White Coke

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Coke

478 235 13 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

t0• 13 years ago

Is there any actual evidence this actually existed, such as a picture?

I could be way off here, but I could've sworn I've worked for a supermarket that, apart from blue Pepsi, at some point sold white Coca Cola. This was in either the 90's or early 2000 though.

And again, perhaps it's my memory playing tricks on me.

mlebel• 13 years ago

Crystal Pepsi? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Pepsi

longwave• 13 years ago

Tab Clear? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_Clear

fekberg• 13 years ago

How would you really know it's Coca-Cola by just looking at it? Could just as well be something else.

georgemcbay• 13 years ago

On a vaguely related tangent to this, Coca Cola does not block infrared and near infrared light making it mostly transparent if viewed through an IR capable sensor with the visible spectrum filtered out.

chrisrogers• 13 years ago

Your best bet is to comb the references cited in the article. There is a good chance the published non-fiction books themselves have further citations.

frik• 13 years ago

Coca Cola Austria had it's plant in Lambach back then. http://en.coca-colahellenic.at/about-us/History/ Lambach is a small city in Austria and it's a few miles from my hometown. I assume Coca Cola produced it in the old beer plant building. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambach

justincormack2• 13 years ago

Mark Pendergast's book For God, Country, and Coca-Cola linked in the references covers this and more and is a good read. It also has the recipe for Coke in the back and the story of how he found it.

zalew• 13 years ago

RRRA• 13 years ago

I was to post the same thing! So yeah, unethical business as usual, way to go (not) :/

hkmurakami• 13 years ago

Totally expected to see an article about a white form of carbon (which would have been fascinating!) but this is a decent second option!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coke_%28fuel%29

mcv• 13 years ago

I thought it was about coke, which is normally white, as far as I know. (No personal experience.)

prof_hobart• 13 years ago

Do you mean like this (http://www.shrinivasagro.com/whitecoal.html)?

sageikosa8• 13 years ago

I thought it was the street name for some new drug, which I had some cognitive dissonance on, since coke is already white.

VLM2• 13 years ago

I was expecting an article for the youth pretending they don't know about the "new coke" debacle and/or possibly a new product "white coke" being released as a repeat of "new coke".

Personally I'd rather have the choice to buy HFCS free soft drinks rather than carmel-4 free soft drinks. Completely sweetener free, both natural and artificial, would be a unique experience, probably taste much like tea.

nealabq• 13 years ago

I've occasionally wondered what food would taste like if you could selectively (and temporarily) disable the sweet taste-buds on your tongue. Same with salt taste-buds.

Perhaps numbing your tongue would work? A dentist could do that, but you'd only want to numb the surface. Is white coke (the illegal kind) a topical anesthetic?

fusiongyro2• 13 years ago

Both Mexican Coke and kosher-for-passover Coke are made with sugar instead of HFCS. If you're in America, one of the two is probably available near you.

jlgreco4• 13 years ago

The article doesn't seem quite clear on this: did they simply remove the coloring, or did they add something to the drink that would break down/bind to the coloring molecules and render them colorless? I'm not really sure why you would need a chemist to do the first.

geon2• 13 years ago

Modern Coke use caramel color (E150b). Perhaps the color used to be natural from the ingredients, or there are some ingredients that are not colorless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caramel_color

nodata• 13 years ago

The article doesn't seem quite clear on this: did they simply remove the coloring..

"Zarubica found a chemist who could remove the coloring from the beverage, thereby granting Marshal Zhukov's wish."

jlgreco4• 13 years ago

But why would they need a chemist to tell them how to simply not add color?

roel_v3• 13 years ago

Jlgreco probably meant: "did they not add coloring [during production]", for which to make sense the color would have to be added during the production, which could very well be; the article probably meant "found a chemist who could remove the color", implying the color is a by-product of the production and comes from other ingredients. So, the article is not explicit about this, but the whole context would lead me to believe that it is the second explanation that was meant.

A1kmm• 13 years ago

I suspect that if they were only making small quantities of it, they might not want to mess with their working production setup, and so it could be more economical to mass produce the coloured product and get advice from their staff food chemist on how to remove the coloured compounds for the small special order.

