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Mexican Coca Cola bottles make run for the border

By David Moye

April 17, 2006

San Diego--Not all of the aliens sneaking into the U.S. from Mexico are human. Some are actually bottles of Coca-Cola.

According to Coca-Cola spokesman Ray Crockett, there is a cult of Coke addicts who prefer the real thing made in Mexico to the stuff sold in America.

For instance, Jay Porter, who owns the Linkery Restaurant in San Diego, sells the Mexican Coke for three bucks a bottle at his eatery and insists the concoction is “less sweet, less bubbly and better with food” than the American kind.

Plus, he says drinking the beverage from a glass bottle is just “a better experience” than drinking from a plastic bottle.

He says his customers agree but admits, “About once a month, we get someone who asks for Coke in a can.”

Crockett dismisses the idea of different tasting Cokes and says blind taste tests between Mexican and American Cokes prove his point.

Still, Coke makes a kosher version that uses cane sugar instead on corn syrup and non-Jewish Coke connoisseurs have been known to spurn the regular stuff for the kosher variety.

It is not illegal to bring Mexican Coca-Cola over the border but it is a violation of some of the agreements that Coca-Cola has with various U.S. bottlers for regional exclusivity. Nonetheless, bottlers in San Diego and elsewhere continue to import the Mexican version for sale in mostly Spanish-speaking neighborhoods.

Porter, for example, buys his Mexican Coke directly from the San Diego Coca-Cola distributor and, so far, hasn’t been accused of taking work away from hard-working American Coke bottles or cans.

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