All about soda....oh, and my parents are still alive too
My parents decided to come hang out for a while today & do laundry at my house like I used to do them, back before I owned a washer (theirs is currently busted). So they did; we talked about various things (wedding) while they were here and generally got along well. I'd gone to the store earlier today to make sure I had food in the house since I figured I'd end up feeding them dinner based on when they were planning to arrive. Then they decided to go out to eat, so I wound up going out when I hadn't planned to. But they did pay for my food, so it wasn't a terrible hardship to eat not-my-cooking. I retaliated by ordering the least expensive item on the menu that wasn't a side dish. It was delicious.
The other day, one of my coworkers mentioned "Throwback Pepsi", where Pepsi is planning to/did release some limited edition soda with sugar in it instead of high fructose corn juice. It apparently is supposed to taste different than what we consider "regular" Pepsi to taste like. This lead me to wish that Coke would do something like that, since I (generally) like Coke better than Pepsi (when I get the fountain beverages, I can tell the difference). Turns out, Coke does that very thing, once a year. It's Kosher Coke, which is only available during Passover and has a yellow lid rather than white.
from the link --> ...the formula for Coke included traces of alcohol that were a by-product of grain kernels. Since anything derived from grains is chametz, or forbidden at Passover, Coca-Cola could not be certified kosher for use at Passover... Coke’s chemists experimented and found that, during the Passover season, they could substitute sweeteners produced from beet sugar and cane sugar for grain-based ones without compromising Coke’s taste. They agreed to start manufacturing Coke with the new sugars several weeks before Passover each year...
I got some Kosher Coke at the store today (thank you, Byerly's) and while a 2L bottle of Coke is regularly $1.99 (on sale for $1.79 this week which works out to $0.026/oz rather than the usual price of $0.029/oz), the price of this stuff is $2.99 for a 2L bottle ($0.044/oz). I get that it's a specialty item, but it still seems a bit of a price gouge. Then again, the pack of small cans which I usually buy* (now 7.5 oz per can instead of 8 oz, which works out to $0.058/oz at the current sale price rather than $0.066/oz regularly) makes Kosher Coke at its regular price look like a steal. Part of the price difference for Kosher Coke may also be related to not having sugar subsidies the way we have corn subsidies in this country, coupled with any sort of Kosher certifications/methods/practices required.
Kosher Coke does taste different to what my taste buds conjure when I think of "Coke" though. Tomorrow I'm going to do a side-by-side comparison of sugar-based Coke & high fructose corn jizz-based Coke. For science. And if I like the hard-to-get stuff better, maybe I'll manage to swear off pop altogether except during Passover.
*I like the tiny cans because one serving is 1 cup for most _other_ fluids I can think of & I like being able to have a single serving w/o having the rest of the monster vat go flat before I get around to having a second serving. The remaining can of Coke in my fridge is from an 8-pack I bought at Christmas, and mom drank at least 2 of the cans in the 8-pack--if not 4 of them. I wonder if the extra expense from the small cans is related to not having aluminum subsidies, or if it's because the beverage companies like taking advantage of those in the population who don't consume the national average of 190 calories in sugared beverage a day. (That statistic is corroborated here--not just pulled out of my ass--though this was the article that actually brought it to my attention.)
The other day, one of my coworkers mentioned "Throwback Pepsi", where Pepsi is planning to/did release some limited edition soda with sugar in it instead of high fructose corn juice. It apparently is supposed to taste different than what we consider "regular" Pepsi to taste like. This lead me to wish that Coke would do something like that, since I (generally) like Coke better than Pepsi (when I get the fountain beverages, I can tell the difference). Turns out, Coke does that very thing, once a year. It's Kosher Coke, which is only available during Passover and has a yellow lid rather than white.
from the link --> ...the formula for Coke included traces of alcohol that were a by-product of grain kernels. Since anything derived from grains is chametz, or forbidden at Passover, Coca-Cola could not be certified kosher for use at Passover... Coke’s chemists experimented and found that, during the Passover season, they could substitute sweeteners produced from beet sugar and cane sugar for grain-based ones without compromising Coke’s taste. They agreed to start manufacturing Coke with the new sugars several weeks before Passover each year...
I got some Kosher Coke at the store today (thank you, Byerly's) and while a 2L bottle of Coke is regularly $1.99 (on sale for $1.79 this week which works out to $0.026/oz rather than the usual price of $0.029/oz), the price of this stuff is $2.99 for a 2L bottle ($0.044/oz). I get that it's a specialty item, but it still seems a bit of a price gouge. Then again, the pack of small cans which I usually buy* (now 7.5 oz per can instead of 8 oz, which works out to $0.058/oz at the current sale price rather than $0.066/oz regularly) makes Kosher Coke at its regular price look like a steal. Part of the price difference for Kosher Coke may also be related to not having sugar subsidies the way we have corn subsidies in this country, coupled with any sort of Kosher certifications/methods/practices required.
Kosher Coke does taste different to what my taste buds conjure when I think of "Coke" though. Tomorrow I'm going to do a side-by-side comparison of sugar-based Coke & high fructose corn jizz-based Coke. For science. And if I like the hard-to-get stuff better, maybe I'll manage to swear off pop altogether except during Passover.
*I like the tiny cans because one serving is 1 cup for most _other_ fluids I can think of & I like being able to have a single serving w/o having the rest of the monster vat go flat before I get around to having a second serving. The remaining can of Coke in my fridge is from an 8-pack I bought at Christmas, and mom drank at least 2 of the cans in the 8-pack--if not 4 of them. I wonder if the extra expense from the small cans is related to not having aluminum subsidies, or if it's because the beverage companies like taking advantage of those in the population who don't consume the national average of 190 calories in sugared beverage a day. (That statistic is corroborated here--not just pulled out of my ass--though this was the article that actually brought it to my attention.)