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.
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
Why do you need to get it from the shittiest source possible if the country of origin doesn’t matter
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
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?
Maybe they’re bots or redditors
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?
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
Topo Chico is what Austinites call water.
Isn’t San Pellegrino Nestle?
News to me, I thought it was Italian.
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.
Fresca.
This was going to be my choice until I realized they wanted some caffeine.
Too bad fresca uses artificial sweeteners
I used to like the old fresca, too
The aspartame is a big part of Fresca’s flavor.
i’ll be honest idc about artificial sweeteners. We’re all gonna die anyways and we daily ingest microplastics.
Valid, I’m just not a fan of them personally
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Kombucha! Yum.
To most its an acquired taste but to me its like I can’t get enough!
Soda water
I’ve developed a taste for Sparkling Ice lately, especially their Black Cherry. It’s got a bit of real fruit juice in it and tastes way better than most other seltzer type drinks that usually rate somewhere from meh to vomit inducing.
They also have caffeinated versions but those have a bit too much for my liking.The only carbonated drink without caffeine, alcohol and sugar is non alcoholic beer.
It is really great, just find one which after taste does not bother you (most have some sweet aftertaste) and drink it cold. It is great drink.
Non alcoholic beer has lots of sugar https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-much-sugar-in-beer#various-types
Espresso Tonic ^^
Zero sugar “energy drink”? Does that even exist?
I’m thinking, “pasta water”. Like, save the water you cook pasta in (which tastes like… liquefied plain pasta aka not much of anything haha), add some zero-sugar flavoring (e.g. some of that Kool-Aid grape stuff you’re supposed to dump in bottles of water), and voila! Zero sugar energy drink that tastes like grape pasta but actually gives you long-term energy from all those starches/complex carbohydrates 👍