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April 12, 2007
Deep In the Heart of Texas, Part Three
Topo Chico Beverages From La Grange
Many of you know how I love Topo Chico products, and have read how it has been impossible for me to find them in Guadalajara (despite the assurances of many a Mexican that one can buy them there). It is one of the sad aspects of the relentless Americanization of Mexico that one can find Coca-Cola® products everywhere, but finding domestic sodas can be tricky. That seems to be by consumer choice; most Mexicans feel that domestic products are inferior to American brands.
When stopping to get a soda on our day trip to La Grange, we went to the convenience store next to Guadalajara Mexican Restaurant (403 North Jefferson Street, 979-968-5935). They had a cooler full of Topo Sabores (pictured above), which you can't even buy in Mexico. The kid behind the counter overheard me telling my sister Carol about the oddity that one can only buy Topo Sabores in the United States, and he assured me that they were in fact available for purchase within Mexico. But as I said, I'm used to Mexicans telling me how easy it is to find particular things there. I asked him where he'd seen them and he said Guanajuato and Guadalajara. When pressed on where in Guadalajara he'd seen them, he told me, "Near the center. San Juan de los Lagos." I verified that he didn't mean "San Juan de Dios," the big mercado in the center of Guadalajara, and he said no, "San Juan de los Lagos, in downtown Guadalajara." I had never heard of such a colonia, but since I'm not a walking directory of the neighborhoods within the city, I figured I'd look it up when we got back.
Upon returning to Carol's house, I looked up the Topo Chico web site to see if I had been mistaken after all. Maybe in my relentless skepticism, I'd misunderstood the web site before. No, it turns out. I had not. The web site indicates that the Topo Sabores are sold in the US only. One can get sangria and grapefruit flavors in Mexico (as well as plain mineral water), but not the range of flavors shown above.
And San Juan de los Lagos isn't a neighborhood in downtown Guadalajara. It's about 75 miles north of the city.
Posted by crispy at April 12, 2007 07:16 AM
Comments
Oh, you meant THAT San Juan de los Lagos!
Posted by: Jon at April 12, 2007 02:05 PM
and i've been searching for Topo Gigio products EVERYwhere, and they are nowhere to be seen. Tsallright? tsallright...
Posted by: brett at April 12, 2007 02:29 PM
I hope you went back to reprimand him.
[crispy says: No, I didn't.]
Posted by: Mark Allen at April 13, 2007 05:23 AM
Uh, Annie wasn't there, dude. That was me.
[crispy says: Uh...right. I don't know what caused me to do that, given that I got it right through the rest of the entry. Maybe she was talking to me while I was writing it. It's corrected now though.]
Posted by: Sister Carol at April 15, 2007 07:23 AM
I actually found a Sangria flavor in a specialty Grocery store in San Antonio, TX earlier today. It was dang tasty
[crispy says: Yeah, I don't get the sangria flavored soda. It really tastes like sangria, but the whole concept strikes me as odd, like non-alcoholic beer.]
Posted by: Snook at November 14, 2007 10:48 PM