Feliz Navidad for Mexican Coca-Cola

This is decidedly off topic, but I've rediscovered a bit of my youth with imported Mexican Coca-Cola. I've had friends that went out of their way to find Mexican Dr. Pepper, or kosher Dr. Pepper, claiming that the cane sugar product was that much better than the domestic high fructose corn syrup.

There was a story in one of the local Sunday papers about this import, and how much fans were saying it tasted like the Coke of their youth. Predictably, the official spokesperson said there was no difference in taste at all.

This reminded me of the infamous New Coke fiasco. I was working at my first job as a reporter, and noted in my column how much I disliked the new Coke and once we ran out of the Real Thing would be switching to Nehi Grape. If you didn't know, Monroe was the town in which the first Coke bottle was used to produce by a bottler, and the Biedenharns were not amused. They came down on the publisher, and he came down on us. We were forced to do a blind taste test to "prove" that we couldn't tell the difference. After the third time of getting it right -- telling New Coke from Real -- the Coke reps finally gave up and the publisher got off our case.

So after paying quite a premium price for a case of Mexican bottled Coke at the local Sam's, I was a little curious if there was something to the old cane sugar formula. Oh. My. I'm sorry to tell you that you can't get Mexican Coke outside of Texas and Arkansas unless you find it through a third-party reseller. Guess why? Yep. To protect the local bottlers.

As Ferris said, if you have the means, I highly recommend it.