When the Coca-Cola in the tall glass bottles with the cane sugar showed up in Miami I was in college and waited a long time to try it because, having been bottled in Mexico, I thought it would get me sick. I’d heard stories about the water. About the horrible spells of diarrhea and vomiting. Montezuma’s Revenge.

The director John Huston, while filming The African Queen in Uganda and the Congo, had a trick to keep from ingesting the water. Just before a shower he would put a shot of vodka in his mouth and hold it there while speed-washing. I forget if he spat it out or swallowed when he was done but I know that Katherine Hepburn got dysentery during the production and gave Huston the third degree for shooting an elephant (with a gun, not a camera).

Anyway. I was so nervous when I finally drank one of these tall Mexican Cokes with the cane sugar that I hardly enjoyed it, figured it wasn’t worth the stress, and so I never had one again until last week when I saw a woman on Hinge say that, if she had to choose a last meal, it would be simple: she’d get one of those tall Mexican Cokes with the cane sugar. So I went to the taco place across from my apartment and drank one while writing this.

Not bad.