Jolt Cola

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Jolt Cola is a highly caffeinated cola (a type of soft drink) made in the United States. Jolt was created in 1985 by C. J. Rapp and originally came in a red aluminum can with blue horizontal stripes encircling the can. The Jolt Cola logo has the word "JOLT" in jumbled white capitals with a colored outline and a yellow or gold lightning bolt going through the letter "O".

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Jolt Cola in the US

Originally, Jolt Cola was fairly controversial, especially among parents. Its early advertisements tended to use a fair amount of sex appeal to attract potential young (presumably male) customers. Early production of Jolt Cola may have had more sugar than the current formula, but the current formula still contains as much sugar as other popular brands of cola. Jolt Cola has about the same amount of caffeine as regular coffee (but not as much as espresso or other specialty coffees, although there is an Espresso version of Jolt), and twice the amount of caffeine as Coca-Cola, with an early marketing slogan of "All the sugar, and twice the caffeine."

Because it provides energy to work throughout the night, Jolt Cola is a favorite energy drink among many gamers, computer programmers, hackers, and at LAN parties. In fact, Jolt cola was even featured in Steven Spielberg's 1993 film "Jurassic Park", in a scene which shows computer programmer Dennis' work station covered with Jolt cola cans & bottles. It was also shown in several scenes in the film "Hackers"; one of the scenes refers to it as "Jolt cola: THE soft drink of the elite hacker."

Jolt Cola was originally made by The Jolt Cola Company of Rochester, New York which has since changed its name to Wet Planet Beverages, reflecting a more diverse product line.

A "Diet Jolt" was briefly available in the mid-1990s, but was dropped due to poor sales. Diet Jolt removed the sugar from the cola, but did not replace it with any artificial sweetener. Jolt Cola has since diversified into additional flavors named Cherry Bomb, Citrus Climax, Orange Blast, White Lightning, Red Eye, and Electric Blue.

In 2003, the name was licensed to a Hackensack, N.J. company named Gumrunners, Inc., which manufactures a line of caffeinated gum bearing the distinctive Jolt label and the slogan "Chew More, Do More." The gum comes in two flavors: spearmint and icy mint.

In 2005, Jolt Cola revamped their product line. Jolt Cola is now found in "battery bottles" (a 23.5 oz / 700 mL resealable aluminum bottle), and there is a new logo; however the logo shown above is also depicted on the battery bottle. The flavors offered have also changed. The battery bottle flavors are Jolt Cola, Blue, Cherry Bomb, Red, and Ultra (which is a diet drink, utilizing Splenda as its artificial sugar, also containing Guarana, Ginseng, Taurine, and Vitamin B complex).

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Jolt Cola worldwide

Jolt Cola is also manufactured under license in Germany, Australia, Sweden and formerly (and briefly) in the United Kingdom (where it was a budget cola). The German and Swedish supplier uses the old logos, branding and formulation, and sells only the basic Cola flavor. In Australia Jolt has been available in the traditional cola flavor, as well as black cherry, root beer, cream soda, and orange flavors, and new flavors were announced for late 2005.

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