A Flavor Scientist Finally Broke Down The Exact Reasons Why McDonald's Coke Is So Damn Delicious

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Parade- Coca-Cola enthusiasts have argued for years that there’s something special about the taste of McDonald's Coke. I'd personally go as far as to say that it’s better than a can from home. Call it chemistry or pure genius, there is some truth to McDonald’s Coke being so delicious. But why? To find out we reached out to a food scientist. 

1. It's pre-chilled. To paraphrase Vanilla Ice, it’s all about the cold, cold baby. In 2021, McDonald’s revealed on their website why their Coke tastes better, and one of their “secrets” is pre-chilling the Coca-Cola syrup. This helps preserve the precious bubbles (more on that later).

2. The water's better. The McDonald's site also mentions that their Coca-Cola is made with filtered water. “In order to ensure our drinks are always meeting a gold standard, we filter all the water before it enters fountain dispensers,” the site says. But how does that affect the drink?

According to food scientist, science writer and YouTuber, Abbey The Food Scientist, “soft drink producers will usually have their own water supplier or a filtration system to increase the quality of water. Most often, chlorine is removed as it can result in a "disinfectant" taste, the water hardness will be adjusted since it affects the acidity of the drink, and iron will be removed to limit color and flavor defects. Without this treatment, the end result is a Coke that has off-flavors and aromas due to low-quality, inconsistent water.”

3. They pay attention to the packaging. Many fast food restaurants use plastic bag-in-box Coke syrup, but McDonald’s has their Coke syrup delivered in stainless steel tanks. This packaging choice protects the syrup from temperature fluctuations, light exposure, and anything that could impact its taste. McDonald’s also chills their beverage systems and uses insulated tubes to carry the pre-chilled liquids to the fountains. And they’ve also created a “ratio of syrup set to allow for ice to melt”, the company states.

4. They sized up the straws. Have you ever noticed that McDonald’s straws are a bit wider than other fast food chains? As the fast food giant notes, “it’s slightly wider than a typical straw, so all that Coke taste can hit your taste buds.”

Well there it is folks! After years of embracing debate over why McDonald's Coke is so awesome, we finally found out that it is indeed #BuiltDifferent😤 thanks to some good old fashioned science.

To be honest, some of that stuff seems like a best practices kind of thing since you figure pre-chilling the syrup, filtering the water, and packaging everything in stainless steel is going to result in a product so pure it would even pass Heisenberg's high chemistry standards. But the little things like transporting that nectar of the gods through an extra wide straw is why the Golden Arches remains the gold standard in so many ways after serving billions and billions over the years since everyone knows that luxury that traveling in wide lanes offer.

If I could get a minute with Abbey The Food Scientist, I would ask three things:

1. Does Santa Coke taste better for some scientific reason or is it simply because of the Christmas cheer? I figure Mexican Coke in a glass bottle is better for some of the reasons listed above, which is why it is third on my Coca-Cola Power Rankings behind only Santa Coke and McDonald's Coke. However, I'm pretty sure Christmas Cheer cannot be measured by science, even with all of our modern technologies.

2. Are the bubbles of McDonald's Sprite the most powerful substance on Earth because it is also transported in a stainless steel tank? Because this scientific mumbo jumbo seems to explain another great McDonald's moisture mystery.

Abbey notes that “any carbonated product that is kept in a container will gradually lose carbonation. This gives McDonald's the benefit of carbonating the Coke on-site and right before you drink it. Most products are traditionally prepared as a syrup‐plus‐water mix, in a ratio of some 1 part (volume) syrup to between 3 and 6 parts (volume) water. This allows a concentrated batch of syrup to be made and then proportioned with water to form the final product. The final product is then fed to a vessel pressurized with carbon dioxide gas. The rate of flow and the temperature of the carbon dioxide are critical to ensure the correct carbonation level. This is done at cool temperatures, which has the added benefit of carbon dioxide staying in the drink more easily.”

3. Why is orange Hi-C so much better when ordered from McDonald's, doubly so when it is ordered as Orange Drink?

For more riveting discussion on sugar in another form, check me out on this week's Dog Walk where I dog walked five fellas in yet another food draft.