I’m not here to preach, but I am convinced one of the best things I ever did for my health was give up soft drinks. Of course, we’re talking a real habit in my case, several cans a day or, worse, endless pours from two-liter bottles. All this was in addition to the drinks that came with all my numerous fast-food meals. I tapered off after a heart attack, and a few years ago I gave up sugary drinks altogether—and their sugar-free substitutes. This was in addition to many other dietary changes I was making, but it all seemed to work for me. On another topic, I grew up in the American south. A “Coke” was any cola-flavored drink: Coca-Cola, Royal Crown, Double Cola and, of course, when you could find one, Pepsi. The first time I traveled outside the south I was amazed at the proliferation of Pepsi machines and the dearth of Coca Cola machines. This may sound like a small thing to you, but it was a cultural ground tremor for me. I suppose it was thoughts such as this that led to the 1995 Sunday Arlo & Janis above.
The Secret Formula
By Jimmy Johnson
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85 responses to “The Secret Formula”
One of the wonders of Louisiana and where I come from is that it is there that Coca Cola was first bottled and became a portable potable, not just a fountain drink at a soda fountain. I have some of those antique bottles if they have not been hauled away from the farm house.
First bottled across the Mississippi River in Vicksburg, MS in 1894, the Coca Cola bottling operation moved to Monroe, LA and operated independently until recent times as one of 10 largest US bottlers. To say they owned that market until recently is an understatement. They did, however, sell out many of their inventions and patents, etc. to Atlanta many years ago, probably a mistake financially.
My grandfather, born in 1879 loved Coke and we kept it in the farm store they operated. There was nothing in the world better than those 5 cent Cokes in the little glass bottles, kept in ice cold water or hanging in the metal Coke coolers.
Some of the reasons the bottling was switched from the glass and glass shape bottles has to do with patents, not just a switch in the ease of bottling or the materials being more biodegradable.
Love, Jackie
Jackie, I think another reason for the switch from glass bottles was to get away from breakage and having to sanitize the bottles before reusing them. I went to the Coca-Cola museum in Atlanta a few years ago and had a great time. One of the neat things is the chance to sample foreign products that aren’t sold here.
sandcastler tm, I wonder if they are using Stevia in those. I ran across some Stevia sweetened drinks here and tried a couple. Those things taste terrible. Don’t know if the new Coke Life tastes that bad or not but it’s the same sweetener. I’d rather have cyclamates!
Mark, you are of course right on that reason. Those sterilization and bottling machines for the old glass bottles seemed to have been what the Louisiana bunch kept patents on, so change cost them $$$. Who would have anticipated aluminum cans or plastic bottles way back then? I am sure that everyone thought that the glass bottle would be the way it would always be done.
I remember exactly seeing the first can soda come out of a machine. It could have been a Martian for the wonder it caused!
Love, Jackie
emb, please have a look at this. You may have this, but if not, you might want it: http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&ref=bf_s2_a1_t20_20&qi=poLYAicuVlWlVPQ8k0vhuY6PNMk_1418273132_1:3299:9233&bq=author%3Darthur%2520sullivan%26title%3Dsavoy%2520operas%2520being%2520the%2520complete%2520text%2520of%2520the%2520gilbert%2520and%2520sullivan%2520operas%2520as%2520originally%2520produced%2520in%2520the%2520years%25201875-1896%2520st%2E%2520martin%2527s%2520library
Heavenly days! There is a tremendous discussion all over the internet on the subject of glass Coke bottles vs. plastic vs. cans vs. fountain dispensers!!
And the nostalgia for the 50 cent cokes. Nostalgia for 50 cents! I was being nostalgic for 5 cents and 10 cents and even 25 cents.
When I moved here to Oklahoma we could still buy canned sodas from machines outside groceries in area for only 25 cents. Granted they were trying to conduct a customer war within town for business but there is still one small family chain that offers 35 cent sodas at a few nearby locations.
I grew up calling anything bottled a “Coke” (like Kleenex was a tissue) and evolved to sodas when I became more cosmopolitan but here in Okie land they call most everything “pop”.
Hope no one is expecting any weighty discussions of current news except my husband who is a news junkie. I am avoiding like it was the plague…… news plague!
Love, Jackie
Ghostly Observation #3 – When I was young and first heard the term “idiot box” applied to a television set, I thought it referred to the entertainment programming shown on it. I would never have imagined it would one day also apply to most of its news programming as well.
I remember well when the Coca Cola company started monkeying around with the formula, foisting New Coke (blechhh) on us, then telling us they realized that was a mistake and giving us Coke Classic, which was not the original recipe, as they said, but a joke with corn syrup. I pretty much gave up Coke right then. When I lived in South Dakota I learned to drink Pepsi, and it wasn’t as bad as I had thought, but not good enough to drink it all the time. I will admit to a slight Dr Pepper addiction in college, but only when I could snag a bag of Fritps corn chips. The only time now I will willingly drink Coke is when I go to the Varsity*. A Coke is still the best thing to drink with a chili-cheese-slaw dog and onion rings.
My sister, however, drinks several diet cokes a day, and tells me the Mexican Coke is very close to the stuff we grew up with.
*http://www.thevarsity.com
Dear eMb, thank you for the explanation. I was not aware of the British pronunciation, which is funny, for I am such an Anglophile; in my reading habits, not so much in politics.
