Friday Fact: Coca Cola

Diet Coke is an acquired taste.

I've acquired it.

It's my beverage of choice to compliment salty popcorn at the theater, a drive-through lunch, a shopping excursion at Costco, a road trip. It would come in spurts - reveling in the strange flavor for a week or two...then sort of forgetting about it for a few months.

Until now.

I realized a few weeks back that this time, THIS TIME, I am actually in fact addicted to the stuff. I'd wake up and think, "when can I sneak a diet coke in, today?" - and if I didn't get around to it, pretty soon I was craving it something awful. Well, that's weird, I thought. But I couldn't be addicted, I thought. It happens, I know, 'cause people have told me about it - but for whatever reason it doesn't happen to me. So I decided to pay attention, and sure enough. A few days without it and the headaches and mood swings set in. I don't know what makes this time different, but I was addicted. This freaked me out a little, and so I quit. I am off the sauce, so to speak.

And so, in an ode to my former friend and nemesis, I'm dedicating this weeks Friday Fact to some fun Coca Cola Trivia.

Ready? Go.

Coca-Cola was originally green.

It was first invented by a pharmacist named John Pemberton as a medicine to cure headaches (specifically, hangovers).

It takes its name from the original ingredients of Coca leaves and Kola seeds.

When China began to sell the stuff, their marketers decided to use characters that would sound like 'coca-cola' when spoken. Unfortunately, what it turned out to mean was "bite the wax tadpole". It did not sell well.

Now, in Chinese, it means 'to make mouth happy'.

During a "who can drink the most coke in one go" competition, someone drank 8 bottles of coke and died on the spot. He had too much carbon dioxide and too little oxygen in his blood.

In 1950, Coca-Cola became the first product ever to appear on the cover of Time Magazine.

The Coca-Cola slogan is ever-changing. Here are a few of my favorites (my comments in parentheses):
1891 - The Ideal Brain Tonic/The Delightful Summer-Winter beverage. (get your snake-oil, here!)
1905 - Coca-Cola revives and sustains. (unless you drink 8 bottles in one go)
1906 - The great national temperance beverage. (coke = world peace)
1908 - Good til the last drop (now the Maxwell House Coffee slogan)
1926 - It had to be good to get where it is.
1932 - Ice-cold sunshine.(in black liquid form!)
1941 - Coca-Cola is Coke! ('Coca-Cola' takes too long to say, let's get 'coke' to catch on!)
1944 - How about a Coke? (has it caught on, yet?)
1945 - Coke means Coca-Cola. (seriously, people! just call it Coke!)
1952 - What you want is a Coke. (not Coca-Cola)
1966 - Coke ... after Coke ... after Coke.(waitasec...why do I always want more Coke?)
1982 - Coke is it! (the end-all, be-all answer to all of life's most troubling questions!)
1993 - Always Coca-Cola. (Never-mind 'Coke', 'Coca Cola' sounds vintage and classic!)
2005 - Make It Real.(with our nebulous slogan!)
2010 - Twist The Cap To Refreshness (oh we give up)

And while you're twisting the cap to refreshness (I love it when they make up words), why not use your Coke to do a little work around the house? Coke can be used to clean rusty pans, dirty toilets, oil leaks from garage floors and driveways, and can be used to remove odor. It can help cure jellyfish stings. It can loosen rusty bolts.

It can dissolve an entire T-bone steak (bone and all) in 2 days flat.

In addition to the citrus (heavier on the orange where Pepsi is heavier on the lemon), Coke also contains oils of coriander, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

Coke was the first soda enjoyed in space in its own special 'space-can' in 1985. (neener neener, Dr. Pepper!)

It took 58 years to sell the first billion gallons of Coca-Cola syrup. Now they sell that much every 7.5 months.

And guess what? Apples - not caffeine - are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.


Perhaps my next addiction will be apples. I need my Fuji Fix.