Shasta: Then and Now

I Want a Pop. I Want a.... Shasta!

When I was a kid we didn’t stock our refrigerator with soft drinks like Coca-Cola and Dr. Pepper. My parents would buy large bottles of Coke (and later, Diet Coke) to drink throughout the week, but for the most part my sister and I drank Kool-Aid (when we weren’t drinking water from the fountain hose). But sometimes, especially in the summer, my mom would pick up a case of Shasta drinks for us to enjoy. And boy, did we enjoy them.

If I remember correctly, some of the flavors that came in the Shasta variety pack included Shasta Cola and Dr. Diablo (their versions of Coca-Cola and Dr. Pepper) along with other flavors like root beer, grape, orange, and lemon-lime, which was a lot like 7-Up or Sprite. Root Beer and Dr. Diablo were my favorites and were always the first to go. By the end of the case all that would be left were the generic Cola flavor and a few cans of orange.

Shasta, located near the base of Mount Shasta in California, got its start selling bottled water and things like ginger ale that could be used as drink mixers. In the 1960s the company was purchased by Sara Lee and by the time my friends and I wer chugging six packs of Dr. Diablo, they were expanding all across the western and southern parts of the United States. In the mid 80s the company was purchased by Faygo, something I had never heard of and have never seen for sale here in the south.

The reason I associate Shasta so strongly with my youth is because by the time I was a teenager, it kind of disappeared. I’m sure it was still for sale on store shelves, but we quit buying it and they never sold it in restaurants and so it just fell off my personal map.

Not long ago I was in Dollar Tree and was surprised to find an entire section of Shasta Cola! They had orange, lemon-lime, grape, and several other flavors. Like everything else at Dollar Tree, each can is $1.25 which isn’t a bad price if you want a pop!