Yeh, yeh, I drink pop. Soda. Whatever. Not so much as I used to, but I drink the stuff. At least I no longer drink Pepsi, long my preferred cola (never really did develop a taste for Coca-Cola; it always came across as too sweet to me, for one thing). I stopped drinking sugar and corn syrup sweetened pops long ago, and in fact even went off carbonated soft drinks entirely for a while, since artificial sweeteners just didn’t make the grade for me, although I’d partaken of them for some time under a mistaken impression they’d help me control my middle age spread (they didn’t seem to).
A couple of years ago, though, I discovered a cola that’s not only sugar free but tastes better to my palate than my old fav, Pepsi:
Its only negative? No caffeine, but I certainly must drink enough coffee to make up for that! On top of its flavorful goodness, the artificial sweetener used is NOT aspartame, which I find objectionable on both aesthetic (IMO, it tastes like crap) and health grounds. Nope. DietRiteZero uses sucralose, which has become, as a result of my positive experience with this cola, my sweetener of choice even when baking (OK, that’s something I don’t do often, but when I do and a recipe calls for sugar, I usually substitute sucralose, now).
Oh, another big positive? One buck for 2-liter bottle. Better than most other pops.
But. Tightwad that I am, even though I enjoy drinking flavored water (when not drinking coffee or beer :-)), a buck for 2 liters is still kind of steep for my taste, so recently I’ve begun using clean DietRite 2-liter bottles, some sucralose and…
Much less than half the cost of the DietRite, tasty–in a “memories of childhood” kinda way–and did I say cheap? Since I use the “made by the same folks just not as well brand” of sucralose and often even the same sort of “made by the same folks just not as well brand” powdered drink flavorings, it works out to be not much more expensive than tap water. Not much–even when I use filtered water, since I clean and recycle my charcoal filters by refilling them with aquarium charcoal. (Yes, Virginia, you can do that too.)
So, yeh, I still drink the DietRite stuff when I want carbonated flavored “sugar” water, but Mr Tightwad exerts a wee tad too much influence on me, perhaps, and the even less expensive alternative works well for me… when coffee or beer’s not on the table.
I find that mainly what I want (aside from Coke with real sugar from time to time…) is bubbles. I’d be okay with just about anything as long as it had bubbles. 🙂
Yeh, it’s why I still drink a wee tad of the DietRite from time to time, even though I do get some nice bubbly from the beers I brew (we keep the DR on hand cos my Wonder Woman likes it and doesn’t drink beer… or even the sparkling cider I make, ‘cos the alcohol in it conflicts w/ a med she takes).
Then again, plain ole everyday water’s pretty good as well.
Until I was 40 I was a Coke drinker, then I drank Pepsi until I was 50, and for the past 17 years I only drink seltzer.
Nothing like a real cold seltzer.
Bubbly does make a difference, Bernie. I really have come to prefer my bubbles in beer or sparkling cider, but in almost any cold drinkable, bubbles are a Good Thing, IMO.