Nuka-Cola has been a consumable in every Fallout game. It is considered to be the top beverage in the United States before the war and fallout happened. The soft drink was introduced in 2044, 33 years before the global nuclear event of the Great War. While the bombs destroyed much, a ton of Nuka-Cola was left unharmed and never to go bad.

There is more to Nuka-Cola than just being a popular drink though. Its bottlecaps are used in trade, it has many variants, and has an interesting history. It has become one of the most iconic items in the game, developing into promotional items in real life. Even after the bombs, Nuka-Cola remains popular among the surviving population.

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The History Of The Nuka-Cola Corporation

Nuka-World cartoon.

Nuka-Cola's story begins with John-Caleb Bradberton (whose name is a combination of the names of the inventors of Pepsi and Coca-Cola, Caleb Bradham and John Pemberton). John-Caleb Bradberton took two years to invent the beverage along with assistants he would later call "Beverageers." It took only a year for the soda to become a best-selling product in the United States. This inspired Nuka-World, which opened its doors in 2050 and added more parks until 2072. Just like the Nuka-Cola, the park was a major success with six sections like Safari Adventure, Kiddie Kingdom, and Galactic Zone.

The company did face competition with Sunset Sarsaparilla and Vim! soda. When they could not just buy the company out, Nuka-Cola launched Nuka-Cola Wild to compete with Sunset Sarsparilla. When it came to Vim!, Nuka-Cola was far more aggressive and hostile. The Nuka executive at the time, Vernon Conroy, actually used mercenaries to sabotage Vim! production lines, trucks, and even targeted workers. Any competition that Nuka-Cola could buy out would become new Nuka-Cola flavors. For example, Nuka-Cola Clear used to be Sharon's Downhome Country Lemon by Sharon Lawrence, and Nuka-Boost was once Packed Full of Joe by William Lee.

Once Bradberton became aware that nuclear war was inevitable, he decided to make Nuka-World a refuge. With a sponsorship deal with the military and an alliance with RobCo Industries, the park's Galactic Zone actually got military-grade hardware with a robot security force. Last but not least, Bradberton commission a vault to be built under Nuka-Town USA by the famous Vault-Tec Industries. Within the world of Fallout, players are aware of four major Nuka-Cola corporation locations in the United States. They are Nuka-Cola plants in West Virginia, Kansas, and Washington D.C. The Nuka-World park is located in Massachusetts.

The Nuka-Cola Mascots

Nuka-Cola girl poster.

In 2062, the corporation made its own promotional character: Nuka-Girl. Nuka-Girl served as a Nuka-Cola mascot and gave Nuka-Cola a Space Age kind of theme. In her depictions, the blonde pin-up girl would wear a spacesuit and hold a raygun called the "thirst zapper." According to the Fallout 4 loading screen, the costumes of Nuka-Girl sold out and could not keep up with demand for Halloween.

As mascots particular to Nuka-World, Bottle and Cappy were made. The two mascots would be seen on safety rules all over the park and in the story of the park, lived in Cappy's Treehouse within Safari Adventure. Another mascot was particular to one of the parks, known as King-Cola in Kiddie Kingdom. Last but not least among the Nuka-World mascots is N.I.R.A, the Nuka-World Informational Robot Assistant. She functioned as a tour guide in Nuka-Town USA and was a walking talking Protectron re-skinned to look like a Nuka-Cola bottle.

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What Goes Into Nuka-Cola

Nuka-Cola bottles on a shelf.

According to the loading screens of Nuka-World DLC, the taste of Nuka-Cola comes from combining 17 different fruit essences. Based on character dialogue, it seems Nuka-Cola is a combination of these essences, carbonated water, caffeine, phosphoric acid, caramel color, aspartame, citric acid, and natural flavors. The sodas were marketed to be healthy, but actually contain 120 percent of what is recommended for a human's daily dose of sugar intake.

There have been characters in the Fallout universe that are addicted to Nuka-Cola, describing that they can get headaches if they don't keep drinking the beverage. These addictions seem to occur if a character drinks a ton of Nuka-Cola. However, addiction has never occurred for player characters while they can certainly get addicted to other substances.

Nuka-Cola Variants

Nuka-Cola Shop in Nuka World.

There is a ton of variety Nuka-Cola flavors out there that appear in the various games. Nuka-Cherry from Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 is said to be the product of the Nuka-Cola corporation buying out a local cherry soft drink business called Merle's Very Cherry Soda. It was mostly distributed just to the East Coast. Another fruit flavored one, Nuka-Cola Cranberry was an original idea from the Kanawha Nuka-Cola plant as an attempt to make Nuka-Cola seem healthier.

In Fallout 76 and the Nuka-World DLC, Nuka-Cola Dark could be found. It was the corporation's attempt to get into the market of alcohol. Nuka-Cola Dark has rum and an alcohol-by-volume content of 35 percent. Due to this, customers were recommended not to drink the soda while pregnant or if they are planning to drive in the next eight hours. Then there is Nuka-Grape, which was actually adopted from the recipe of an overseas drink called Grape-Pearl Soda. Nuka-Cola Orange joined in with the fruit flavors as well, and was developed under the code name "Fur Seal."

Nuka-Cola Quantum was a big deal, as it was supervised by the Food and Drug Association. It had twice of all that Nuka-Cola had in terms of caffeine and calories. The only facility to produce it was in Washington D.C. The soda is very rare, as it was released at the same time as the Great War. Another less-easily found one is the Nuka-Cola Quartz, which had a limited release in the Southwest. It had non-dissolvable sugar flakes to make it look like actual quartz crystals were in the drink. The Nuka-Cola Quartz did have a trademark battle with Vim! Pop Incorporated because they had Vim Quartz. Nuka-Cola won the trademark battle.

Fallout 4 is available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

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