Which diet soda tastes most like the real thing? Let’s talk about that. Good Mythical Morning. We’re about to try some diet sodas, but first, this portion of today’s episode is sponsored by Bombas, a comfort focused premium basics brand with a mission to help those in need. Hey, it’s getting chilly outside, so it’s time to be cozy inside with slippers from Bombas. Bombas slippers make great gifts for anyone in your life and they have a slipper for any occasion. For example, if you’re looking for a soft, flexible slipper, you can throw in the wash, well try the Gripper Slippers. Or if you want a slipper you can use to grab the mail or take out the trash, try these Sunday slippers. Look at that. Look at dat, we love Bombas. But if you’re unhappy with what you bought, Bombas has a 100% happiness guarantee policy, so you can get free returns and exchanges. And with every purchase you make, you help donate a product to a person in need. One purchased equals one donated. Feel good and do good with Bombas knowing your purchase is doing some real good. New customers get 20% off their first purchase. All you gotta do is go to bombas.com/gmm and use code GMM20 at checkout. And thanks again to Bombas for sponsoring this portion of today’s episode. Now, just about every major soda brand out there offers a healthier version of the real thing. You might call it diet, no sugar or Zero calories, but no matter what they call it, all we want to know is one thing. Is it as good as the original? Or should we even bother? Stevie? Okay, boys, after you compare each soda against its diet counterpart, you’ll each give it a score of one to 10 based on how much it tastes like the original thing and up first, it’s Sprite Zero Sugar. Look what I found. I feel like I would like to taste the Zero version first. Why don’t you do that and I’ll do the opposite and then we will have this covered from every angle? Okay, all right. Now I will say I learned something new today and that is Sprite was developed back in 1959 and the drink was originally called Clear Lemon Fanta. Clear Lemon Fanta, I like the Clear Lemon Fanta in you doesn’t really have the same ring to it, does it? Nope. Sprite is nice. The other thing I learned, Link. I didn’t love this immediately. Yeah, well ’cause you didn’t drink Sprite, you drank Sprite Zero. I’m tasting what’s the sweetener in it? What is the sweetener in it? Phenol aspartame. Aspartame. Aspartame. All right, let me get one more of these because I tend to think that Zeros. Zeros typically are better than diet, right? They’re closer to the original. In my opinion. And what we will say is that the team actually tasted multiple diet versions and they’re presenting us with the one that they said was the closest. So we’re gonna see amongst those, which one’s close. Oh yeah, we tasted if a brand had a Zero and a Diet and a something else, we tasted all of them and and chose the one we thought was the best. And then overall, the sodas you’re gonna be tasting today, we thought were in the top for comparison. So you’re not tasting the bad ones. Side by side, it really exposes itself. But even when I tried it before tasting this, I was like, this is not getting me there. I don’t think I can give it over a six. I’m gonna give it a five actually. I think I’m gonna give it a six is what I was thinking. Now one thing before we move on. Because I feel like this is personal to you. Since you’re the guy who tends to find Sprites in different places. The name Sprite was actually being used by the Coca-Cola brand back in the day in the forties for a mascot called Sprite Boy. You could be the new Sprite Boy. Oh, and he had white hair. Yeah, and he was an elephant. It was a boy with white hair. A boy with white hair. You’re saying that’s what I’m gonna become. Become, is just maybe, yeah. That’s my future, not mine now. We’re moving on to Coke Zero. Yes, we are, and this right here- You know you love Coke Zero. Is our jam. I mean, I tried to start drinking Diet Coke and Coke Zero came on the scene in 2005, but it really didn’t come into my life until like the past six years ago. The past six years ago, yes. I will say that I have always liked Diet Coke, but then when Coke Zero came along, I was like, man, it almost tastes so much like the real thing that I had gotten used to Diet Coke and didn’t necessarily prefer it but now I do prefer it. It took a while to get used to it though. Interesting thing about Diet Coke, in my humble opinion, it has 33% more caffeine than Coke Zero. Is that true or is that your opinion? Within a true, it’s within one milligram. Coke Zero and regular Coke have within one milligram the same amount of caffeine. Diet Coke straight through the roof. Roof! I guess that the blend of two sweeteners, you got aspartame and- Oh my Gosh, they did it. Acesulfame potassium. Oh my gosh, they did it, Link! Is the key to this being such a good match. I’m getting lost over here. You can’t even tell the difference. No, you can tell the difference, but it is so subtle, man. It’s the aftertaste. First of all, Coke is so good. The aftertaste of Coke Zero. Again, side by side, you are gonna taste a difference. But if you’re out at the lake and somebody throws you a Coke Zero. You better be throwing me a beer at the lake buddy. You know what I’m saying? This is when you had too many beers and we, and we wanna throw you a Coke Zero. You know how you get at the lake. That’s the sign. You know lake Link? Here’s your side, you’re, oh, you want me to drink Coke Zero now. This is so good. This is why science matters. That’s right. This is the reason science needs to continue to exist and be championed for this reason. That’s