Dean Christakos« I Graduated! | Main | Opening of Pandemonium Books' New Location »
June 15, 2006
Not Just Coke -- Coke Black "Blăk"
Sometimes, you come across something in a grocery store that makes you ask, "What the hell is this crap?" This was one of those times, namely coming across a four-pack of a beverage called (I am not making this up) "Coca Cola Blăk". I suppose this is in keeping with a pattern we've seen of products like "Polo Black" and "Djarum Black" and "Johnny Walker Black Label" and other such things to imply that something is sleek and subversive.
What's "Coca Cola Blăk"? Well, from the label, it claims to be a "Carbonated Fusion Beverage." Since neither the bottle nor the four-pack had any indication of what kind of "fusion" this was, Star Market helpfully informed shoppers that this was a coffee-infused beverage. So, I decided I had to buy it and pour myself a glass, which is just what I did:
I mean, it looks a lot like Coke, doesn't it? It turns out that it doesn't taste completely awful, actually. It tastes a lot like Coke mixed with coffee syrup. I can only assume that there was some corporate meeting in which someone stood up and made a Powerpoint presentation showing that coffee consumption had been on the rise (met with replies of, "ah yes, I hear that coffee is the big thing these days" and "my teenage son is always coming home with those 'vedi' coffees or whatever they're called-- it means 'big' in Italian!") and that Coke needed to attract the "coffee drinking demographic" and that Coke could leverage its brand to appeal to this new market and that they'd find a lot of synergy with coffee syrup suppliers. A branding committee was no doubt formed to come up with the "Blăk" name and logo, ("we feel that the 'c' didn't play well with focus-groups, and the 'ă' was popular with the 14-25 demographic, polling poorly only among those who felt that it looked 'too French.'") On the heels of pouring lemon syrup, lime syrup, and vanilla syrup into Coca Cola (all of which, I might add, ended in failure), the idea of pouring coffee-flavored syrup into Coca Cola was born.
Look, it's not the most awful stuff in the world. The truth is that I kind of like it, being a fan of coffee and sweet beverages, but I'm not going to sit around and drink the stuff all day. So, as my sister would say: "meh." Heck, I have, in fact, actually bought and made drinks with the aforementioned Autocrat coffee syrup, but I haven't done so in years. I only hope I get around to finishing the remaining bottles I have before they become so old that I'm reluctant to try.
UPDATE: verdanthe points me to the blog by the author of the novel "Syrup" whose author has also discovered Coke Blăk and realized that it bears an eerie similarity to the premise of his own novel.
Posted by Dean at June 15, 2006 08:48 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.christakos.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/235
Comments
Ah, Autocrat! Just a swallow will tell you (although it won't tell you why they have a name like that).
Posted by: adamg at June 16, 2006 11:04 AM
http://www.maxbarry.com/syrup/
Posted by: de at June 16, 2006 04:40 PM
so i was drinking a dr. pepper today i starting thinking...where did dr. pepper get his doctorate? i thought if he came from the university of atlanta that'd be funny because he'd be like "haha, what now coke? you missed the chance to have me and blew it".
Posted by: Jesus Burritos at June 16, 2006 08:32 PM
Posted by: Dean at June 16, 2006 09:25 PM