MUCHO REFRESCO!: THE DAMAGED 2.0 GUIDE TO MEXICAN STORE SODAS, VOL. 1

MUCHO REFRESCO!: THE DAMAGED 2.0 GUIDE TO MEXICAN STORE SODAS, VOL. 1
By Louis Fowler

For over 29 years, I have drank exclusively diet sodas. No, not because I am really on a diet, even though for the love of God I should be, but because I have never really liked the syrupy taste of American sodas. Even as a child, the taste of regular Coke or Pepsi in a can or bottle has always had the power to make me wince and hack. Maybe it has to do with the fact that my mother only allowed diet soda in the house so I am used to it, I don’t know.

But, as of two or three years ago, even diet sodas have started to make me gag. The only one I can really drink now is Diet Dr. Pepper, but it has to be ice cold and in a can. Anything else just sickens me.

It started when I began noticing a chemical, chorine-ish taste in the back of my mouth. Doing a little research, I really think that it is the aspartame. When warm, not only does aspartame become poisonous (Aspartic Acid 40%, Phenylalanine 50%, and Methanol 10%), but when it breaks down in your stomach, it basically becomes Formaldehyde. After years of downing these like there's no tomorrow, there may be no tomorrow! I am screwed, and I’m not even counting the supposed brain tumors.

So what’s a guy who likes soda supposed to do? How about making a run for the border? Or, better yet, making a run to your nearest Mexican grocery store, where they import glass-bottled sodas that usually use real sugar and real fruit juices as opposed to artificial sweeteners and artificial flavors. A one liter bottle will typically run you about $1.75—only a little more than an American one liter. The only thing that will probably hold you back is your intense fear of all things brown. But, when you think about it, what’s worse: dying quickly in a Mexican gang drive-by or having a long, drawn-out painful death due to aspartame-induced cancer?

The deeper I get into the Mexican soda underworld, the more I know how daunting and confusing it can be for the uninitiated. Here’s a handy guide to sodas found in most Mexican stores. Part one, of course.

MEXICAN COCA-COLA

I hate Coke in plastic bottles. Hate it. It gets warm so fast and never really tastes right, leaving an unpleasant burning sensation in my gut. Cans of Coke are maybe just a tad more passable, but still, nothing in the world can compare to an ice cold Coke in a glass bottle—especially if it's imported from Mexico where they still use sugar. Yeah, real sugar. Cane sugar.

And yes, it is the sugar that makes it taste and feel better. Can we all agree that “high fructose corn syrup” or “aspartame” just doesn't match up to the real thing? And while other soda companies like Pepsi are catching on, releasing limited edition Pepsi “Throwback”, with real sugar, it's sadly limited edition and impossible to find; I'm no health nut, but, to me, real sugar seems a whole heck of a lot less “unhealthy” than high fructose corn syrup. On top of that, just try to find Pepsi Throwback! Looking high and low, I've never even seen a bottle once—you've probably had the same problem too. So here's an idea: put away your fears of a vato-shanking and cut out the middle-man and just go to a Mexican store and buy a case of Mexican Coke.

Sadly, according to Slashfood, the a-holes over at Coke are “continually trying to stop the importation of those soft drinks into the U.S. for fear that they'll compete with the sodas bottled here.” Get 'em while you can.

MEXICAN PEPSI

I can't remember too clearly, but it was either Billy Idol or Billy Joel who said “Rock'n'rolla cola wars, I can't take it anymore!” Maybe it was Billy Squier. I don't know. But, whoever said it made a good point: seriously Coke and Pepsi, can we please put down our arms and just enjoy both of you? Possibly at once? Even better, can you guys maybe create a new drink that mixes both together in one bottle? We can call it “Pepske”. Maybe “Coksi”. I'll let you guys decide.

The only reason why I bring up the “Cola Wars” is because after drinking Mexican Coke, you gotta try Mexican Pepsi. Well, if you can find the right kind, that is. Depending on where it's bottled, some have cane sugar like the Cokes, some have High Fructose Corn Syrup or, like the one I've got here, “High Fructose Corn Syrup and/or Sugar”. I don't know what that means...does this have both, for extra flavor or maybe one or the other? Like I am supposed to be guessing or something? Sorry, Mexican Pepsi, but I don't have time for these types of games! What’s not a game though is how pure and delicious it tastes.

Funny enough, the American wing of PepsiCo has released “Pepsi Natural”. Like Pepsi Throwback, I have never been about to find it, but apparently it has an even better taste than Throwback, and probably Mexican Pepsi, actually, as it is made with sparkling water, sugar and kola nut extract, all served in a glass bottle! Someone send me a case of this!

MEXICAN SPRITE

Look, I am not a fan of Sprite in any incarnation. Even if I did enjoy the refreshing lemon-lime taste, any chance of a positive review has been thrown out the window due to their irritating commercials that I have to sit through before every movie I go see. Edgy soda commercials aimed at urban markets put to the music of an Alterbridge-soundalike band will only make me hate you.

