I originally wrote this for a comment on one of Karen's blog entries, but it turned into a long narrative, so I've moved the bulk of it here.

Darren asked, more or less, why people drink Moxie. I don't know about other people, but this is my story:

Way back when I was in high school, I'd get together with my friends quite frequently to play D&D. One time, upon discovering that there were no munchies in the house, we went en masse to the grocery store.

There we found the Moxie. It intrigued us, with its bright orange label and 50s-advertising cartoon man pointing accusingly at us. So what the heck, we bought a couple of bottles of it to supplement the Coke and Mountain Dew.

We tried it first. And we all immediately dumped out our glasses into the sink, because it was awful. The second bottle, and the remainder of the first, stayed in my fridge for weeks.

Cut to: Jeff, thirsty and broke. No money to buy soda, slightly over two liters of evil beverage taunting me in the fridge. Water, or Moxie? Water, or Moxie? (Crab juice, or Mountain Dew?) I hated drinking water, so I steeled myself and poured some Moxie.

Bleargh. Just as horrible as I'd remembered it. But it was sugary and caffeinated, so I forced it down. By the end of the second two-liter, I found I didn't really mind it anymore. Perhaps it had killed the taste buds which objected most strenuously to it; I don't know.

So I brought some more to the next D&D game, just as a joke. And my friends, who normally descended upon food and drink like a cloud of locusts (or a school of piranha) wouldn't touch it. For the first time ever, my soda lasted all the way through the game. And thus it became my customary beverage during D&D games, and I grew to actually enjoy the taste.

Now that I've moved to the South, closer to where Moxie is actually brewed (Atlanta, GA), it's difficult to find. Every once in a while, I'll make the trek across Tampa to Subs & Such, the sandwich shop that stocks sodas from around the world (such as Irn Bru and Afri-Cola) and pick up some Moxie (as well as the aforementioned drinks).

Now that I think about it, it's been a while since I did so.