La Croix – la Cola AKA NiCola

I found this mysterious brew last year, sometime—it took me forever to find it—finally got some at Cermak—but then the next time I looked, no. I waited awhile to write about it because I thought that after some months flipped over there would be more information online—but unfortunately there are more questions than answers. The only thing definite, as far as I can tell, is that it has been discontinued. And the question some people ask is, if something isn’t made available, and then it’s discontinued due to low sales, how does that make sense? Another mystery is, what exactly, is the name? It says “la Cola” on the can, but it also says “NiCola”—could they not decide on the name, or what? And both with the ® next to the names, meaning, unless I’m wrong, they spent some $$$ to make sure no one else could use the names. I know, because I tried to make “Randy Russell” a registered trademark, and it was virtually impossible. Someone told me I could only do it if my name was “Randy $ Russell!” Well, then, okay, what’s this rare, tall, skinny can rarity taste like? First of all, I like it. I’m strangely drawn into its clutches. It’s not exactly like coca, but a little bit like cola. All cola is a little different, but all tastes enough like cola that you don’t doubt it. As cola, I mean. If I had to describe it without the word “cola” I’d say, a little vanilla, a little ginger, and a hint of citrus. (Vanilla being warm, ginger spicy, and so forth.) Which gets me to thinking—that carefully guarded secret Coca-Cola recipe? What if it just turned out to be vanilla? Which you associate with a light color—but cola has the brown coloring—so you have a contradiction between the taste and the visual—which is its magic. That’s why they discontinued “Crystal Pepsi” right? And Clear Coke? —it freaked people out. And so would this, if it got “out there”—which apparently is not gonna happen. Maybe it was seen as a threat to the fabric of the soft-drink empire, without which our entire economy would collapse, and we’d plunge back into the dark ages of cords on telephones!

No. 141 – 2.21.26