Clash of the Titans: Cel Ray vs. Manhattan Special

RC Cola and Cheerwine bring back memories of growing up in North Carolina. Sure, each is just carbonated sugar water. But they're really hard to find anywhere else, and I love a good quest for something arbitrary. Since moving to New York, I've discovered that Key Food stocks RC Cola (the Ave. A location also carries Diet RC, which I didn't even know existed), and Brother Jimmy's BBQ sells glass bottles of Cheerwine. This is one of the perks of living in a place like New York -- you can just keep walking until you find what you're looking to acquire.

[Fair is fair, so I should mention something I haven't been able to get my hands on. Still on the subject of obscure pop, I would sell a kidney for a case of this stuff. A thorough review of the Peter Spanton beverage line can be found here. From what I can gather, it's only available in the UK. The spoiled child in me resents being told I can't have something, but the mature adult is intrigued by grown-up soft drinks. Mr. Spanton's sales pitch was enough to get my attention:

"Like Marmite, I think people will either love it or hate it. I actively hope children will dislike it."

Traveling Anglophiles who want a public "thank you" on a blog read by no more than five people, take note. But, I digress.]

High rent and cramped quarters are among the sacrifices one makes for such absurd convenience. Of course, the door doesn't swing both ways. New York has its own quirky cultural relics that become truly impossible to find in most other places. After a bit of pondering, I set out to find a can of celery flavored pop and a bottle of espresso soda. As expected, I didn't even have to leave the neighborhood; I love this town.

First up is Cel Ray -- made popular by the same folks that censored Elvis' hips and hid important documents in their freezers. Jolt Cola was not your grandmother's drink. Cel Ray was... provided that she never stopped speaking ill of those Cossacks. It's one of those Kosher deli staples, so to speak.

So what does it taste like? Throw some celery into a juicer and mix it with some bland variety of ginger ale. That's the best comparison that comes to mind. I find RC cola endearing because it tastes like flat Pepsi "in a good way." Had I grown up on this paired with pastrami sandwiches, perhaps I'd have a special place in my heart for this substance. Instead, I grew up with Nabs and peanuts + Coke. That's enough bizarre tastes for one boy. I'm too old to start developing new quirks like drinking vegetable-based pop, and the other five cans I had to buy are going to sit in my refrigerator until someone takes them off my hands.

Next up is Manhattan Special Espresso Coffee Soda. Aside from coloring and some preservatives, the ingredients are pure coffee, carbonated water, and sugar. In principle, it's the perfect drink to accompany an ambiguous brunch dish like an omelette with french fries. Is it breakfast or lunch? Should you get coffee or cola? Since 1895, a solution to this dilemma has existed.

I appreciate that these 10oz bottles are just the right size to fill an ordinary coffee mug. Yes, I know it's strange to pour soda into a coffee mug, but I really don't know how to approach this drink. In principle, this beverage is a glorious idea. In practice, there's too much sugar in this drink. The first thing that hits you is a combination of coffee and fizz -- good! Then it fades into some kind of sweet-but-stale aftertaste -- less good! The image I was left with was that of sugary seltzer being strained through week-old coffee grinds. Maybe it's the sugar, or maybe it's the preservatives... or maybe it's just a crummy drink. Don't get me wrong, I'm entirely behind this concept. The execution could just use some improvement. Then again, this is coming from the guy that willingly drops perfectly good peanuts into a glass bottle full of Coca Cola.

Oh My Sweet Carolina

Growing up in North Carolina, I wanted nothing more than to leave. It's a state with a beautiful coastline and majestic mountains. It's a state where the water allows one to dissolve more sugar than should be physically possible into the sweet tea. It's also a state where a sign reading, "The KKK Welcomes You To Johnston County" wasn't removed until the late 1980's. Give any angst-fueled Raleigh native a few years of breakfast sandwiches and New York traffic, and he'll start to forget about that last part. The overwhelming longing for a real biscuit distorts certain memories.

Cracker Barrel is a nationwide chain. There's even one in Maine, but no one worth his gravy would dare call something a "biscuit" in any state north of Virginia. Going here outside of the south is kind of like getting pizza in the Ukraine. If it's all you know, then I suppose ignorance is bliss. But if you grew up in North Carolina, then nothing but the real thing is worth the heartburn. Oh, the glorious heartburn. There are rocking chairs on that porch for a reason.

