Showing posts with label Faygo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Faygo. Show all posts

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Get your drank at the nachtwinkel


By "drank," I mean the Dutch word, not the drug reference!

In Belgium, we saw the "nachtwinkel," or the night shop. Belgian shopkeepers value the importance of being able to meet customers' needs even outside of traditional store hours (Germany, I'm staring at you), so there are nachtwinkels (not sure how to make that plural auf...Flemish?).

I love that they sell "drank." That just means beverages. However, it makes me think of some convenience stores in the US. **Okay, keep in mind that the following is what things used to be called - but these things have been co-opted to mean something else now.** Cheap convenience stores in the US would sell something called "drink." Its flavors are actually labeled by what color the drink is. So, the drink that is purple is called "purple drink," the red one is called "red drink," and so on. People don't even try to call purple drink grape flavored because it didn't taste anything like grapes; after all, why would something so fake and full of food dyes and high fructose corn syrup taste "natural?" I remember seeing some of these drinks when I was a teen and they were in these opaque plastic bottles shaped like little barrels. I thought that "blue drink" looked like windshield washing fluid for cars.

**Some of these terms now are used to refer to an illegal combination of over the counter medications, alcohol, etc. I'm not sure if anyone calls the highly artificial beverages by the previous name of "drink" or "drank," without a drug connotation.**

Despite that, I grinned a little bit when I saw the nachtwinkel with "drank." I wondered if they had any drinks named after what color they are.

Oh! And here's a Michigan moment: we actually do still have a drink named after its color and there isn't a drug connotation with it: Red Pop! Faygo, a Detroit pop company, makes it. Of course it's full of dyes and whatnot, but it is nice to have once in a while. It's supposed to be strawberry flavored, but I wouldn't say it's quite full-on strawberry. What does it taste like? It tastes like red. There you go.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Market Forces

From Oct 4, 2008
My brother: "Hey, is ICP coming into town soon?"
Me: "Um, I have no idea. Why?"
Brother: "Well, Faygo is on sale."
Me: "What does that have to do with anything?"
Brother: "Every time ICP comes into town, Faygo goes on sale. I'm serious! All the stores have it on sale right now!"
Me: Rolling eyes.