Sunday, May 20, 2007

Coke South of the Border~Toma lo Bueno, take the good!


Coke, drink of choice south of the border, Charros & otherwise!


When we used to go to the border in the 1970's we would stop for a bottle of coke once we crossed the border. Before the bottle water craze, coke was what you cooled off with south of the border. Somehow the Coke always tasted sweeter & seemed to have a different flavor than it did in Texas. When I moved down here I discovered that Coke truly is made differently here versus the states. Coke uses cane sugar in Mexico still & corn syrup back in the states, hence the flavor difference. Annual cola expenditures in Mexico exceed the amount spent on the 10 staple foods combined, including milk, bread and eggs. The poor quality of drinking water in Mexico drives the high consumption of other beverages. In Mexico City, the world's largest soft-drink market, where 18 million thirsty people are drinking Coke! When we were in Monterrey a few weeks ago I was introduced to a new drink by our Realtor. She told us about giving this same recipe to a bartender in Las Vegas. Soon Charro Negros will be spreading across the west! I know this isn't brand new but I had never heard of it. Coke or Coke Lite may be used~Salute!!

Charro Negro
1 ½ oz. El Charro Tequila Reposado
3 oz. cola
Juice of ½ lemon (or lime~when in Mexico!)
Margarita Salt
Rub rim of chilled highball glass with lemon and dip into margarita salt. Fill glass with ice and add tequila, lemon juice and cola. Stir.
















Roadside Coke Vendor/Store in the desert of Coahuila. Looks a bit like Crummley Grocery Store may have 50 years ago at the edge of Austin!! (For all the Texans old enough to remember that place!)

3 comments:

Hornsfan said...

coke and tequila?? that sounds like a bad frat concotion!

Dee said...

Just a south of the border concoction! ha, ha!!

ClaudiaH said...

I wonder whether the Coke down there tastes the way Coke used to taste when I was a kid! Do you like the Coke down there better than what we have here?

A lot of things taste differently these days; tootsie rolls comes to mind. I think it may be the corn syrup. I noticed the change in tootsie rolls when I was in my twenties...dunno whether corn syrup had taken over by then, but something had changed.

Had a discussion recently about how corn has taken over as a main crop here, replacing sugar cane and also replacing grasses used to feed livestock. Corn is not what cows should eat, but that's what they eat, and so all the beef products are not really the way they should be.