On Thursday, I met Kelley Biedenharn Cox.

Her great-great uncle Joseph Biedenharn first bottled the soda fountain drink, Coca-Cola, and Kelley was at the Rum & Coke tasting held at The Inn at Cedar Grove.

The tasting was one of several events held this week as part of Vicksburg’s Classic ‘Sip Fest, which this year was couched around the 130^th anniversary of the bottling of Coke.

I had never been to a Rum tasting before and found it quite interesting.

There were five rums available for participants to try. Tastings of each were poured into shot glasses and the intent was to chase them with Coke.

I noticed some passed on the Coke.

Since I am not a rum connoisseur, I didn’t partake initially — I’ll get to that later— but I am a whole-hearted Coke connoisseur.

As far back as I can remember, Coke has always been my favorite choice of soft drinks, aside from the time when I was trying to transition to a diet version.

I was just not able to drink a sugar free Coke. I wanted the real thing so for a brief time I cheated and became a diet Pepsi person.

It didn’t last, thankfully and I eventually returned.

I don’t know about you, but back in the day, drinking a soft drink was a novelty.

Us kids could only have one if we were eating dinner out, which was mostly never. So truly, to have a Coke was not an everyday occurrence.

But that all changed when I went to college. There I was in total control of what went into my body, and I can tell you, while a lot of students were chugging other types of beverages, I was throwing back some Coke.

There was no limit. If I wanted a Coke to drink, which was all the time, I drank Coke.

I guess you could say Coke was my water. And it still is.

In fact, without Coke, I would just rather not eat.

Great diet plan — if I could just say no to Coke.

If some of you are thinking I am exaggerating, just ask any family member or, better yet, check out the fridge in my storeroom. While there are six-packs of another nature inside, there are also my six-packs of Coke.

And currently, I am into the screw-top style. For ages it was cans.

I don’t know what caused me to change, but I did. In fact, I like the Cokes that come with screw tops so much, the other day when I went into a stop-and-shop and all they had were cans; I pouted when the cashier told me they had none after asking. I almost walked out, but I didn’t. I just gave them my ATM card to pay for my canned Coke.

In my conversation with Kelley on Thursday, she was telling me how, as a Biedenharn, all she had ever had to drink was Coke. She said she had not even grown up with iced tea.

I should have been a Biedenharn.

So, about the rum. Before I left, I did take one small sip of the lime-flavored offering and will have to admit it was quite tasty — that is as far as an alcoholic beverage goes. But there is not a drink that will ever take the place of my Coke, because as the 1963 slogan goes, “Things go better with Coke.”