AriZona Beverages, USA AKA 'Zona
Beverage vendor known for the development and distribution of an almost boundless plethora of intensely sweetened Ice-T variants and juice cocktails. 'Zona, as it is commonly known, became known throughout the 1990's for its "Big Cans" - colorful 24 oz. aluminum vessel directly emblazoned with a $0.99 price tag [1]. The company was a de facto participant in the "soda wars" [2] gaining a proportional market share to PepsiCo's following its launch of the highly publicized and recklessly expensive Crystal Pepsi product line. Founder Don Vultaggio, a grocery store clerk from Flatbush, Brooklyn, created the beverage out of enthusiasm for "things that look like they are from Santa Fe". At the time of 'Zona's incorporation, Vultaggio had never traveled east of the Mississippi River.
- ↑ The last major US-based company to preserve this practice, despite the rampant economic inflation of the late 1990's. (In 1998, the wholesale value of 'Zona's Diet Honey Ginseng, a beverage containing rare freshly sourced Korean Panax ginseng, a crucial ingredient in Buddhist folkloric ritual, briefly peaked at approximately $1.01 per 24 oz. Big Can.)
- ↑ Per serving, 'Zona's products regularly outpaced the caloric values of traditional soda despite being marketed as health products (Ex., the cans had twigs, flowers, and flowing streams on them). Upon interrogation, Vultaggio pointed to 'Zona's internal ban on saccharin, a popular zero-calorie sweetener and known carcinogen.