DMBLGIT award and Kofola

I’m so excited I have received another award, this time it’s from the monthly photography contest DMBLGIT. July’s installment was hosted by the lovely Asha from Fork Spoon Knife.

The award was for 3rd Place and I am humbled and honored to have been one of the winners. As always there were some beautiful shots by very talented fellow bloggers and to have been included in the winners list came as a very welcomed surprise. I’m excited because this is my second time winning, you can see the previous one here. The winning shot was from my Almond milk recipe.By the way they need people to host the monthly events, if you are interested please visit SpittoonExtra for more details.

When I saw the email from Asha yesterday I felt like giving myself a little treat. I had a Kofola. What is a Kofola? it is a Czech/Slovak soft drink that is similar to Coca Cola and Pepsi. In fact the drink is the #1 rival to those companies here in the Czech/Slovak lands. Some of you may have noticed that I’m not big on sugar and certainly not on sugar drinks/ soft drinks or as I like to call them sugar water. It’s not something I like to drink well, ever. But Kofola was something I had to try. I have been asked by some Czechs if I have ever tasted Kofola and they couldn’t believe I had not. You see they are very proud of their uniquely Czech product and they started to tell me a bit about this drink and insisting that I had to try it some time. Well of course it’s something that had to go on my list of things to try. I did a little search and here’s what I found out : ( per Wikipedia)

“Kofola originated in the Czechoslovak pharmaceutical company Galena in the early 1960s during research targeted at finding a possible use for surplus caffeine produced in the process of coffee roasting. The resulting dark-coloured, sweet-and-sour syrup Kofo became the main ingredient of a new soft drink named Kofola introduced in 1962.
During the 1960s and 1970s Kofola became exceedingly popular in communist Czechoslovakia because it substituted for Western cola-based drinks like Coca-Cola or Pepsi, which were available but priced at more than twice the price of Kofola. Kofo syrup, the main ingredient of Kofola, consists of 14 natural ingredients (such as extracts from apple, cherry, currant, or herbal aroma), sugar, and caramel. In comparison with Pepsi or Coca-Cola it contains 30% less sugar, a little more caffeine (17 mg/100ml, Coca-Cola 15 mg/100ml) and it does not contain phosphoric acid. “

I have to admit for someone who doesn’t normally drink or like this type of drink I quite enjoyed Kofola. Though it was still a bit sugary for my taste, it wasn’t over the top sweet. It had a slightly fruity flavor with a hint of what I though was cloves – I could be wrong. It was also fun drinking it out of an old fashion glass bottle with a straw. Either way I’m glad I finally tried it even if I can’t manage to drink another one I’ll remember it fondly. Unfortunately I didn’t find any evidence of this drink being available outside of this region. But if you’re ever visiting make sure you try the drink, well if you can fit it in with all the beer tasting that takes place here. Czechs are also very proud, as well they should be, of their beers.

Haha maybe the company will come across my blog and get the idea to export it all over the world :) yeah right.