Tuesday 03.02.2010 | 12:23 PM UTC

Mixology: Have a (Crispy) Coke and a Smile

OCD recipe for crispy Coca-Cola
I’m from two Southern locales that revere Coca-Cola: Mexico City (the second biggest market in the world) and Atlanta (the birthplace of Coke). Neither is responsible for my love and loyalty to the best beverage every made (bourbon, another typically southern spirit running a close second, though never, ever mixed with Coke. Why ruin two good things by putting them together).

To borrow from a terrible movie (The Invention of Lying), Coke’s competitor should adopt the following marketing campaign: “Pepsi. When they don’t have Coke.” Amusing as the this notion may be, Sir Knight (another fellow Southerner) and I would pay it no heed. Sitting in a New York deli one fine day, we each asked the waitress for a Coke with lime. “Is Pepsi ok,” she asked. “No!” we replied in close harmony. We order iced tea instead.

So, if you share our passion for the crispy caramel delight, here’s the proper way to serve it:

1. It’s gotta be served from a can. Or at least a glass bottle if you can find it these days. Coke in a plastic bottle: flat-ish and strangely film-y.
2. You gotta pour it over ice. But not just any ice. It’s gotta be wet ice, cubed, not crushed. Plop them in a highball glass, rinse them with cold water and drain it, leaving only the ice.
3. Squeeze a wedge of lime over your freshly-rinsed ice. No self-respecting Mexican uses lemon.
4. Pour the Coke like a pro pours a beer. Slowly, tilting the glass.
5. Now tell me if that’s not the crispest coke you ever had.

Friends laughed at the fastidiousness of this approach. ‘Till I presented them with a taste test that forever changed their coke-drinking habits. One beverage was prepared with love and tenderness. The other was sloshed carelessly into a glass smoking with dry ice, resulting in a beverage flat as a pre-teen and as syrupy sweet as a bad romantic comedy.

Go try it. Get back to me. Who’s OCD now?