I guess when your kids start giving you Diet Coke-themed gifts for Christmas, you realize it’s more than just a casual favorite drink. Spare me “that poison will kill you” lessons—as Rizzo used to say in Grease: “there are worse things I could do.” I know it's not a healthy protein smoothie, and I limit my intake to one a day, at lunch.
The only change to this routine came recently when Coca-Cola disturbed my system by introducing Diet Coke Cherry. Long a fan of the “freestyle” machine at Wendy’s, Burger King, Wawa and some other locations, I love making Cherry Vanilla Diet Cokes, so when Diet Coke Cherry in a can was released, I switched over. Now I’m having a hard time finding it in the grocery store (get it together, Acme!) and worried it’s going to be dropped, so I’m hoarding it when and if I see it someplace.
In February, Coca-Cola re-released Diet Coke Cherry, originally available when I was in high school in the 1980s. It’s a 40th throwback; the company enthusiastically announced as part of their news release “celebrating four decades of cherry-flavored innovation”:
“Introduced in 1985 as Coca-Cola’s first-ever flavored extension of the trademark brand, Cherry Coke established a legacy that continues to influence beverage culture today. In 2026, Coca-Cola builds on that heritage by offering consumers more cherry-forward choices than ever before, reflecting growing demand for nostalgic flavors.”
“Cherry-forward” sounds like a Gen Z marketing chick is unnecessarily woke about “beverage culture.” Relax, Coca-Cola: Cherry Forward would sound better as a drag queen name. But in what they ridiculously call their “cherry portfolio,” they introduced Coca-Cola Cherry Float and also Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Cherry Float, for a total of five (there’s also Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Cherry) cherry-related flavors.
Here’s the problem: stores only have x amount of room on the shelves for Coca-Cola, and with the Mormons making “dirty soda” the hottest thing since coffee, brands are rushing new flavors to market. There’s not enough room for five varieties of “Cherry-forward” Coca-Cola on the shelves and Diet Coke Cherry hasn’t appeared in my regular grocery store all summer. I’ve stopped in random Walmarts and no-name grocery stores searching for the soda aisle. I ran into someone recently in a neighboring town who said “I didn’t know you shopped here!” and mumbled something about grabbing something for dinner while in the area because I was too embarrassed to admit the cherry Diet Coke scavenger hunt. I even have mini-cans of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Cherry Float that I’ll mix into my Diet Coke for when I’m running low on the endangered “cherry-flavored innovation.”
Diet Coke is a culture. When I’m on Instagram, the algorithm will toss funny sketches, Diet Coke art items or Gen Z “fridge cigarette” content because Gen Z invented everything before they were even born and nothing existed before TikTok. Algorithms (and my fellow Diet Coke addict brother) being what they are, I consume a lot of Diet Coke content, and agree with my fellow DC community members that there’s a hierarchy in the way we consume the beverage.
DC fans generally consider the aluminum can the day-to-day standard. We know a McDonald’s Diet Coke is superior and will go through their drive-through for Diet Cokes only. I’m not a fan of supporting Jesus Chicken and rarely go (nuggets for my son and that peppermint milkshake they have at Christmas are the exceptions), but there’s something to be said for the environment-be-damned Diet Coke served in styrofoam at Chick-fil-A since it stays cold longer. You’ll never see me carrying this, as my gay card would be evoked immediately.
If there was a Wawa next to a McDonalds, I’d go into the Wawa because I love that freestyle machine Cherry Vanilla Diet Coke that you can only get in that way. My DC fam knows ball, which means Diet Coke in a plastic bottle is always a last resort, especially a two-liter bottle where you can hear it go flat as soon as you twist that top.
A friend gave me a “I need a Diet Coke” sweatshirt for my birthday. As a miniaturist I’m in love with my mini-Diet Coke cans. It’s a “beverage culture” I’ve been a part of for four decades and if it ends up being the thing that offs me, that’s on me. But there are worse things I could do.
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