Carbonated non-alcoholic drinks of choice?

[Findecanor]

Trocadero.
Orange, apple, vanilla, caffeine, phosphoric acid. Does not taste specifically of apple or orange, just "fruity".

[Redmaus]

If I ever buy a keyboard from a Swedish user, I should remember to ask for a bottle of that it looks quite good.

I love fruit flavored drinks.

[shreebles]

It looks really good. I would like to try Trocadero.

But I also agree that almost any soft drink out there is too sugary to drink often. Mate-based drinks are great, as Halvar and others mentioned, but not all of them taste good.

Club Mate is of course the classic, but I like to change it up sometimes and buy Club Mate "Ice-T" (more caffeine!) or the recent pomegranate version, which is more fruity but also tastes a bit like bubblegum.

Spoiler:

[StreetWizard]

I bought lime perrier as joke once and now I can't get enough of that shit.
Also root beer is p good.

[andrewjoy]

Very true. Coke actually tried to create a Pepsi-like product at one point using a sweeter formula. It failed miserably because they tried to market it with a different name from "normal" Coke, alienating people who were hooked on the brand and not the product.

Coke's slightly more bitter and complex flavor isn't for everyone, and the aftertaste (which, as I mentioned, is why I drink it) is a subjective pleasure. I think it also has a bit more carbonation going for it. Some people say it's easier to drink large quantities of Coke because it's "smoother." Reminds me of Nutmeg.

Pepsi is much more appealing to sweet-lovers -- higher sugar content and an aggressive up-front flavor. In "sip" tests, Pepsi often wins. The aftertaste, however, I find less than appealing.

I like BARR cola myself , from the creators of iron brew , dont get me wrong classic Coca Cola is nice ( in a glass bottle) but BARR do the best sugar free stuff. Pepsi is nasty.

[recon8659]

My Favorites, In order of best to worst (although worst is still really good)
Root Beer (A&W particularly, or some of the specialty glass-bottled ones)
Ginger Ale
Cream Soda

And if you include energy drinks, "Rip Its" are really cheap compared to some of the alternative. And besides the stupid name they're pretty good.

[Panter]

I too really enjoy most of the (Club) Mate related drinks, with the 'winter special' as my favorite. I also really like a good cold glass of root beer though

[shreebles]

I don't think I ever had the Winter one. Maybe once, but I don't remember it. While most small corner shops stock between one and three kinds of Mate these days, Winter Edition was never one of them.

[ohaimark]

I think I would enjoy coca leaf based drinks if said leaves provided the aftertaste in Coke... But my local gas stations don't really stock such things.

I'd need to go to a specialty store, and the only specialty stores I know of locally are Asian markets (strawberry ice cream mochi -- yum!).

[Panter]

I don't think I ever had the Winter one. Maybe once, but I don't remember it. While most small corner shops stock between one and three kinds of Mate these days, Winter Edition was never one of them.

Mate isn't available in the stores around here, so my friends and I buy through a wholesale business. They don't always have the Winter edition available, but when they do, we buy as much as we can:P I would describe it as the regular Mate with some winter-y spices added to it.

[davkol]

Necromancy, I know.

I was searching for something and found the following comment and then this thread…

Trouble is, I like fizzy drinks and the non-artificially-sweetened variety are 170 cals/can. If I'm going to blow that many calories, I'd rather have a beer! Fortunately I'm not the "half a dozen colas a day" type addict but I do like a can of something fizzy in the evening to get rid of the toothpaste from my mouth, something they seem to make using permafroth these days.

I find it curious that more people don't use a soda siphon. It's cheap, unsweetened by default,…

Even if your tap water sucks (and you don't want to filter it), bottled spring water is often sold already carbonated and unsweetened.

Additionally, kombucha is naturally carbonated (and barely alcoholic).

[Icarium]

Club-Mate?

[CaesarAZealad]

Dr Pepper

[del20nd]

I used to drink allot of flavored seltzer, but got off of these recently.

If I'm going to have a soda, it's usually a diet coke, but that's a once monthly occurrence at most.. Twice a year or so, it it's available at a restaurant or deli, I'll let myself have a regular cream soda.

[Julle]

I recently found this drink, a mixture of tonic water and espresso. I was skeptical at first, but it really is a delicious drink.

[Muirium]

Might try that with my stovetop espresso sometime.

[fohat]

For many years tonic water was my soft drink of choice, until I pretty much gave up ordinary soft drinks because of the ludicrous amount of sugar. "Diet" tonic is an abomination, artificial sweeteners and quinine are a blasphemous combination.

