Some of you will remember The Seven Percent Solution as the title of the excellent 1974 book on the life of Sherlock Holmes the fictional character and coke addict (not the soft drink, the drug). I used it to describe a fascinating fact that I recently learned about Diet Coke.

Coke Zero has been introduced and according to John Brock the CEO of Coke Enterprises the bottling corporation, is a resounding success already. You may wonder, as I have, why Coke needs both Diet Coke with no calories and Coke Zero with no calories. The answer is “taste.”

It turns out that Diet Coke was never meant to taste like regular Coke without calories. It was a totally different taste system from Day One. Even after failing with Tab because of taste, Coca Cola brought out another “diet” cola without the coke taste system either. Diet Coke has succeeded of course, but there are still countless Coke drinkers who don’t like the diet version. When they switch to diet colas, they usually go somewhere besides Diet Coke.

Enter Coke Zero. Coke Zero is based on the real Coke taste system, and is the first diet product that is.

Introducing Diet Coke years ago without the Coke taste system is fuzzy logic to me, but I guess it has turned out okay. I cannot tell a really big difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero, but armed with the facts will now become a Coke Zero regular drinker as soon as they switch from Aspartame to Splenda.