Ben Gilbert

Here are a variety of things that I've heard from somewhat credible sources and that show up in articles that may contribute to the taste actually being better.

The thing that is definitely true is Coca-Cola ships the formula to McDonald's in stainless steel tanks.

instead of being delivered in bags.

Normally, it's bags wrapped in cardboard, and it's actually delivered through the bottlers.

Even though the bottlers have nothing to do with it, they are the delivery arm.

Oh, yeah, because this is the fountain business.

Yeah.

Coke doesn't actually deliver the syrups to all these restaurants.

The bottlers do it on behalf of them, even though there's no bottles involved.

So Coke is quote unquote selling directly when they sell syrup to fountain owners.

Yes.

With McDonald's, it's different.

It comes in these stainless steel tanks.

McDonald's does some stuff.

They pre-chill the water, and they make sure that the hoses are chilled all the way up in the dispenser.

McDonald's apparently actually has a different syrup-to-water ratio that accounts for ice melt.

They add a little bit more syrup than the standard recipe, which sounds like it would be heresy,

Yes.

They developed custom straws that are a little bit wider to let a little bit more Coca-Cola hit the taste buds on your mouth.

And this is sort of just incidental, but because of the volume that's done at McDonald's of selling Coke products, the syrup's a little bit fresher because the syrup actually does kind of get worse over time if you leave it in the back room.