Jolt Cola

Jolt Cola logo

Jolt Cola is a highly caffeinated cola made in the United States. Jolt was created in 1985 by C. J. Rapp and originally came in a red aluminum can with blue horizontal stripes encircling the can. The Jolt Cola logo has the word "JOLT" in jumbled white capitals with a colored outline and a yellow or gold lightning bolt going through the letter "O".

Jolt Cola in the US

Originally, Jolt Cola was fairly controversial, especially among parents. Its early advertisements tended to use a fair amount of sex appeal to attract a young male demographic. Jolt Cola has about the same amount of caffeine as regular coffee, and twice the amount of caffeine as Coca-Cola, with an early marketing slogan of "All the sugar, and twice the caffeine of a regular cola." (This slogan was dropped when they began using corn syrup as the sweetner instead of cane sugar.)

Two gamers with Jolt

Because it provides energy to work throughout the night, Jolt Cola is a favorite energy drink among many gamers, computer programmers, hackers, and at LAN parties. In fact, Jolt Cola was even featured in Steven Spielberg's 1993 film Jurassic Park, in a scene which shows computer programmer Dennis Nedry's work station covered with Jolt cola cans & bottles. It was also shown in several scenes in the film Hackers; in one of the scenes, hackers Razor and Blade refer to it as "Jolt Cola: THE soft drink of the elite hacker."

Jolt Cola was originally made by The Jolt Cola Company of Rochester, New York which has since changed its name to Wet Planet Beverages, reflecting a more diverse product line. Glass Bottles of Jolt are now bottled in Los Angeles, California by the 7-UP Bottling Corporation, whereas cans are made at a Chicago area factory.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

A "Diet Jolt" was briefly available in the mid-1990s, but was dropped due to poor sales. Diet Jolt removed the sugar from the cola, but did not replace it with any artificial sweetener.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]} Jolt Cola has since diversified into additional flavors named Cherry Bomb, Citrus Climax, Orange Blast, White Lightning, Red Eye, and Electric Blue.

In 2003, the name was licensed to a Hackensack, N.J. company named Gumrunners, Inc., which manufactures a line of caffeinated gum bearing the distinctive Jolt label and the slogan "Chew More, Do More." The gum comes in two flavors: spearmint and icy mint.

A "battery bottle"

In 2005, Jolt Cola revamped their product line. Jolt Cola is now found in "battery bottles" (a 23.5 oz / 700 mL resealable aluminum bottle), and there is a new logo; however the logo shown above is also depicted on the battery bottle. The flavors offered have also changed. The battery bottle flavors are Jolt Cola, Blue, Cherry Bomb, Red, Silver, and Ultra (which is a diet drink, utilizing Splenda as its artificial sugar, also containing Guarana, Ginseng, Taurine, and Vitamin B complex).

Jolt Cola worldwide

Jolt Cola is also manufactured under license in Germany, Australia, Sweden and formerly (and briefly) in the United Kingdom (where it was a budget cola). The German and Swedish supplier uses the old logos, branding and formulation, and sells only the basic Cola flavor. Jolt Cola is also available in the Netherlands. However, Jolt Cola Netherlands is a subsidiary of Jolt Cola Germany.

In Australia Jolt has been available in the traditional cola flavor, as well as black cherry, root beer, cream soda, and orange flavors, and new flavors were announced for late 2005. Jolt Cola is available in Australia but hard to purchase in large supermarket chains which usually choose not to stock the product in any form.

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