Soft Drinks

Soft drinks--what CAN'T they do?

Satisfy your thirst? Check.

Provide your sugar fix? Double-check.

Satisfy a specific flavor craving? No problem there. Your average supermarket will have your choice of cherry soda, orange soda, grape soda, cream soda, lime soda, lemon-lime soda, watermelon soda, vanilla soda, cherry vanilla soda, and, of course, root beer.

Or do you want your thirst satisfied WITHOUT all that nasty sugar? No shortage of dietary choices out there.

But do you want your thirst satisfied without all that nasty sugar but also without sacrificing that delicious taste of authentic sugar? Manufacturers are still working on that.

Perhaps you don’t care about taste or sugar at all. Maybe you just need a quick energy fix. There are energy drinks galore, crammed with extra caffeine, sugar, and the organic acid "taurine." (Get it? Taurine? Taurus? Red BULL?)

What about the opposite effect? Suppose you don't want to pep up; you want to calm down. Soft drinks can do that, too. Meet the new line of relaxation soft drinks, fortified with the same soothing ingredients as green tea.

And what if you don't want ANY of the above, you just want a tasteless beverage with fizzy bubbles in it? There’s club soda, and, a close second, ginger ale.

But to return to our original question, there is one challenge soft drink manufacturers have NOT mastered yet--retaining carbonation once the bottle has been opened for any significant amount of time. Therefore, unless you're in a household full of soda addicts (aka "children"), buying cans or those adorably retro pint bottles may be the way to go.

So, rest assured, there’s an ideal soft drink for you—unless your doctor tells you to avoid carbonation.