Atlanta is famous for a few things like the 1996 Olympics and terrible traffic, but also for being the headquarters of a small drinks company called Coca-Cola. Down here in the south babies are weaned on coke, and "Pepsi" is a word never spoken out loud. We had heard many mythical things about the visitors' centre, including you get to drink as much coke as you want!! Why wouldn't we take a four-year-old to a place like that?
After receiving our complimentary can on arrival we were ushered into a display of historic coke items, including a ceramic urn from the 1880s which used to contain coke syrup - you would turn up at a pharmacy, pay 5c, get the syrup in your glass, then fill it up with fizzy water. The use of cocaine in this iteration was not mentioned. There followed a movie with zero factual content but a lot of people looking very happy drinking coke. Then we were inside!
The main building contains a bottling plant, various galleries about different coke aspects, a "4D theatre" (seats that shake until your sugar-weakened teeth fall out), a polar bear, and the all important tasting room.
And what a room! Not only coke, not only every variety of coke (ginger lime diet, anyone?) but 100 drinks that Coca-Cola owns around the world. My sister, from her time in Uganda, recommended Stoney Tangawizi, a ginger beer that contains a month's intake of sugar. It was very good, but I was less impressed by Bonbon Anglais from Madagascar; smells of chlorine, tastes of fake bananas. The European offerings were significantly less sweet than elsewhere. Thank goodness we'll be able to set our own obesity levels after Brexit!
By our fourth visit to the loos it was obviously time to leave. We wandered around downtown Atlanta, where there are some other things - Centennial Olympic Park, the CNN Center - but by then I was deep into a sugar crash, and what could be better than World of Coke anyway? You can't beat the real thing.
Pete meets Mr Pemberton, the inventor of coke, who has an interesting history that was somewhat glossed over.
Welcome to our world.
Excellent responsible consumerism, Pete.
What it's like to be in a glass of coke, but less sticky.
Put these on and you can see the world in 4D!
Where do they hold the recipe, the most valuable secret the company owns? In this vault that everyone can walk through, of course!
Bottling. Still syrup + fizzy water.
Alright, here's the reason that we came.
Hannah, enabling.
This is the second time in his life that Pete has tasted a fizzy drink. And now, thanks to Coca-Cola, it won't be the last!
And a little more coke.
And a little more.
The store. Do you have anything non-coke branded?
Maybe I'll get just one souvenir to take home.
