Top Ten Myths About Coca-Cola (Which Just Happen To Be True)

If any company exists long enough, they’re inevitably going to inspire rumors and innuendo that they may not be proud of. However, some companies, like Coca-Cola, seem to attract those stories more than others. If corporations were truly people, as Mitt Romney insisted they were, they would all gather round in a bar, and listen to Mr. Coke regale all the wild, yet shockingly true, tales told about him. Such as …

10. The Cola Wars Went To Space

In 1985, NASA approached Coca-Cola about taking their signature project into space. When Pepsi-Co learned about this, they quickly approached NASA about having their product on the same trip. NASA acquiesced, and the experiment was officially dubbed the Carbonated Beverage Dispenser Evaluation Payload.

Unfortunately, the experiment ended up being dubbed a failure by the Challenger crew. The primary reason was, that the drinks appeared to be improperly refrigerated, and did not react well to the pressures of microgravity. At the very least, the astronauts were safe from what Marvin the Martian would have dubbed “an Earth-shattering ka-boom.”

9. Food Network Has A Coke-Based Barbecue Sauce Recipe

Steve Raichlen, author The Barbecue Bible and the Barbecue Bible Sauces, has included a barbecue sauce recipe on the Food Network website that includes just a pinch of Coca Cola. Interestingly, there is no other substitute for Coke listed on the recipe. It is also not recommended to use Diet Coke, Coke Zero, or any other lighter Coke variants. So the next time you get an inspiration, a pig and a poke could easily turn into a pig and a coke.

8. Coke And Beer Helps Give Color Back To Your Lawn

There is a curious “lawn tonic” recipe, designed to make your grass turn from brown to green. At the very least, there are people in western New York that swear by it. Again, the anti-Diet-Coke bigots have reared their ugly heads, and only advise using the real stuff.

The “tonic” is a mixture of common lawn ingredients, as well as beer and soda. It almost makes you wonder how someone came up with this particular recipe. On pure speculation, we’re assuming someone forgot to clean up hangover vomit, and the grass just happened to grow greener on that spot. We can’t back up that theory at all; any of you wild college kids want to give it a test run, be our guest.

7. Coke Deepens Your Tan

Can you imagine our simplistic silliness? All of this time we have been using Coke for the frivolous purpose of drinking it. Apparently, if you are going to spend some time on the Jersey Shore, there exists a more substantive purpose for your beverage of choice. Namely, mix Coca-Cola (again, avoid the diet) with baby oil, and spray liberally-yet-evenly over your body, for a deeper tan. At the very least, you can give mosquitoes a sugary buzz as they drink off of you. After all, aren’t we truly here to help out nature’s creatures?

6. The Coke / Mentos Geyser

Making a Coke geyser might actually be one of the few times you would willingly choose Diet Coke over Coca-Cola Classic. A 2006 episode of Mythbusters showed that Diet Coke would effectively release the carbon dioxide in the Mentos tablets. The resulting chemical reaction gives off a geyser-type effect of Coke out of the bottle. Maybe the reason for using Diet Coke, is because the Classic stuff might just be too precious. It is not determined who exactly came up with this one, but it’s likely the same guy that gave the world “whippets,” and was convinced that Poprocks and Coke killed Mikey.

5. Coke On The Dance Floor

In order to avoid sliding around while filming dance scenes, crews will mop the floor with Coca-Cola. The dried Coke causes the floor to get sticky, and the dancers don’t slide. Apparently, this is done on stage, as well as screen. Honestly, this is kinda like finding out cereal commercials use glue instead of milk, and the actors eat off a top layer.

There are few confirmed sources on whether someone was specifically assigned to clean off all the sticky, disgusting shoes later, so we’re just going to assume that of course there was.

4. Coca-Cola Started Out With Cocaine As An Ingredient

The exact amount is unknown, however Coca-Cola contained at least trace amounts of cocaine until 1903. They weren’t necessarily being evil; cocaine wasn’t banned until 1914. Coca-Cola still uses coca leaves actually, just ones with the cocaine already extracted.

After the cocaine was removed, Coca-Cola stopped being advertised as a curative drug, and began to be marketed as a refreshing beverage. Of course, the exact formula to Coca-Cola is a highly-guarded secret, unknown outside of the company. For all we know, it contains the same secret ingredient found in Krabby Patties. Although, considering the way all of Bikini Bottom lusts over those things, they’re probably laced with cocaine themselves.

3. The 1936 Nazi Olympics, Sponsored By Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola: the official soft drink of Santa, cocaine, and … Nazis? Yes, if you were at the 1936 Olympics, and hoping to have a nice refreshing drink while visualizing a thousand years of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan dominance, then Coke was your official sponsor. Large corporations are often sponsors of athletic events, though the general feeling is that it’s best to do it in countries that actually win wars. However, not everyone can predict such things.

2. The Coca-Cola Curves Poster

In the mid-1980s, Coke was trying to launch an ad campaign for the return of its original glass bottle. The campaign was called “Feel the Curves.” In South Australia, they had to have a total recall of the posters involved, due to a joke done by the graphic artist hired to do the poster. One of the ice cubes features a coke silhouette of a woman performing an *ahem* graphic sexual act. The image was only caught after the posters were released. It cost Coca-Cola $200,000 to recall and reprint the posters, the offending artist lost his job, and the Internet had an instant legend ready to go, for the day it was eventually created.

1. Coke’s Cola War With Israel

Until 1966, Coca-Cola was not sold in Israel. Coke stated that they had tried to open a bottling plant in Israel in 1949, but that the country was too small of a market to open a franchise. However, Cyprus was a tenth the size of Israel, and supported a franchise. When it was discovered that Coca-Cola seemed to be boycotting Israel, Coke did a prompt about-face.

Problem: there was an existing Arab boycott of Israel. Coke’s decision meant that Coke was no longer served in Arab countries, essentially giving Pepsi the market. Pepsi then claimed that Coke was dominating the soft drink marker in Israel, which meant that Pepsi was not sold in Israel until the 1990s. However, Pepsi was never cited in the United States for participating in a boycott.

In essence, for certain parts of the world, the Cola Wars were a Holy War as well. Today, Coke and Pepsi are both sold throughout the Middle East, including Arabian countries and Israel, marking syrupy carbonated sugar water as literally the only thing that region can agree on.

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