GuiA• 13 years ago

Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Pepsi

noonespecial• 13 years ago

I'm guessing that coke has added color, but without that added color, its still not clear. It likely took additional processing to make it appear like vodka (the goal of the endeavor).

rfctr4• 13 years ago

The goal was to make it NOT look as Coke, which was a well-known symbol of USA.

The idea it should look like vodka is just ridiculous.

In the conditions when it is OK to drink vodka, Russians drink vodka, not Coke.

In the conditions when it is NOT OK to drink vodka, Russians (generally) do not drink vodka.

kilian• 13 years ago

I remember doing a test in high school science class where we poured coke through Norit (activated carbon) a couple of times which would result in the colourants binding to the Norit and the coke become colourless (while still being safe to drink).

megablast• 13 years ago

Did it taste the same?

ck2• 13 years ago

Because mixing in a little milk to make it look like coffee would have been too efficient and inexpensive.

dreen2• 13 years ago

Lol. Have you ever tried mixing coke and milk?

I saw it happen once. My friend ordered a white russian (vodka and milk) for our other friend and a black russian (vodka with coke) for himself - the bartender was pretty drunk and he mixed the two together, forming a greyish foaming abomination of a drink. My mate left it in the middle of the pub and noone even touched it.

yardie• 13 years ago

a black russian (vodka with coke)

The barman doesn't know what the fuck they are doing and I used to work amongst functionally drunk barmen. A black russian is vodka, coffee liquor (like Kahlua) and milk (optional). Even if he wasn't drunk what he gave your friend was shit.

Moto7451• 13 years ago

A brown cow (or white cow in this application) is yummy but quite different than an unadulterated coke. The suggestion is the same as telling people to add milk or sugar to their tea. And people are opinionated enough about that[1][2][3].

Besides, a little chemistry to break into a new market isn't a bad expenditure.

[1]http://www.brainofshawn.com/2008/03/14/sweet-tea-is-an-abomi...

[2]http://hikiculture.net/topic4148.html

[3]http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10913-milk-wrecks-the-...

geon2• 13 years ago

You wouldn't need milk. Just serve it in a coffee cup.

icebraining• 13 years ago

I'm guessing the Marshal didn't want to display his corruption to the "dirty water of the American imperialism"¹ even to the workers who stocked and served his beverages.

¹As the members of our marxist-leninist-maoist party called it ;)

davidw9• 13 years ago

This anecdote is mentioned in this book: ( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002STNBRK/?tag=dedasys-20 ) which is an interesting look at world history via popular drinks: beer, wine, distilled alcohol, tea, coffee and coca cola. None of it is probably all that new in terms of the history portions, but it's an interesting and novel way of looking at things and makes for pleasant reading.

TezzellEnt2• 13 years ago

And without the referral link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002STNBRK

davidw9• 13 years ago

God forbid I should get a few cents for recommending a good book to a community I participate in.

cschmidt• 13 years ago

I also enjoyed that book. Tom Standage (@tomstandage) is an interesting guy. He's the editor of the 'back half' of the Economist, the non-news part.

goatforce5• 13 years ago

Oh - he also wrote "The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers".

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0802716040/

It's interesting and easy to read. Recommended.

Looks like he's done a few similar books on historical topics. I'm off to spend some money!

roel_v3• 13 years ago

Is this just an interesting tidbit about the history of a popular drink, or a subtle anecdote about how under socialism all animals are equal, some just more than others?

sdoering2• 13 years ago

Or how bribes work every time, if you know, what the persons really wants.

Or that it pays for big corp to rub with the ones in power.

Or...

roel_v3• 13 years ago

"Or that it pays for big corp to rub with the ones in power."

