Wanted to try an energy drink since I usually never drink them but didn’t want one with tons of sugar etc but also didn’t taste terrible. This would just be a once in a great while occasion.
Ginger Ale. 0% caffeine. There’s also sugar-free versions.
Canada Dry makes a damn good zero-sugar ginger ale
Vast majority don’t, but I found after awhile that my favorite does (Ale8). That was on me - it’s clearly marked.
Seltzer
I just wish it wasn’t so expensive. I can pick up a big case of cola for cheaper than a modest sized case of fizzy water.
You should be able to find it for the same price as most other sodas. Admittedly it is one of the only canned beverages that doesn’t go on sale though so that’s probably what you mean.
You say carbonated drink in the title but specify energy drink in your text. I don’t think there are any energy drinks that avoid caffeine. It is one of the cheapest means to chemically boost alertness the food industry is allowed to use.
Non energy drinks should be extremely easy to find. Literally read the ingredients list. Caffeine will either be in the list as it is an additive, or listed in the daily allowance chart (if your country uses those). If you don’t find it in either you’re good.
(The person you’re replying to isn’t the OP)
Get yourself a countertop carbonator like a Sodastream or Drinkmate.
I have a Drinkmate, and they have a CO2 cylinder exchange program where you can get a heavy discount on more cylinders by returning the empty ones beforehand (prepaid shipping label included with cylinder packs.)
Other than the initial cost of the machine and any additional cylinders you want (I have a total of five, so I can install the last one and ship back four empties for a coupon, but that’s probably a little overkill for one person), the ongoing cost is reasonable. I make 1-2L of soda water pretty much every day and I get a little over a month out of each cylinder. Works out to less than $15 a month for me.
Sodastream is from Israel, so that’s a big no from me. Only learned that recently when I was considering if I should buy one.
Not heard of Drinkmate before. Thanks for reigniting my hopes of home made carbonated water!
That’s interesting, didn’t know that either. I would normally caution against painting an Israeli business the same as the Israeli government, but I skimmed their Wikipedia article and it looks like the company has treated Palestinians pretty badly itself :(
Truthfully, I couldn’t remember any of the other competitor brands that I considered when deciding on a Drinkmate originally. Sodastream was just the one that came to mind.
what does the country of origin matter? I just want carbonated drink lol
It is useful information for me: I love seltzer, and I am in favor of boycotting Israeli products for the time being. If it doesn’t matter to you, that’s your choice.
It’s kinda like how vegans don’t eat meat thinking they’re solving anything when there will be people who eat meat anyways thus making it irrelevant
I’m also vegetarian, so it’s pretty clear that we think about things differently 😂
My one small part is something I have control over, but I understand feeling like a drop in the bucket, too
No, animal slaughter is not comparable to genocide. Don’t compare humans to pigs. Don’t compare yourself to human beings ever again, because you’re a soulless beast.
Why do you need to get it from the shittiest source possible if the country of origin doesn’t matter
Yeah I’m not gonna debate preferences of country with you.
Not debating indefensible choices is expected.
There’s a paintball place near me that advertised that they refill soda stream tanks.
Don’t play paintball, and don’t have a soda stream, but I remember this for some reason.
That’s mildly concerning! There are risks associated with using less-than food-grade CO2 in beverages.
I do this too. Then I discovered spindrifts and find them fucking delicious, so I started making my own spindrift at home by squeezing fresh lemons or limes into a cup before filling with homemade soda water.
I haven’t actually done the math but I think this system is more economical than bulk-buying cans of spindrift
Grapefruit spindrift + mezcal + lime juice. Seriously the best low-key cocktail.
Polar Springs and Waterloo are both good options. I love Topo Chico but apparently it has a lot of PFAS
Many root beers don’t have caffeine, or rather there are a few brands that introduce a small amount for taste or other reason. And there’s lots of variations in taste in those.
I’m always perplexed by surveys that ask about brand loyalties and “on a scale of 1-10 how likely are you to recommend X product to your family, friends” questions.
But reading this thread, I can see there’s a lot of people that buy into these.
I’ve always wondered how they expect people to answer those. I rarely recommend specific brands to people even if I really like them, so do I answer 1? Or are they secretly asking how much I like the product and I’m supposed to answer 10 even if I’d never make the recommendation?
I don’t have any brand loyalty, but I do get certain brands of things because I know I don’t like the other stuff.
Maybe they’re bots or redditors
V8 Energy is pretty good. The caffeine amount is relatively low and the ingredients are decent.
Tap water
Topo Chico or San Pellegrino. Sparkling mineral water in general. Gotta have those minerals, though.
It took me a long time to realize that la Croix and sparkling waters aren’t lacking flavor. It’s that my palette was so overwhelmed with sugar that I couldn’t taste those flavors. Once I stopped drinking soda everything else kind of popped with flavor
Yeah, I honestly don’t know how la croix does it, but that water has serious flavor, without any of that gross chemical aftertaste. I drink so much la croix…
Topo Chico is what Austinites call water.
Isn’t San Pellegrino Nestle?
News to me, I thought it was Italian.
The no caffeine sodas I like best have too much sugar to drink often. Ginger Beer and Jarritos Grapefruit soda.
I really enjoy the Bubly canned sparking water. Cheaper than Perrier, so many different flavours, and zero sugar or caffeine.
Plain sparkling water is like drinking alkaseltzer to me. gags just thinking about it
I’d rather drink regular water than these drinks that taste like you refilled a glass that had previously been used for a drink that actually had flavor, but enjoy it if that works for you. It’s certainly healthier than regular sodas.
Just don’t. There’s not too much of a benefit but adding to the grocery budget. 1-2 Monster a day habits add up quick.
For lower amounts of caffeine I was going to suggest a tea of some kind - but if it we’d like for it to carbonated then maybe Kombucha?
My post literally says once in a great while occasion, but I have a disposable income anyways
Soda water
Sunkist orange soda or my preference, Barqs root beer. Both have a very limited amount of caffeine to impact the flavor. “Barqs has bite” because it has a tiny amount of caffeine. Caffeine has an apparently bitter taste.
Target’s got a caffeinated Seltzer I am all about. They have a few fruit flavors, then a few sods mimicking flavors.
There’s quite a few caffeine free, sugar free sodas, at least in the states. Taste is subjective tho
But within artificial sweeteners, which might be even worse for our health than sugar.
I look into this every few years and have yet to see any evidence of it. Even the scale alone means any of them would have to be orders of magnitude worse than high fructose corn syrup or sucrose to be worrying, since they’re multiple orders of magnitude sweeter.
For a comparable level of sweetness to HFCS, a serving of artificial sweeteners is a fraction of their Acceptable Daily Intake.
La Croix
