The 60-second sip
- Goli soda is India's marble soda: a fizzy drink in a glass Codd-neck bottle, sealed from the inside by a glass marble.
- Goli means marble in Hindi and Gujarati. In Delhi the same drink is called banta; in Japan its cousin is ramune.
- The bottle was patented in England in 1872. India kept it when most of the world moved to metal caps.
- Today goli soda travels: Goli Pop Soda takes it to more than 11 countries, from the Gulf to the UK, the United States and Australia.
What is goli soda?
Goli soda is a carbonated soft drink in a thick glass bottle whose neck holds a glass marble. While the bottle is sealed, the pressure of the fizz pushes the marble up against a rubber ring in the mouth, and that is the only closure it has. To drink it you press the marble down. It drops into a pocket in the neck with a pop, and stays there while you drink.
For more than a century it was India's everyday soda, most often lemon or orange, sold from carts and corner shops and opened by the seller with a push of the thumb. The empty bottle usually went back to the bottler, to be washed and filled again.
One drink, many names
The bottle is the same wherever it goes. The name changes with the language and the street.
| Name | Where | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Goli soda | Much of India | Goli is the Hindi and Gujarati word for a marble |
| Banta | Delhi and north India | A local name for the same drink, often poured over ice with lemon and spiced salt |
| Kanche wali soda | North India | “The soda with the marble”: kancha is another Hindi word for a marble |
| Marble soda, Codd soda | In English | After the marble, or after Hiram Codd, who patented the bottle in 1872 |
| Ramune | Japan | From the English word “lemonade”: Japan's marble soda, in a bottle of the same design |
A short history, from 1872 to today
The bottle is named after Hiram Codd, an English engineer who patented it in 1872. It needed no cork: it was filled upside down, so that the marble fell into place, and the pressure of the drink did the rest. Within a generation bottlers across Britain, Europe, Asia and Australasia were using it, and it reached India in the late nineteenth century.
In 1892 the metal crown cork was patented: cheaper, quicker to fit by machine and good on a plain bottle. One country after another dropped the marble. Two kept it above all: India, where it became goli soda, and Japan, where it became ramune.
From the 1990s, when the international cola brands returned to India and plastic bottles and cans filled the shelves, many small goli soda bottlers closed. The drink lived on in memory and at a few stalls. Then it came back, with new flavours and better bottling, and on 23 March 2025 the Government of India announced that goli soda was going to world markets under a new name, Goli Pop Soda, with trial shipments to the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and the Gulf.
How to open a goli soda
Tear the seal
Peel the seal band off the cap, all the way round.
Free the plunger
Lift the plunger off the cap and push it out of its safety ring.
Press and hold
Stand the bottle on a table, sit the plunger in its mouth and press down firmly with your palm. Hold for a few seconds while the fizz settles.
Pop, tilt, sip
The marble drops into the neck with a pop and stays there. Lift the plunger away, tilt gently and sip.
Glass or plastic?
The marble bottle was invented in glass, and the marble is glass too. Glass gives nothing to the taste of the drink, and only glass gives the marble its clear clink. Some marble sodas are now sold in plastic bottles, which are lighter and do not shatter. Goli Pop Soda stays in glass.
What is in a goli soda?
A traditional goli soda is carbonated water, sugar and a flavour, most often lemon or orange. Every bottler has its own recipe, so the label is the place to look.
Goli Pop Soda keeps the bottle and the moment, and changes what is inside: 6 g of added fibre in every 220 ml bottle, low in sugar, sweetened with monk fruit / stevia, in six flavours. We state what is in the bottle and make no health claim for it.
- 220 ml
- in every bottle
- 6 g
- of added fibre
- 6
- flavours
- 11+
- countries
Goli soda and ramune
Ramune is Japan's marble soda, in a bottle of the same design. The two are cousins rather than twins: different countries, different flavours and different customs around them, the same marble and the same pop. The comparison has a page of its own in the Pop Journal.