- Mexican Coke is just so much better. (funky investigative music) Real sugar. Everything's in Spanish. This beautiful retro bottle. (slides click) It's just better. Right? Right? It's just better. Actually, the reality is no. Something's going on with Mexican Coke and I need to tell you about it. (cool music) By the way, this video is
sponsored by Squarespace, which I will tell you about
at the end of the video. - [Retro Announcer 1] Ice cold Coca-Cola. - [Retro Announcer 2] A quality product made with the best of materials. ♪ Have a Coke and a smile ♪ - So we're here in our little cabin, which is actually an 1800s church, see the picture of Jesus right there, that we've turned into an
Airbnb that you can rent out if you want. But I'm here to talk about Coke. So let me sit here on this
old church Pew and tell you what I've learned about this Mexican Coke over the past few days of
sitting here in isolation. Is this really Mexican Coke? I mean, it says hecho en Mexico on it, so it's gotta be Mexican Coke, right? - [Retro Announcer 1] Nothing else gives you the bracing sparkle and the bright little lip that's so delightfully yours
than ice cold Coca-Cola. - First off, let's talk
about what Coca-Cola even is and why there's a
difference between US Coke and Mexican Coke. I mean, Coca-Cola is like this
giant international company that is known for having a secret recipe that they export to every
corner of the globe. So why is there a difference
between Coca-Colas? ♪ I'd like to buy the world a Coke ♪ ♪ And keep it company ♪ - I mean, let's go straight to
the source of all knowledge: Wikipedia, right? The drink's name refers to
its original ingredients, coca leaves and kola nuts,
a source of caffeine. Wait, what? Coca leaves? I know coca leaves, but only because I rode with
a bunch of antinarcotic police in a helicopter over
coca fields in Columbia, busting people for cocaine production for an episode of Vox Borders. These are the people who
are growing coca leaves. Yes, indeed. The original Coca-Cola
recipe included coca leaves, which is a derivative that
is used to make cocaine, but don't worry. Your bottle of Coke doesn't
include any coca leaves today, or maybe it does, or no one really knows because no one actually knows the recipe. This is not a conspiracy
video about cocaine being in your Coke. I'm interested in another ingredient that is inside of this bottle. And it's the sweetener. (sniffing noise) - It's made out of sugar. - Sugar. - Sugar. - Sugar cane. - Sugar! - It's made with better ingredients. - Originally, all Coca-Cola was sweetened with the same thing, straight up sugar. Or what it's chemically known as, sucrose. But then, a few things
happened in the United States that changed that. First, the US government
got really aggressive about giving money to US
farmers to keep them profitable. So they started pouring
a lot of money into corn, subsidizing corn farmers
in the United States. You can see this very
clearly in our country. There are entire states that are basically one giant corn field. So if you're a corn farmer in the 1980s, you have every incentive in the world to just produce loads of corn, as much as your soil can possibly eke out. Unsurprisingly, what this means is that you have a major surplus of corn. Loads of corn everywhere,
way too much corn just spilling out of every
corner of the United States. At the same time, the US is
putting up trade barriers, basically tariffs, for sugar
coming in from other countries. So sugar became expensive. Corn became incredibly cheap. And so businesses like
Coca-Cola did what businesses do and they rejiggered everything to find the cheapest possible option. And this is when they turned
to a newly invented sweetener that came from corn and
tasted sweet like sugar, but was chemically very different. Sugar is sucrose. That's its kind of chemical name. This new corn sweetener
was glucose and fructose, but it was still very sweet,
but it came from cheap corn. And they started to use that
to sweeten their Coca-Cola in the United States. Enter high-fructose corn syrup. - [Retro Announcer 3]
Did you know that corn, one of America's favorite foods, is used to make America's favorite syrup? A wholesome kind of sweetness
that comes from corn. - Look what happened to
high-fructose corn syrup production in the United States versus
sugar in the 80s and 90s. High fructose corn syrup
became the obvious choice because it was way cheaper
and Coca-Cola started using it to sweeten their drinks. So this is how you get
two different Coca-Colas. The United States producing Coke that is made with high-fructose corn syrup and the rest of the
world, including Mexico, without any of these trade
restrictions and corn subsidies, continuing to use cane sugar
to sweeten their Coca-Cola. And then the taste wars begin. (funky upbeat music) - Ooh. - It's actually a lot better. - [Man Offscreen] It's the sugar. Got a natural. - Not all syrup-y. - Soon, Mexican Coke became a
delicacy in the United States. It was only sent to places that
had big Mexican populations or other immigrant populations that were used to this cane sugar Coke. And so it became rare and
hard to find and obscure. Not surprisingly, hipsters
like me got really into it. It was authentic, and it
was the original recipe, and it was hard to find, and it was in this retro glass bottle. It felt like some
commodity was being like, sent from the other side of the border in this kind of renegade way and we were getting in on it. It tastes so much better
with that cane sugar. - [Male Voice] Man, that stuff is so good. - It won't feel like corn
syrup all over in my guts. - Just have a much smoother,