Yeah, because producing 50 cases of a special brew for one general in a totalitarian state is a well-known strategy to get rich...

arethuza• 13 years ago

Or perhaps it was a simple way of saying thanks from Eisenhower to Zhukov - given Zhukov's key role in defeating the Nazis it seems like a pretty trivial thing to me. Eisenhower clearly had a lot of respect for Zhukov - as did a lot of military leaders in the West.

hackerboos3• 13 years ago

Don't make the mistake of many on Hacker News thinking that the Soviet Union was a socialist society.

unimpressive3• 13 years ago

As someone who is genuinely interested. Can you point to any examples of a socialist society? If no, can you explain how such a society might come to exist?

mseebach7• 13 years ago

Yes, of course, if an experiment gets the wrong result, you declare the experiment faulty and try again. You should never let your ideas become polluted by empirical evidence.

sageikosa8• 13 years ago

Yeah, it's not like they used "Socialist" in the full name of the republic or something...</deadpan>

For anyone interested who doesn't understand the spectrum of socialist organization, read almost any book by Ludwig von Mises (start with "Socialism", where he catalogs the socialist orers of the early 1920s) and work your way forward.

mathieuh2• 13 years ago

Except that apart from Trots and left anti-communists, Real Communists do consider the USSR to have been socialist, with declining purity of socialism post Stalin's death.

chewxy2• 13 years ago

You can make your own white/clear Coca Cola too! I play with my food a lot and have experimented with this.

All you need is an old/used Brita filter and a beverage carbonator (or if you're like me, you have some sort of multigas siphon).

1. Pour Coke into Brita jug (with filter in place) 2. Retrieve colourless solution, and then recarbonate.

It tastes like Coke but is colourless. I had also messed with other variants that require fancier filtration (special carbon filters for example) and centrifuging, but the Brita filter has pretty good results.

quackerhacker• 13 years ago

Makes me wonder what Brita is actually filtering out.

enraged_camel• 13 years ago

The coloring agent, presumably.

tehwalrus2• 13 years ago

OK, I learned this in A level (high school) chemistry, but I can't seem to find a wikipedia article about it.

They use clay beads, which are an aluminium mesh with H and OH groups weakly bonded to it (a weak ionic bond like this is called a "Ligand bond"[1]).

Firstly, it filters out bacteria and "bits" because of the porosity of the mesh (works like pushing current through a complicated network).

However, additionally it filters out non-H-or-OH ions from the water, which have a stronger Ligand bond with the Al mesh. (Obviously you eventually run out of H and OH ions in the network, as they're all replaced, which is when you need to change your filter.)

As such, we used clay-filtered tap water as 'distilled' water in all our experiments, because the worst it contains is bacteria and dissolved salts. I can't speak for the Coca Cola though, that's weird. I'm sure organic molecules would be small enough to get between the beads but too heavy/not ionic enough to bond to the mesh, or something.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligand

1337biz• 13 years ago

Alternative: Make your Cola from scratch:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCola_%28drink%29

runn1ng• 13 years ago

Strange. Very strange.

When I tried it about a year ago, I had completely different results. I got something that looked exactly like Coca Cola without the carbon (so it didn't lose color), but it tasted very bitter and wasn't sweet at all (so it lost taste).

(Note: Coca Cola in here uses sugar, not high-fructose syrup like in US, so that might be it.)

fsck--off3• 13 years ago

Beverage companies make clear liquor by filtering their worst and cheapest beer through charcoal (a special carbon filter) to remove the color (the science of this is explained in sibling comments). Strong citrus flavors are then added to mask the original flavoring. Zima was a popular drink made in this fashion in the 1990s. A competitor to Zima, Smirnoff Ice, (which isn't vodka in the U.S) is still around.

batiudrami• 13 years ago

That's really interesting. Does it taste bad? I can see why Smirnoff Ice has such a bad rep in the US (it's just a vodka premix in Australia - so it tastes like vodka and lemonade).

samstave• 13 years ago

I've always wondered: what does red wine taste like after passing through a Britta filter? Have you tried this?

Try with both cheap and expensive red wine, post results.

chewxy2• 13 years ago

Depends on your brita filter. If it's new, you will get fairly clear liquid that doesn't taste like wine.

If it's old, your liquid will be slightly less dark red (tried with a SA Shiraz). Tastes terrible still.

I personally wouldn't filter wine. It just tastes ... off.

philwelch• 13 years ago

Zhukov wasn't the only communist with a taste for Coca-Cola: http://m.taringa.net/post/info/El_Che_y_la_Coca_cola-4575995...

