Photograph by Martha Williams
If you grew up in Atlanta, wider Georgia, or even a neighboring state, the World of Coca-Cola was likely a favorite field trip of yours. Even before its sparkly upgrade and 2007 relocation to Centennial Olympic Park, the best part of any visit—at least for me—was the sticky-floored tasting room, where I could drink my fill of different Coca-Cola–branded beverages from around the globe.
But there was one name that struck fear in my heart and taste buds. Her name was Beverly.
The Beverly is still a fixture of the Taste It! exhibition, where it elicits pinched noses and puckered tongues for its bitter flavor with notes of grapefruit rind. You’ll often see people standing next to someone trying it for the first time, waiting to see their reaction.
The Italian aperitif soda was created in 1969, designed as a nonalcoholic digestive aid meant to compete with similar brands from Campari and San Pellegrino. Coca-Cola stopped producing it in 2009, after sales slackened. Today, it lives on only through the company’s tasting room at the World of Coca-Cola here in Atlanta, as well as two others, at Epcot in Disney World and the Coca-Cola Store in Las Vegas.
Recently, the Beverly has gained a cult following on TikTok, mainly from younger generations discovering it for the first time. Several Reddit threads offer enthusiastic skewerings of its intense flavor and lingering aftertaste; one poster called it the “worst soda in the world.”
On a recent spring day, I went back to the attraction to see if the Beverly was as bad as I remembered. She was set next to a melon Fanta from Thailand and a Stoney ginger beer from Tanzania and flowed from the tap in a clear fizz. I filled my plastic cup modestly, inhaling the citrus smell before taking a swig, letting the bubbles dance across my tongue. I waited for the reaction I’d recalled from my youth, not to mention the ones I’d seen online (including the occasional real-life spit take). But it . . . wasn’t bad?
The Beverly was light and refreshing, without the overly saccharine flavor of its neighboring sodas. I might have been in the minority in the room, but I imagined how nice it would be paired with a couple of ice cubes and a dash of Aperol or Campari, rounding out a nice spritz. I pictured myself on a piazza in Rome, living my dolce vita.
The truth is, since my last trip to the tasting room, my tastes have changed. I’ve traveled outside the city and the country, sampling flavors outside my comfort zone. My tongue no longer immediately rejects the bitter bubbly.
Honestly, it’s worth a trip back to the World of Coca-Cola just to give it another try. Doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance?
Poor Beverly. Maybe she wasn’t so bad after all—just ahead of her time.
This article appears in our May 2025 issue.
