“If Coke were to ever bring back Tab,” Stanford continued, “the most likely avenue would be through a nostalgic, limited time offering at retail, or exclusively online. They did it with Surge, for example. And Pepsi has done it with past brands like Crystal Pepsi and Pepsi Blue.”

Indeed they do. In Season 3 of Rick and Morty, when brainiac scientist Rick Sanchez longed for McDonald’s Szechuan dipping sauce—gone from menu boards since 1998—McDonald’s returned the condiment to restaurants for one day. The response was so great that police had to break up a crowd outside one location in Wellington, Fla, that chanted: “We want sauce!”

The Golden Arches has played a similar hand for years with the McRib sandwich, which has had at least four “farewell tours.” The advantages of such enforced scarcity aren’t lost on headquarters. “Bringing it back every so often adds to the excitement,” McDonald’s senior marketing director Marta Fearon told the Associated Press in 2011.

There also seems to be a knock-on effect in the general population when a huge corporation treats its superfans kindly. Were Coke to bring back Tab, it “could certainly tap into nostalgia as well as highlight their responsiveness to their loyal consumers,” said Marisa Mulvihill, partner and head of brand and activation for consultancy Prophet.

“Frito-Lay has done this quite well over the last few years, leaning into their customers to select flavors for Lays and even using user-generated content for Doritos ads,” Mulvihill added. “These marketing tactics signal that they listen and trust their consumers and they are part of the same community.”

And it might well for Coke, too—if it decided on producing even a limited run of Tab. But until then, fans can still enjoy a cup of the stuff at the World of Coke—as much as they like, in fact, after they pay the general admission fee of $19.00.