Peach Coke

Japan gets the good versions of everything. I figured that out years ago—watching how their convenience stores actually seem designed for human beings, how their video games have personality, how limited edition products appear for a moment and vanish. Peach Coke showed up there in January for a few weeks, then it was gone. Everyone else got vanilla and cherry, like we’re stuck in permanent safe mode.

There’s probably marketing strategy behind the scarcity. Release something good in Japan, watch everyone else immediately want it, watch them hunt it down online and pay ridiculous prices. It’s just a soda. Shouldn’t matter. But there’s something about the pattern—the sense that Japan gets first pick at everything and we’re all just waiting to see if we’re allowed to have it too.

I’ve thought about ordering it online. The price is absurd. I probably won’t. But the fact that I even considered it says something about how these limited releases work—they manufacture desire out of something that shouldn’t matter at all, and it works.