Skip to main content

The Manual may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site.

Remember Surge? Here’s What Happened to the High-Octane Soda from the ’90s

The year was 1997 (the best year of the ’90s, if you ask our Food and Drink Editor, Sam Slaughter). The likes of Third Eye Blind and Chumbawamba were — by some miracle — running the charts, Clinton was in office, and Coca-Cola was trying desperately to compete with Pepsi’s greenish-yellow pride and joy otherwise known as Mountain Dew. Their solution? Surge.

A hybrid soda and energy drink combo devised before the popularity of Monster and Red Bull, Surge was something of an anomaly at the time. Coke had already fallen short with tries like Mello Yello and the even more obscure OK Soda. It was time to up the intensity.

Coca-Cola

The soda would attempt to live up to the $50 million marketing campaign that backed it by incorporating maltodextrin. The food additive comes from starch and digests quickly. Bodybuilders and gym rats see the stuff all the time in their energy drinks or dietary supplements. Putting a fair amount in a soda was a relatively new idea at the time.

The ads were a sight to behold. Inspired by the extreme sports culture of the time, they were over the top, outrageous, and high-voltage. To a legion of young and impressionable youth, it was an invitation to be reckless, well before alcohol came into the picture. Surge wanted skateboarders, rollerbladers, BMX-riders, and folks sporting SOAP shoes to go big or go home, with a highly carbonated beverage in hand.

Surge Soda Commercial 1997

I used to stop at 7-Eleven on the way to middle school to grab a six-pack of the stuff. My friends and I would divvy it up, throw back a couple of the neon-tinged drinks and pretend we were out of control. It may have been the excessive amounts of carbohydrates and sugar, it may have just been play. It was probably some combination of the two.

Surge was loud and full of abandon — like that friend who never said no to a dare, despite the number of hospital visits.

Surge was loud and full of abandon — like that friend who never said no to a dare, despite the number of hospital visits. It was also an affront to the transparent drinks movement of the time. Drinks for all ages, like Zima and Crystal Clear Pepsi, mimicked water in their clarity. Not Surge. When I made the mistake of pouring it into a glass one time, I was horrified to see just how bright and syrupy the stuff was. It was like drinking Ooze taken straight from an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Strangely enough, Surge had a sibling called Urge that launched in Scandinavia a year earlier. The Norwegian version of the drink came in a slightly tamer package (less aggressive in the neon department), but was wildly popular overseas. 

After a fairly successful stretch, Surge called it quits in 2003. It came back in various forms, like a slushy and a limited online run, but the outspoken beverage had mostly faded. It’s unknown how many broken wrists and detention appointments the stuff actually inspired. (We’re not even going to get into the myth that Surge — and Mountain Dew — had the ability to lower one’s sperm count.)

Ska will never die. RT if you agree.

— SURGE (@SURGE) May 31, 2019

Yet, in keeping with our resurrection of all things ’90s, Surge is back, a. You can find it at several Burger King locations and on Amazon — they even have a product locator to help you). It’s a lower-octane version of its former self, but the forcefully splattered aesthetic and invitation to go wild are still there. Just don’t pour it in a glass.

Mark Stock
Mark Stock is a writer from Portland, Oregon. He fell into wine during the Recession and has been fixated on the stuff since…
10 smoky scotch whisky options to make those fall campfires magical
Our favorite smoky scotch whisky brands for late-summer drinking
Campfire whisky

The end of summer is barreling toward us like a pumpkin spice-fueled locomotive. Depending on where you live, you’re likely already seeing some signs of fall. The leaves are beginning to change color, the days are getting shorter, and Halloween candy is already on grocery store shelves. Fear not, even with the eventuality that is the end of summer, we still have until September 23 to enjoy all that the season has to offer. For us, it means as many backyard campfires as possible before the weather grows colder. It also means we only have weeks left to pair our fires with a glass of warming Scotch whisky.

Nobody will blame you for complimenting the smoky fire by drinking a complex, non-peated single malt Scotch whisky. For those confused about the spelling, most of the world omits the 'e' when referring to whisky. You also might be wondering the difference between Scotch and whiskey. Well, in the simplest terms, Scotch is a kind of whisky (Americans and the Irish still use the 'e'). So that should put an end to the Scotch vs. whiskey debate once and for all.

Read more
Berries going bad too fast? Try this amazing viral TikTok hack that actually works
This viral TikTok hack shows you how to keep your berries fresh for up to 10 days
Mixed berries

Berries are a fan favorite in the produce section. These juicy little delights are a vitamin-packed fruit that's great for baking, snacking, making fruity cocktails like sangria, and even brightening up your weekend charcuterie boards. If you're someone who loves berries, you know how frustrating it can be when they start going bad too quickly.
But worry not! A viral TikTok hack has been making waves online, promising to keep your berries in tip-top shape for longer. We'll walk you through how to keep berries fresh using this amazing hack that actually works.
Say goodbye to wasting money on spoiled fruit, and hello to spoiling yourself with fresh, juicy berries whenever you want!

How to keep berries fresh with water and vinegar
Berries tend to spoil quickly due to their high water content, delicate texture, and the growth of mold and bacteria between them in their store-bought produce cartons. Exposure to moisture, heat, and air can also accelerate the ripening (or spoiling) process.

Read more
Take a break from pumpkin beer: The best Oktoberfest beers to drink this fall
These delicious drinks are perfect for crisp fall days
Pint of beer

There are at least a handful of holidays (especially drinking centered holidays) that many drinkers don’t really know the true origins of. We know these are special days in which we drink tequila and Mexican beer (Cinco de Mayo), Irish whiskey or dry Irish stouts (St. Patrick’s Day), and giant pints of malty, refreshing German beer (Oktoberfest). And while we’ll get into the other two when the time comes, it’s Oktoberfest’s time in the spotlight.

Oktoberfest is more than simply a day to wear your grandfather’s lederhosen, drink Marzen, eat schnitzel, and listen to oom-pah music. It’s a two-week festival (the actual party is in Munich) that’s celebrated each fall to remember the wedding of Prince Ludwig of Bavaria and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen on October 12, 1810.

Read more