By John. T. Edge | April/May 2009 | Talk of the South

Coca-Cola Mexicana

Why cane-sugar Cokes from south of the border are creating a buzz stateside

When I was a boy, my friends and I were convinced that we could discern a difference between Coke bottled in Macon, Georgia, the closest facility, and Coke bottled in Atlanta. We reasoned that Atlanta Coke had more bite, that it was somehow stronger. Maybe we were right. Two different bottling lines supplied those cities. Then, as now, headquarters sold syrup to bottlers the world over. And headquarters devised advertising campaigns. But individual bottlers sweetened, carbonated, and packaged the product.

In the gap between U.S. Coke and Mexican Coke, between the real thing and the realer thing, single-operator cane-sugar Coke bootleggers have, for the past decade, exploited a cross-border market. But that market will soon be co-opted. As more drinkers clue in to cane sugar, distribution is going mainstream, and small-time bootlegging is becoming a thing of the past. Some Mexican bottlers are striking deals with American colleagues intent upon importing their own supply of the good stuff. If Coke takes the next logical step and produces a cane-sugar version specifically marketed to the American consumer, it may follow in the wake of archrival Pepsi, which, in early 2008, introduced British drinkers to Pepsi Raw, made with only natural ingredients, including, of course, cane sugar.

Meanwhile, more cane-sugar Coke devotees surface each day. Five years ago, you had to go to a bodega in the barrio to find Mexican Coke. Now Costco stocks it in many markets. Kroger does too, although it ghettoizes the product, shelving it on the so-called international aisle.

Inevitably, chefs, especially those with deep roots in the South, are awakening to the possibilities of cane-sugar Coke, none more so than Linton Hopkins, chef and co-proprietor of two Atlanta restaurants. Raised in Peachtree Hills, a neighborhood that more than a few Coke executives call home, he uses local goods to great effect. At Restaurant Eugene, an elegant boîte with high-back banquettes, Hopkins braises veal breast in a mix of veal stock and Coke, serving it with pickled peaches pureed into a phosphorescent yellow sauce. He also cooks Mexican Coke down into a syrup until it has the viscosity of balsamic vinegar, and he drizzles that syrup atop a smoked chocolate s’more cake.

Hopkins says Mexican Coke cooks differently. It coalesces into a true caramel and imbues sauces with a sweet and sour note he misses when he cooks with American-made Coke. More important, he thinks it drinks differently too. And I think he’s right, especially after taking a seat at his gastropub, Holeman & Finch, where barman Greg Best has built a cocktail program around Mexican Cokes, and to which, in what may be a sign of things to come, Coca-Cola headquarters now direct ships its cane-sugar-goosed and Monterrey-bottled best. One sip of a cane-sugar Coke, poured over cracked ice or swirled into a float, bobbing with vanilla ice cream, and you’ll concur. Such a taste, such a fusion of a Georgia past in this increasingly Mexican present, is too righteous to suffer the vicissitudes of bootlegging.

To order a case of Mizican Coca-Cola, visit drsoda.com/mexicancoke.html