Today, citing flagging sales, exciting new product developments, and an apparent desire to be complicit in the ongoing collapse of Western civilization, Coca-Cola announced that it will cease distribution of Coke Zero in the United States beginning in August—dear God, that's in less than a week. In an unrelated story, if anyone needs me, I will be spending the day visiting every big-box store in a ten-mile radius while wiping tears from my eyes and buying as many containers of Coke Zero as my car can carry.
In its place, Coca-Cola will apparently begin selling some abomination called "Coke Zero Sugar," or "Trash Knockoff Garbage Soda," as it shall henceforth be referred to in my household. The taste of Coke Zero Sugar, which uses a slightly different recipe than its predecessor and is already available internationally, is allegedly closer to that of Coke Heavy, and the company is pitching the rollout as "a reinvention of Coke Zero" with a "new improved taste," since that strategy has worked so well for them in the past.
This is, to put it delicately, a goddamn tragedy. Coke Zero is the best of all the diet sodas, and it's not close. Diet Mountain Dew delivers the heartiest caffeine wallop to your late-afternoon drowsiness, but between the multiple-greens color palette, the aggressively 90s-esque disemvoweling, and the EXTREME logo design, being seen in public holding a can of it is low-key embarrassing, since it makes you look like a middle-schooler on his 14th consecutive hour of playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater. Diet Dr. Pepper manages to combine 23 distinct flavors in a way that destroys every single one. And although I haven't verified this through laboratory testing, I'm reasonably sure Sprite Zero is manufactured by a guy filling plastic bottles from a Sodastream and then spritzing in imitation lime juice out of one of those green plastic spheres they sell at the bodega.
But Diet Coke isn't going anywhere, you, an ignoramus, might protest. Isn't that good enough? It is not. Diet Coke is a beverage that tastes like someone left a watered-down, room-temperature glass of store brand cola in an empty coffee tin for three days. It's roughly the equivalent of emptying a packet of Splenda directly into your mouth and then washing it down with an already-flat bottle of Perrier. This is not a matter of opinion: In 2016, even as soda sales plummeted nationwide, Coke Zero sales grew 3.5% last year, compared to a 1.9% drop for Diet Coke. By law, every offer of Diet Coke that occurs in the United States should be followed immediately by a sheepish apology.
Coke Zero is different. It's sweet, but not saccharine. It's playfully fizzy, but not aggressively bubbly. It is just as adept at providing a standalone jolt of refreshment as it is at taking the edge off the plastic bottle of dark liquor that your cheap friend insisted on bringing to your housewarming party. Most importantly, it won't make your mouth taste like aluminum foil for the rest of the afternoon as you and the rest of your remorseful Diet Coke-drinking coworkers walk desperately around the office asking each other for a stick of gum to end this waking nightmare. Coke Zero is a perfect soda, and it's being cruelly ripped from our collective arms with barely a week's notice.
Rest in power, Coke Zero. You deserved far better than what little this cruel, unappreciative world had to offer.
