2012 The Year of Surge!?

I would like to talk about a subject which most people don't seem to relate to: My obsession with Surge soda.

If you don't know what this is then you can get the fuck out.

You can always buy some of this if you don't mind the $40 shipping!

Those who are a part of this cult following of a discontinued soda will understand where I'm coming from.  Now this soda hasn't been around for around a decade so why write about it now?  It is still relevant in my life recently because I have been purchasing full cans of it lately as well as a Surge Jacket.  Unfortunately there is another reason I bring this topic up.  It seems that as of September 2011 Vault similar to Surge soda has been discontinued.  While I personally didn't enjoy Vault quite as much as surge, it was the next best thing out there and it is truly a shame to see it going away.

You won't be buying this anymore

Now I am part of the reason vault is going away.  As of the last couple of years I haven't bought it but maybe a couple of times.  However about two weeks ago I was at Burger King (for breakfast of course because that's the only time I like that place, egg and cheese croissant ftw)  and I decided for once instead of an ICEE I was going to get vault, probably from now on.  I go to order it and it's not there anymore, this had been on my mind lately until a friend of mine a few days ago told me that it's been discontinued. I couldn't help but nostalgia of that horrible day in a grocery store as a child when I found out Surge was no longer available for purchase.  Which brings me to some history of my interactions involving Surge/Vault soda.

After a few years of going about life as usual without Surge I found out about a fantastic community at SaveSurge.org  The site no longer updates but I spent a lot of time on there in the early/mid 2000's. We pushed and pushed and pushed for Coke to bring back the soda we all loved, while we kept demanding it Coke sat back and watched as expired soda was selling for hundreds of dollars, none of the money going to them.  Eventually we achieved some sort of victory/response by Coke deciding to release Vault.  As well as another now not updated site vaultkicks.org.  Somehow I lucked into a great experience, I was at a major festival in a tiny town in pretty much the middle of nowhere, and for some reason they had vault there (this was a year before it was produced nationwide in stores)  I bought 2 or 3 and drank them, later that night I went back to buy up all of what was left but it was all gone. 

Now like most situations with vault being discontinued there is a good side and a bad side to this.  Lets start with the bad.  I assume Vaults sales were not where Coke wanted them to be so they discontinued the product.  I think it is likely that the company considers vault equal to surge, seeing as how it was quite similar and took it's spot on their product line up.  This to me means they are most likely going to see the failure of vault as the final nail in the coffin of Surge.  They will feel like they tried and they lost which means they're not going to try again. 

But here's the good side, we can't let this happen.  We need to once again join together as we did in the savesurge.org days and demand that Coke bring back Surge soda like they should have done in the first place.  In fact there is already a group working on this very thing, they just need all the help they can get.  They're called "Surge Movement" and they can be found on twitter and facebook. 

I'd really love to see something positive come out of this, if not at least we can all make some new friends over a common interest. 

In the meantime later this week I am going to go on a soda run to all my local stores and see if I can pick up any Vault that may be left on the shelf.  I wish I was receiving this (8 full Surge cans) or this (Surge cooler) in the mail instead though!