Up until about two years ago the only think I knew about Ricola were those old commercials. You know what I’m talking about.

Riiiiii-cola.

When something enters the public unconscious before I get to have a personal experience with it I tend to mentally write it off. Like, they’re just some stupid cough drops that blew their marketing budget on one big commercial.

Seriously, I have been like that since age six. Totally other story.

Anyhow, about two years ago E had begun equipping herself Ricola cough drops before rehearsals. I didn’t have an urge to try them, but in the way of our household eventually I was in a pinch and ferreted one away from her to try.

Instant addiction. Even though they are mentholated, they don’t have the chemically menthol taste of other cough drops (like the Ludens I used to mainline as a kid). They taste like actual herbs and whatever else is included in the flavor you pick up, with just a mild radiating zing of menthol in the midst.

The flavor we’re specifically fixated on is Honey Lemon with Echinacea, which not only is a dead ringer in taste for the special voice tea that E makes us when we’re gigging a lot, but has the added effect of giving a teeny Echinacea immune-boost in every drop, plus some Vitamin C.

Placebo or not, I rarely leave home to gig or rehearse without Ricola in my bag. Even if it’s entirely my imagination, if the occasional ten cent cough drop helps soothes my throat after strenuous singing and keeps me in good health, I say it’s worth both the expense and the delusion.

So, I guess a bunch of yodeling dudes on television were more than just hype. Score one against the skepticism learned in my childhood.