Cool Moon, Cheerwine’s ugly sister

[Cheer-wined]

Lotta buzz about Carolina Bev. expanding Cheerwine’s distribution, but not much mention of their “other” soft drink, Cool Moon, a citrus soda.
It's a hard product to find. I live less than an hour from Salisbury, NC (Carolina Bev’s HQ) and the product has never really had a presence here. My local Cheerwine distributor said it’s because they (and I suppose many other Cheerwine distributors as well) already carry Sundrop and don’t want the competition. Years ago I used to find it around here only rarely, produced by Summit Canning out of Princeton, WV.
The Cheerwine distributor in Salisbury (I-85 exit Jake Alexander Blvd., right behind the Arby’s) carries Cool Moon and other products from Independent Beverage in Charlotte, mostly Cadbury stuff like RC, Diet Rite, Crush, 7up, dnL, Tahitian Treat, Vernors, Welch’s, A&W, Sunny D, etc.) I stopped by there today and bought a couple of six packs (cans only.) Nice people, they gave me a product list and some brochures about Cheerwine history, plus their recipe for “holiday punch” (‘tis the season, I guess.) They didn’t have any promotional items for Cool Moon, and even admitted that there was no real attempt to market it. I stopped at a convenience store right across the street from the distributor and even they didn’t carry it, but as you could guess they had a full line-up of Sundrop (I also saw Code Red and Live Wire in cans, isn’t that stuff supposed to be gone by now?)
I think the product itself tastes a lot tamer than Mountain Dew or Sundrop, but citrus drinks are not my thang so what do I know. Anyone seen it outside of the Charlotte, NC area?

[drpep]

I was disappointed I could not find any after seeing Cheerwine in almost every stop I made in the Carolinas.

[teamtitan512]

Cool Moon isn't something that I've known to be seen anywhere that I've been.

MD Code Red isn't supposed to be going anywhere AFAIK, but it has vanished from the PBG Cumberland sales center due to terrible sales (Dates were expired everywhere they were sold). Cumberland I'll declare the official LiveWire capital. We still keep getting the stuff, and it's not going anywhere around here at least for now.

[Cheer-wined]

pictures, too...

from left to right
1. 2003 can from Independent Beverage, Charlotte NC
2. 1977 can from Summit Canning, Princeton WV
3. 1977 bottle from Cheerwine, Salisbury NC

http://home.triad.rr.com/coolmoon/Cool_Moon.jpg

"Back when the Ritchie brothers joined the family business, its only products were Cheerwine and Cool Moon, a citrus soft drink introduced in 1975. Their grandfather had wanted to call it Moonshine, but someone beat him to the trademark. Cool Moon brings in less than 1% of revenues and may be put to rest, Mark says." [Mark Ritchie is the CEO of Carolina Bev.]
- from Business North Carolina, March 2002

[ 11-29-2003, 10:01 AM: Message edited by: Cheer-wined ]