Pocket Democracy

  The Old-School Soda That Went From a Top Brand to Nearly Unfindable (And Where to Get It Today) There's a lemon-lime soda that debuted in 1919, a full decade before 7Up hit the market, and for a while, it was everywhere. Gas stations. Grocery stores. The Coca-Cola bottling network even distributed it before Sprite was a twinkle in anyone's eye. And then, quietly, it just… faded. Not dead. Not discontinued. But  nearly unfindable . I'm talking about  Bubble Up . Unless you grew up in a specific pocket of the Midwest, or you've stumbled into a specialty soda rabbit hole online, you've probably never heard of it. And honestly, that's a shame, because this stuff is legitimately good. Real cane sugar. Lemon and lime oils instead of artificial flavoring. A crisp, clean taste that modern sodas have mostly abandoned in favor of high-fructose corn syrup and lab-made approximations. So what happened? How does a soda go from being a top brand, 20 million cases so...