It seems that whenever Coke or Pepsi comes up with something successful, the other will try to come up with an equivalent. When Dr Pepper was all the rage, Coke came up with Mr Pibb. Coke created Mello Yello as an alternative to Mountain Dew. Then, when that didn't work, they released something called Surge when I was attending Southern Tech. Surge wasn't very good (except with a certain kind of cookie), but since Sotech had signed over their soul to the Coca-Cola company and didn’t offer any competitors' product, I had to make due. I learned to like it the same way that I learned to like beer … relentless conditioning. When they pulled Surge off the shelf, I shed not a tear. More recently, Coca-Cola has offered Vault, which is like Surge but with a more energy-drink feel (like MDX is to Mountain Dew).

One thing that Pepsi has always been missing is a lemon-lime drink to match Coca-Cola's Sprite. Pepsi can and does sometimes align itself with Dr Pepper, but rather than taking advantage of their strong relationship with 7-up, Pepsi released Sierra Mist. And it is terrible.