Thursday, July 10, 2008

Pop / soda - mix

Depending on where and when you grew up, carbonated beverages were referred to by different names. Some called them pop, some called them soda, some even called them soda pop.
If you knew serious drinkers, it was referred to as mix – as in “Have some pop but don’t drink all the mix” – meaning that one could drink the grape and orange but would get squinty-eyed looks if you had too much Coke or 7-up.

When we grew up, it was referred to as pop. We didn’t have it as often as some. I also remember drinking orange drink made from McDonald’s syrup. It came in big plastic jugs and you would mix it with water.

We also had Pic-a-Pop in all the various flavors. This was a local bottler who had drinks in a rainbow of various flavors in returnable bottles – in Ontario they had The Pop Shoppe. These came in both the small and larger bottles and orange plastic trays to carry them. I recall the little metal toppers they had to reseal to bottles with the rubber inserts and how we used to play with them as ‘the button’. They did knock-offs of the standards (Pop-up), and some odd flavors (moonshine) but I really liked their grape and root beer. Lime, cherry, black cherry, cream soda were other flavors out the 40 or so they had. They were nice in that you paid by the tray but could mix and match flavors to make up your tray.

1 comment:

David Badilotti said...

Ah, The Pop Shoppe. That was one of our summer rituals. We'd each get to fill a flat with whatever we wanted for our summer camping. I remember the intense stress of trying to decide if I needed one more root beer, or if another lemon and lime would make for the perfect summer.

Of course no matter what I picked, there would be the month long saga of which pop to drink that day. If I made the wrong choice my only back up would be trading with my sister.