Surge

Also known as MDK, Urge

Cause of death

Killed by a successor

Made by

The Coca-Cola Company

Mountain Dew held the category and Coca-Cola redirected the budget to its own energy drinks.

Surge was Coca-Cola's direct assault on Mountain Dew, marketed hard at teenage boys with a campaign built around the word itself being shouted. It sold reasonably and then declined, and Coca-Cola wound it down by 2003. A sustained online campaign by former drinkers got it reissued in 2014, initially sold only through Amazon, which makes it one of the few products here brought back by organised nostalgia rather than corporate whim.