Children of the 90's: Surge or Jolt?

[Macloney]

Jolt was really 80's for us.

We never got into Surge in the 90's because we were big Mountain Dew kids. Mountain Dew and any Gatorade. That was when Gatorade started getting crazy with their flavors. I liked one called Riptide Rush.

By the late 90's I was on Diet Dew and cigarettes. A really great or gross combo.

 

[Macloney]

 

[Doc]

I used to work at a little grocery store in high school. I remember that the owner used to have me go to the soda case at the end of the night and swirl the surge bottles around, because if they sat for too long, some kind of whitish sediment would build up at the bottom of the bottle. I never knew what that sediment actually was, but I like to pretend it was ground up yeti cartilage.

I’ve noticed the same thing when I was looking at a bottle of Gatorade Zero once. Anybody know what it is?

 

[CloneinWDSM]

Surge, but the sound that the tall screw off Jolt would make when you opened it was the coolest in the day.

 

[Cyched]

Surge!

 

[Gunnerclone]

Jolt was really 80's for us.

We never got into Surge in the 90's because we were big Mountain Dew kids. Mountain Dew and any Gatorade. That was when Gatorade started getting crazy with their flavors. I liked one called Riptide Rush.

By the late 90's I was on Diet Dew and cigarettes. A really great or gross combo.

**** yes Riptide Rush was a major breakthrough in Gatorade flavor enhancement.

 

[Cyched]

Who remembers All Sport?

 

[Gunnerclone]

Who remembers All Sport?

So gross. But I member. Used to get a 6 inch chicken breast blimpie and an all sport at Kum and go on 50th and EP True during the summer for lunch.

 

[dahliaclone]

Which was better?

They couldn’t have been on the shelves all that long together. Surge only lasted like six years and debuted in like 1997. Jolt was already around in the mid 80s. I should know because I drank too much of it in that decade.

 

[nocsious3]

Surge...because Friley Hall food service had it at the fountain drink station. If you mix surge and milk together it forms a bit off a volcanic bubble over leaving you with this sort of white paste in the bottom of your glass. I don't envy the dishwashers at food service.

 

[jdoggivjc]

Mt Dew has 5 more grams of sugar per serving than surge.

We have a couple guys at work that can go through 8 to 12 cans of full strength dew in a day. Sometimes more. I had a guy at a previous job that basically didn’t eat, went through a 12 pack of dew during the day and then as soon as he got out of the parking lot, he was downing Milwaukee’s Best Ice for the rest of the night. He would finish a 6er on his drive home which was maybe 15 miles at most.

It makes me want to throw up just thinking about that much pop. I can hardly stomach a single can of non diet pop. If I have pop at all, it’s usually mixed with something else.

Our house is pretty much milk, water and some diet pop for me and the wife. No juice or anything like that for the kids.

I was so hooked on Mountain Dew in high school I had to have a can before I went to bed if I didn’t want to lie awake for hours. I understand that’s not how caffeine is supposed to work, but yeah.

Since we don’t get to count Mountain Dew, in high school it was Surge for me, but by the time I got to college I was done with it. I didn’t have my first Jolt until college, but it was never a regular thing for me.

Nowadays it’s mostly Monster Ultra or black coffee.

 

[GrindingAway]

Surge...because Friley Hall food service had it at the fountain drink station. If you mix surge and milk together it forms a bit off a volcanic bubble over leaving you with this sort of white paste in the bottom of your glass. I don't envy the dishwashers at food service.

There was point probably fall of 97, that Iowa State must have been some kind or trial site or key market for Surge. It was everywhere. I remember walking out of a couple of football games and they had truckloads they were just handing out as much as you could carry. Pop machines around campus were converted to 100% Surge.

 

[jdoggivjc]

Surge...because Friley Hall food service had it at the fountain drink station. If you mix surge and milk together it forms a bit off a volcanic bubble over leaving you with this sort of white paste in the bottom of your glass. I don't envy the dishwashers at food service.

This was actually one of the reasons why I stopped drinking Surge... and I was one of those dishwashers at Friley.

 

[Angie]

They couldn’t have been on the shelves all that long together. Surge only lasted like six years and debuted in like 1997. Jolt was already around in the mid 80s. I should know because I drank too much of it in that decade.

Didn't we have Surge in the vending machine in the lunchroom that they used to turn off during lunch period? And an All Sport machine down by the gym in the hallway by the locker rooms?

OHS, brought to you by PepsiCo.

 

[Buster28]

I never tried either one. Was 100% addicted to regular Mountain Dew in the early 90s. I figure I was downing about a six pack a day, on average. Like someone else mentioned above, I had to have one at night before bed or it was hard to sleep. Eventually, I thought just *maybe* all the caffeine and excessive sugar wasn't good for me. I switched to Sprite or Slice (whichever was cheaper at the store at the time) and dropped MD cold turkey. Two weeks of intense withdrawal headaches later (seriously), I stayed off caffeine for probably a dozen years until I needed to eliminate sugar intake and switched to caffeinated diet soda. Today, I drink one 20 ounce bottle of Diet Mountain Dew, beginning in the morning and nursing it throughout the day until it's gone. I cannot stand the taste of coffee, so that's never been an option for me and tea just doesn't do it.

Have to say I'm kind of glad Surge and Jolt didn't exist when I was a kid. I think that would've been bad news (for my parents).

 

[theshadow]

There was point probably fall of 97, that Iowa State must have been some kind or trial site or key market for Surge. It was everywhere. I remember walking out of a couple of football games and they had truckloads they were just handing out as much as you could carry. Pop machines around campus were converted to 100% Surge.

Surge first came out in early 1997. That fall, it was nearly impossible to avoid the people giving out cans/bottles/coupons/merch on campus.

 

[BCClone]

Child of the 80s, but college in early 90s. Heard of both, never tried either to my knowledge. Of course I have never drank and energy drink, now gave up pop about 2.5 years ago, so I'm pretty boring I guess.

 

[Jer]

Mt Dew has 5 more grams of sugar per serving than surge.

We have a couple guys at work that can go through 8 to 12 cans of full strength dew in a day. Sometimes more. I had a guy at a previous job that basically didn’t eat, went through a 12 pack of dew during the day and then as soon as he got out of the parking lot, he was downing Milwaukee’s Best Ice for the rest of the night. He would finish a 6er on his drive home which was maybe 15 miles at most.

It makes me want to throw up just thinking about that much pop. I can hardly stomach a single can of non diet pop. If I have pop at all, it’s usually mixed with something else.

Our house is pretty much milk, water and some diet pop for me and the wife. No juice or anything like that for the kids.

What is this “pop” thing you speak of? Why is there a loud noise that he’s drinking? Hmm, I’m gonna go drink my Coke Zero SODA and lookup this “pop” thingy.

 

[GMackey32]

Who remembers All Sport?

Remember when it was carbonated?

 

[Jer]

Didn't we have Surge in the vending machine in the lunchroom that they used to turn off during lunch period? And an All Sport machine down by the gym in the hallway by the locker rooms?

OHS, brought to you by PepsiCo.

Yep - the All Sport machine lasted a long time. It was behind the swimming pool snack counter and right outside the girls locker room. I had more Jolly Ranchers and molded sugar suckers from that damn snack counter than I ever want to remember.