News Story:

A company in Colombia is marketing a drink made from the coca plant, the source of cocaine. "Coca Sek" looks like apple cider, smells like tea, and tastes like a cross between ginger ale and 7-Up. The makers say it's an attempt to reestablish the good name of the coca leaf and compete with Coca Cola's "imperialist domination." They admit it probably won't be allowed into America, but they claim the physical effect of drinking it is "minimal;" and it's a lightly-stimulating, "energizing" drink, like coffee.

Originally posted by jericho:
The makers say it's an attempt to reestablish the good name of the coca leaf and compete with Coca Cola's "imperialist domination."

I hate that some people from latin america who consider themselves as "patriotics" always talk of Coca-Cola like "a dominator", like "a product of the american empire", and in my country there are many examples: La Jornada newspaper, Proceso magazine. IMO, those statements are simply stupid...

And unfortunately that patriotic and globaliphobic people contributes to the lack of progress of Mexico, Colombia and latin america...

[ 12-16-2005, 02:59 PM: Message edited by: Ramón Coca-Colero ]

Big deal. The other colas use coca leaves as well.. They just use "spent" ones -- ones that have the cocaine removed. (Coke switched around 1904).

I think they are capitalizing on all the anti-Coke sentiment in Columbia and abroad. Coke has been accused in the problems that have occured at bottlers in Columbia, though they disavow any part of it. There is constant protesting over it, and a few universities have banned Coke from being sold on their campuses.

Well, Pepsi doesn't use coca. If you read Roger Enrico's book detailing his first few years as President of Pepsi, including the New Coke fiasco, he mentions this. Early on after the change to New Coke happened, and it was apparant that a lot of consumers wanted the Old Coke back, Pepsi came up with a plan to bring out their own version of the Old Coke - but ran up against the problem of coca leaf. Apparantly there's only a very limited market for spent coca leaf, and Coke is about their only customer. So if Pepsi were to have tried to buy some, Coke would have found out about it instantly, and Pepsi didn't want that. So they put that plan on hold while their chemists tried to come up with an alternate or synthetic ingredient that would yield the right taste, but before they could, Coke brought out Coke Classic.

And, on another note, in it's original earliest formula, Pepsi didn't even have Kola in it. Yep, that's right, it was called a "Cola" but only because it tasted similar to other cola drinks. It also didn't have any caffiene. That would change later on though....

-Andy

Thanks Andy for the history info.
Was not Pepsi originally developed as an elixir by a drug store pharmacist back in the 1920's?

[ 12-17-2005, 10:49 AM: Message edited by: Mr Zabe ]

completely off the top of my head....

Caleb Bradham developed Pepsi in the mid 1890's for his drugstore. One of his brews became popular, and became known just as "Brad's Drink" but over time the name Pepsi-Cola was applied to it. (if I recall, it's because it was promoted to aid digestion in similar fashion that pepsin was supposed to) Bradham had to buy out the trademarks to one or two other companies that used similar names for their cola drinks to secure his trademark, and the dates on the oldest one is how Pepsi got the 1898 start date.

In around 1906 when the Pure Food and Drug Act came out, Pepsi was in the minority of patent medicines and fountain drinks that passed it without needing to make any modifications - like Coke did in switching to "spent" coca leaf. Pepsi promoted this fact at the time. Bradham started messing with the formula in the WW1 era when the company was faced with problems due to the fluctuating sugar market which, in part, killed their finances, and bottlers asked for caffiene (I would guess as more of a "hook" for the consumers) but the company went bankrupt. It was kept alive through the 20's and into the early 30's, barely, by a financer that bought it, but it ground down and was bought by Mr Guth at the Loft Candy stores, who had their chemists reformulate it. This is when Pepsi started to have the formula similar to what it has today. I think the only modifications to the formula after that time were in the early 50's when Pepsi reduced the sugar content, and in the 80's when they went switched from cane sugar to corn sludge.

-Andy

hmm this soda sounds interesting, i'd love to try it..

if anyone in colombia wants to send me some in the mail, please contact me! though i doubt it would make it thru customs, it really wouldnt have any actual drug effects, it would be the flavor and thats it, and if its got a weird flavor along with a ginger ale/7up flavor, it sounds deliciouso.

interesting. didn't know all that. what is "cola" exactly, anyway? you make it sound like it's a specific ingredient (like caffeine). i thought it was just more of a "taste"... as metaphysical as that sounds. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Originally posted by Android:
Well, Pepsi doesn't use coca. If you read Roger Enrico's book detailing his first few years as President of Pepsi, including the New Coke fiasco, he mentions this. Early on after the change to New Coke happened, and it was apparant that a lot of consumers wanted the Old Coke back, Pepsi came up with a plan to bring out their own version of the Old Coke - but ran up against the problem of coca leaf. Apparantly there's only a very limited market for spent coca leaf, and Coke is about their only customer. So if Pepsi were to have tried to buy some, Coke would have found out about it instantly, and Pepsi didn't want that. So they put that plan on hold while their chemists tried to come up with an alternate or synthetic ingredient that would yield the right taste, but before they could, Coke brought out Coke Classic.

And, on another note, in it's original earliest formula, Pepsi didn't even have Kola in it. Yep, that's right, it was called a "Cola" but only because it tasted similar to other cola drinks. It also didn't have any caffiene. That would change later on though....

-Andy

[ 12-18-2005, 04:57 AM: Message edited by: popologist ]

Kola/Cola refers to the cola/kola nut.

http://www.mobot.org/education/05act...st/spices.html
http://www.mobot.org/education/05act...pegs/jkola.jpg

thanks. so, there's a coca bean and a cola nut. and neither are in pepsi.

i also read before that pepsi used artificial vanilla flavoring (vanillin?) and coke used real vanilla.

so are all these reasons why coke was considered the "premier" cola? because it had better ingredients? hmm. interesting stuff.