Laravel 4: reading cookies set by javascript
Just use the native PHP command to retrieve cookies: $_COOKIE['cookie'])
Or perhaps you can set the cookie via an AJAX command (rather than JS doing it itself) - and have Laravel set the cookie supplied by JS on its behalf?
This link confirms setting cookies via AJAX - it will just be a variation of that.
In Laravel 5.6 (and maybe earlier versions too):
Specify the cookie name in the $except array within App\Http\Middleware\EncryptCookies.php.
It tells Laravel that those cookies aren't encrypted (and therefore don't need to be decrypted when read).
(P.S. Thanks to https://github.com/laravel/laravel/pull/460#issuecomment-377537771)