Mexican Coca-Cola flying off shelves in Brooklyn
Mexican Coca-Cola is all the rage in Brooklyn, DNAinfo New York reports.
Sold in classic-looking, curvy glass bottles, Mexican Coke is sweetened with cane sugar rather than the high-fructose corn syrup pumped into the American stuff. Fans describe the taste of Mexican Coke as having a spicy and herbal note, with a flavor “hint[ing] at root beer or old-fashioned sarsaparilla candies.”
The soda’s popularity has been on the rise for years now: the New York Times published a trend piece on the soft drink back in 2009. But this once-cult offering has now become de rigueur at countless restaurants, grocery stories, and bodegas throughout New York City and elsewhere across the country.
Greta Dana, owner of Williamsburg’s Taco Chulo, has been serving Mexican Coke since her restaurant opened eight years ago and recently noticed an uptick in the drink’s popularity.
“The Mexican Coke craze has been sort of recent,” Dana told DNAinfo. “But it’s definitely become more of a thing that people ask for. It’s more of a trendy item, if you could say that about a Coke.”
The popular soft drink from south of the border has been flying off the shelf just a mile way at East Williamsburg’s La Gringa.
“Our customers actually love Mexican Coke,” owner Adalis Velez said. “At first I thought it was just the hype or the nostalgia of the glass bottle, but after drinking it I realized there was something to all the madness. For me, it’s smoother, sweeter and colder. Mexican Coke is banging.”
In a blind taste test conducted by Consumer Reports, participants found that Coke from Mexico has “a fuller, slightly more complex flavor” than its American counterpart. Still, others claim that Mexican Coke is just a fad for Americans, a case of clever packaging and psychological manipulation.
While Coca-Cola Co. would not provide any data on the increase of Mexican Coke imports, spokeswoman Kerry Tressler told DNAinfo that the company had been officially importing it since 2005.
