Don't Ya Wanna? (or) One Of The Few Good Things To Come Out Of 1940s Germany

(So, I'll be honest, researching the history of Rome is taking longer than I thought.  Don't know why I imagined it would be relatively easy.  I must be delusional.  Probably gonna be later this week, but I can't guarantee it.  Until then, there's this...)

Growing up, my family owned a convenience store, so my siblings and I got to be very familiar with a variety of snacks.  Among these were soft drinks (a.k.a.: soda, pop).

The Sioux City Sodas were among our favorites, with Sarsaparilla and Orange Cream Soda being tops.  Root beer has always been a go-to in the family, which led to us determining which of the "big 3" were best.  We've come to the conclusion that Barq's is best for straight drinking, and A&W was best for floats.  But, for me at least, two of the "curiosities" are among my favorites.

Squirt.

I have no idea why, or how, but there isn't anything better than a cold Squirt on a hot day.  Nothing else must be said about this oddball.

Fanta.

This one deserves greater mention, for a number of reasons.  One, the running gag regarding DAR, a coworker of mine.  I owe him a Fanta, in a glass bottle if I can manage.  My "forgetfulness" regarding bringing one has become a bit of a joke.

I had grown up enjoying orange sodas (with Sioux City Orange Cream being #1), so finding out that my wife like them too was great.  In fact, it was one of the few things we enjoyed about the resort during our trip to Jamaica.  The beach/resort scene just wasn't for us.  We had a great time with our friends, who were getting married, we just prefer "simpler."  But, we found that we both like orange sodas, and learned of a fun tv show.

The soda was Fanta, the tv show was Top Gear.

A few weeks ago I saw a review from a gun channel on the YouTubes.  These guys have a good grasp on the history, and make it entertaining.  But, in celebration of 75th years of Fanta, they tasted Fanta Klassik, using the original recipe.

Here's the thing, Fanta is a Coca-Cola product.  Coke's been around for a long while, and had/has factories worldwide.  For very obvious reasons importing the Coke recipe was not possible in the 40s (if you don't know why... we may need to have a talk).  You see, Coke is a secret recipe, to the point where even if you know the ingredients, the guys at the bottling factory don't know the amounts of what's what.  They just pour "ingredient mix A" into vat with "ingredient mix B" and ta-da.  (Okay, so I don't actually know, but that's the gist.)

Anyway, the factory in Germany wanted to keep bottling soft drinks, so they made their own.  After the war, they presented their product to the Coke execs and kept bottling it.

Watch the In Range TV taste testing.  And if you want, watch their mud tests as well.  AK-47 vs. AR-15 is the best.  Lots of interesting hands on history, same with Forgotten Weapons and Hickok45's channels.

So, DAR, don't ya wanna?