Scott Van Pelt does not want to hear that Diet Coke is better from cans than bottles.
In response to a list of Diet Coke power rankings posted on X by this reporter from The Post, the star ESPN anchor of “Monday Night Countdown” and midnight “SportsCenter” laid down the gauntlet.
This reporter ranked glass bottles at the top with the caveat that there might be a bias because they’re often correlated with a high-end restaurant meal, followed by fountain drinks with elite carbonation (as you’ll typically find at McDonald’s or Chick-fil-A), then cold cans, plastic bottles poured on ice, cold plastic bottle and can poured on ice with poorly carbonated tap soda (as you’ll encounter at many bars) bringing up the rear.
“Can being ahead of plastic bottle is so horribly wrong I can’t even quantify it,” Van Pelt responded.
He later qualified his reasoning: “Tastes so much worse [in cans],” he wrote. “It’s bitter. Not as sweet. Don’t know why.”
Van Pelt has long professed himself to be a Diet Coke aficionado.
“If Diet Coke truly is bad for you…like tumors and what not…then I should just lie down and let people throw dirt on me. ‘Cause I’m toast,” he wrote in 2011.
In the contemporary thread about preferences, an X user named Thom tried to tell Van Pelt that glass was tops and cans were ahead of plastic bottles.
“Your name is Tom and you have an H in it. You don’t get to tell me anything,” Van Pelt answered.
Another user wrote, “Take the L Scott. Can so much better than plastic bottle.”
Van Pelt was undeterred, answering, “I’m taking a sip out of this bottle – which holds more of this delicious beverage and taking the W. You dunce.”
Nonetheless, Van Pelt agreed that glass bottles are outstanding.
“Glass bottle is like the nostalgia of the old floor coolers. The tall, skinny bottles. Elite,” he wrote.