I initially thought some one might have answered this question in the past, but in looking through my search results and the FAQ, I did not seem to find one.

If you walk in to any grocery, pharmacy, or convenience store today; you will find smaller bottles of soda in 12, 16, and 20 oz. However, once you go above 20 oz you are met with the ubiquitous 2-liter, the rarer 3-liter, and the and upcoming 1 and 1 1/2 liter bottles. These metric-based bottle sizes with the small exception of certain liquor bottle standards (250 ml, 750 ml, 1500 ml) stand in stark contrast to nearly every other beverage type (milk, orange juice) that get measured in ounces, pints, quarts, and gallons and of course all food-based product measurement sizes - a cup, ounces, etc.

So how did we get here?

• How were US soda companies and botttlers (and to a lesser extent liquor companies) able to convince the buying public to accept these sizes in a metric standard when all other food and beverages sold in the US come in non-metric sizes?
• How long was it before these became as ubiquitous as they are today?
• Was there any push back from distributors and the buying public to these metric-based sizes when they first made it to market?