By IAN DE MELLO
Staff Writer
There is a specter haunting the internet—the specter of pilk. The uninitiated may ask what necessarily is pilk? Well, it’s just another soda combined with cream (in this case, milk), to make something known as ‘dirty soda’. There is a decent possibility that you’ve already tried a dirty soda such as cream soda or root beer floats. But this is nothing new. What is new is Pepsi combined with milk, the so-called ‘pilk’. Some of you may be aghast in horror or you may be intrigued. If you spend any time on the internet, it’s likely you have already developed an opinion on pilk.
Where did pilk come from? Contrary to popular belief, it did not come from the Linsday Lohan pilk commercial that aired a couple months ago for Christmas. It actually has a long and sorted history dating back to the 1970s. In the show, Laverne & Shirley, Laverne is seen mixing Pepsi and milk in a bucket and tasting it before remarking that it needed more Pepsi. Truly a show ahead of its time. It started to gain traction in 2020 with a tweet from @scubadivingzoo that asked if anyone wanted pilk. The glass of pilk was in between a gallon of milk and a 2-liter bottle of Pepsi. This was not too dissimilar from sproke, which is the combination of Sprite and Coca-Cola that caught fire in 2021, although this as well can trace its lineage to around 2 decades ago.
So why is it now so popular and mainstream? Well, it has to do with that aforementioned Linsday Lohan commercial. Pepsi obviously saw that pilk had gained a bit of a cult following by those who swear by it, and had decided to capitalize on it with its December ad. There has been some debate on whether or not people actually like pilk or if it is in the ironic sense of enjoyment. There is hardly a certified answer. I myself am too cowardly to try pilk, so if you want to take the initiation and drink it, I implore you to do so. However, whether or not it actually tastes good, pilk will endure as just another unsettling and unlikely combination of beverages.
