Tuesday 31 July 2007

Sempre Coca-cola

As I travel, I have decided to rate the diet coke of the world on a scale from one to ten. So far, the Coke Zero produced in NZ is the only ten out of ten, and the marker of what I consider to be perfection. And no, coke is not the same all over the world, for some reason that I do not know and can only imagine has something to do with the water in each place. I found coke in Italy to be much the same as in New Zealand, and the coke in Australia to be similar also. Diet coke in the USA, however, tasted like syrup. The stuff in Tonga was the worst, it tasted like it had been made in a pair of old tramping boots that had just been worn on a lengthy tramp. Without socks. Even the labels are different. Once when I was 18 and on the boat to Capri, a man caught me gawking at the weird label on his coke, and that label began a conversation that resulted in me learning that the man and his three companions were all Auschwitz survivors and the label was from Israeli coke. After talking to me at length about their experiences, the man gave me the label which I still have somewhere as a red and white reminder of that incredibly moving conversation.
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So, watch this space and your knowledge of fizzy drink will be greatly enriched! And yes, I am still going to be drinking my fair share of local drinks just in case you are on the verge of a rant against globalisation and multi-nationals.

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