What Is a Beverage That Starts With the Letter U?
One of the most popular beverages that begin with the letter U is Urge, which is a citrus-flavored soft drink introduced in 1996 by Coca-Cola Norway. This beverage is the predecessor of the American soft drink Surge, which was introduced in the United States in 1996-7.
Urge was first introduced to in Norway, Denmark, Sweden and France. It was available in 0.5-liter and 1.5-liter bottles; later 0.33-liter cans became available. At the end of 1999, the 1.5-liter bottles were taken off the market, because the sales numbers weren’t satisfactory. A few years later, the cans vanished from the market. That left only 0.5-liter bottles. Soon after, Coca-Cola Norway stopped producing Urge for Denmark, Sweden, and France. Thanks to a massive Internet campaign by consumers, on September 1, 2008, Urge 1.5-liter bottles were re-launched to the Norwegian market.
Surge was produced by The Coca-Cola Company in 1996-7 to compete with Pepsi’s Mountain Dew soft drink. While preparing for the launch of this new high-energy soft drink in the United States, the Norwegian Division of Coca-Cola was also up against a successful launch of Mountain Dew. But Surge was already registered by another party in that country, so Coca-Cola called this beverage “Urge” in Norway.
While Urge remained popular in Norway, in 2002 slumping sales forced Coke to discontinue the Surge product. A very vocal group called Surge Movement, with more than 130,000 Surge fans, played a pivotal role in getting Coca-Cola to finally bring back the soda. The group created a website, Facebook page and Twitter account to plead for the return of the citrus soda. They went so far as gathering cash to purchase a billboard calling for Surge’s return down the street from Coca-Cola’s Atlanta headquarters. Their voice was heard, and on Sept. 15, 2014, The Coca-Cola Company re-released Surge, which can now be purchased exclusively on Amazon in packs of 12 16-ounce cans.
