Coke vs. Coke.

I dig Coke Zero. My wife digs Coke Zero. Coke Zero is our favorite cola. It tastes more like a real cola than Diet Coke. It's delicious. It is Michael Bloomberg-compliant. Yes, it's Coke Zero for us.

So of course, Coke went and changed it.

This Coke Zero Sugar thing has a weird name, to begin. "Coke Zero" implies that it has zero calories; "Coke Zero Sugar" means... it's Coke Zero with sugar? Confusing. I think they'll get away with it because they're phasing out non-Coke Zero Sugar Coke Zero, which never had sugar. Does any of this make sense?

What makes even less sense to me is that I cannot taste the difference. Coke says that Coke Zero Sugar is "made with an even better-tasting recipe that delivers real Coca-Cola taste with zero sugar and zero calories." I tried it and thought initially that it might have a little more of the classic Coke vanilla taste, but I think I was just talking myself into it. I didn't think and still don't think there's any difference in flavor.

I was completely ready to call shenanigans on Coke. I thought they were full of crap over this. That belief intensified after I read their claim to have "broke the Internet with the news" of Coke Zero Sugar, which sounds like the kind of horse hockey marketers write when they have no ideas but want to be down with the young folk.

However, my wife claimed she could tell the two Cokes apart, and likes the new one better.

I had to put that to the test. She accepted the challenge.

I poured a small amount of Coke Zero into two identical plastic cups, and a small amount of Coke Zero Sugar into a third identical plastic cup. I challenged her select the cup with the Coke that was different from the other two. She didn't have to say whether it was Zero or Zero Sugar, just which of the three did not match the other two.

And son of a gun, she got it. Cup C had Coke Zero Sugar, and she nailed it right away.

But here's the thing: It wasn't the flavor, it was the fizz. She says Coke Zero Sugar is less fizzy, and doesn't make her burp.

So in a way, I was right -- the flavor change is so subtle as to be barely or completely nonexistent. But my wife, who has very sensitive palate for texture, picked up the difference: Less burping.

Now I'm thinking there's something Mentos-related to this. Like, everyone was so busy mixing Diet Coke and Mentos for the eruption that none of us discovered that Coke Zero weaponizes Mentos. Homeland Security did, and made Coke change the recipe for public safety: "Coke Zero and Mentos can blow a bank vault door off its hinges! You must change the recipe!"

I'm sticking with that story. It makes more sense than Coke doing a lot of hip-hooray and ballyhoo for nothing.