Leisure
My Homage to Coke
I have been drinking Coke for as long as I can remember. My grandmother used to buy Coke from the Coke delivery truck. They came by our house once a week on their way to the corner store. We only bought one 24-bottle case of 8oz. Coca-Cola. That would last about a week. My grandmother "sells" it to us so that she can recoup the cost and buy another case. She did not take profit, so if I remember right I paid 65 centavos when it was 75 in the retail store. Sometimes she would give me half a bottle because she only drank half at dinner time.
In school, they only sold Pepsi at first. I rarely drank Pepsi. In fact I avoided it. I gave the excuse that I had Coke at home. We've had 8 oz. bottles for many years. The 1-liter was reserved for big gatherings, or snack time when all of us were around the table. We'd buy 1 liter of Coke at the corner store.
Then came the Coke 500. We then regularly got a case of 500ml bottles. I believe they came in 12's. My brother and I usually shared one. But if we didn't, I'd keep the remaining half for later. It was then that I noticed that Coke tasted differently in different concentrations. Coke from a 1-liter bottle seemed less concentrated than the 8oz. bottle. I decided that since the 8oz was the most expensive per volume, it would make sense to throw in the "real" taste there. I also noticed that it didn't taste as good after a while, no matter how hard you tried to reseal the cap. The Coke has lost its spirit, we would say.
Come high school and college I drank Coke whenever beer was served or offered. I didn't like beer. But I could have a coke and a cigarette and be happy. They also started selling Coke in school. Coke is It! That was their campaign.
I rarely had Coke with ice. I felt it lessened the taste. And then in college I visited a friend's house where they served Coke in half a glass of ice. It was just as good. The coldness made up for the lack of taste as it cooled my throat on a hot day.
In the eighties there was an ad campaign showing that in a blind test, people chose Pepsi over Coke more than half the time. I never submitted myself to the blind test. But I'm pretty sure I'd choose Coke.
That same guy doing the blind test commercials also did another commercial stating that Coca-Cola was changing its formula. That was the "New Coke" debacle. We never had the "New Coke" in the Philippines, so to me, Coke has always been Coke. You can't beat the feeling! I even learned their jingle on piano just by listening to their ads.
Some local cola companies sold their drinks for cheap. Coke's answer was the Coke Solo - a six once bottle. Solo was meant to be consumed by one person. They can't reduce the price per volume, but they came up with a smaller volume bottle to compete.
Some time in the nineties, there was more push for Coke In Can, as it was more eco-friendly. Coke In Can tasted differently as well. It wasn't the same as Coke in the 8 oz. bottle. About the same time I guess, the 2-liter Coke in plastic bottles came. That, in my opinion, tasted really different. I'm not sure if it's Coke's reaction to the plastic or just the dilution to keep costs down. I avoided the 2-liter bottle as much as possible. The 1-liter was my threshold. They even came up with the 1.5L which is almost as bad as the 2L.
And then for some reason, 8oz. bottles became harder to come by in Metro Manila. You can go to the province and buy 8oz., but in Manila it's usually 12 oz. I have already noticed the difference in taste in each bottle, plus I couldn't consume all of 12oz no matter how I tried.
As I stopped smoking and became a bit more health conscious I reduced my Coke intake. And then I stopped all together. I had Coke maybe once or twice a month. Even less. I tried Cherry Coke and Vanilla Coke a few times when I was in the US. I liked Cherry better. But still I hardly drank Coke. I lost the appetite for it. I even became aware of my sensitivity to caffeine. It kept me up longer, and made it more difficult to get out of bed in the morning. So now I use Coke to keep me awake.
Just lately, the cans I've seen had the word "classic" in it. Even better, there was an 8oz can in stores. But I haven't bought any of that. But I saw these in the supermarket: 8oz. Coke in Bottles! So here I am enjoying Coke again, in the bottle I first started with. I must admit I no longer recall the original taste, but Coke is as good as ever.
Coca-Cola and Coke are registered trademarks of The Coca-Cola Company.