5 Most Unusual Coca-Cola Beverage Experiments

The Coca-Cola Co KO is back to tinkering with its formulas. This time it is with a newly announced update to its Coca-Cola Zero Sugar product, the successor to the Coca-Cola Zero that was discontinued in 2017 after 12 years on the market.

The company is no stranger to experimenting with new flavors, most infamously with the New Coke rollout in 1985. However, sometimes these experiments are a bit ahead of their time, and sometimes they are just a victim of bad timing.

To satiate the thirst of soft drink trivia lovers, here are five lesser-known but still-intriguing Coca-Cola concoctions that deviated considerably from the tried-and-true soda.

Coca-Cola Blak: How about a coffee-flavored version of Coke? The company poured this idea on American consumers in August 2006 before pulling it from the market one year later. A European version was introduced at the same time but was discontinued after two years.

American consumers complained Coca-Cola Blak was too sweet and didn't have the proper coffee taste — which is no surprise because the company spiked the product with high fructose corn syrup, aspartame and acesulfame potassium. The overseas version used sugar for its sweetener, but the company couldn't find much interest for a java-flavored soda.

Fast-forward to 2020 and the growing popularity of the ready-to-drink canned coffee product segment spurred Coca-Cola to this concept another chance. A newly formulated Coca-Cola with Coffee was rolled out across Europe before hitting American stores in January 2021 with three flavor varieties (caramel, dark blend and vanilla, with the latter two coming in a zero-sugar version). Initial reviews were positive, but it is too early for the company to declare the product a success.

Coca-Cola Black Cherry Vanilla: This soda was introduced in January 2006 in regular and diet versions. Within 15 months, the product line was discontinued.

Some beverage industry experts believed it failed because consumers were growing tired of flavored sodas, which were proliferating in the segment at the time.

The company was also waffling on what to do with its Vanilla Coke product. It was scheduled for discontinuation in the U.S. in late 2005 in favor of this offering. But its continued strong sales overseas resulted in the product being returned to the U.S. at the expense of Coca-Cola Black Cherry Vanilla, which also had the misfortune of having a rather awkwardly long name.

As with the coffee-flavored drink, Coca-Cola put the concept on the proverbial back burner and came out with a reconfigured version called Cherry Vanilla Coke in February 2020.

Coca-Cola Energy: In addition to competing against ready-to-drink canned coffee products, Coca-Cola decided this decade was the right time to take on the energy drink brands with its own beverage.

Coca-Cola Energy debuted in January 2020 with 114 milligrams of caffeine and guarana extract and B vitamins added to its ingredients; it came in a regular and cherry version, each with its own zero-sugar counterparts.

Unfortunately for the product, it came just before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the company's operations, and by October 2020 Coca-Cola announced it was cutting about 200 of its beverages brands in order to concentrate on the products with the greatest sales potentials — and as often happens, the last one in was among the first to go.

The company ceased sales of Coca-Cola Energy for the North American market in May. The product can still be found in some overseas markets, but how long that will last is anyone's guess.

Coca-Cola Fiber+: Few people look to soft drinks as a source of fiber, but Coca-Cola Asia Pacific decided to shake things up by adding the dietary fiber dextrin to the traditional formula.

Coca-Cola Fiber+ was introduced in Japan in March 2017 and pitched to health-conscious consumers. The company's promotional push included extraordinary claims that the drink would help in fat absorption suppression while moderating blood triglyceride levels — these were quickly debunked by Japanese medical professionals.

Nonetheless, the product became a hit and has since been expanded to other Asian countries including China, Mongolia, Taiwan and Vietnam. There are no plans for the product to be introduced on this side of the Pacific.

White Coke: Americans never got a chance to taste this version of the soft drink, which was denuded of its caramel coloring but nonetheless kept the beverage's ingredients and taste. White Coke was created at the behest of Marshal Georgy Zhukov, the Soviet general who oversaw some of the Red Army's most decisive victories in World War II and was introduced to Coca-Cola by no less a figure than General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

After the war ended, Zhukov made inquiries of U.S. General Mark Clark if it was possible to manufacture Coca-Cola to make it look like vodka. Clark passed the request to President Harry S. Truman, who consulted with the Coca-Cola Company, who were able to create a "White Coke" for exclusive shipment to Zhukov and his Red Army leadership team during the late 1940s.

Why Zhukov wanted a Coca-Cola drink that looked like vodka remains one of the great mysteries of soft drink history.

Photo: Mike Mozart / Flickr Creative Commons.