limca limca limca

Limca is a beverage that is indigenous to India. The mighty Coca-Cola company could not replicate its taste, so it had to buy the formula and Limca is now manufactured with the Coca-Cola company seal underneath its logo. "..'imca," was one of my daughter's first ten words and probably the first logo she recognized.

It is just the thing to keep your tongue from bursting into flames after a particularly spicy meal. Its ancestor is "nimbu pani" - which means lemon water, but that nimbu is really sort of a lemon and lime put together in one fruit. Nimbu pani, like its foreign counterparts, Lemonade and Mint Julep, really cools you off on a 100+ degree day.

When I found Limca at my local Indian grocery the other day, I was overjoyed and bought 3 bottles. The Indian price printed on the glass bottle is 9 rupees; the American price not found on the bottle is $1.59.

I never got to keep a glass bottle while I was in India. In fact, I only drank from a glass bottle twice, once at the pet store which rewarded my commerce by having a 70-lb, 12-year-old carry a 25 lb bag of imported kitty litter to my car, and another time outside a "bakery," (bakeries are actually part lunch counter, part bakery).

In India, there is an honor code glass bottle consumers: All glass bottles will be returned to the vendor from whom you purchased it, once you've drunk the entire thing whilst standing outside his place of enterprise.

I was oblivious to this code and wondered why one shady character kept following me around while I enjoyed my drink from said glass bottle.

Ohhh... Limca. Why have the people in Atlanta not caught on to the magic of Limca?? Because it will kill Sprite, won't it?