Over the past decade, nostalgia has become a big market. Children of the eighties and nineties looking back and latching onto, reclaiming the toys, movies, styles of their youth and adolescence. In more recent years the word has finally gotten around to the food market. And they are finally beginning to listen.

            Online campaigning has brought back the likes of 90’s greats such as Surge, French Toast Crunch, and Crispy M&Ms. All great news. However, living near the cities in Minnesota all my life, I am forever chasing one particular sensation of my youth. And I fear I forever will.

            The summer of 1993 was a special one, I had officially reached double digits, for one thing, and was now allowed to bike the busy street to the corner store with my pals. On one such adventure, there was something new. In the back of the store, the cooler section, a new bottle. It wasn’t eye catching in a super fun, “Hey kids!” kind of way. It was actually rather boring. Silvery grey with black, white, and red writing and characters. Printed in black, on a white rectangle, bordered in red, “OK.”

            We all bought one.

            The liquid inside was an opaque rust color.  It smelled of fruit. It tasted amazing. A citric fruitiness with a cola background. We would actually all debate the flavoring of the drink. The final verdict, which would become lore in our neighborhood, was that the Coca-Cola company combines all of the vats of each of their sodas to create this, OK, the super soda. This would be my new drink.

            Soon after we would discover the phone number.

            Phone number, you ask? Yes. On each bottle was printed the phone number. It was toll free. 1-800-IFEELOK.

            On a daily basis we would ride our bikes to the corner store, buy our OK, and call from the payphone for our daily affirmation. The benign announcer style voice would say things like,

            “We’re sorry, but your inability to press the correct number suggests a lack of OK-ness. To address this OK-ness deficit, we’re transferring you to some lovely music now,”

            and,

           “Thanks for being such a devoted caller of the OK hotline. Please listen closely to this OK coincidence selected especially for you. Kevin B. of Portland Oregon called our toll free number sixty three different times in two days. At the end of this period, he began to hear our recording in his phone ear even when he was not calling. Also, he found he could not remember simple things like how to drink milk, or whether his shoes went on before his socks, or vice versa. He lost a lot of weight, and got kinda confused. This is a complete coincidence. Please call again as often as your busy schedule permits.”

            Being us kids, and being it summer, our schedule permitted a lot. We called the number incessantly. They eventually began to require punching in a code found on the individual bottles. This dropped our calls drastically.

            That summer, we drank OK soda like it was going out of style. Unbeknownst to us, it was. If it was ever even in style.

            The drink did not last long. It left the shelves. With no internet, we didn’t even have the foresight to stock up.

            For the next few years we would always conduct experiments with the fountain at that same corner store. Trying our best to recreate what we once had. We were always supportive of each other’s attempts, but it was never quite the same.

(so close..so far)

            Some of you may be wondering about this soda. While others may know well. For those of you who think I’m nuts and have made this whole thing up, I will explain.

            I would not learn until much much later that OK soda was part of a test market. Living near Minneapolis/St. Paul, I was fortunate enough to take part in the experiment. When I first learned this, I thought, “I-we loved the stuff, how could it have failed?!” Then I realized, I was ten. I loved the stuff. The campaign worked on me. Unfortunately, it was meant to attract the rebellious teenage demographic. Looks like the target market saw right through it, and the younger market latched on to what they thought was cool and different. They missed the mark.

            So, with the resurgence of a number of classic products from the 90’s, why am I so sure that this, what has actually become somewhat of a cult hit, is not going to be as fortunate? Two reasons.

            One, we already covered. This product failed at the test marketing phase. This means that only about twenty areas in all of the U.S. even got to taste it. Following the Surge movement, I have a hard time believing that twenty small markets could create the proper buzz to convince the company that it needs to bring back something that failed so quickly back in 1993.

            And the second reason. Each of the aforementioned products still existed up until their re-introduction. Surge was still produced as Urge in Norway, French Toast Crunch sold under the same name in Canada, and Crispy M&Ms still available in the UK all of these years. It was simply a matter of making the decision and repackaging them for U.S. sales. Honestly, it was not that big of a leap to make.

            So, there you have it, folks. The soda that barely ever was, and likely never will be again. Save for the times that we who remember, take a moment at the fountain, and do our best to recreate the magic. I still do.