Sun-Drop

The bottle I saw at camp.

“When do I ever get to taste-test this stuff, to see if it tastes like the Sun-Drop of old?” I said to my wife last night (Wednesday, August 10, 2011).
The Summers of 1959, 1960, and 1961 yrs trly worked at a religious boys camp in northeastern Maryland.
It was a really neat job that paid little. The camp was on Chesapeake Bay, so there was canoeing, and we also did horseback riding.
I worked in the stables teaching horsemanship.
One of the perks of the job was Sun-Drop cola, a fruity concoction formulated by a soda-pop salesman in N. Carolina in 1930.
Sun-Drop has a lotta caffeine; even more than Mountain Dew.
Sun-Drop seemed rather rare and exotic. I’d never seen it before.
It tastes somewhat like Mountain Dew does now, although not as strong.
Our camp sold it in the trading-post, and stored it outside in cases.
The bottles got transferred as needed into a cooler in the store.
The fact it was stored outside made it easy pickings.
The only problem was it was warm.
Come nightfall I would purloin a bottle for consumption before bedtime.
This got to be fairly often.
Sun-Drop was good stuff.
When camp ended I’d purchase two cases to take home.
That’s 48 bottles.
Camp was 10 weeks.
That’s 42 weeks between camp — about a bottle per weekend.
I’d ration it at home.
When I moved on to college, I discovered our college, Houghton (pronounced “HO-tin;” as in “oh,” not “how” or “who”), was selling Sun-Drop.
Out of a soda-machine, named “Sam,” in 10/12-ounce bottles; camp was eight ounces.
If I had any idea Houghton was selling Sun-Drop, it would have factored into my college choice.
Sun-Drop was stored in cases in a downstairs studio in the college radio-station. Their soda-machine was parked outside.
The cases were behind a curtain.
I’d venture downstairs and purloin a bottle.
Again, warm, but good stuff.
But the purloining of Sun-Drop probably ended after my freshman year, when I was no longer passing the radio-station to get to my dorm.
That soda-machine was eventually retired during my senior year. Soda would no longer be available in bottles. It was now in 12-ounce cans.
And the distributor refused to change.
I wrote a column that appeared in the college newspaper about that. To me that was major history.
When that soda-machine was retired, there was no more Sun-Drop.
About a month ago I noticed a nearby independent supermarket was selling Sun-Drop, but in giant quart bottles.
No way could I consume that much.
So yesterday, patronizing that supermarket, I looked for smaller bottles, like 20 ounces or so, or cans.
They had it. I purchased one 20-ounce bottle.
We’ll see if it tastes like the Sun-Drop of old.
Some day; when I can ever stand drinking soda.

• “Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.