Mexico is the home of such culinary wonders as the enchilada and the margarita, which have been snapped up by the American market with little or no hesitation, nestling themselves into a now-established niche. The overlooked Mexican apple sodas Sidral Mundet and Manzana Lift should also be co-opted into the American culinary lexicon.
Apple flavored, slightly fizzy and just sweet enough, Manzana Lift is by far the most delicious product of The Coca-Cola Company. Paradoxically, though, it is rarely distributed outside of Mexico.
Manzana Lift immediately took root after being introduced to Mexico in 1995. It was modeled after the already-popular Sidral Mundet. In 2002, the brand was extended to include Manzana Lift Verde, with the tang of a granny smith apple, and in early 2004 the family grew again, this time with Manzana Lift Golden, the flavor of which I cannot trace to a specific genus of apple.
The real question is, if Mexico gets three delicious, Coca-Cola-produced fizzy apple drinks, why don’t we get even one? The company synonymous with American capitalism is willing to sell the Banana/Vanilla-flavored fruit drink Fruitopia, but won’t provide the domestic market with a viable apple soda. Fruitopia hit the shelves in 1994 and hasn’t left. Why won’t Coke gamble on a proven seller?
Different cultures claim different flavors, but with our southern border growing increasingly thin, one would assume that good capitalists would recognize the opportunity for expansion of a good product line.
The Coca-Cola website claims that it launched a version of the soft drink called Manzana Mia in Southern California and Las Vegas in 2001, responding to consumer requests for more variety in their fruit-flavored drinks. No one I know from SoCal has ever sighted the elusive flavor. Gourmet grocery stores across the country, though, regularly stock Sidral Mundet, the original Mexican apple soda.
Created in 1902, Sidral Mundet claims to be “Mexico’s original apple soda and part of Mexico’s heritage.” Coca-Cola clearly ripped off the Mexican concept, taking a proven best-seller and creating their own competitive variation. Sidral is slightly fizzier and a tad less sweet, but it has the advantage of being readily available throughout the U.S.
It’s a bit paradoxical, really. A Mexican company with Mexican distributors sells its product in gourmet marketplaces across the U.S., but an Atlanta-based corporation that sells three versions of the same soda in Mexico can’t sell it past Vegas. Perhaps an economics professor could explain the cost-benefit nonesense that denies my tastebuds the joy of Manzana Lift, but I won’t listen to reason: I am an enraged consumer sick of Coke and ready for a different thirst-quenching beverage.
For now that beverage, not my beloved Manzana Lift but its close second, Sidral Mundet, is available at any Latin-American food market on Colombia Road in Adams Morgan and in my kitchen’s mini-fridge.