right. We are champions of science here. I can imagine it being better, but the only way I can imagine it being better is if it tasted exactly like it, in which case I would give it a 10, so I’m gonna give it a nine. I know, but can I give it a 10? You can give it whatever you want to, science matters. It’s not an exact, I’m gonna give it a nine two. But that doesn’t undercut the fact that science matters. Science matters. Up next, it’s Diet Mountain Dew. Oh, so y’all determined that Diet Mountain Dew tasted more like Mountain Dew than Mountain Dew Zero? Yes they did. And look at this can, good gosh, that’s a beautiful can. I think it’s a tasteful update. You seem to be in love with this can. Okay, listen, I didn’t know about this, so maybe you didn’t either. So it has been called Mountain Dew, right? Mountain Dew spelled out. And then 2008, they officially rebranded it officially to just MTN Dew, the abbreviated version. How do you even pronounce that? Mountain Dew. Mitten Do. Mitten do. Gimme my Mitten Do at the lake. But then in 2024 on the sly, they went back to Mountain Dew, they started spelling it again. Does anybody else know that this happened? Or is this news to all of us? I know it happened. How did you know? Well, I remember seeing the MTN Dew and I didn’t like that. Didn’t like it. But I thought that was just something special. Because you don’t like Mountain, you don’t like Mitten Dew, you like Mountain Dew. Well, I like Mellow Yellow. Yeah, we’re Mellow Yellow boys. That’s why I really don’t care about it. Where’s that? But now this right here with this new design and the throwback to Mountain. Okay. I have really succumbed to their Logozation, logo sloganization. Sloganization. Diet Mountain Dew tastes more like regular Mountain Dew. I remember when that was a slogan. That’s Dr. Pepper. What? Yeah, and you’ve really succumbed to it though. That’s Dr. Pepper. Are you telling me that there was never a Diet Mountain Dew tastes more like regular Mountain Dew? There might have been. But Diet Dr. Pepper tastes more like regular Dr. Pepper is the, that’s what Dr. Pepper is known for. Well, forget I was even here. You’ve succumbed to it so hard, you got it wrong. Okay. This tastes good. This has both aspartame and sucralose in it. So it’s a double sweetener. Couple of interesting things that I thought were interesting. Aspartame was discovered when a research chemist licked his fingers while developing a new ulcer drug in 1965 and it tasted sweet. Now it’s about 180 to 200 times sweeter than sugar and sucralose, which is actually Splenda, it was created in 1976 when scientists found a way to molecularly bond sucrose and chlorine. And one researcher was asked to test the compound, but he misheard and thought, they said taste it, and he tasted it, and it was like, it’s sweet. Like, it’s like the mistakes of science, but science matters. We champion science, especially the science of tasting things. When in doubt, put it in your mouth. You’re just making drugs and you’re just licking your fingers, that’s what’s happening? That’s how they discover these sweeteners. Very good, not complete magic. Well, one of the reasons that it almost works really well is because Mountain Dew has a distinct flavor that’s coming through really hard, right? It’s that aftertaste that’s missing. But the aftertaste is wild, it starts like this, and there is a wild diversion of the flavors that happens that sends this all the way down. To seven. Six for me. Heads up, Good Mythical Evening is next week. Now, if you haven’t heard, this year, our mission is to save the world from a deadly asteroid. Well, we better get really drunk if we’re gonna do that. Yes, we are blasting off to space on Thursday, October 23rd at 10:00 PM Eastern, 7:00 PM Pacific. Completely live, completely unpredictable, completely ticketed. Yeah, completely ticketed, that’s a way to sell it. Find out gonna what’s gonna happen. Goodmythicalevening.com, that’s where you can get those tickets. Get yourself ticketed up for this potentially humanity saving intergalactic event. This year, it’s serious. We better get really drunk to be that serious. Okay, up next you have A&W Zero Sugar Root Beer. Okay. You love, go ahead and say how much you love that can that looks like a barrel. It’s not this can. Oh, it’s not? It’s Barq’s? I like Barq’s, man. Barq’s, it glistens in the sunshine at the lake. It’s the way that when I drift away in my tube at the lake, you know how sometimes I’ll be listening to my beats. I listen to the binaural beats out on the lake by myself and I get in my own world and I drift away, if it’s a windy day and the way that I summon the rest of y’all to come get me on the jet skis, how you’ll come and get me on the jet skis, it’s, I take my Barq’s and I just start going like this, ’cause the can is so bright, it catches the sun from so many angles. And if it’s at nighttime, it catches the moon. That one time I got lost in the middle of the night ’cause I was in my binaural beats, remember that? And you came out in the glow in the dark jet ski and then got me. Yep, I was topless. You rescue, yeah, you were topless and you rescued me. I can’t write home about this. ‘Cause you don’t like root beer. Which makes me a great judge of this. I think it might taste equally bad to you because- So medicinal. Root beer is very, the reason that I love Dr. Pepper, which I know is in a later round, is because whatever makes it taste great is not the sweetness. And I think that might be the case with root beer. Yep. Yep. Can’t really taste the difference. I’m really impressed with the consistent badness and I’m giving it a nine. So if you love it, just come