My dinner started as a BLT. For those of us uncomfortable with this vegetable-to-meat ratio, they let you add cheese and a chicken breast to it. I opted for grilled chicken. They'll also fry it, but that just seemed like playing Russian roulette with my arteries. Either way, the lettuce and tomato just seemed out of place at this point. So yes, I got a BLT and threw the LT under the bus. I mean, hey, there's no sense in pretending that there's anything redeeming left in this sandwich.

Aside from being able to drink unlimited quantities of Cheerwine, there's only one thing you need to know about Cook-Out: milkshake possibilities. Depending on the season, their menu contains 39-40 flavors, and they let you add as many as you dare. Practically speaking, this gets disgusting quickly. But if you think about the numbers, it's just impressive. A simple calculation* shows that with 39 add-ins (since vanilla is the base), there are about 550 BILLION unique milkshakes. Keep in mind, a quarter of those contain Hi-C and Peanut Banana.

Traditionally, I make the mistake of hitting up the first Bojangles I see in Virginia as I'm driving home. This results in 1) weaving down I-95 because I'm too wrapped up in reuniting with this lost love, and 2) going back almost every day I'm there, hoping to get my fill before I head back to New York. This time, I saved it for my last meal. One can actually go a lot of different directions with meat, potatoes and bread. Add a deep fryer to the mix, and there's really only one clear way to go. It's this, and it's perfection in a box.


* The Cook-Out milkshake computation

First, warm up with an easier problem: pretend you have only one add-in on the menu, say M&M's. You can choose to have M&M's or forgo M&M's, so you have two possible milkshakes. No magic there.

Now, pretend you have two add-ins, say M&M's and chocolate syrup. You first choose to have M&M's or omit them, which gives you two possibilities. For each of those possibilities, you can choose to add or omit chocolate syrup. That means for each of two choices you have two choices. Two choices times two choices gives you four possible milkshakes. Still reasonable, right?

[Exercise: Work out how many unique milkshake there are if you have three possible add-ins. If you guessed it's two times two times two = eight, you'd be correct. If you think I'm lying, write them out... it doesn't take that long. Or don't, because this is just a dumb blog.]

Now let's look at 39 add-ins. It works the same way. You can choose M&M's or no M&M's, you can choose Hi-C or no Hi-C, and so on. Multiplying two thirty nine times will take you a while, but Google can quickly tell you that the answer is 549,755,813,888, or just under 550 billion.

Do you have Coke... in a glass harmonica?

Good things come in small packages glass bottles. That's what my mother told me when I reached for my last undersized gift one Christmas morning as my brother was tearing off the paper on a gargantuan sized box. At least neither small packages nor glass bottles usually contain socks. I don't actually remember what was in that enormous box, so I've chosen to believe that it was just pairs upon pairs of boring socks. I digress. On to glass bottles....

The bottles above came from the Mast General Store in Valle Crucis, NC. This is what's left from the two cases I bought in January of this year when visiting my mom in Lenoir, NC. Yes, I threw two cases of pop in the back of my car before driving back to New York. It's surprisingly rewarding to know that I have a stash of Cheerwine and RC Cola in the city. A bottler in West Jefferson makes these varieties with (mostly) real sugar instead of the usual high fructose corn syrup. A six-pack of this assortment was also my contribution to a recent party... because the only way to make a bigger splash than the guy who brings Swedish Fish is clearly to be the guy who brings pop in glass bottles. There was no Lingonberry pop, so it was still a bit of a gamble. Point being, pop tastes better in glass bottles. This is a fact.

High fructose corn syrup is a somewhat controversial issue. My stance is best described here, but to summarize, I think anything is fine in moderation. Putting the fork down once and a while would go a long way.

Pepsi has responded to the public outcry by issuing the Throwback line in plastic bottles. I tried the Pepsi and Mountain Dew, and I really wanted them to taste better. Maybe they did, but the experience was sullied by the lack of glass involved. I'll restrict future discussion to pure cane colas that also happen to be packaged in glass bottles.

Changing camps, the only way (I know of) to get sugar-based Coca-Cola is to buy from Mexico. There's a short list of reasons why you shouldn't go into any given Bodega and start asking about "Mexican Coke," but the fact that it is produced in 355mL glass bottles does make it a worthwhile gamble. There is a website, but I've found that it's woefully uninformed about the vastness of the present marketplace. The scientist in me should come out at this point and note that this HFCS/cane sugar taste difference could all be total nonsense. The "glass bottle" effect, however, is entirely real.

Whether the cane sugar makes a damn bit of difference or not, glass bottles certainly improve the soda pop experience. See also Dublin Dr. Pepper for another example of people not letting the dream die. Long live the long neck bottle!