I must be a "throwback"

I'm a computer guy, which nigh on guarantees that I'm a caffeine fiend. My method of choice for getting that caffeine has always been through canned soda (which, among its other virtues, ensures "portion control"... no aimlessly wandering back and forth to the coffee pot for the umpteenth time for me). Thanks to my past military life, it doesn't even need to be "cold"... I'm quite happy drinking room-temperature soda (something that will make many readers here cringe, I'm sure).

Of course, in certain circles, that brings into play the whole "High Fructose Corn Syrup" thing... which can range from the simple "sugar tastes better" to the extreme "HFCS is the root cause of all obesity in America these days" conversations, often with somebody else handy taking the extreme end of the argument, be that "HFCS and sugar are indistinguishable by taste" or "HFCS is totally harmless". Being pragmatic, I take what I can get, and that has meant the HFCS version of soda for the most part.

Pepsi just released "throwback" (read, sugar-sweetened) versions of some of their sodas, including my perennial favorite, Mountain Dew... so, now we all have a unique opportunity to try both versions, head-to-head if you so choose, and determine for yourself the truth on the taste issue, at least. On Mountain Dew, at least, the sugar version is definitely superior to the "standard" version to my tastebuds... plus, it doesn't leave nearly as much of a syrupy film behind once you've finished a can.

Of course, I could be biased... one of the things I noticed was that it tasted very much like the Mountain Dew I had over in Japan, which was a visit I thoroughly enjoyed, so there could be some of that "nostalgia" creeping in. For me, though, the question of how much what your soda's sweetened by matters has been answered... kick that HFCS to the curb, and make the "throwback" version the standard.