The horror of gluten-free beer

I was reminded of the worst liquid that I have ever consumed. It was the last occasion on which I drank Coca-Cola, nearly 50 years ago. To be fair to Coke, this bottle was at room temperature, and the room was in the Anatolian peninsula, during the ferocity of high summer. A group of us were travelling in a battered old bus, still four hours by bad roads from Izmir, hot water and cold beer.

Having run out of bottled water, we needed something to stave off dehydration. The village offered a choice: well water or parboiled Coke. An aristocratic French leftie was moved to a declamation: ‘Moi, j’ai un horreur de Coca-Cola.’ I concurred. But as every mouthful of well water would have contained at least 20 organisms lethal to a delicately nurtured western European stomach, there was no choice. I suggested to the grenouille that when he got back to Paris, he should seek to make an addendum to the Declaration of the Rights of Man: that no Frenchman should ever have to drink Coca-Cola.