Surge

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For other uses, see Surge (disambiguation).

Surge


Type	Citrus soda / Energy drink
Manufacturer	The Coca-Cola Company
Country of Origin	Norway
Introduced	Testing: Norway: 1996 International: 1997
Discontinued	2001 In USA, Denmark and Sweden
Related products	Mello Yello Sprite Mountain Dew Vault Mountain Dew MDX Sundrop

Surge (also SURGE) is a citrus soft drink first introduced in Norway, under the name Urge (1996), by the Coca-Cola Company to compete with Pepsi's Mountain Dew.

[edit] History

In 1997, Coca-Cola decided to start making it in USA under the name Surge, although in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the name remained Urge. In the USA, the product did very well for the first few years, but eventually started to slip in sales. The Coca-Cola company has since ceased production of this beverage in the USA, Denmark and Sweden in 2001 and stopped making the syrup for fountains in 2002.

Norway is the only country where you can still buy this soft drink. Surge was widely associated with the extreme sports lifestyle, with television commercials similar to those currently used by Mountain Dew. Expired cans and bottles of Surge now sell on eBay for high dollar amounts, including a reported $160.08 for a 12-pack sold in April 2005.^[1]

Since 2002, a community of Surge lovers have been built around savesurge.org. While Vault tastes similar to Surge, it is yellow in color rather than light green. The beginning of 2005 saw a campaign to bring Surge back to the shelves of Wal-Mart; according to savesurge.org, this resulted in Wal-Mart executives contacting Coca-Cola about bringing the drink back, but the soft drink company elected not to make a deal.

There are a few myths about Surge; chief among them is that Surge contains more caffeine than most other drinks. Urban myths often hint that Surge was discontinued because it had more caffeine than two cups of coffee. While Surge does contain more caffeine than some soft drinks, it contains a little less than its closest analogue, Mountain Dew. According to Coca-Cola's customer service in Norway, Urge (the Norweigian equivalent) contains 45% more caffeine than Coca-Cola. In Norway, a 0.5L bottle of Coca-Cola contains 10mg of caffeine, while a bottle of Urge contains 14.5mg of caffeine.

Urge was originally available in Norway in 0.5L and 1.5L bottles, but the 1.5L bottles were discontinued in 1999 due to unsatisfactory sales.

World Championship Wrestling (WCW) was sponsored by Surge. The Surge logo can be found in some WCW video games.