(Disclaimer: I speak zero Spanish so I have no idea what that article says. I just like the photo.)

mseebach7• 13 years ago

I Google-translated the article, and it seems to talk about the many Coke bottles in Cuba post-revolution being re-cycled to contain a local drink, the name of which I wasn't quite able to pick out of the translation, but which wasn't "Coke".

mdpye• 13 years ago

El nuevo producto, que se llama refresco de cola

It was just called "cola drink", you could translate it as "cola tonic". I guess it makes sense that it wasn't particularly branded.

probably_wrong• 13 years ago

Short version: when Cuba cut relations with the US, they wanted to get rid of Coke as an imperialist symbol, but they still needed the bottles, because they didn't have means of replacing them all at once. Coke was not that popular, though, but the Cuba libre (rum and Coke) was a slightly different problem. So they used the bottles for other things, and at the same time they came up with a Coke substitute (sold in other bottles, because the mixture was too close to the imperialist one). When they presented the substitute to Che Guevara, he said "it tastes like st" (or "like cockroach" on TV). E entually they improved the formula, and mixed with rum it was decent. But it wasn't actual Coke.

weavie• 13 years ago

Only in Russia do you disguise your coke as vodka to look respectable.

lifeisstillgood2• 13 years ago

Near perfect HN fodder - intellectual curiosity satisfied, just enough food-tech for a perfect top comment and a little bit of politics to garnish

My hat is tipped to annapowellsmith and of course all Wikipedians.

pud2• 13 years ago

Pepsi made a clear cola in the early 90's called Crystal Pepsi:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Pepsi

Here's an old pic of me drinking it. (and eating a turkey leg).

http://i.imgur.com/T1rZc39.jpg

unimpressive3• 13 years ago

What camera was that photo taken with? The quality is really good. (For the early nineties) Is it a scan of a film camera?

xuki• 13 years ago

Most likely a scan of a film. You can see small white particles on the photo at full size.

ygra• 13 years ago

The dust and other spots imply a scan of a developed photo (not the negative, as the dust would be dark there, not bright).

And I'm amazed that people are amazed by photo quality from two decades ago. The resolution of standard 35-mm film was fairly hard to achieve in consumer digital cameras until recently (or maybe it still is, but I guess DSLRs have gone consumer enough by now).

pud2• 13 years ago

Photo was taken (by my mom) with an old 35mm point-and-shoot. I scanned the print recently, using a modern scanner.

vickytnz• 13 years ago

Props for the Leave It To Beaver tshirt :)

nkozyra• 13 years ago

How did you escape from that dungeon?

squozzer2• 13 years ago

Maybe he's still there. Or he's renting it out to the government to handle Gitmo / deportation overflow.

swalsh• 13 years ago

I literally never imagined that a top comment on any HN post would consist of a picture from the 90's of a guy who is not Steve Jobs, Wosniack, Bill Gates or any other tech legend simply eating turkey and drinking a pepsi from the time.

mietek• 13 years ago

FYI: Wozniak.

gonzo• 13 years ago

pud is a tech legend (fked company, tiny letter, adhdlabs, ...)

bgruber• 13 years ago

i'm surprised there's no crystal gravy on that turkey leg.

wellpast• 13 years ago

context: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/crystal-gravy/n...

ChikkaChiChi• 13 years ago

Leave it to Beaver T-Shirt. You're 90s style is something no hipster can ever achieve through cultural osmosis. You are a snowflake.

Godspeed, Crystal Pepsi fan. May we all meet again in the glorious, clear syrup'ed Elysium of the afterlife.

liquidcool• 13 years ago

I immediately thought of that, too, but it didn't really taste like Pepsi. My friends and I thought it tasted more like Sprite with a citrus-y taste. So I was surprised to read that they could make a clear Coke that tasted the same (or maybe it didn't, but was close enough).

sc00ter• 13 years ago

Have to admit, I was more amused by the fake cinder-block wallpaper!

billpg3• 13 years ago

Vodka is white? I thought it was transparent.

(I've only ever seen the drink on TV, so I really don't know.)

mseebach7• 13 years ago

It is transparent, and so is "white coke".

panacea• 13 years ago

'White coke' was transparent coke. 'Black' coke is transparent too (hold it up to the light).