more delicious taste. - So much better. So much better. But wait, this is where it
starts to get really weird. In 2010, a group of legit
scientists get together to do a legitimate experiment for a legitimate science journal. And they want to test soft
drinks, including Coca-Cola. They want to know what sorts of sweetener are being used for each and
how much of that sweetener is in each of them. So they gather a bunch of soft drinks, including a Mexican Coca-Cola
and an American Coca-Cola. And they do all of their testing. And what they find is
that the Mexican Coca-Cola actually has no sucrose
in it, meaning sugar, all they find in this
is glucose and fructose. The elements that are used to build high fructose corn syrup. What? In the Mexican Coke that
came from a Latino market in east LA, they found no sugar. They only found the elements
for high fructose corn syrup. What is happening? This is supposed to be sugar! It says on the ingredients it's sugar, but it tastes so much better. It's different. It tastes so much better, right? (suspenseful music) Better, right? (sighs) It gets weirder. In 2013, Mexican lawmakers
became very concerned with the obesity rate in Mexico, which is considered by
public health officials as quote, "the fattest
country in the world." Not my words, theirs. (dramatic music) Mexico has a big obesity problem. And one of the links to that is the massive amount of
sugar that is consumed. Mexican legislators
slapped on a tax for soda. All soda was going to be subject to a tax, which made it more expensive to produce, which sent Coca-Cola
looking for cheaper options to bottle their Coke and cheaper options equal high fructose corn syrup. As of 2013. Okay, we're talking like seven years ago, more and more bottlers
of Coca Cola in Mexico, serving Mexican markets, are
using high fructose corn syrup to sweeten their Coca-Cola
and selling it in Mexico. So now even legitimate Mexican Coke is not even Mexican Coke anymore. It's identical to the high
fructose corn syrup stuff you buy here. One of the main bottlers came
out and said, don't worry. We're going to continue
to send cane sugar Coke to the United States because we know that people really like
it in the United States and we'll to send it because
it's good business for us to keep making it with cane sugar. But I don't even believe that
guy because of that study. Remember the study that said no sucrose, only glucose and fructose. Ie. high fructose corn syrup. I don't believe you, Mexican bottler. I don't believe that you're sending us cane sugar Coca-Cola anymore. Not surprisingly, Coca-Cola
has caught onto this idea that people like me love Mexican Coke and they've totally leaned into it. They've created this gimmicky branding that's like, hecho en Mexico. Here it is. Here's the offending product. Bought it at target. It's just sitting here,
being so tokenizing of Mexican aesthetic and culture. Okay, back to it. Authentic original flavors. And they've really leaned into it because they know that
there's a cult following of people like me, who
will pay more money. Okay, so I've been social
distancing out here in this cabin in the
woods for like two weeks. I have been reading way too much about the Coca-Cola bottling industry. And it has completely
shattered my identity as a Mexican Coke drinker. One because there's probably
not even sugar in this, and two because Mexicans don't even drink Mexican Coke anymore. They drink high fructose corn syrup. Cool. I guess there is still one reason why I would drink Mexican Coke, Because it still comes in
this cool retro glass bottle that makes me feel
really cool about myself. And that is why I will
continue to drink it. Thank you. - Cheers to y'all. - And now let me sit by
my wood burning stove and tell you about Squarespace. It is a website builder, but it's more than a website
builder, I'm discovering, as I build my own website. It is a giant ecosystem
of tools that you can use to do a lot of things on the internet from blogging tools, to
email marketing tools, to support and back and
forth communication tools, to just building a beautiful website. Squarespace has a huge
suite of tools and features that will allow you to kind
of do whatever you need to do on the internet. It integrates very nicely with all sorts of social platforms, as well as like I said,
email marketing campaigns, which is really important
stuff for a business. So you should go check this out, head to squarespace.com/johnnyharris
for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, you'll get 10% off your
website or domain service so that you can try this out and see if it fits your business. Squarespace is really good at this. They have amazing support,
they've got lots of tools, lots of features. I'm excited to continue to learn more about all of these features as I dig in and create my own site with them. Thank you Squarespace
for sponsoring this video and thank you all for
watching about Mexican Coke or should we just say Coca-Cola 'cause it's not Mexican Coke. Mexican Coke is a lie.
i just got some of this coke (i'm allergic to corn) and......i can't taste a difference. i can't feel a difference. guess i know why.
I did especially enjoy his take as an unashamed hipster laying out how utterly betrayed he feels by being conned into enjoying something so truly basic.
...but also fake Mexican Coke - I KNEW IT! I had my suspicions when I started to see that everywhere a few years ago and thought there's no way it's still legit. That stuff used to be a rare find and now it's almost everywhere. It's like we can't even trust corporations anymore. Sheesh.
It's more about the tall glass bottle for me. Something about an ice cold Coca-Cola in the glass bottle really tickles my fancy.