> > Somehow, this seemed like the perfect forum in which to post this link.
>
> While in New England, I was informed by a native of New Jersey who married a Bostonian that a "tonic" is a soda/pop/Coke. I thought this was funny but it is apparently widely used out there.

I keep hearing that it's widely used, but I have yet to meet one single person who uses it. I live in New Hampshire, live an hour and half from Boston, routinely make trips to central and western Massachusetts for various reasons, and have grandparents that live in Maine and Connecticut, the latter pair having grown up in Rhode Island. All told, that covers an awful lot of New England. I still don't know anybody that calls it tonic.

But this isn't the first time I've heard "tonic" attributed to New England, either. Maybe an extreme regional thing, like on a town level rather than the metropolitan or state levels. Or it could be something from prior generations that has died out except for vestiges here and there. It's possible my grandparents once called it tonic, although they haven't for as long as I've been around.