The Kofola incident and how Cockta kicked ass

Being thirsty makes you stupid. You better believe it!

After the extensive tour of Bratislava's historic center and after seeing the Bratislava castle from closeup, my girlfriend and I finally arrived back at the Bratislava Hlavná Stanica (main railway station) with the bus. It was really hot and humid, despite being cloudy most of the time. You would probably not be surprised, if I tell you, that we were not only tired, but mad thirsty. Oh yeah. And we suddenly remembered, that we haven't yet tried the famous Kofola, the Slovakian (previously Czechoslovakian) soft drink, that is usually referred as a former communist version of Coca-Cola and always recommended as something you have to try, if you come to Bratislava. We had some 30min before our train left back to Vienna, so we decided to buy the famous soft drink at one of the small shops in the station area.

Guess what? We were so thirsty and tired, our brains must have been hibernating or something, because we bought the first two Kofola's we saw! Oh yea. That's how they looked like:

We were happy to finally get the drink, that's recommended in every Bratislava guide. But then like a minute later, we paused for a second and thought: Wait a minute! Are we dreaming or is this real? We were totally puzzled. You may wonder what happened. This is what happened:

We paid 4€ for 2 friggin' Kofolas!

That's 5.13USD for two soft drinks! That's sick, man. We were angry at the boy and at ourselves. Well, in defense of the boy, we were pretty stupid. But remember, we were really tired and thirsty, can that be a good excuse? I guess the fact, that my girlfriend was Asian and that I had a big DSLR around my neck gave us away as tourists (duh!), so he just tried his luck and bam! Jackpot. Ok, I may be a bit over the top here, but still...

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For those tourists, who want to buy Kofola at the Bratislava Hlavná Stanica, the main railway station, please don't repeat our mistake and don't buy Kofola at this shop:

This small shop rips off tired and stupid tourists like us.

The shop is located as the first on the right side of the station's main building, when you return from Bratislava's center. There are many shops like this one near the station and the prices for Kofola vary. They are usually between 1 - 1.2 Euros. If you ask me, it's still too expensive. That drink should not cost more than 50 cents!

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Ok, so there we were, inside the station, waiting for our train, talking about the Kofola incident. My girlfriend was mad (like the girl in the video) and kept saying that it was wrong, that what he did made Slovakia look bad and that in Taiwan this can't happen. She wanted to go back and complain and ask the boy to give us the money back, but I held her back and told her, this is not Taiwan, it's Slovakia. The boy will probably pretend he doesn't understand English or what we want from him and won't give us back any money. And I didn't want trouble at that obscure station, believe me.

So the only thing we could do in that situation was to drink the Kofola. What else could we do anyway? And we were thirsty. So I open up that (lemon flavored) Kofola Citrus and slowly drink the thing... and the first thought that came to mind was:

It tastes like medicine O.o

Not only that, it also tasted like Coca-Cola after being open for three days... But we still drank it. My girlfriend and I finished one bottle in no time and we brought the other one to my home in Slovenia. I made jokes about Kofola during the whole ride and my girlfriend was slowly getting sick of it. At one point I threatened her to give her a new nickname: Kofola. I guess these were side effects of drinking Kofola too fast :-P

When we nearly arrived in Slovenia, I suddenly had an idea: We in Slovenia have a similar drink, which is cheaper, healthier and tastes so much better. It's called Cockta (short for Cocktail). I told my girlfriend I will blog about these two drinks and compare them. The next day I went to a local supermarket and bought a Cockta and decided to do a test.

The Slovak Kofola together with the Slovenian Cockta.

I poured the Kofola and Cockta in small glasses and gave my family a try. Guess what? My girlfriend liked Kofola more than Cockta =_= Ok, that hurt! I couldn't believe it, so I gave her more Cockta to try. It didn't help. She already succumbed to the hidden poison in every Kofola that makes you addicted and burns 30% of your brain cells. Ok, the rest of my family was divided. My mum, her boyfriend and I liked Cockta more, while my younger sisters and her friends liked Kofola more. So that day Kofola beat Cockta. I have no explanation for that. I drank Cockta in the 1980s already, because there weren't many soft drinks at that time, but the young people of today have an abundance of these beverages and may not know what is good and what not. Believe me, Cockta is good. If you come to Slovenia, try it.

See how many bubbles Kofola has? Scary.

Truth is, Cockta has a longer history and wasn't intended to be the communist replacement for Coca-Cola, but was meant to be an original drink. It has no caffeine and it's made of herbs only. Hence it must be healthy. I'm sure some Slovenian doctors prescribe it. The drink originates in the 1950s. Kofola on the other side was meant as a replacement of western soft drinks, was developed in 1960 and has more caffeine than Coca-Cola. Now if you're a Kofola fan and laughing at Cockta drinkers, we'll see, if you laugh in ten years from now when you're gonna turn into a toothless insomniac! I ask you: Why do you drink Kofola? If you're thirsty, drink water or Cockta, if you need caffeine, drink coffee.

Alright! I won't tell you what to drink ^_^. And I admit, I'm biased, because I'm Slovenian and because I got ripped off in Bratislava. But seriously: Cockta is better :-P

✰ Check the COCKTA homepage in English and follow the Cockta story>>
✰ Check the KOFOLA homepage in Slovakian and learn about the drink>>

I think Cockta has a better website, more creative than Kofola's (and in English). There is also a Kofola Facebook fan page and and a Cockta Facebook fan page, you can join them.

So what do you think, which is better, the Slovenian Cockta or the Slovakian Kofola?
Did you ever get ripped off for a drink and got really mad? What did you do?
Do you like Pepsi or Coca-Cola more? Do you have a famous beverage in your country?

[Slovakia is not Slovenia][All photos by MKL except Chuck Norris, 2010]
[Ps: Don't take this post too seriously, if you're a Kofola fan. Thanks.]