Fresca

What is Fresca Soda?

Fresca is a grapefruit flavored soda that originated on the east coast and picked up popularity during the many yuppie diet crazes of the 1980s. It is an anomaly in the soda industry for being one of the only sugarless sodas not to say "DIET" on the can or be explicitly marketed as a diet soda in advertising.

The taste of Fresca is amazingly complex for being a soda without calories; how it can have no calories and contain grapefruit juice from concentrate, two types of plant oils, and carob bean gum is a feat of modern food science! It hits the tongue with a bright, tart zing which transforms into a relatively heavy (for a sugarless soda) grapefruit flavor intermixed with aspartame that stays in the mouth long after you swallow.

It has been reported by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin that Lyndon Baines Johnson loved Fresca. He went so far as to have installed in the Oval Office a Fresca soda fountain that operated by pushing a button on his desk chair.

Delicious

What else can be said? Quite a bit, actually. There is a sort of naughty flavor involved in Fresca, which they claim to be the flavor of grapefruit. However, we know there is more to it than that. Sitting down with half a grapefruit and shoving it down your throat does not provide the same experience. Fresca is alive. It has its own way, totally different than any other soda, having more of a tang and a sting than any other carbonated beverage on the market.

Stigma

There is a stigma attached to drinking Fresca. This comes as a result of the perception that it is the type of beverage enjoyed by people who are really, really, really into Olivia Newton-John's "Let's Get Physical" video. Not just the song itself, but the video, mind you. Men seen drinking Fresca are often greeted with a punch in the nose and the "Nancy boy" label. This has to change.

Stand Up And Fight

Why is Fresca no longer readily available for everyone's drinking pleasure? Why do we instead have things like Surge, Code Red and lemon flavored Diet Coke? What is wrong with these marketing people? Don't they remember what happened when they tried to do away with Coca Cola in favor of "New Coke"? There was a revolution. That is because the Coca Cola fans are more vocal. Fresca people are quieter and aren't all that opposed to being on our knees. We need to stand up. Fresca is never found in vending machines. It is never found on construction sites (where we need it to cool off after a hard day of watching big guys carrying steel girders around like matchsticks). At the supermarket you find it somewhere behind the second rate lemon-lime sodas if you find it at all. Sometimes you have to follow a stock boy into the back room to find the Fresca and then the whole getting on the knees thing starts happening again. Why can't we enjoy Fresca in peace, happiness and relative safety?

We Must Have A Plan

Everyone can make noise and shout and whine about situations they don't agree with. Nine times out of ten that isn't going to get you anywhere. We want Fresca back in the front lines of carbonated beverages. In order to do this we have to start talking about Fresca constantly. People must stop associating it with that other stigma-laced beverage from the 70s, TAB, which comes in a pink can. People must see Fresca as the answer to our worldwide problems. Can't you see world leaders stopping their endless arguing about borders, religion and human rights after seeing a six pack of Fresca on the table. Throw in some spicy chicken wings and we have a cease fire.

Support Your Local Fresca Friends