There is not much difference between 'New Coke' and 'Coca-Cola Classic' to be honest. Both were moves to hide the fact that Coke was switching from cane sugar to HFCS. After the New Coke debacle the switch back to 'Classic' was the old formula but with HFCS. If you want a taste of what Coke used to be like you want to find Mexican Coke bottles, that is as close as you will get.
New Coke was a known bad transition. Why would I say that? All you need do is to look on a Coke can ingredients list from before New Coke and after New Coke. There will be one change:
High Fructose Corn Syrup.
Or if you wish to try the classic formula, try the Mexican version of Coca Cola. They still use the old formula using cane sugar. There is also a Kosher version of Coca Cola that uses the older recipe.
They had actually switched to corn syrup before New Coke, but not all bottlers were using it yet. All bottlers did use it after. A lot of people (oddly, even in the markets that had already switched to HFCS) thought that Coke Classic was not genuinely the same as the old formula for that reason.
Well, according to Snopes this is a myth; bottlers had been allowed to use HFCS in original Coke prior to the introduction of New Coke. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:
The new product continued to be sold and retained the name Coca-Cola (until 1992, when it was officially renamed Coca-Cola II), so the old product was named Coca-Cola Classic, also called Coke Classic, later just Coke and for a short period of time it was referred to by the public as Old Coke. Many who tasted the reintroduced formula were not convinced that the first batches really were the same formula that had supposedly been retired that spring. This is partially true because Coca-Cola Classic differed from the original formula, as all bottlers who hadn't already done so were using high fructose corn syrup instead of cane sugar to sweeten the drink
FWIW, both New Coke and Coke "Classic" (aka new coke 1.1) both use high fructose corn syrup, which is substantially cheaper in the USA in industrial quantities due to huge tax-funded agricultural subsidies for corn (maize) farmers. These remain in place today (which is why everything in the US is sweetened with corn syrup instead of sugar).
"Old coke", as well as what is now known as "mexican coke" in the USA, used/use sugar.
New coke was the flag day for switching to a cheaper sweetener in the US market. When they switched "back" to coke "classic", they kept the new sweetener.
There is an interesting conspiracy theory suggesting that New Coke was released to mask the switch of sugar to HFCS in the then re-introduced Coke Classic.
Coke did blind tests at the time that showed New Coke was more popular (it's been too long, but I feel like there were some independent tests during the scandal time as well). The outrage when they released New Coke was all about nostalgia, nothing to do with taste. People were simply offended that Coke would have the audacity to change the flavor they were accustomed to.
I still remember the scandal. It was hilarious. There was a recent redux on a smaller scale when they modified the recipe for Coke Zero.
IIRC, the big difference between diet coke and coke zero is that one is based loosely on the formula for coca cola classic, and the other new coke. That may be an urban legend, though.
There is a conspiracy theory that 1987s introduction of new coke (in which all old coke was pulled from the market) was actually to cover up the taste difference when they switched from using sugar to high fructose corn syrup.
When old coke came back people didn't notice the change as much.
You can still get Coke made with sugar (Mexico) give it a try and make up your own mind.
I think new coke had more to do with switching to corn syrup than anything else. Corn syrup tastes worse so you can't do a strait up switch but by introduce new Coke and then bring back the old taste with a minor change and people don't notice.
The point of New Coke was to erase the taste of Coke from the memory of the consumer. What we have now is not Old Coke but in fact New New Coke - similar to the original but made with cheaper sugar.
New Coke wasn't terrible tasting, most people liked and sometimes preferred the drink, but they didn't like the change.
In fact, New Coke is based on the Diet Coke recipe, the latter is still a success to this day. The sugar-free version of Coca-Cola classic is Coke Zero, and it sells less than Diet Coke. If it really was about the taste, Diet Coke wouldn't have sold as well and would have been quickly overtaken by Coke Zero.
The most likely explanation for the failure of New Coke is that it replaced the classic, and an influential minority felt alienated by the change.
The Coke execs from the time have done interviews. When presented with the sugar -> HFCS theory they responded with "we weren't that smart". I tend to believe them.
They switched because of the "Pepsi challenge". Pepsi beat coke at taste test booths.
New Coke was Diet Coke with HFCS instead of aspartame. New Coke beat both Pepsi and Old Coke at taste test booths.
Turns out it was because when you're just doing a shot of cola people pick the sweeter one. When there's a whole can tastes differ.
Interestingly enough, when I used to drink Coke Classic, and tried a Mexican Coke which uses real sugar I did not like the taste compared to HFCS coke. Now I prefer Coke Zero, which tastes very similar, but when I would go back to Coke Classic I would find it too sweet.
I think a lot of it is just which taste you're accustomed to.
This is the first I'm ever hearing of someone saying that New Coke was preferred. They don't even make it any more. They switched from New Coke to Coke Classic. What taste tests showed New Coke as popular?
When the "Mexican" coke started making a splash as "better than American", Coke tested it blind with taste testers and came to the conclusion that there was no perceptible difference, and that the glass bottle makes more difference than the cane sugar vs HFCS (The whole point of HFCS is to be formulated to contain the same amount of glucose and fructose as cane sugar). Many other folks then performed tests (of better or worse quality) and they tend to show the same results, either there was no difference or people somewhat randomly preferred the cane sugar or the HFCS. But Coke is still happy to sell people a product made with cane sugar at a big premium, because why not?
(I put "Mexican" in quotes above, because standard Coke sold in Mexico in the past 10 years or so is made with HFCS just like in the US. The bottled cane sugar Coke is only made as a specialty product.)
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