Soft Drink Planet: A Non-Alcoholic Odyssey
Seeking out the sweet taste of identity.
This is ‘book’ 19 in the series The Impossible Books of Keith Kahn-Harris. The cover was created by Gus Condeixa. For more on this series, read the introduction here.
What sort of book is it?
A travel/food book.
How likely is it that I will write the book?
I’d love to write it but I think it’s unlikely, given the lengthy and expensive travel it would involve. I suppose there is an easier option, to not do the travel and just write about the soft drinks, but I think that would take away something important from the book.
Am I happy for anyone else to write the book?
I’d rather no one did — I’m quite attached to this idea.
Synopsis
When you think of France, you think of wine.
When you think of Belgium, you think of beer.
When you think of Russia, you think of vodka.
Just as most countries have a national cuisine, so they have a national drink. In many places around the world, alcoholic drinks are inextricably tied into national or regional identity. This is even the case in some Muslim countries (where a taste for a drink like Arak is a common guilty pleasure).
But while alcoholic drinks grab all the attention, soft drinks — the neglected step-child of food culture — are just as central to national identity. In fact, they can tell us something important about the battle to avoid the steamroller of globalisation in all sorts of places.
Soft drinks are at the frontline of the battle to resist the hegemony of multinational brands. They are the canary in the coalmine; one of the first targets of globalisation. The advance of Coca Cola and similar brands, has, all too often, come at the expense of local projects and markets. In the UK of my youth, coke competed against a plethora of soft drinks — Corona, Cresta, Panda-Pops and the like — most of which no longer exist. True, many of these drinks didn’t taste that great, but that’s also the case with many of the drinks that replaced them.
Yet there are plenty of soft drinks that are well worth appreciating and defending. Many of them are dearly beloved by their local aficionados. Most of them are ignored by the sort of people who otherwise adore distinctive cuisines and terroir.
Soft Drink Planet is in part a hymn of praise to the neglected wonders of soft drinks, based on tasting hundreds of, often very obscure, examples. But it’s also more than that: by travelling to meet the manufacturers and fans of soft drinks all over the world, the book will offer dispatches from the frontline of conflicts over globalisation.
Here are some of the soft drinks that the book will focus on:
- Kinnie, a Maltese bitter orange fizzy drink and a potent symbol of their national identity.
Vernor’s and Faygo, proud Detroit sodas that embody the defiance and marginalisation of the post-industrial metropolis (and, in the case of Faygo, a symbol of membership in the Insane Clown Posse’s Juggalo subculture).
- Swedish Julemust, available only during Christmas, and påskmust, its Easter equivalent.
- The vast archipeligo of Japanese soft drinks, including the infamously-named Caplis and Pocari Sweat.
- The drinking yoghurts of Northern China.
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this Impossible Book, why not browse through the rest of the series here?
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Many thanks!
Finally, here’s an alternative cover:
