Yes, "New Slurm" was a reference to "New Coke". Not the other way around, despite what many people think...
New Coke was introduced in 1985 to replace the current recipe but it totally flopped in the US. So they reintroduced the old recipe, relabeling it 'Coke Classic'. In some countries around the world, the backlash was not as strong so you couldn't even buy Classic if you wanted to.
Read the
wikipedia article - 'tis most amusing.