on over to the Aspartame and Acesulfame potassium side. Nine. Go down the K hole, as they call it. Potassium. They don’t call it that. Up next you have Sunkist Zero Sugar. Now I like this can. It’s a pretty can. I like this logo. I like how the can looks like he’s got sweat on it. Now, did you know from 2008 to 2024, it was called SKIST. It was just… What do you wanna be when you grow up? A suckist. It was S-N-K-S-T. Hold on, I’ve never noticed this before. The U and the N, the U and the N is the same letter. They’ve cheated us out of half. Hold on, has it always been this way? Has the U and the N always shared their sides? I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t be so excited about it. No, sir, definitely not, it’s what we’ve discovered. This is a new materialization. Hold on, they do in every single one of those pictures. They do, it’s just that the logo evolves, but they keep the UN. Oh, I was looking at the N and the K. Well, I gotta start doing this when I write cursive. Sunkist. I gotta put the U and the N together. Why am I seeing it as Sunkist now? Sunkist. Sunkist. What do you wanna be when you grow up? I wanna be a sunkist. I wanna study things that have sunk. Yes. Not bad, but a weird aftertaste. Aspartame. Just aspartame. Just straight aspartame. Wow, wow. The original is so good. What a punch of orange. Makes me wanna run into the sun, drink the sun, feel all orange inside, taste the sun and drink the sun. And then come get me on a jet ski. Now here’s the reason this isn’t working for me. Can I pontificate a little bit about this? An orange is itself both citrusy and sweet. The thing that this is mimicking has a sweetness to it because it’s a fruit. So when you take out the real sugar flavor and the thing that you were getting all the flavor from was an orange flavor, you’ve taken out half the orange flavor, you’ve neutered the orange of its flavor, half of its flavor. And that’s why I’m gonna send this one all the way down to a four. I’m not with you on this, because I’ve been tasting this whole time. You’ve been, when you’ve been pontificating. I mean, it doesn’t have the orange magic. Yep. But if you isolate it and don’t allow yourself to go over to orange magic zone. It’s hard for me to do. I think it’s a decent, strong six. Okay, so you don’t feel that differently then? Well, you’re four. You don’t feel that. You’re on the whole other side of five. I gotta say, that’s pretty close. If it’s less than five, it means you don’t like it. I don’t like it. I do like it. This is so good, I didn’t like it. It’s positive five, that means I do like it. Okay, got it. Up next sits the big daddy, Dr. Pepper Zero Sugar. The best soft drink to ever be invented, and the undisputed champion. It was discovered by a doctor who was testing strep throat, and he dragged his finger along the back of someone’s throat who had eaten a lot of suspicious things, including licorice, peppers and whatnot. And then he tasted it. Tasted his fingers. He tasted his finger. Well I thank God did that happen. It was actually created by a young physicist named Charles Alderton when he decided to create a drink that would taste like the smell of a soda fountain with all the flavors mixing in the air. I don’t know if you pulled that off, Charles, but you pulled off a beautiful thing. The best drink in my life. And you know what they say, Diet Dr. Pepper tastes more like regular Dr. Pepper. Takes more. But we’re saying, our team is saying that Dr. Pepper Zero Sugar tastes more like Dr. Pepper than Diet Dr. Pepper, which already tasted more like regular Dr. Pepper. And that is also my opinion. Geez, horrible. I hate it. It’s amazing how well it works because right here you start, you’re the same, and then the fact that you’ve got this aspartame and Acesulfame potassium. Acesulfame potassium, ACE K. You don’t end up tasting where that sends because the flavor of the pepper, the Doctor part is sending you this way. So they go like this and they come right back together. I cannot taste, I can’t taste the difference. Taste the doctor. Yeah, as much as I hate it, that’s not at play here, which is why it is a 10. It is a 10. It is a 10. I wanted it to be a 10 and I believe that it is. And I wish I liked Dr. Pepper because- It’s a 10. I mean, it’s a reason to like it, just to have something that is such a match. And wouldn’t you say that’s a beautiful can? No, I hate the can. Oh, the can is beautiful. It’s sophisticated. So that means that officially tastes like real soda Brian is Dr. Pepper Zero Sugar. And if you clicked on this episode hoping that we would taste Canada Dry, we just cut that round. We don’t think it would’ve really mattered. All right, don’t forget to come back for Good Mythical Weekend tomorrow, right here on this channel. Thanks for commenting and sharing this video. You know what time it is. Hello, I’m Sammy. I’m Victoria. We’re from Gainesville, Virginia, we’re doing a soda taste challenge. And it’s time to spin the wheel of mythicality. They stuck the landing! I like it when children speak in unison because that’s ultimately hearing less children talk. Just joking, just joking. Take it back, take it back! I love to hear children speak their mind. Okay, we’re gonna donate $1,000 to Safe Horizon to aid in their mission to stand with those who have experienced violence, abuse, and exploitation. And you can also help us give at safehorizon.org. All right, click the top link to watch us compete to build the best ramen for Jordan from sport, in Good Mythical More. Good Mythical Evening is blasting off, October 23rd at 10:00 PM Eastern, 7:00 PM Pacific. 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