Columbiana: The Drink
A few years back, we published a piece about one of the awesome international grocery stores here in Montgomery. And we’ve also written an analysis about what cultural trends can be determined by scanning the aisles of our local Publix. So it’s not entirely out of the blue that we decided to comment on the addition of a new “Caribbean section” to our local grocery store. 
Is it a sign of globalization? Is it a treasured piece of evidence, alongside our many excellent Korean restaurants, that our city is becoming more cosmopolitan and diverse?
Unclear. But we were excited to buy something from this new section, and make an infinitesimally small effort to broaden our horizons. We had already once been on a binge in the British foods section, bringing home a variety of sauces and candies imported from the United Kingdom. A Caribbean food section? That’s how we ended up with a two liter bottle of Columbiana soda staring back at us from the top shelf of our fridge. It stayed there for months.
We don’t drink a lot of soda. So the likelihood of being in the mood for a new “kola flavored” experience was low.
Finally, the bottle broke us down. We sampled the Columbiana, which should not be confused with the small Alabama town in Shelby County that gave us Gov. Robert Bentley and Banking Superintendent Mike Hill.
Columbiana soda is made by a company from Colombia (the country) called Postobon. It should probably be noted that the nation of Colombia is not in the Caribbean. It was bottled in New York, and tastes sort of like a cream soda, and not a very good one. It has a slightly fruity smell. The taste is mild and unremarkable. After a cup of the stuff being passed between us, we dumped it out, followed by the rest of the bottle. 
The point of this story isn’t to say that the soda is bad. It’s just to say that our city has new options, becoming more interesting by the day, in small ways that we may not even notice. But those options won’t matter if we don’t veer (even if ever-so-slightly) out of our comfort zones.
We’ll continue experimenting with new items in the grocery store, working them into our culinary routines. Some will be great new adventures, while others will be pronounced to be “mediciney.” Either way, we appreciate the opportunity to improvise and bring a spirit of open-mindedness to the smallest daily transactions.
Kate and Stephen are Midtown residents with two cats, a dog, 18 fish, a garden, an old house and a sense of adventure. They write about life in Midtown here and about life in Montgomery at their blog Lost in Montgomery.
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