My favorite drinks are wine, green tea, gin, coffee, and beer. But I’d like to cut down a bit on alcohol and caffeine, so I’m looking for a soft drink to add to my list.
I drink Coke about once a year. I want to avoid sodapop, high-fructose corn syrup, etc. I’m not fond of sweet drinks; I leave the sugar out of my coffee, and I like my wine and cocktails dry.
Right now my leading contenders are grapefruit juice, and that ginger beer they have at Trader Joe’s.
Seltzer water? They sell plain, like club soda, and flavored with artificial sweetener. I’ve been drinking lime or peach, with a squeeze of lemon, on ice. (Every mention of grapefruit juice these days prompts the warning that grapefruit juice reacts with many medications, so beware if you take them, even herbal supplements.)
My list of favorite drinks is pretty much like yours. And, like you, I’ve realized I can’t drink caffeine and/or alcohol all the time.
My favorites:
fizzy waters, the flavored ones that are flavored, but not at all sweet. Around here, the brands I can get are LaCroix and Mendota Springs.
Decaffeinated ice tea. I’ll make a big pitcher of various flavors and throw it in the fridge.
diet soft drinks. In general I don’t always like sweet drinks, but some are OK. Fresca is good, as is (as ZipperJJ recommends) ginger ales. I really like Vernor’s diet. I’d probably like the regular, but if I’m going to have calories, I want alcohol or caffeine too.
Plain ol’ ice water. Put a lemon or cucumber in it if you want to get fancy.
hot tea, when it’s not 95 degrees out. Like iced tea, there’s plenty of flavors. I like Celestial Seasonings the best.
In general, no fruit juices or full-sugar soft drinks. It makes no sense to me to cut back on caffeine and alcohol, just to replace it with something else I shouldn’t be going overboard on. Plus, way too many calories on full-sugar juice and soda.
I haven’t tried it, but there was a really astounding recipe for limeade here. Yeah, there’s a lot of sugar in it, so it goes against my above statement, but hoo-boy, that looks good enough to try at least once or twice.
You’re in Seattle - try this, Dry Soda. They’re local, and they have a tasting room, too. I’ve had a couple of their flavors, and they were great. They have juniper berry, lavender, lemongrass, kumquat, cucumber, vanilla bean, and rhubarb. They taste like a dry alcoholic drink without the alcohol. The juniper berry is like gin. Here are retail locations.
I have a sodastream machine and make similar mixtures at home.
You could try V8. And there’s a line of vegetable juices from V8 like that.
Trader Joe’s has a bunch of juices that don’t have sugar, like carrot juice or cranberry juice. I don’t think you’re supposed to drink the cranberry juice straight though. It tastes totally astringent to me.
I used to be addicted to caffeine. I drank nothing but Mountain Dew (early death, anyone?). I had splitting headaches all the time but I guess since soda had always been in my life I never made the connection until I finally switched to water with the occasional soda. My caffeine withdrawals were horrendous and convinced me to stop drinking caffeine entirely.
Now my drink of choice is Squirt. Absolutely fucking amazing and caffeine free. This might sound weird but, as good as it is already, it tastes x10 better when it’s ice cold. Sprite/Sierra Mist is my backup when there’s no Squirt.
There’s this ancient drink that is being rediscovered as probably the healthiest beverage to consume…EVER!!!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Water
I used to drink soft drinks and iced tea all the time, but about 15 years ago, I switched to just plain cold water. I still occasionally will have a soda or tea, or a beer or cocktail when we eat out, but 95% of the time I drink just filtered tap water.
Well, the OP stated that he liked gin, so can I presume he’s fond of tonic water, too? I love drinking tonic water, with or without gin; I find the taste very satisfying!
I’m with you. I drink several liters of water at my desk every day.
Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone. I’m going to try just about all of them (though I’ve already tried and rejected Squirt and V8). I’m looking forward to a summer of experimental drinks! Much obliged.
Ice Mountain makes a non-sweetened fruit flavored sparkling water that is delicious. I buy it at Costco. I like to mix it 50-50 with red wine and make ghetto sangria.
