My December Vice

Growing up, soda was like orange juice. There were plenty of things that my mom restricted: too much sugared cereal, rock candy, that weird peanut butter and jelly that was ready-blended. But, I was allowed to drink as much soda as I wanted. There was a whole separate refrigerator dedicated to it. Apart from a brief Fresca phase, Diet Coke was my drink of choice; I took after my dad.

In high school, I averaged five cans a day--starting at breakfast, to wash down the chocolate frosted doughnut purchased in the school cafeteria. It wasn't until college that I switched to regular coke. On my first day of freshman year, waiting in line to get my room key, I met Jenny. Before long we were sleeping in the same bed and making fun of (almost) everyone else we met. Jenny was a serious coke fan--the kind of person who, when the waitress asks, "Is Pepsi okay?," actually says no. She taught me to ditch Diet and embrace the classic, and with prepaid mealplans, I drank a lot of coke.

Things continued like that until I started buying my own food and realized that soda was a luxury. After a while, I lost my love for it. Sure, a bottle of Vanilla Coke now and again hit the spot like nothing else, but soda has long since stopped being an every day drink.

Except in December, in Sweden. Along with candles and glögg, Christmas season in Sweden means julmust, the soda I look forward to drinking all year. (Theoretically, I could buy it at other times, but I'm a purist and will only drink it around Christmas.) I first tasted julmust when I came to Sweden for Christmas in 2001. If in a nostalgic mood, a sip of julmust today can bring me back to Erik's parents' old living room, and that foreign and charming first Swedish Christmas, when I learned to say "God Jul!," experienced just how unvegetarian the traditional Swedish Christmas table is, and watched Donald Duck (but the weird Swedish dedication to Disney on Christmas is fodder for another entry).

Julmust is a spicy soda, something like a mixture of coke, Dr. Pepper, and birch beer--but, in my opinion, better than all three. I haven't been around long enough to have scoped out every brand and tend to stick to the big ones: Apotekarnes and Klassiker. One of these days, though, I'd love to try a "micro-brew" for comparison's sake.

I've taken julmust with me to America and no one seemed that impressed. This leads me to believe that it must be imbibed in Sweden for full effect. Because, I swear, when I pop open a bottle of julmust, it has a certain power over me. Just like glögg, and less so julöl (Christmas beer), julmust tastes like liquid Christmas and fills me with happiness and anticipation. And if you don't trust my tastebuds (afterall, I am the girl who loves kraft macaroni and cheese and string bean caserole), just look at all the people who love julmust as much as I do.

Nu är det Jul igen. Och det betyder julmustsäsong för mig.*

Skål!

*Now it's Christmas again. And that means julmust season for me.