I’ve been wondering if I’m the only person to notice this. But when you drink a Coke from a 20-oz. bottle, doesn’t it taste different from when you drink it from a two-liter? In my opinion, the 20-oz. variety tastes nasty, while the two-liters taste really good. In cans, it’s closer to the “really good” end of the scale, and from a soda fountain (like at a fast-food restaurant), when it’s mixed properly, is when it tastes the best.
I can certainly understand why it would taste different in cans than in bottles, or from a soda fountain. But why the two-liters and 20-oz. varieties taste different?
Does it matter how you drink it perhaps? I like my soda poured high over ice which fizzes up and releases quite a bit of the bitter carbonation. If I buy a 20oz I’m more likely to drink it straight from the bottle and can taste the difference between that and a poured soda, whether it be fountain or 2 liter. If I pour my 20oz over ice however, not so much difference.
Oh…and by the way…cans of coke are more likely to make my teeth feel fuzzy than fountain or bottles.
I agree—fountain is the best, but I’d pour out of a two liter into a glass w/ice before I’d drink out of the 20 oz bottle. I’m not sure what it is either, but I don’t particularly care for the 20 oz bottle at all.
But then, I also delude myself into thinking Coke tastes better out of the bottle with Santa on it at Christmas time than it does out of the plain bottle.
The bottle non-fuzz vs. the can fuzz might be from the way you’re drinking it- with cans I tend to have a smaller opening, and my upper teeth will be more in contact with the coke, while with a bottle I put my lips around it and tilt my head back so that the Coke spends less time around my teeth and more towards the back of my mouth. That might affect how you perceive the fuzzy. The fountain though, not sure on that one- if you’re sipping once again you might be bypassing the amount of time the coke spends on your teeth?
I’ve also noticed that 2-liter cokes maintain their carbonation much much longer than their 20-oz counterparts. I’ve had 2-liters stay carbonated for weeks, whereas I’ll drink half of a 20-oz and then a couple of days later it is flat. Dunno why, but its a very repeatable phenominon.
Around here, glass bottles signify “mexican” coke, that is coke made in mexico using real sugar as opposed to corn syrup. It is definitely a better (and more expensive) product, but you aren’t really comparing apples to apples there. I can’t say for sure that the glass has a noticeable effect.
Where do you live? I’m in SoCal and, while I’ve seen “Mexican Coke,” I’m pretty sure I’ve also seen the regular coke in glass bottles. I’ll have to go and verify I guess.
I stand corrected (or, more literally, sit corrected)-- glass bottles are the best; I just didn’t include them because I rarely get the chance to partake in them. (But whenever I go to Cracker Barrel, you better believe I grab one.) In any event: Maybe the 20-oz. varieties taste different because they go flat more quickly-- to the point where it’s already gotten a little flat before it’s even opened? I don’t know.
I’m norcal, and can’t find regular coke in glass bottles anywhere. Can’t say I’ve done extensive searching, but I get coke from a lot of standard retailers.
It makes perfect sense that, less than 2 hours after I posted here today, I found HFCS coke in a glass bottle at the sandwich shop I frequent. I don’t normally grab a drink there so I never noticed before, but I glanced over today and saw 20 oz cokes in plastic alongside 8 oz cokes in a bottle (I checked the label to be sure of the ingredients). I will attempt a blind taste test soon and reveal my results.
