An Old Fashioned Summer: Coca-Cola, A Personal History

 

Lest you think I am touting a product only you'd be both right and wrong.  I do favor Coke over other soft drinks.  I always have but, I am a southern girl.  And we southern girls don't call fizzy drinks 'soda' or 'pop', we call them all Coke or Coca-Cola regardless of brand.   It is not uncommon to hear someone say "I want a Coke...Make mine a Pepsi!"  (or Dr. Pepper or Fanta, etc.).   

Growing up ours was a divided family.  Yes, it's true.  Daddy's side favored Pepsi and Mama favored Coca-Cola and Granny mostly favored store brand or Kool-Aid type drinks.    

Interesting fact here, my Daddy's father took a Pepsi each day and poured a bit into his iced tea.  Why?  Well Grandmother used saccharine in her sweet tea to save on sugar and it wasn't quite sweet enough to suit Granddaddy, so he'd pour in about half a glass of Pepsi and then top it up with Iced Tea.   As kids, we only drank Pepsi in the way that Granddaddy did, lol.   Give us a bottle of Coke though and we drank it as it came.

In my childhood, there were delivery vans that drove along country roads that sold various items.   They were sort of a rolling country store.   The one I remember most clearly had a big galvanized tub of salted ice on the floor in the back of the van and inside that tub were bottles of soft drinks.   I remember one summer day choosing an Orange Crush that had little flecks of ice floating throughout the drink.  I don't think I've ever had a more refreshing drink than that one!

Winn Dixie sold their own brand of soda that was called Chek-Cola and that is what we drank if we were at Granny's.   Back then, cans were opened with what a friend calls a 'church key' type of can opener.  One end was angled and flat for lifting bottle tops off easily and the other was pointed and pierced cans.   When we'd finished drinking our cans of cola, Mama's daddy would pierce the other end of the can and then thread a bent wire coat hanger through the two ends, leaving us with an improvised toy to roll along the porch or driveway.

Mama generally bought Coke brand mainly because she favored Dr. Pepper, but every now and then she'd choose Shasta when they were on sale.   I loved the Shasta Raspberry soda and  Strawberry sodas.   The range of flavors from Shasta were far more varied and were thoroughly enjoyed by us kids.  I don't recall a lot of grape or orange Fanta in our lives back then.  We weren't big on Root Beer or Ginger Ale,  either.

There were three ways to drink a Coke in my school days: straight up was for those days when money was short.   But when we had allowance in our pockets and we chose the dark colas, we often had a packet of salted peanuts or plain M&M candies and we'd pour those into our soda and drink it.   Don't even ask my why...We did and I recall we thought is was really good back then.   The peanuts added a nice saltiness to the drink but the M&Ms candies created a rather nasty looking color that was unappetizing at the least.  Yet we all did it.  It was 'the thing' kids did at that time in the 1970's.

When I was an adult and traveled to Florida I found such brands as Upper 10 and Squirt and Sunburst to enjoy.   I'd never before realized that soda brands might be regional as well as the names they were called by!  

John and I went to Buccees last week and got a Royal Crown Cola.  We were watching a vlogger who showed off his drink and I said to John at the time, "I haven't had an RC since I was a kid!"  He told me we'd find one the next time we were out of the house and so we did.  It was good!  In fact, I might be convinced to switch from Coke!  It had far less 'bite' to it.

When I met John he was a Coke fanatic.  He wanted his two or three soft drinks daily.  I began calling them 'soda' during the early years of our marriage and gave up my Southern way of calling all soft drinks 'Coke'.  During our financially tight days I encouraged him to follow house rules of one soda a day, same as the kids were allowed.   For years, no matter how small my food budget, a portion of it was allotted to Cokes simply because he had to have them.  Now we buy soda occasionally and usually the grown children ask for one when they are visiting us which leads little kids to ask for some, too.

Our Coke habit might be decreased but come summer, we still like the refreshing fizz of a carbonated soda over ice.  I'm sure it's because the heat causes us to lose so much salt and decreases our blood sugar to a limit.  I've found for myself though that I'm perfectly happy to split a 12 ounce bottle and drink soda in the proportion that it was originally sold, 6 ounce bottles, which seemed just right to me in my youth.

But I'm truly a Coke girl, even all these years later.

What's your favorite carbonated drink?  And what do you call it?