The Truth About Garlic Coca-Cola
The fact that there is an entire museum dedicated to horrifying foods is really quite a puzzlement – after all, why would anything disgusting ever be considered to be food? The Drinks Business reports on the aptly named Disgusting Food Museum in Malmo, Sweden, which treats visitors to an exotic array of panic-inducing sights and smells.
Proving beyond all doubt that humans truly are an unstoppable force for chaos, the museum boasts the delights of maggot cheese, mouse wine, and fruit bats (although, in fairness, there may be plenty of places with far worse menus).
However, for as full of terrifying and surprising twists as Sweden's museum of edible nightmares sounds, even it might not have dreamed up the unexpected beverage of Coca-Cola flavored with garlic. Snopes reports that the freaky fizzy drink was allegedly launched in Romania (maybe they have a severe vampire problem there), but all is not as it seems.
Despite some claims being false, a version of garlic cola does exist
Even though the garlic-infused Coke was sure to excite people who hate vampires and love soft drinks, Snopes revealed the entire campaign as a hoax. Despite a photograph of a purple Coca-Cola can displaying the word and an image of garlic, it transpired that the image and its Romanian story had been falsified. Snopes confirmed the product as completely fake.
Not that cola tinged with the taste of garlic is completely removed from reality. Whereas Coca-Cola (to our knowledge) hasn't had the confidence (or, perhaps, poor judgment) to attempt a garlic-infused drink, the outlook in Japan is considerably different. According to Food & Wine, a Japanese drinks company has actually developed its own garlic cola.
Named Jats Takkola, the intriguing drink has its roots in Aomori, a place so fond of garlic that it has received the great honor of being crowned the garlic capital of Japan. The recipe involves simply mixing ground garlic pieces into a bottle of cola and turning it over to ensure that what someone evidently thought was a spectacular taste fixes itself onto every molecule of flavor.