Allentown Coke (made with sucrose)

The Taste

Let's get the important part out of the way first -- the taste.  Although this version of Coke is still made with sugar (specifically "sucrose" a.k.a table sugar on the ingredients label), it's quite different from the MexiCoke I reviewed earlier.  I've actually come to like this version more.

Compared to the mellow, lightly-carbonated MexiCoke, this version is more peppy; sweeter, but it still has a deep mellow sugar bite to it.

By comparison, the normal High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) version we are all used to has a very sweet but hollow taste to it with a kind of slimy and chemical-ish aftertaste to it.  Once you've tasted either variety of Coke made with sugar, the HFCS version is unacceptable swill.


Jurassic Park

While there is a buzz surrounding MexiCoke, I came across this version quite by accident.  I've been a Pepsi drinker all of my life but every now and then I'd like a Coke.  For a few years I worked in Allentown, PA, and I'd come to notice there was something different about the Coke in the vending machines at work.  Slowly I started choosing it (and its Cherry Coke counterpart) more and more over Pepsi.  There was definitely something different, more refreshing.  Then one day it occurred to me to read the label.  That's when I discovered sucrose in place of HFCS, and it all suddenly made sense.

The can is completely indistinguishable from the HFCS version aside from the ingredient swap.

Apparently, for unknown reasons, two Coca-Cola bottlers in the US continue to use sucrose instead of HFCS.  The Allentown/Bethlehem PA bottler and the Cleveland OH bottler use sucrose; whether they've never switched to HFCS in the first place, or they have a cheaper regional source of sugar, or if it's a stand on product quality, is unclear.  But these two bottlers stand alone in the domestic Coca-Cola empire, quietly producing a better version of Coke than their counterparts.