830. What's in a Zero?

The New Year should necessarily involve making new choices, taking new chances.  

Most of you all know my drink of choice other than Red Wine - Ale-8-One.  I've been drinking Ale-8-One since some time in 1978.  Here's a paragraph taken from a post made on this blog on December 2, 2007, after a drive out in the the commonwealth:

"Ky 169 leads to KY 33, which is South Main Street in Versailles, the county seat of Woodford County. I was anticipating stopping at a little corner market in Versailles which for years has boasted an Ale-8 vending machine, 12 ounces for 50 cents or 75 cents of the Kentucky based soda in little green bottles.

The vending machine has stood in a small nook of that building for as long as I can remember. It was there last year when I attended the funeral services for my aunt Margaret Collins, the former governor's mother-in-law. This I know since I stopped and bought a bottle. But, upon arriving in downtown Versailles, the little green bottle vendor was gone. Utter dismay."

So there I was a few days ago, New Year's Eve to be exact, in the soft drink aisle of the Lower Brownsboro Kroger, pondering both a purchase of my beloved soft drink as well as the pounds I had added over the holidays and it was at that point I spied the "Ale-8-Zero" six pack of bottles.  And for the first time since 1978, I chose something other than the Ale-8-One.  I picked up the six bottles of Ale-8-Zero in the Christmas packaging - maybe it was Holiday packaging - and decided to check it out.

As of today, a few minutes ago, I've finished the sixth of the six bottles.  However, I had decided by the second bottle on New Year's Day that this new product wasn't all that bad.  Actually it isn't a new product.  Rather, it's an eighteen year old product recently rebranded with a new name.  Diet Ale-8-One was introduced in 2003.  I've avoided it for eighteen years.  It was rebranded as Ale-8-Zero on February 2, 2021 and took me just under eleven months to pick up a six-pack.

On New Year's Day, on the Ale-8-One Facebook page, I made the following comment about their diet soda:

After drinking Ale-8-One religiously since 1978, yesterday I bought a six-pack of Ale-8-Zero. It's 97% better than I was expecting and 98% as good as the original. I have some decisions to make in 2022.  

It really is pretty good.  I think I'm going to stick with it.  I'm completely surprised.

  

Also, Happy Tenth Day of Christmas!

© Jeff Noble, Louisville, Kentucky, January 3, 2022.