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The concentrate is produced by Ballina Beverages, then regional bottlers add the bulk ingredients like sugar and water. Hence every version being a little different.

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And that's just bottlers. Fountain soda is also diluted from concentrate. So local water can affect the flavor, as can the calibration of the soda fountain. The better retailers will carbon-filter their water and check calibration regularly but the average convenience store? Varies wildly.

Do you have fountain soda in your convenience store? I've usually only seen that in fast food places (am european)

yes it's very common in the US. See: Big Gulp!

> Big Gulp!

I'm old enough to remember when that was actually the big size.

A local chain where I grew up had 33oz sodas, larger than the competition’s, called the Supreme Quart.

It was a rite of passage to have your parents let you get one for the first time.

Yes, convenience stores here often have self-serve fountain soda.

Random tidbit from my youth: when the Coke truck would come deliver a crate of Coke bottles to our house in Mexico, each Coke bottle had a little stick of sugarcane in it. I don't think it was like that in all places in Mexico. Street vendors would have giant unlabeled jugs of Coke, and sell it to you by pouring it into a plastic bag with a straw in it.

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