Bahamas VIII: Mrs French's AK-100 Vanilla Corn Drink

Who the Hell Goes to the Bahamas? Eighth and Final Installment

Before the Ring of Comprehend Languages...

...and after.

If I could strike that hand from my body, I would.

My eyes tell it all.

I don't know if this photo is of me trying to not vomit
right after the first drink, or nerving myself up for a second drink. Either way I look hilariously unhappy.

Mrs French's AK-100 Vanilla Corn Drink
or
Acassan de la Senora French AK-100 de Mme French
by French's Drinks


If I was being generous, I would say that Mrs. French's AK-100 Vanilla Corn Drink tasted like burned chocolate. That's what I would say to get you assholes to drink it, so I could see your faces and then laugh. Instead, I'm going to tell you the truth. It tastes like sucking the cock off a rotten corpse, and I mean OFF, not on. Like you suck on it till the whole skin casing breaks loose and slides into your throat, bringing most of the insides with it. It dissolves into a mess of rancid fat and decaying veins leavened in congealed blood, smearing through your mouth like Vaseline.

You spit it out but it's too late, your tongue has had a stroke and you've defecated in your pants. You can never forget the horror of it and the taste will live with you for the rest of your days.

I thought about writing this up like a Lovecraft "found narrative" parody, but Lovecraft deals in cosmic horror, this is visceral. This is like sucking puss out of the drainage tubes where your dog got stitches.

This drink is very, very bad and I do not know why it exists in this world. It truly makes me wonder if we do, indeed, live in Hell and this is a drink devised for the exceptionally bad sinners out there. It is made in France, so does that make them angels or devils? Either way, I am now officially shifting over to the Freedom Fries "bomb the French back to the Stone Age" brigade. Truthfully, I think Stone Age is a little extreme, I'll settle for Pre-Corn Drink Age.

But wait, that was trying to be funny and there is nothing funny about this. I'm writing about utter and complete wrongness, and will try to be truthful and specific not matter how hard it is. I will begin at the beginning.

We were in the Bahamian air port waiting area, waiting to fly home. Having gone through several layers of security, I felt safe. I saw the can of Corn Drink sitting in a refrigerator and bought it. Hurrah!, I think, a new drink to try. What an idiot.

We sit down with our steam tray breakfast and I eat a bit, give the can a good shake up and pop it open. I take a swig, spazz out in some sort of primitive urge to defend myself, then spit the Corn Drink out on my tray. Struggling not to vomit, I snatch up an orange juice container and try to kill the taste. Sadly, the only thing that could kill the taste was a knife and mine was in the check-in baggage.

After a bit of eating, I try it again and force myself to choke it down. It was as bad as the first time and I regretted my sense of fairness.

The plane ride home was spent trying not to think of the stuff, or else I'd've vomited.

The taste is hard to describe. Like I said earlier, a charitable soul would say burned chocolate. A soul that charitable would also forgive my spit roasting their child. The taste is almost forgotten, and I am not going to try to bring that back - instead I'll leave it at that.

The texture though, the consistency... That was what nearly killed me on the first go round, it's thick thick thick and slimy, more like drinking liquid fat than anything wholesome. You know what, as for the taste, go back to paragraph one. There's no truth or goodness left in the world, and no words that can explain what the fuck this is supposed to be.

Once, long ago, I drank out of a container of Gatorade that had sat too long in the refrigerator. It was full of these beautiful colonies of mold, floating globes at least an inch and a half across. I sucked one or two down before I knew what was happening, it was pretty awful in consistency, but not a tenth as bad as this.

I'm getting sick at the memory of it. While writing up my Bahamas notes I've been eating a delicious banana pudding from Sugar Sweet Sunshine, an incredible NYC bakery. The best cupcakes I've ever eaten, puts Magnolias in the dirt. But I can't eat any more of their corn pudding... Look, I just wrote "corn" when I meant "banana." I can't eat any more of the banana pudding now or I will, I swear to God, barf.

You win, Vanilla Corn Drink. You are utterly and completely vile, and you win.

I wish I could fake faces like that, I'd never
pay for another restaurant meal again
.