You've never seen vodka in person?

billpg3• 13 years ago

Its a cultural thing I guess. I don't drink alcohol, but I hang about with people who do. I don't recall my friends ever drinking vodka.

I'm a little bothered by this use of the word "white" for something colour-less. If you tell me that a liquid is "white", I'm going to think it would look like a glass of milk before I think of a glass of water.

I read "White coke" and I thought of a carbonated milky looking drink.

bcaulf• 13 years ago

White rum is the name for clear rum. I suppose in a beverage context white just means colorless.

jhull• 13 years ago

I bet it's these types of missions that Presidents really love. It's not the obvious stuff that is asked of (one of) the most powerful people in the world, like declaring war or making executive orders or living in the White house. It's the slightly quirkier stuff, like brokering a clear version of Coke. I bet Truman loved this. It's like working at a company doing the same thing everyday, but being most excited for this little side project you have going on.

mr_luc2• 13 years ago

And those side projects can be pretty significant, as well as fun.

One of Churchill's side projects was corresponding under the nickname "Former Naval Person."

sailfast• 13 years ago

In addition, you have to think that by even receiving this request we had an inkling early on that we were winning many more cultural battles in the cold war than the USSR. Pretty great article.

kayoone2• 13 years ago

Ignoring the special circumstances its funny how drinking vodka in public was more acceptable than coke. Gotta love the russians...

rfctr4• 13 years ago

This is the typical BS.

[Edit] Are you expecting Zhukov, the top Russian commander, to drink vodka where it is not appropriate?

I couldn't stop be amused at how much Westerners' image of the world is distorted.

dfc3• 13 years ago

It is always interesting to see how people from other cultures view my culture. I am afraid that your english grammar is getting in the way of your comment.

Did you mean to point out that "drinking vodka in public is always appropriate" or that "anytime the top soviet commander drank vodka it was a public event"? Or something else entirely?

thetrb• 13 years ago

Did you even read the article? It mentions "Zhukov liked it and asked for its color to resemble vodka so that he would not be seen drinking Coca-Cola in public". So I don't understand why you spin this into some distorted view of "Westerners'"

Trufa• 13 years ago

While this is pretty interesting/amusing I don't see how it has anything to do with HN, maybe http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/

finnw3• 13 years ago

It passes the "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" test for me.

moomin• 13 years ago

White Coke: Made for Reds.

squozzer2• 13 years ago

Hey, what can one say? Amerika uber alles in the consumer product department.

In other news, McDonald's is setting up shop in Vietnam. Now we can REALLY declare victory and go home.

grumpusbumpus• 13 years ago

I am baffled and amused that this is a top story on HN.

scotty79• 13 years ago

Funny how the wiki mentions all the names of stupid politicians/soldiers, Managers down to a "technical supervisor" but it credits the guy that actually made white coke as "a chemist".

F##k historians.

snowwrestler• 13 years ago

"One, Two, Three" is an hilarious comedy about the establishment of Coca Cola bottling plants in Europe--specifically in Western Germany, where of course hijinks ensue with East Germans.

The daughter of the Coke CEO visits, falls in love with, and marries a young "true believer" East German communist. When the CEO comes for a visit, they have to turn the communist into a proper American capitalist in 2 days.

notahacker• 13 years ago

"Good By Lenin" is another fine comedy in which a son trying to maintain the illusion the Berlin Wall hasn't fallen for the sake of his dying mother creates fake TV broadcasts announcing the Coca Cola billboards appearing everywhere are a celebration of Coca Cola's socialist, East German origins.

colkassad• 13 years ago

This is one of my favorite foreign films.

saryant• 13 years ago

Definitely one of Cagney's best films.

lucastheisen• 13 years ago

I love how it was more acceptable for your general to be drinking vodka by the glass full than it would have been to drink the "American Imperialist" drink.

sp332• 13 years ago

Old joke: During the Cold War, the Russians paint the moon red. An American general immediately sends up a team with white paint... to add a Coca-Cola logo.

cehlen• 13 years ago

This is why I love Hacker News!

sodafountan• 13 years ago

God if you had an original unopened bottle of that it would be worth a fortune.

swamp40• 13 years ago

I've never seen a Hacker News thread get so off track...

White Coke

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