L&P

L&P stands for Lemon and Paeroa and is a tasty and nutritious (actually, probably not) carbonated beverage. The obvious question is, what is Paeroa? And the answer is that Paeroa is a town. A fairly nondescript town, at that, halfway between Auckland and Tauranga on State Highway 2 and right before you plunge into the Karangahake Gorge. Never mind that a town isn't an ingredient that can conceivably be put into a soft drink, L&P is an iconic piece of the New Zealand culinary landscape.

While the original L&P was made by adding lemon to carbonated mineral water from a spring near Paeroa, the current version is a sweetened concoction that tastes like nothing I can conceivably compare it to. It's not very lemony, and it's got far too much flavour to be just mineral water. It's now manufactured in the Coca Cola plant in suburban Auckland from artifical flavouring 123, 190 and 187, but it's still awesome.

It mixes well with vodka or scotch whiskey, and is available in dairies, petrol stations and supermarkets the nation over. One of the standard lines that I used to use to make my conversation seem more interesting was that when I owned my own home, I'd get it plumbed for hot water, cold water, and L&P. Unfortunately, that line was retired, as it never really worked, and replaced with "Bacon improves any dish, with the exception of dessert"

The marketing team at L&P have started to play on the nostalgic hold that the drink has on the country - the current slogan is "World Famous in New Zealand since ages ago", and their website features snippets of the mundane things that New Zealanders know and love (which, if I'm being perfectly honest, may have influenced the genesis of this particular internet enterprise (along with Douglas Coupland's Souvenir of Canada)).

Any trip through Paeroa is traditionally marked by all the occupants of the travelling vehicle stopping and climbing out for a snap in front of the giant bottle of Lemon and Paeroa - I can't even begin to think how many such photos I've posed in.


I can't really rhapsodise about the flavour of L&P - describing why you enjoy L&P is like trying to describe why you drink Coke - it doesn't really have a taste that blows you away, but it's sweet, it's refreshing, and nothing goes better with fish and chips while sitting on a beach watching the sun set.