Coca-Cola > Reviews (145)

I've spoken before of my unfortunate and debilitating coke addiction, which lasted from early childhood to a time not too long ago. Don't worry, I meant that kind of Coke! Oh, you already knew. There's a picture. I see. Well now that the fun's out of the way, on with the review. Without a doubt, the most well-known and authentic carbonated cola drink belongs to the ludicrously rich Coca-Cola Corporation, which has ensured through endless and unstoppable advertising to ingrain the idea into the minds of everyone that their product is the best. But is it true? Well, probably.

Even in my worst excesses of cola binge drinking, this expensive product would usually be substituted for a cheaper supermarket equivalent or occasionally the arch rival Pepsi, which is forced to resort to numerous special offers and irritating sponsorship deals to maintain its market share. I came to regard Coca-Cola as the rich man's Asda Just Cola, at the opposite end of the scale to undrinkable, leafy 21p bargain brands (which can also be detected by the presence of 'American-style,' 'star' or 'pop' in the title). It doesn't deserve such special recognition for essentially including the same ingredients in a slightly nicer tasting composition - and apparently based somewhere down the line on lemons as opposed to Pepsi's orange, at least that's what I've heard - but my linear mind has always inevitably placed it at number one in the cola list.

The ingredients list on a bottle of regular Coke is understandably vague and generalised by necessity, otherwise we'd all be brewing the formula in our bathtubs. Fortunately, the company is required to display the nutritional information, based on the quantity of a 250ml glass. There are 105kcal, which evidently makes up 5% of the body's daily intake according to their guideline of a 2000kcal diet, but more debilitating is the large 26.5g of sugar, equalling 29% of the same daily allowance in a single glass. This sugar amount is slightly worse than that of Dr. Pepper, but better than Cherry Coke, and the obvious cause for alarm for dieters who are nowadays thankfully spoiled for choice with sugar-free brands that still allow them to be coked up to the eyeballs without doing their bodies any harm. Alright, there may be a few health concerns in a diet consisting entirely of fizzy cola drinks, particularly for the teeth and liver, but look on the bright side: you could turn out like me.

As usual, I'll skip the information on Coke's illustrious and scandalous history in favour of evaluating it as a fizzy drink - all that information can be found on Wikipedia, but only here will you receive my unique and clearly wrong insight. Coke certainly has a distinct flavour and smell, especially compared to its medium quality supermarket equivalents, but a large part of this comes in the anticipation before the drink actually enters my mouth. The fizzy burp released on opening a fresh bottle or tearing open a can is a pleasant and familiar one, hinting at the caramel-like taste that I am about to enjoy and not going overboard on the froth as some other brands tend to.

You don't get this sensation from a supermarket cola, in which the fizz merely acts as a gassy irritation rather than a pleasant precursor to taste, but a major disadvantage common to all colas is the prevalence and persistence of bubbles that can make it difficult to drink for many, and often invite a wave of burping (I've been spared this, as I can't actually burp). The taste passing onto the tongue is initially pleasant, aided by the aroma, but all too soon takes on a slightly too sticky and almost metallic tinge that leaves me a little unsatisfied. The oddest thing of all comes in the after-effects left behind in the mouth, which will still be slightly fizzing and coated by the sugar, particularly the teeth. I don't want to get too unpleasant, but the thick and sticky saliva is quite unpleasant, and an unconscious interior cleaning by the tongue will usually follow.

In my experience, Coca-Cola isn't particularly addictive in the short term in the way something like Dr. Pepper tends to be, as one glass can easily be enough in one sitting, the maximum under normal circumstances being two. Still, the slightly improved taste over what I consider the 'base' own-brands of supermarkets lends the drink a false sense of luxury, and I will be more likely to over-indulge for pleasure rather than mere thirst (bearing in mind that the only drinks I would ever drink would be cola drinks). This means that a bottle would have a fairly short lifespan, usually no more than a day, which can be a problem if relying solely on this famous brand as it tends to be the most expensive. I think my local Sainsburys is currently offering 2 bottles for £2, in a rare triumph over the price of Pepsi, but even when bought in bulk the price will usually be quite in excess of £1 per bottle, often along the lines of 2 for £2.30. Bought in smaller local shops without a discount, the bottles currently bear a price label of £1.59 each, which would seem to rise only by a few pence every few years, so there's nothing to worry about in this regard.

Coke has been the leading brand in its field for well over a hundred years, and will clearly dominate for however long American capitalism reigns until its collapse and the accompanying destruction of the planet. In the short time we have left, let's enjoy our favourite drinks and disregard the obvious ill effects and sheer prices and indulge our vices as best we can, something the Coca-Cola Company is encouraging by bringing out ever more ludicrous spin-offs of its core product. I rarely drink Coke now, even when I fancy a cola drink, but its powerful legacy has clearly been enough to cripple my life. On second thought, I can't blame all my problems on a fizzy drink.