inca kola

Michael and I took a trip to Corona and Flushing, Queens recently. Despite just being a subway ride away, it took a while for us to actually make the trip happen. In NYC, things, you know, get in the way.

Despite us putting it off for longer than expected, it certainly reaped some benefits in the bottle cap collecting area.

As I've mentioned before on this blog, NYC is an excellent place to explore sodas and beers from different countries, and Corona really provided some excellent fodder for the blog, which my faithful readers will be reaping the benefits of for the next few posts. Be prepared!

The primary goal of Corona was visiting the Louis Armstrong House, a home-turned-museum of the famed jazz musician Louis Armstrong*. On our short walk from the subway to his home, Michael and I found numerous delis, restaurants, and markets to duck into, finding bottle caps all along the way.

At one point, I was hungry, and admittedly a little grumpy. We stopped in a pizza place, and what did we find? The oddly-colored, bubblegum-tasting beverage Inca Kola. Found in my neighborhood only in plastic bottles, this random pizza place had it in glass with requisite bottle cap. Michael and I, having a special fondness for this South American beverage (owned by Coca-Cola, no less), jumped on having one while sharing our slice of pizza intended to tide us over until dinner in Flushing.

This is not a special bottle cap. In fact, it's quite bland in comparison to its sticky-sweet soda counterpart. But throughout our munching on our slice, Michael marveled that it had taken this long for us to actually find an Inca Kola in bottle cap form. Happily, we can now add it to the collection.

* Did you know that when you call the Louis Armstrong House you're calling Louis Armstrong's original home phone number? I find that so cool.