If you’ve shopped for Coca-Cola recently, you may have noticed that some of the two-liter bottles had yellow caps instead of the usual red.
The switched-up lid shade is about more than aesthetics: The yellow caps signify that the soda inside is kosher for Passover.
Kosher, which means “fit, proper or correct” in Hebrew, describes food that adheres to dietary laws in Judaism, according to KLBD, one of the world’s leading kosher certification agencies.
Jewish people who keep kosher must ensure that they eat only meat, poultry and dairy that have come from kosher animals, and which have been prepared in a kosher way.
There are some additional dietary rules during the spring holiday of Passover. During Passover, Jewish people do not consume leavened foods or fermented drinks derived from wheat, barley, oat, spelt or rye, according to KLBD.
Some people also refrain from eating a variety of legumes, including corn — and that’s where Coca-Cola comes in.
Traditional Coca-Cola contains high-fructose corn syrup, which is made from corn. So, Coca-Cola created a special “kosher for Passover” version of their soda flavored with non-corn–based sweeteners, such as cane or beet sugar, to allow everyone to enjoy a Coke during the holiday, according to The New York Times.
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“The Coca-Cola Company offers products as kosher year-round (KYR) and kosher for Passover (KFP),” Coca-Cola said in a statement to TODAY Food. “In the United States, both Coca-Cola and Diet Coke are available as KYR and KFP in locations where the bottlers have decided to seek certification. Kosher for Passover products can be found in select markets during the Jewish holiday of Passover (e.g. March 27 – April 4, 2021).
“Only finished products bearing the logos of one of the designated Rabbinical organizations we work with can be guaranteed to be Kosher,” the company continued, “as the production is supervised by these organizations through the entire end-to-end production process.”
Some non-Jewish people also enjoy drinking “Passover Coke” because it’s a throwback to how the drink used to taste when the company used cane or beet sugar, instead of corn syrup, as a sweetener.
This special, no-corn-syrup version is only available during Passover, which ends on April 4 this year — so, whatever your reason for grabbing a yellow-capped bottle of Coca-Cola, drink up while you can!