My parents never let me drink pop (as we referred to ‘soda’ in Minnesota). But my grandma treated us to Royal Crown (RC) Cola. Sweet! RC Cola is now mostly forgotten, which narrows the choice down to Coca Cola (Coke) versus Pepsi.

I’ve been trying to work out scientifically which cola tastes better for many years without success. At age 15, my daughter Katie presented me with a blind tasting test but she went awry by confounding input factors, as I laid out in [this May 2004 Stat-Teaser article]. Since then, I’ve vacillated between Coke and Pepsi. When vacationing in Mexico, I observed that their Coke featured cane sugar versus corn syrup for the USA-bottled beverage. Being born and raised in the Corn Belt, that appealed to me—it being very exotic. So, when President Trump announced he’d gotten agreement from Coca Cola to use “REAL” cane sugar, I wondered if that would make Coke the clear winner of the cola war.

Based on a blind tasting by The New York Times’s wine critic, Eric Asimov—reported by the newspaper in early August, Pepsi prevails over USA and Mexican (cane) Coke, despite being made with high-fructose corn syrup. Unfortunately, it’s likely that Coke will ultimately win out due to consumer perceptions that create the Pepsi Paradox.

Though I am a master in business administration (MBA) and thus a proponent for good marketing, my engineering and statistical sensibilities cause me to oppose this triumph by Coke of branding over taste. If you drink colas, enlist someone to present the options—Coke (cane versus corn) versus Pepsi—in a blind taste test with the drinks provided in the same receptacles (avoiding the Katie confounding).

Let me know what you prefer.