Hi Zeldar, I reported your OP because I think it will have more legs if moved to CS, or anyway, out of the Game Room.
Anyway, water. Anything else is a distant, distant second for me. Coffee, fruit juice, Red Bull would be distant seconds. Coffee every morning, fruit juice and Red Bull (I know, I know) a few times per week.
Water by a mile.
After that I have a soft spot for cherry limeade, watermelon agua fresca, and Japanese peach water.
Iced tea is good too.
I may drink 4 or 5 sodas a year tops, just not into it.
Sweet tea, with a dash of lemonade, most of the day.
Diet cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper, when I can get it. (Apparently the Dr. Pepper Corp. has decided that it’s a beverage with strictly regional appeal, and only distributes it to certain parts of the country. My local grocery says they can’t even special-order it. But it’s included in the myriad choices in the soda machines that Burger King has started using.)
After we have 30 individuals contributing ideas (we have 22 at the moment) I’ll attempt a summary post of what’s been mentioned so far. I’d like to include some categories, so please mention those that seem appropriate to you – along with individual favorite beverages.
It’s possible we may want to have several preliminary polls for this world-changing issue!
“hot drinks” (coffee and tea will be the big ones),
“soda/pop” (PLEASE stop using “cola” as the first term for this – in everywhere but a restricted region of the US, that is a SPECIFIC kind of soda/pop);
Juices
Waters (plural, to include Perrier and the like – be sure to specify that these are NOT included in your “soda/pop” category, which is reserved for flavored carbonated drinks.)
Milk products, broadly speaking (includes lassi and shakes)
I just realized that horchata would be hard to categorize by my list of five categories. (I’d call jamaica a “juice,” even though it’s made by boiling the leaves of a plant – i.e., it’s a chilled “infusion,” a concept for which some people use the phrase “herbal tea,” which is silly, because tea is a specific plant – you know, the one with caffeine).
Also, if you go with my five categories (plus an “other” category), I recommend renaming the “hot drinks” category so it can include iced tea and iced coffee (and cold yerba mate – yum!).
I drink water (from the tap) almost exclusively, except for a couple beers during NFL games. After water, I’d say…actually, I can’t imagine drinking anything other than water.
I used to drink all soda, all the time, but switched to water around ten years ago. For the first couple months, water tasted flat and boring. After a year or so, water tasted like the most refreshing, delicious thing in the world, and anything else (soda, orange juice, whatever) felt dirty and muddled.
Drink water long enough and everything else becomes kind of gross.