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How Shasta Gets Away With Imitating Coke
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Jul 14, 2025
Today on Weird History Food, we are going into the murky origins of Shasta. Some (or many) might call it an imposter of sorts, but, how well do you really KNOW Shasta soft drinks? Sure, many of its flavors tasted EERILY similar to the classics, but, they sure didn't start out that way...
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Generic product knockoffs are an American tradition
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For every transformer, there's a trans-morpher. The world of sodas is no exception
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Erzatz soft drinks are everywhere. And a lot of them are made by the company Shasta
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How do they avoid getting sued out of existence? Today, we're bubbling up the answer to how Shasta keeps getting away with this
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Shasta may have a copycat's reputation, but the company has lots of firsts under its aluminum belt
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In 1953, it became the first company to start selling soft drinks in cans
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That same year, it became one of the first companies to start selling a low-calorie version of its product
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And in the 1960s, it became the first soda company to make a sugar-free drink, and the first to use the now-standard 12-ounce can
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Then, in the 1970s, they became the first soda company to replace sugar with high-fructose corn syrup
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All these groundbreaking moves by Shasta were copied by every other soda player in the biz
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So it's hard to completely fault Shasta for borrowing a few ideas from the same competitors that borrowed all of theirs
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For example, from the folks who make Mountain Dew, Shasta borrowed, well, basically the entire idea of Mountain Dew
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Half of its name and the look of its branding. They created Mountain Rush, a knockoff soda which is a lot like Mountain Dew
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From the good people at Dr Pepper the Shasta folks have created the very creatively named knockoff Dr Shasta Just to prove that truly no one is safe the Shasta folks fired a shot across the bow of Hawaiian Punch with their
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shamelessly branded Hiki Punch. It's also hard not to notice a resemblance between Shasta's Zazz
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caffeine-free grapefruit soda and Squirtz caffeine-free grapefruit soda. And in a more general
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way, it seems pretty clear the red and white color scheme of Shasta Cola was more than a little
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inspired by Coca-Cola's iconic colors. At some level, it seems like imitation this blatant
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should be against some kind of rule. But the truth is, it's nothing unique to the soft drink
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industry. If you're going into the product cloning business, you need to be very clear on one point
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Knock-off products are not the same thing as counterfeit products. Counterfeit products are
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when you sell goods under someone else's trademark without a license. In other words, you can't make
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your own Coca-Cola, put it in a can that says Coca-Cola, and sell that to people. That's
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counterfeiting and it's extremely not legal but you can't protect a recipe under copyright or
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trademark law of course manufacturers of knockoff products generally design them to imitate the
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packaging as well shasta cola may be aping coca-cola's colors but most consumers will agree
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that it has a pretty distinct trademark from the real thing so far the court of public opinion
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generally agrees that shasta has successfully managed to stay on the right side of the knockoff
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versus counterfeit line. So raise your cans of Mountain Rush high in a toast
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It's just what Dr. Shasta ordered
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