Recently I decided to find out why Spell Check keeps annoying me (not here, but in my Email) with words such as “realise” … found out online that I’ve learned my spelling from British and Scottish books, while the rule here in the U S A is “realize” and I never learned about this anywhere! Well, I’m going to stick with “surprise” etc.
Dearest Ghost, I figured he was just kidding about you smoking cigarettes. Sounds like he may be serious about his own habit … hope not.
Trapper Jean, they are still bottling Coke and Diet Coke (if not more) in the 6 oz. bottles over in Louisiana and selling them in the paper carriers. They require a church key to pry open. For my mother in law’s funeral my daughters got bottled Cokes and iced them down in a big ice tub with a church key tied artistically to the tub handles. That and powdered sugar beignets were the refreshments because that is what they associated with their grandparents/grandmother.
I have to say they tasted a whole lot better than anything we get over here in North Okieland. I still have one or two sitting in the Coke carton on my kitchen sideboard.
There’s a huge stack of canned Cokes out in laundry room but I drank all the Diet Cokes already!
Love, Jackie (The Varsity is a trip in itself)
So, who else grew up putting peanuts in their Coke?
Me.
Why?
I enjoy RC best, then Pepsi or Dr. Pepper, followed at a great distance by Coca-Cola. As I am somewhat diabetic, I drink the no-calorie types, and, in that category, diet Dr. P wins hands down. It is actually drinkable and has taste in spite of the lack of calories and caffeine (yep, I also avoid caffeine). Usually, if I can’t get the diet, no-caffeine, Dr.P., I drink another diet cola with an ounce or so of regular RC to make it palatable. In a 24-oz. cup, an ounce or so of “high-test” doesn’t make a lot of caloric difference, but it certainly make a load of taste difference.
Not only does Colombia use real sugar in their Coke (the soda!), the one and only McDonald’s uses real beef and all fresh ingredients. Do you realize how weird a Big Mac tastes with real beef and onions? As for me, no diet anything (cannot tolerate the funky after-taste), no real preference to “cola” (Coke, Pepsi, RC, Faygo, etc.) and I can drink tea either hot or cold.
Jackie – US/UK word variations drive me bonkers as well. Like you, my visual vocabulary evolved from foreign printed books. I still prefer UK about 80% of the time, and prefer their use punctuation outside of quotations. However, I use the US spelling/punctuation rules – mainly as a response to all of the misused homophones and text-speech spelling on the internet. (And spell-check doesn’t recognize the word “homophones.” It keeps trying to change it to “Hoop Honestly.” Huh?)
And peanuts in cola? Ewww.
Good morning Villagers…..
Early day Indy Mindy?
Diet Mt. Dew is my beverage of choice, nothing like that first gulp in the morning at work to “fire” me up.
Ya’ll have a blessed day
Mark:
Thanks. I’ll check our local Walmart.
Yes, peanuts in Coke, or Pepsi, or even Dr. Pepper, in my childhood. And, though I don’t quite remember 5 cent drinks, I do remember when a nickel and two pennies could buy me a “drink” at my neighborhood store (no tax, either).
Peanuts in Coke, salty with the sweet. And the fun of watching it fizz! Anybody else remember Fizzie tablets?
Why peanuts in a Coke? Because a pack of salted peanuts in a 12-oz Coke is a Southern tradition…a/k/a “the breakfast of champions”.
So, Lady Mindy, other than in Columbia, Mickey D’s uses “unreal beef”?
I am not too particular on cola (soda pop, soda or pop). If someone offered me one I usually took what was offered, but never cared for any of the diet stuff. I did start having heart palpitations 20 years ago, so I try to stay away from all caffeine. Since I never cared for coffee, there was no real issue.
I really dislike soda water and when I go overseas, I always ask for “no bubbles”. When I moved to Michigan 35 years ago, everyone told me that I “had’ to drink Vernors Because of the carbonation and possibly the ginger, I nearly coughed up a lung. If Vernors is the only beverage at a party, I may shake it up to release the bubbles or leave it out to let it go a little flat. But if you meet someone from Detroit and want to impress them, tell them that you love Vernors. Personally, I like Faygo much better.
Haven’t been to the Coca-Cola museum in Atlanta but I have been here – http://www.moas.org/americana.html There’s more to Daytona than racing and the beach!
There is this wonderful, quaint, Coke museum in Vicksburg, Mississippi. It is the first place they bottled Coke.
http://www.biedenharncoca-colamuseum.com
Why we need an edit button http://www.gocomics.com/moderately-confused/2014/12/11
my wife does Pepsi and peanuts – gross! The above comments about marijuana, I don’t do anything myself, but I was interested in a recent American Spectator essay that alcohol is used in many social settings in many ways, but people want marijuana legal just to get high and that that was kind of kind of sad, although I wonder if we will see as much dope death on the road as drunken death on the road. (and years ago, I was put in the hospital by a drunk driver) …. — .. yeah, Mexican Coke and Pepsi is big in the regular grocery stores near me, in the ethnic or Mexican aisle or just on an endcap. .. – Jackie – “heavenly days” I think the only other place I’ve ever heard that expression is Fibber McGee and Molly. (it’s more pleasant than a lot of expressions I use)