Now I Know More by Dan Lewis Page A

Volstead Act, had a solution: They added even more poison to the mix. The bootleggers were unable to make the alcohol entirely safe for drinking, but of course, many bootleggers were murderous criminals—and they sold the liquor anyway. The Treasury’s plan failed to stem the tide of alcohol flowing in the streets but did sadly manage to claim the lives of as many as 10,000 people.
    BONUS FACT
    Prohibition turned many citizens into everyday criminals, many by way of homemade wine. Grocers could sell grape concentrate, an item that in and of itself lacked any alcohol. However, if treated in a certain way, grape concentrate would ferment, turning it into wine. In order to “avoid” this outcome, many grape concentrate packages were labeled with a warning—outlining exactly what not to do in order to ensure that your grape concentrate did not ferment.

VODKA AND COLA
HOW TO SMUGGLE COKE INTO SOVIET RUSSIA
    In 1992, with an incredible amount of fanfare, Pepsi announced Crystal Pepsi, a clear cola beverage aimed at revolutionizing the soft-drink world. The drink did well initially and even spurred Coca-Cola to come out with its own clear cola product, called Tab Clear. Neither beverage would survive commercially for very long. Crystal Pepsi was off shelves in the United States by the end of 1993; according to Fast Company, one of the executives behind the concept later admitted that the product just didn’t taste good. Tab Clear, somehow, persevered into the middle of 1994. Its marketing was suspect—for some reason, it was only sold in a can, a curious choice for a beverage whose main selling point was the fact that it was translucent.
    Given these failures, one would assume that these massive soft-drink companies had never before attempted to make a cola that wasn’t caramel-colored. But well before Crystal Pepsi and Tab Clear came another different-colored cola, informally called White Coke.
    In the 1940s, the Marshal of the Soviet Union (the de facto highest rank in the Soviet military), a man named Georgy Zhukov, took a liking to Coca-Cola. However, Coke was symbolic of America, of capitalism, etc., and Zhukov—given his position of prominence—couldn’t be seen drinking the stuff. Through his American counterpart General Mark W. Clark (who in turn took the question to President Truman), Zhukov asked that the Coca-Cola Company develop a cola that visually resembled vodka. This way, the New York Times reported, he could be seen drinking it whenever he liked, without risking the ire of Joseph Stalin. (Apparently, it was okay for Soviet military leaders to have a vodka.) Coke complied.
    For years, Coke provided the cola to Zhukov and somehow managed to avoid most of the red tape that defined importations into the USSR during that period. The cola was never introduced to consumers in the States.
    BONUS FACT
    In 1990, the Mars candy company introduced PB Max, a cookie topped with peanut butter, and the whole thing covered in milk chocolate. Like Crystal Pepsi and Tab Clear, PB Max did not last very long—it was discontinued a few years later. Unlike the colas, though, PB Max was a commercial success. Why was it discontinued? According to an anonymous executive cited by Joël Glenn Brenner in his bestselling book The Emperors of Chocolate , the Mars family has a distaste for peanut butter and opted to take PB Max out of their product line, despite its substantial contributions to the family’s coffers. (This makes sense; Mars’s peanut butter M&M’s, while common now, are relatively new compared to Reese’s Pieces.)

OUTSIDE THE UNION
THE SOVIET FAMILY LOST TO HISTORY
    In 1978, a team of Soviet geologists were scanning the Siberian wilderness a hundred miles or so north of the Mongolian border. The area was an undeveloped wilderness—no roads, no electricity, no reservoirs or running water. Like most of Siberia, it was also uninhabited. Which made the