Every year around Easter, Coca-Cola produces old-fashioned Coke for the Jewish holidays. This product is usually only found in large metro areas and in Jewish delis and such. There are websites devoted to the yearly sightings of it. It is only produced in 2 liter bottles with a distinctive yellow cap (normal Coke 2 liter bottle cap is red), with Hebrew markings for Kosher. The difference in the real thing is what is used to make it sweet. In the 1980s Coke switched from using sugar from sugar cane to using HFCS (high fructose corn syrup)(1985). Devoted Coke drinkers who are old enough to have drunk original Coke from those cold green glass bottles know it changed the taste of Coke. "Classic Coke" is the same formula with a different, more concentrated and powerful sweetener, and it made a difference. I remember. My father had his own vending machines to service in his business, and he used to pick up fresh Coke in those bottles directly from the Coke bottler that was on West Street in Annapolis in the 1960s. It was always in the house. It is a large part of my childhood, and I have never been able to drink Pepsi. Pepsi is nasty. I stopped drinking all Coke products for months during the "New Coke" fiasco, and became a Classic Coke drinker when it was released because it was as close as I could get to those memories.

But every year, at Easter/Passover, I scour the Mid-Atlantic from PA to Washington DC for Passover Coke. A few friends make derogatory remarks about this obsession. (Found any Jew Coke this year?) I and other afficianados do this because these Coke bottles contain Coke made with the old formulation of cane sugar - corn is forbidden to observant Jews at Passover, so they may not drink products containing HFCS. Coca-Cola does this speciality production once a year for their Jewish customers in metro areas, and the rest of us compete with them for the product. There are on-line legends about Mexican Coke - where it is still made with cane sugar. I have never had it. I do prefer Dr. Brown's and Jones Soda - both are made with cane sugar instead of HFCS.

This year a case of Passover Coke made it as far West as Hershey, PA. I went in at midnight to buy cat litter and frozen pizza, and in the Coke aisle I saw a few bottles with yellow caps. I lept on them. The bottles were 4 for $5. I took 4, and went to the pet food aisle. I came back and got 4 more. It wasn't weird to buy 8 Coke 2 liter bottles when you live alone, right? You are just stocking up.Then I went to frozen foods, thinking about those last 4 bottles of the wayward case, and about how the casual Coke shopper wouldn't understand how special they were. Then I went back and bought the last 4, to make an even 12 of a case.

Now, I am having my cold, iced Coke with a heavy dose of nostalgia, and enjoying every corn-free swallow. Mazel Tov!

How to ID Passover Coke:
Every late March and early April, for the two to three weeks leading up to the celebration of the Jewish Passover holiday season in the United States, Coke fans living in major metropolitan areas with large Jewish populations get their Real Thing, if only for that brief fleeting period. According to Jewish law, nothing made with chametz (any of a number of proscribed cereals and grains, including corn) during passover may be consumed — so in order not to lose sales from observant Jews during that eight day period, a small number of Coca-Cola bottlers make a limited batch of the original Coke formulation, using refined sugar. Needless to say, stocks run out quickly and fans of Passover Coke have been known to travel many miles seeking out supermarkets with remaining caches.
Passover Coke products (and Passover Pepsi) in 2-Liter bottles can be distinguished by their yellow caps, inscribed either with just the “OU-P” symbol and/or the words Kosher L’Pesach in Hebrew. The canned variety is rare and is known to be produced only by a scant few bottling companies in the United States – if you can find any, be sure to snap it up.
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