Vault, son of Surge

I am someone who loved the late lamented Surge. I became acquainted with it almost immediately before its discontinuation around 2000-2001, at the house of my friend Brendan. Thereafter I bought several cases of it, perhaps even the last cases in the area, because for several months afterward, I saw no more coming in, even after I asked about it at the store. While visiting Brendan's house around this time, I was surprised to find he had a 12-pack of Surge left, and he graciously shared it with me, even after I told him I was unable to find it anymore. He believed it could still be obtained through ThinkGeek.com, and maybe it could at the time, but soon enough, it was all gone, and I later learnt it had been discontinued.

Other drinks I loved which were discontinued include 3 drinks from Sobe: Wisdom, Karma, and Zen Blend. The first two may have been discontinued for a good reason, as they contained St John's Wort, which may not be the best thing to put in drinks. But Zen Blend was a wonderful blend of several kinds of tea, 3 or 4 kinds of ginseng, and several fruit juices. It became harder to find, and eventually vanished, only to be resurrected with a changed recipe a year later or so. It wasn't as good, had far fewer ingredients, but I took it anyway. I was only able to find it at one small gas station about 2 hours' drive away. I stocked up whenever I happened to be passing by that way, but soon enough it was gone from there, too. I still have a single bottle of the original blend, which I have the semi-joking fantasy of replicating someday when we have access to molecular or chemical samplers that can reconstruct a substance from a sample. If it hasn't horribly spoiled by then. I have no idea of the shelf life of this sort of drink.

Anyway, I finally tried Vault. Well, it was only released nationally 5 months ago, and may not have shown up here until last month. I know I'm the only one on the Frappr map in the Central Valley. But last year I was in Virginia, which was test marketing it at the time. Just never got to try it until now.

I admit, my memory of the taste of Surge is rather cloudy, but Vault pleases my palate quite nicely. I think it's a worthy replacement, though perhaps it wasn't necessary to increase the amount of caffeine. I think it's second only to Jolt in this recipe, while Surge was below Mountain Dew (another favourite of mine). At any rate, my taste result was that yes, I accept Vault in place of Surge, and after finishing the bottle, my opinion remains the same. I'll be getting more. In fact, if I had a Vault T-shirt, I'd wear it proudly to spread the word of our new saviour.