I have always been a Coca Cola addict, thanks to my mother. Somewhere in our attic is a photo of me as a baby drinking Coke from my baby bottle. She thought that was so cute and clever. Thanks, Mom.
My love affair with The Real Thing has had its ups and downs. In one place where I lived in college, 12-oz. bottles of Coke were only 10¢ in the basement pop machine while they were something like 50¢ everywhere else. The night I couldn't get to sleep because I had consumed three bottles of Coke during the afternoon and evening convinced me that yes, indeed, Coke had it some caffeine.
For a few years I drank Tab (whither thou, Tab?), then diet Coke. But I really do not like diet Coke (or Tab, for that matter) so eventually I went back to The Real Thing, but resolved not to drink it very often. Recently I heard/read that reducing one's intake of sugared soda by one can a day will lead to a 15-pound weight loss over the course of a year. I don't drink anywhere near that much sugared soda, but that reinforced my resolve to limit my intake.
Um. is this going anywhere, Kat™? Yeah, I'm getting there.
Last week when I was at the grocery store I saw the bottle of Coke pictured above, left. It is Mexican Coca Cola, made with real cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. (And it cost $1.59 for 11.5 ounces, waaay more than the American Coke in the can.) I immediately decided I needed to do a side-by-side blind taste test.
I marked two identical glasses:
and filled them with Mexican and American Coca Cola, respectively. Then I closed my eyes and moved them around in circles. Because I am incapable of keeping things straight in my head unless I can actually, physically see them, this worked perfectly to make this a blind taste test.
I tasted the first one. Okay, tastes like Coke, but perhaps not as carbonated as usual, I thought. That may be the Mexican one.
Then I tasted the other. Yeah, definitely more carbonation. Then the finish taste (like with wine, the "finish") hit my taste buds and I grimaced. Yuck, that is awful! Tastes chemical/metallic, I thought. Could that off taste be from the metal can? I wondered.
Then I looked at the letters on the bottom of the glasses.
#1 = A for American.
#2 = M for Mexican.
And there you have it. Coke made in Mexico using cane sugar does not taste better -- to me, anyway -- than Coke made in the US with high-fructose corn syrup.
I knew y'all wanted to know.
