Cool refreshing drinks (with Swiss ingredients)

The selection of soft drinks available in Swiss supermarkets is different (narrower) to other countries.

Personally I find sugary soft drinks are not refreshing as all the sugar makes me sluggish after less than a litre, and I don't like the taste of diet versions. Eventually, I think I found a good comprimise:

I buy low calorie Lemonade from Coop or Grapefruit (Zero) from Denner. (you cannot buy the former in Denner and the Coop version of the latter is not as good as the Denner version).

Then I mix with the lemonade with cheap orange juice The result is like Orangina. Lightly sparkling, not too heavy or fattening so you can drink plenty on a hot day.

I particularly like the Grapefruit version (Grapefruit Zero + Real Grapefruit juice). The fruit juice hides the taste of the artifical sweener, and the drink is lightly sparkling instead of flat. And also is pretty low in calories and sugar.

Then there is the good old fashionned Apfelschorle - popular in Germany, a half-half mixture of Apple juice and sparkling water.

I also found that shandy made from cheap German beer (Rheinheitsgebot) and low calorie lemonade is drinkable. (It does not taste as good as regular shandy, but is more refreshing due to the lack of sugar).

For chocolate milkshake, I put (unsweetened) cocoa powder into a bottle, and then shake it with milk to dissolve the cocoa, and leave it to stand for a few minutes. Sometimes I flavour it with whisky, coffee power, honey, almond liqueur, Amaretto, Cointreau or Batida de Coco.

Tonight (still on an experimental quest to quench my thirst), I put cocoa powder and orange juice into a bottle and shook it. It dissolved almost instantly. The result tasted like chocolate orange - I like it bitter.

All these drinks taste better chilled obviously.

There are good drinks available in Switzerland, but always quite expensive, and with a bit too much sugar.

When it counted to me, when I was below 22 and not yet drinking alcoholic beverages, the choice of softdrinks in Switzerland was miles better than the one in Italy, France (worst), Germany and Britain.

And to say it quite openly, on visits to these countries later on I was not positivily impressed at all. Possibly no longer below Swiss standards but hardly better. In case of France, Germany and Italy still below Swiss standards even past 2000 . And it in the UK in 2000 was not impressing either.

Am I right in guessing you were 22 in about 1972? In that case I have no idea what the choice of soft drinks would have been in Switzerland or nearby countries.

There are good soft drinks available in Switzerland. However, nothing I can drink several litres of without feeling queasy (too much sugar).

If you don't like very sugary drinks, why not take advantage of all the great syrups you can buy here? That's what I always do rather than bottled soft drinks. I particularly like the coop Bio line of syrups made from herbs:

The Orange-Melisse is wonderful on a hot day when mixed with sparkling water. And you can mix them too... like cranberry and mint. I also don't like very sugary drinks and I find a teaspoonful in half a liter is just about perfect... and certainly cost effective if that's a worry.

ok.. here I go again..... I'm thinking maybe the problem is not too much sugar but the several litres part.

I'd kill for ginger beer!!! The perfect summer drink (apart from Pimm's of course!!)

james, I don't know Zurich at all but most of the Indian shops down here stock Ginger beer ( and if you are ever down this way I can direct you to a Pimms supplier )

Thanks, I'll check some Indian shops! I'm not too desperate for Pimm's though, I bought a 1 ltr bottle in Gatwick recently, so I'm all set for a while!

Swiss ingredients - Absinth

Cool refreshing - Ice water (Swiss of course)

Not so sweet? - Use less or no sugar at all

Drink more than a litre?

Sorry Wolli, I really do not want to touch a nerve or patriotic feeling here but you should really visit a German Getränkemarkt and compare it with Switzerland again.

Even for something as Standard as Coke you get about five times the varieties in Germany. Maybe you never looked for them, but where can I find Cherry Coke here (or Vanilla Coke). I think it was even in 20minuten once that Coop now introduced at least the 0.5 l bottles of "MezzoMix" - for the German immigrants who continuously asked for it. Not the big bottles and not the sugar free varieties either... Unless you are looking for Rivella you can seriously get more varieties of soft drinks in any other country than Switzerland.

And do not get me started on beers... after five years I found some nice Swiss beers BTW:

but the offer of a Rio , the best source I found so far, is nowhere near a German equivalent. What does beer have to do with light summer drinks?

- In Holland was a very light Weissbier with a slice of lemon the typical girls summer drink.

- One of the best things against thirst is a alcohol free, ice cold and sweet-but-not-as-much-as-lemonade-sweet "Malzbier" or one of the fifty or so varieties of "beer with something" you can get in Germany. Here it is Panache or, er, Panache.

If you find regular Coke too sweet try some Mexican Coke from El Maiz . . . it's made with cane sugar rather than corn syrup and has a less cloying taste.

Before you drink your refreshing drink, stick your head under the tap to quench your thirst. When you're done, drink as much regular coke (or other soft drinks) as you like - you probably won't get through 200ml.

My favourite soft drink is Dublin Dr Pepper which I order from Dublin, Texas when I'm feeling especially frivolous. It's made to the original recipe with Cane Sugar instead of HFCS. Amazing.

With this weather we have been drinking 100% grapefruit juice (from Aldi) mixed with Sprite 50/50 and throw in a handfull of ice and fresh peppermint (we have a huge potfull on the balcony). Plus a shot of vodka if the kids are sleeping mmmm yummy.

Offtopic - mint is a must for me in summer, it goes in everthing salads/drinks ect, it also keeps the flies out if it is near a door. We bought one 10 cm pot 6 weeks ago, divided it into 4 pieces and put it in a 35cm pot, the pot is now completly covered/full of mint.

Rooibos Iced tea,

brew strong, and cool, or add ice cubes,

add sugar, lemon juice, orange juice

enjoy

I find the most refreshing when it's hot is to mix up a weak version of Migros' powdered iced tea- about 1 soup spoon of mix to a liter of water. Stir it up, set it on the table and enjoy watching my wife and child gulp it as I crack open an ice cold Budvar .

Oh my, I leave for a day and you make us sound like complete cheap as*es...Not that we aren't...

Ok, I find the most refreshing and perk me up drink what I am having right now, I made herb tea (two bags of Twinning Blackberry&Nettles in 500ml), let it sit to cool, then threw in some ice cubes. Yum. Or, when it gets really unbearably hot, I love mint, so really mild mint hearb tea it is, cooled. Melissa is nice in the evening.

Or when I feel like having something really nasty and unhealthy, I make watered down SodaClub Melon fizzy drink.

Did anyone try the chocolate orange drink idea (which I invented last night) ? - Mix chilled orange juice with cocoa powder and shake. I found it surprisingly palettable - a tiny bit sour. Perhaps I will try adding honey or Cointreau to make it sweeter.

Sorry that just doesn't exactly sound awesome. I can buy the orange plus cointreau... and needs something to dilute it down.

As for the cocoa powder... if it's 'dark' cocoa, maybe with pomegranate juice I can see it working...

Well at Sugar Lounge they serve "White Choco Cranberry Caipirinhas" and I love them... so if you get the mix right I guess it could be working.

A) In the 50ies, 60ies, 70ies, the choice of softdrinks in Switzerland was clearly leading the field, as it outside Switzerland tended to be between modest and miserable.

B) What you however have to look for are the "light" versions. Which are either without or just with minimal amounts of sugar.

C) I personally however feel that many "light" drinks have the flavour of cat-piss ..... I like to have wines and beers to be fairly strong and softdrinks tasty !