Reuters: Coca-Cola Co., the world’s largest soft drink maker, said on Friday it would phase out its Vanilla Coke, Vanilla Diet Coke and Diet Coke With Lemon beverages in the United States by end of this year.

I almost never drank the Vanilla Diet Coke for two reasons: we don’t have it at work and, when I’m not at work, it always seems hard to find. Consequently, I won’t miss it, in spite of liking it. The rest of the article goes on to pack in some information about why they’re making this shift; it also says that Coke plans to introduce a regular and diet Black Cherry Vanilla Coke, so the retirement of the simple vanilla flavor isn’t so bad. They also elude to the fact that they might bring back the vanillas at some point; they do not make mention of the Lemon version, however… gee, I wonder why?

You made a soft drink that tasted like it was spiked with Pledge and you wonder why it didn’t sell?!