Cool Off With A Coke (And Watch How They Are Made!)

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If you are like me and make your home in the Northern and Western hemispheres, it's HOT.  It's possibly even hotter (and, due to the humidity, stickier) than it was a month ago when I posted a Poetry Wednesday specifically about the high temps.  It's the kind of hot that leaves everything in its grasp wilted and limp.  Nothing gets done, even indoors with the a/c on, because the heat just sucks all the energy out of you and leaves you exhausted.

And then you realize how thirsty you are.  Bad things happen when a body when it gets dehydrated, so it's important to keep taking in lots of fluids.  But you get sick of water all the time, right?*  So what do you reach for?  Here in the south, the answer is obvious and automatic:

AN ICE COLD COKE.

But where does it come from?  How does it get from random ingredients to your hand?  Well, it's a pretty amazing journey, and it begins right here in my hometown.

In the heart of Atlanta, in a little area called Pemberton Place, The World of Coca-Cola sits at the corner of Baker Street and Centennial Olympic Park Drive, and opposite the Georgia Aquarium.

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Here you can find out all kinds of things about the origins of Coke, how it's made, where in the wide world it gets sent to, and more.
You can see an entire museum of advertising merchandise, from early 1900s ads like this one:

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To amazing things made from the aluminum cans themselves, such as this locomotive:

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And this fantastic Red Baron bi-plane:

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And in my Google search for Coke can sculptures like the ones in the WOCC museum, I also found this, which made my photographer's heart go pitter pat. :)

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The World of Coca-Cola is open most days from 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and is only closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas days.  The tour takes around 90 minutes to complete, but be sure to allow plenty of time for the tasting room, where you can sample all kinds of Coca-Cola products that are served around the world!

Finally, here are 3 of my favorite Coke commercials. :)

*Actually, if you still want water, Coca-Cola bottles Dasani water! :)