When was diet coke introduced

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IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more. View manifest View in Mirador. It wanted to come up with a soda that tasted good, had a proper mouthfeel—sugar adds not only sweetness but also viscosity —and was attractive to women, the presumptive market.

It also needed a catchy name. So an early IBM mainframe computer generated more than candidates with the parameters that the name be three or four letters and not offensive in any foreign language. Tabb, which was eventually shortened to Tab, eventually won the battle of market testing. Bottlers resisted the product, fearing it would undercut their profitable sugar-based sodas. Later in the s, Coca-Cola introduced the grapefruit-flavored diet soda Fresca, which was a much bigger hit with consumers and further sidelined Tab.

Artificial sweeteners were riding high in the s as Americans wanted to enjoy their sweets without paying the caloric price. But danger was lurking in the form of the Delany Clause in the Food Additives Amendment of , which prohibits food additives that have been found to cause cancer.

While Tab contained two artificial sweeteners—saccharin and cyclamate—cyclamate was the more important of the two. Saccharin is to times sweeter than sugar, but in high concentrations it gives products a bitter, metallic aftertaste. After the cyclamate ban, Tab was forced to reformulate and ended up deciding to use saccharine as its primary sweetener.

Then in a second blow, follow-up research on potential health problems associated with artificial sweeteners focused on saccharin, leading the FDA to require warning labels on products using the sweetener. Despite these obstacles, Tab still ended up becoming the best-selling diet cola of the s and s.

Jeffrey Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Coca-Cola has announced that it is discontinuing Tab after 57 years on the market , and fans of the drink will have until the end of December to purchase their last can of nostalgia.

The brand survived initial low sales, the artificial sweetener scares of the s and s, lukewarm enthusiasm for the product at the corporate level and intermittent consumer availability to become — for a brief period — the most popular diet soda in America. Then, of course, Diet Coke came along. While it never regained its lofty status as the top diet soda, loyal Tab fans kept the brand alive.

While some might think Tab was the first diet soda, that honor actually belongs to a beverage called No-Cal , which was developed by beverage industry pioneer Hyman Kirsch in Kirsch wanted to create a soda for diabetics and people with cardiovascular problems, so he used cyclamate , which was discovered in by a graduate student working at a University of Illinois chemistry lab after he licked some of the substance and found that it tasted sweet.

But from the start, No-Cal was popular with a different type of consumer: dieters. Canada Dry followed soon after with a line of diet sodas called Glamor, marketing it to women trying to lose weight.

Like No-Cal, Diet-Rite initially targeted diabetics and was often placed in the over-the-counter medicine section of grocers. Who buys blood oranges for the zest? Recently, in the daze of the summer heat, I bought a case of Diet Coke Ginger Lime, and it tasted like Diet Coke drunk from a glass unrinsed of citrus Dawn.

New Diet Coke arrives in slender cans that look like plus-size Red Bull servings—Red Bull being one of a few beverages that is even more of a red flag for decency than Diet Coke. Preliminary reports suggest that this novelty packaging has raised sales numbers. But the final picture is more complicated—with a tart, ironic fizz.

Beverage-biz mythology holds that Coke does better under Democratic Administrations than under Republican ones. Recent news gives unexpected credence to that claim. The reason? This is, it seems, the rare instance in which the Commander-in-Chief has not managed to privilege his personal interests.

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