These days I do enjoy seltzer water, but that is hardly the same.

[TNT]

Carbonated Milk, anyone?

[Muirium]

Too gooey. (The thicker the better with real milk, but even low fat skimmed is slime instead of fluid.) Maybe oat milk?

[hellothere]

I noticed a previous post about Ramune. I second that choice. I like both the strawberry and orange flavors. It's way too expensive in the US, at about $1.80 a bottle, so I get them when they're on sale. They're sold in the grocery stores out here.

I really like A&W root beer from draft, which is at the few A&W / Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants out here.

Mexico makes Coke in 16oz glass bottles and they're made with real sugar. They're about $1.25 a bottle out here in Arizona.

There's a comedian that said something like, "Carbonated water tastes like TV static." I agree.

[Muirium]

Good root beer in America. I'll give you guys that. It's a drink largely unknown in these parts, though you can find the Aussie stuff if you know where to look…

[Shorle]

I must chime in on this one since it's basically the origin of my username:
Schorle, internationally mostly known as Spritzer, is a mix of carbonated water and juice. It's refreshing and comes in as many different flavours as there are juices and juice-mix-combinations in the world.
While Apfelschorle (apple-spritzer) is the most common I personally prefer orange and citrus based versions and for a less sweet and sour variant the Gewöhnliche Moosbeere.

[Wodan]

Can't beat sparkling bilk

[CaesarAZealad]

Dr Pepper

I quit two weeks ago and now I don't know what to drink DX

[Maledicted]

Good root beer in America. I'll give you guys that. It's a drink largely unknown in these parts, though you can find the Aussie stuff if you know where to look…

If you like root beer, try some Sprecher the next time you're in the states. Best stuff I have ever had. No idea how common it is in far-flung parts of the country though. Most likely to find it in the midwest, primarily Wisconsin. Their ginger beer is great too if you like spicy ginger. I found the cheap Kroger ginger beer is great too though.

Dr Pepper

I quit two weeks ago and now I don't know what to drink DX

If you're trying to be healthier, Kroger used to make Dr. Pepper and root beer seltzer under the Fizz & Co brand. For some inexplicable reason they discontinued the whole line to make some mediocre fruit sodas instead. The root beer was like 95% as good as sugary root beer since root beer really doesn't need to be sweet anyway. Their Dr. Pepper knockoff was maybe 80%. Pretty great for no sugar or substitutes. If people put enough pressure on them, maybe they'll bring them back.

Two things they have released recently that I think are amazing are their watermelon and strawberry lemonade seltzers. Both easily compete with the more expensive Polar brand, and the strawberry lemonade is nearly as good as actually strawberry lemonade. Best seltzer I have ever had besides maybe the root beer.

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For soda, Pibb Xtra, Dr. Pepper and RC cola are my go-tos.

[CaesarAZealad]

Yeah I've been on the lookout for something to replace it, but most of the options are sadly a bit too out of reach. Guess I'll just stick to water for now

[Maledicted]

Yeah I've been on the lookout for something to replace it, but most of the options are sadly a bit too out of reach. Guess I'll just stick to water for now

What sort of seltzer brands have you got near you? If not Kroger, Polar has some great flavors (orange vanilla and black cherry are my favorites). Most of Aha's flavors are good. Bubly has some, mostly watermelon. Waterloo and Spindrift are good as well. Kirkland's stuff isn't bad if you have a Costco around.

Never tried anything from La Croix that wasn't gross, which is probably why people don't bother with the rest.

Some of the supposedly 0 calorie Monsters are pretty good and you really can't even tell they don't have sugar. Who knows what kind of Pandora's box some of those sugar substitutes open though. I know the stuff with aspartame has a terrible aftertaste and literally gives me headaches.

[CaesarAZealad]

We have polar here in the northeast US. Some of their stuff is good, but it never really scratches that same itch. Dr Pepper zero was a good thing to ween me off the sugar aspect, but it still has caffeine which is the real reason I gave up Dr Pepper. I guess I'll have to keep looking for something that captures the same 23 flavors I'm used to :L

[guidemetothelight]

more of a black tea with milk type of person but when I drink something with fizz (and sweet) then its this.

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or some kind of mate.

[Julle]

I've got to give Fentimans Curiosity Cola a shoutout. It's has a really nice vegetal, herbal, and spicy taste, and it's not too sweet.
They have other interesting drinks available as well.

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