain the fascination with bittermelon, jackfruit, and durian over there first, and I’ll accept that “Asia” is always a reliable authority on good taste.
(Also, isn’t that more of a cold remedy than a common drink?)
ajm5007
I ask for my Pepsi without ice, and Coke is not an acceptable substitute.
fatemaster1
I would also like to add that people picking Coke or Pepsi are clearly brain washed, just because they are made by two different companies doesn’t mean they are different products! They are exactly the same people! Just as there is no difference between 7-up and Sprite!
onfurtherreview
Wait, you mean water and Bud Light are different substances?
Rex Hondo
Water is much less likely to give you the shits.
Eposi
Depends on your local
Wizard
Dude. If your water tastes like Bud Light, you should probably get some sort of filter. That can’t be good for you.
JustDucky
That made me smile. Thank you. =D
Rex Hondo
I salute you.
KishinD
RC is still my favorite cola, by a wide margin.
Meh. I’d rather have coffee.
Digidestined of Trust (Tim)
AACK! I cringe everytime there’s Pepsi. I always gravitate to Coke or Dr. Pepper
Brandon, from My Own Private Idaho
THIS.
LS
Dr. Pepper is the only acceptable soda.
Yotomoe
^
Tylertlat
I would posit that Dr. Pepper OR Mr. Pibb are acceptable sodas.
Darchias
I posit that Mr. Pibb is the Mike of sodas.
Digidestined of Trust (Tim)
I have to agree there, and then there’s Pibb XTRA!
Drunken Nordmann
I’m just drinking random cola from – is more cost-efficient.
Drunken Nordmann
Whoops, there’s a word missing.
Doctor_Who
Drat, and I was just about to google prices on – Cola.
fatemaster1
Ding, ding ,ding …. we have a winner!
Mo
Well, is Monopoly money OK? Because no, Pepsi sucks.
Nk
Pepsi is NEVER an Alternative! Truer words ha’ ne’er been said!
HiEv
Absolutely, but at least she asked.
The worst is when you order a Coke, you’re waiting for your meal, and you take a sip of your drink expecting it to be Coke an suddenly it’s, “Bleagh! Pepsi, my old enemy!” Then you have to flag down the server and get it replaced with a Mountain Dew or something. It’s a quadruple annoyance, since you drank something you don’t like, you have to flag someone down to replace your drink, you have nothing good to drink until it’s replaced, and you’ve got that awful taste in your mouth until then.
It just makes me want to shake the person and say, “Coke is a brand name! It’s not a generic name for ‘dark-colored soft drink’!”
Wizard
They’re in Indiana, where “Coke” is actually a generic term for and all soft drinks. We Hoosiers don’t talk English real good.
Whittier
This. I grew up in Indiana. “Seven-Up” is a legitimate answer to, “What kind of coke do you want?”.
Valdrax
I grew up in Georgia, home of Coca-Cola, and I’ve always been mystified by the assertion that Southerners will use “Coke” to mean any soft drink. It’s not a Southern thing — it’s your thing. It’s all your faults! ALL YOUR FAULTS! AAAAAH!!! /jumps through plate glass, screaming
DarkVeghetta
In Romania, once the Iron Curtain fell, Coca Cola was quick to be widely available in the newly-established private stores, but Pepsi was largely absent for yet a few years (1-3-ish). Coca Cola was so popular that every pop/soda drink was being referred to as ‘a cola’, eventually ‘Pepsi cola’ became a thing. It’s been quite a few years now and it’s far less common for people to call Pepsi ‘Pepsi cola’, but it’s still an acceptable turn of phrase.
Just goes to show how important it is to be the first on the scene in a new market. Incidentally, same applies to people and relationships – your first will likely mark you and your preferences for life.
Rex Hondo
Must be a southern, or at least rural Indiana thing. Don’t really hear it spoken that way around Indianapolis.
DEG1377
I have never understood the fight between Coke and Pepsi. They are both pop. *shrug*
John
[i][b]SODA[/b][/i].
The Dr. Pepper family is clearly superior, anyway, because, AFAICT, Sunkist is the only caffeinated orange soda.
DEG1377
Now THIS argument I will have…
POP.
Icalasari
It’s like Billy got pre drunk and started arguing with herself…
Plasma Mongoose
SOFT DRINK!
begbert2
SUGAR SLUDGE SWILL!
Waiters in restaurants tend to not like that term, though. Not specific enough.
HiEv
Heh… As someone who grew up in a “pop” area and now lives in a “soda” area, I can tell you it’s not so simple.
Anyways, to see the name distribution in the US see this site:
The Pop vs. Soda Page
All I have to say to the south is, Coke is a brand name, dammit!