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Cliff Flower

"Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated."
    -Mary Shelley

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Heroes

"The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference."
    -Henry Miller

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While cleaning out the room that is going to become the nursery for baby #2, I came across a lot of cool stuff that had been packed up by the movers and had never been unpacked – I simply dumped the boxes in an unused room and shut the door on it all.  Among the stuff I found in one box was this commemorative bottle of Coke from Superbowl 34, in Atlanta, GA, in 2000.

7-Year-Old Coke

I know that nobody in my family lived in Atlanta, and likewise nobody has been to any Superbowl, so I'm somewhat unsure how this came into my possession.  Nevertheless, it was in one of the boxes, and I figured what better use would it have than becoming the focus of a blog post for me?  Plus, it's not every day one can brag about drinking a 7-year-old bottle of Coke.  Scotch, yes.  Coke, no.  (And if you CAN brag every day about drinking a 7-year-old bottle of Coke…there might be something wrong with you…)

I placed the Coke in the fridge to let it chill a bit while I worked out the proper questions and hypotheses for this experiment:

1. Will the 7-year-old Coke cause me any kind of bodily harm if I ingest it?

• Hypothesis #1 – I expect no physical harm will come from drinking the Coke.  I will have my wife standing by on-call in case I'm wrong.

2. Will the 7-year-old Coke retain any of its carbonation?

• Hypothesis #2 – I think the Coke will retain some of its carbonation, but not as much as when it was originally bottled.

3. Will the 7-year-old Coke taste the same as a Coke from 2007?

• Hypothesis #3 – I think the Coke will taste about the same.

4. Will the 7-year-old Coke provide for interesting blog fodder?

• Hypothesis #4 – I doubt that this experiment will be interesting in any way.  But writing it up might let me procrastinate a bit when I should be doing other things!

After the Coke was sufficiently cold, I removed it from the refrigerator and opened the bottle.  I expected to hear the familiar *chk-hisssssss* of a bottle of soda being opened, but the bottle was dead silent.  Hypothesis #2 – Incorrect.  Absolutely no carbonation was left in the bottle.  I guess the bottle cap is not a sufficient air-tight seal to prevent the eventual leakage of the CO2 out of the bottle.

I took a sip of the Coke, and found it to be completely flat, but otherwise normal-tasting.  Comparing it to a handy can of Coke I had opened just before the experiment, I found the two samples to be almost identical in taste, with the exception coming from the carbonation present in the can of coke.  It seems the Coke recipe was unchanged (or at least, not enough to warrant a change in taste), and the years had not marred the syrupy-sweet flavor of the drink. Hypothesis #3 – Correct.

Since I have been known to drink 2-liter bottles of soda after they've gone flat, I had no problem finishing off the 8 ounce bottle of 7-year-old Coke.  I kept a close monitor on how I felt, but noticed no change that I could attribute to the soda.  Hypothesis #1 – Correct.

So overall, I would not recommend drinking 7-year-old Cokes.  Unless you like flat sodas.  But if you're going to let something age, I would recommend it be that barrel of scotch, not a bottle of soda.  After all, you can let a brand new soda go flat by just leaving it out overnight.  No need to take up valuable storage space in your moving boxes with commemorative bottles that you'll just laugh at 7 years later.

Oh yeah.  Hypothesis #4?  I think that's up for you to decide.  Leave a comment to this post to help me out….in the interest of science, of course!

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Love

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction."
    -Antoine de Saint Exupéry

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    Video: Show us a clip from your favorite cooking show.

This guy takes the cake (pun intended) when it comes to cooking.

Beatbox recipe

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Make Sure You and Yours Get More Than Half a Loaf

"Their learning is like bread in a besieged town: every man gets a little, but no man gets a full meal."
    -Samuel Johnson, regarding the state of literature in Scotland

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