As for the drink, even though it is produced by the Coca-Cola Company, like the Mexican Pepsi, it too contains some mixture of “High Fructose Corn Syrup and/or Sugar”. Even if there is sugar in it, it doesn't save it. If anything, this should be more lemony than the American version than anything else—have you seen what Mexicans consider candy? That Limon salt with a duck on it is a huge seller! It's just a lemon/lime powder you put on your finger and lick off. Couldn't you have put a bit of that in your Mexican variation, Sprite? NEEDS MORE LEMON.

JARRITOS

Probably the most popular non-Coke Mexican soda, Jarritos—which means “jugs”, tee-hee, in English—besides being the name of a Mexican urban gang whose graffiti was all over my textbook at Northwest Classen High School, is also typically available in many non-Mexican store outlets, such as Wal-Mart or chain grocery stores like King Soopers, for about 80 cents a hit. How they can do this and Mexican Coke can't is beyond me—I don't care to study the contract negotiations and all that—but, for a cheap, fruity refreshing soda sold in an ice cold bottle, you couldn't do better.

There are numerous flavors of Jarritos, from tutifruti (fruit punch) and pina (pineapple) to sandia (watermelon) and, what I'm drinking right now, jamaica, which has an unique, if acquired, flavor derived from Hibiscus tea. Now I have never had real Hibiscus tea, but one time in a Mexican taqueria they had this “jamaica” drink that they served out of a barrel and I think it was the iced tea variation of Hibiscus tea. Very bitter, like I had just stuck a flower in my mouth. The sugars and carbonation really serve it well. It would have to.

I would love to try tutifruti, but it is always sold out.

MANZANITA SOL

Remember that 80s soda called Slice? I do. I remember it everyday. My parents used to buy it like it was going out of style, which makes sense in retrospect, because it obviously was. Man, did they have some great flavors...mandarin orange, pineapple, “Dr. Slice” and, my favorite, apple. APPLE SODA?!?! WHHAAAAA?

Yes, apple soda. I love apple soda. I'd like to buy the world an apple soda. I'd like to buy the world a Manzanita Sol. What makes it so good? Like the bottle says, “Con Jugo Natural”—I think that mean “with natural juice”. How much natural juice is in there exactly, who knows. But really, especially in comparison to other sodas with all their artificial flavors and whatnot, that little bit of natural juice really makes this pop, well, pop! It's like drinking a crisp, farm-fresh apple that's been on the top shelf of your fridge for a couple of hours, all that cold air blowing on it, making it nice and frosty, with every bite better than the last as juice juts out the side of your jowls. But as a carbonated liquid. No wonder this is the second biggest soda in Mexico!

INCA KOLA

Dubbed the “Golden Kola”, probably due to it's resemblance to fresh urine, Inca Kola is the biggest soda pop in Peru. Currently, it's the biggest soda pop in my household. I cannot get enough of it. But I have to: it's insanely pricey—a six-pack is five dollars, and that was from a Mexican store in Denver's Mile High Flea Market. Normally I would have to balk at it because of this, but it is so tasty that I can’t help but crave more. Maybe it’s the “Golden Soda” because it’s like drinking pure treasure in every sip!

It can alternately be described as having a “bubble-gummy” taste, or, as I prefer, cream soda without the bite—I hate that bite—with a wonderfully sickly-sweet aftertaste. It doesn’t burn and it doesn’t leave you hollow. It goes great with tacos, especially pork, oddly enough. I bet it is awesome with the traditional Peruvian dish of cuy relleno, which is guinea pig stuffed with parsley, black mint, mint, oregano, green onions, cleaned and boiled innards, and crushed toasted peanuts. Mmmmmm...cuuuuuuuuuy...

JOYA

Who doesn't love a crisp, tangy grapefruit soda? I sure do, but, for some reason, Fresca always gives me a headache and Squirt makes me feel like I have to poop almost immediately. Once again, I am going to blame the artificial sweeteners, because, well, that's the easiest thing to do. Just when I had given up on finding a new grapefruit soda to fill the empty void that is my life…here comes sweet lady Joya. This is how you do a grapefruit soda!

It has a real sour, real grapefruit taste that is mixed ever so slightly with a certain sweetness—oh, look, real sugar!—creating a perfect blend that has no aftertaste and no sticky, gummy taste in your mouth. When you get a citrus soda, you want it to taste like some poor, underpaid sweatshop worker has sliced a grapefruit in half and has painstakingly squeezed the juice into a bottle of carbonated water. So easy to do…leave it to Latin America to get it right! That’s one more point for cheap exploited labor.

TO BE CONTINUED! VIVA AZÚCAR VERDADERO!