A starting-point soda ranking
Blind-taste results, flavour range and how well each holds up over ice — a baseline to argue with. Build your own above.
SCoca-Cola, Dr Pepper
APepsi, Sprite, Mountain Dew, Coke Zero
BFanta, Root Beer (A&W), Cherry Coke, 7UP
CDiet Coke, Ginger Ale, Sunkist, Mello Yello
DDiet Pepsi, Fresca
Blind tests famously favour Pepsi's sweeter hit while branded tests favour Coke — which is why the cola war never ends. Zero-sugar versions are close enough now that many rank them separately.
The cola wars never ended
Soda rankings start with the Coke-Pepsi axiom (blind tests favor Pepsi's sweetness; branded tests favor Coke — a marketing lesson in a bottle) and get interesting below it. Dr Pepper's 23-flavor ambiguity earns it a loyal S-tier bloc. Citrus is a genre: Mountain Dew for volume, Sprite for cleanliness, Fanta for nostalgia. Root beer is the true regional divider, and diet/zero variants raise the eternal ranking question: same entry or separate? (Coke Zero partisans insist: separate, and higher.)