The latest battle in the soda wars isn’t Coke versus Pepsi. It’s Diet Coke versus Diet Coke, and the fandom is bubbling over on social media.
Every week there seems to be a new cola add-on to try. In a video that divided the internet, singer Dua Lipa showed off a concoction of Diet Coke mixed with pickle juice, jalapeño sauce, jalapeños and pickles. Before that, TikTok was flooded with the so-called Protein Diet Coke, which combines the soda with a vanilla protein shake. Search long enough and you will find people doctoring their Diet Cokes with milk, lemon, coconut or just about any other flavor imaginable.
On the other side of the spectrum are the Diet Coke purists. They are on social media discussing the “crispiness” of the soda in its various forms — canned, bottled and fountain — and many can nail the subtle differences in the Diet Coke Challenge, in which multiple “varietals” of the soda are shown to the audience but not the taster. To the purists, the Platonic ideal is a Diet Coke straight from the tap at McDonald’s, where the fountain sodas are still supplied with syrup from stainless-steel tubs, rather than from plastic bags.
“The only way to be a Diet Coke lover is to be a purist, and at this point I barely even accept a bottle as a real Diet Coke,” Keltie Knight, an E! News host who recently completed the Diet Coke Challenge, said by email. “Diet Coke is my best friend and my worst enemy.”
The purists have no trouble holding their ground against their amateur mixologist competition. However, the customization trend is only getting bigger, with seemingly everything suddenly being a potential mixer to go with your Diet Coke, harking back to the days of 1950s soda jerks customizing your drink while you waited.
There are the common alcohol add-ons like Jack Daniel’s and Bacardi. You can mix it with red wine in a drink known as a kalimotxo. And nonalcoholic options have cropped up as well, fueled through social media and the streaming show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” where soda consumption often substitutes for coffee and tea, which are discouraged by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
But while the concept of a “Dirty Soda,” with various add-ons is hardly new — Swig, a Utah-based soda shop, has been making them since 2010, and Sonic has taken the trend nationwide at its drive-ins — the Protein Diet Coke caught a wave of attention. The recipe is simple: You mix a Diet Coke with a Fairlife protein shake. The drink had people discussing its health benefits, even if experts have repeatedly pointed to the risks of aspartame, which is found in thousands of sugar-free products, including diet soda.
While she did not invent the Protein Diet Coke, Rebecca Gordon, a content creator on TikTok, helped turn the drink from curiosity to full-fledged trend with a video that has more than 175,000 likes.
“I’m getting ready in the morning and going to the gas station and filling up 40 ounces of diet soda,” she said when discussing why the mixture appealed to her. “And I also really like protein drinks.”
She added: “I wasn’t expecting it to go as big as it did, but I’m not lying when I say that it’s good.”
Not to let amateurs have all the fun, Coca-Cola has tried to get in on the action by making its own unexpected flavor combinations.
Over the years, the company has experimented widely, releasing both permanent and limited-edition varietals, like Cherry Coke, a longtime success story, and more niche offerings like BlāK and Zero Sugar Oreo. The company also enabled easy customization with the introduction of Freestyle machines in 2009.
In a somewhat surprising move, Coca-Cola recently introduced what it said would be a permanent line of drinks — Coca-Cola Spiced — only to discontinue the line seven months later. It was part of a culling of flavors in which Cherry Vanilla, launched in 2009, and Orange Vanilla, which used to be in cans but was limited to Freestyle machines in recent years, were removed as well.
“People have been heartbroken over the loss of Cherry Vanilla and Orange Vanilla,” Zach Ciampa, who covers new food releases on social media, said of the changes to Coke’s offerings.
But they should not despair. Coke announced Tuesday that the company will be releasing a new Sprite + Tea flavor (“a very common internet hack in its own right,” according to Ciampa) as well as an Orange Cream Coke.
Those who can’t wait for Orange Cream are in luck: Gordon, fresh off her Protein Diet Coke fame, announced in a recent video that a Protein Orange Creamsicle is now a thing.
The purists, meanwhile, can be found at McDonald’s where the Diet Cokes are rather plain but extra crispy.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
