Nostalgia on a Plate
Why some Communist foods are seeing a comeback
I spent most of my time in Slovenia drinking blue cans of Cockta. The taste is a little like an ersatz Coca-Cola; caramel-brown and richly carbonated, but with a slightly floral undercurrent — like a brewery in a rose garden. You can find them packed tightly into the nation’s vending machines, soda fountains, and döner restaurants, and today, it is one of the few Yugoslav holdovers in the Slovenian market.
According to Rosana Turk, brand manager for Cockta’s parent company Droga Kolinska, the drink was introduced in the 1950s — a period of burbling optimism for the country — as the citizenry took its first few steps out of World War II and into the 20th century. Cockta, in essence, was representative of a brand new national identity. “We were from the working class but were never deprived of anything. Cockta was a part of that youth, hanging out with friends, summer vacations,” she said in an email. “It was a part of our youth that we still remember with nostalgia today.”
Of course, by the 1960s, as more American products diffused into Slovenia’s borders, Cockta was set aside in favor of Coke, Pepsi, and other Western tonics. “[They] took the lead in advertising, in the stores on the shelves, and even in licensed bottling plants around Yugoslavia,” Turk explained. It wasn’t until…
