ottawa foodies

A few years ago I gave up drinking juice due to the high sugar/sodium content in alot of store-bought juice. I usually have soy milk for breakfast and lunch but I like something a little fancier. I like Perrier and will often add a lemon slice or mix it with unsweetened cranberry juice from Upper Canada Cranberries or blueberry juice from Van Dyk's Wild Blueberry Juice for a sparkling cranberry/blueberry drink. But I would like to change things up a little. Does anyone have a favourite non-alcoholic beverage they like to enjoy? (It doesn't have to be Perrier based...)

Coffee!

San Pellegrino, any flavour, but likely not as healthy as you'd like.

zymurgist I understand the Bytowne Beanery makes awesome coffee-;) In all honesty though I wish I could still drink it but the caffeine keeps me awake at night and it gives me headaches. The joys of middle age...

Hungry Pete I do on occasion drink San Pellegrino since a friend of mine likes it so I have some handy when she stops by. I usually go with the flavourless though so I can add healthy stuff.

Elderflower Cocktail: some (+/- 2 Tbs) Elderflower drink concentrate from IKEA + a slice of lemon or lime, squeezed in + ~6 oz soda water or Perrier, etc., + ice + a slice of lemon or lime for garnish.
If you're in a hurry just ice cold water with the concentrate is nice 'n tasty too Pasta lover. I keep a bottle of conc. in the fridge.

Schorle - a German drink of about 1/3 juice and 2/3 carbonated water.

Iced tea / sweet tea / lemonade / Arnold Palmers / hot chocolate / milkshakes / water / horchata

Hall's apples makes a really nice sparkling cider. I usually buy it directly from them, but Glebe Metro may also carry it.

With rhubarb starting, I will make a lot of rhubarb syrup to have on hand and serve it with club soda.

A friend bought a bottle of Treewell sparkling maple sap. I haven't tried it, but was told it was good.
treewell.ca/en/purchase/

Edit to add:

Here is the recipe I use for rhubarb syrup. It also has other additions you can make to it:
www.thekitchn.com

Also, in the summer, mojitos are great. You can make it without the rum. Simple syrup, fresh limes & juice, mint, muddle it all and serve with club soda.

Blood orange San Pellegrino

Unsweetened coconut water

Iced honey lemon ginger green tea

Fresh juice from juicer - carrot, apple, ginger, celery

espresso smoothie using frozen coffee cubes to avoid dilution of flavour

water with a tbsp of apple cider vinegar (seemed odd at first but grew on me...started just to consume some ACV for health benefits)

water with lemon/lime or cucumber

Perrier with a squeeze of pink grapefruit...or pink grapefruit Perrier. Lime Perrier is also pretty refreshing.

There's also nothing like a nice cup of tea, and I don't mean herbal tea, good old orange pekoe is the thing.

I love my juicer. Current fav is apple, carrot, baby kale, spinach, orange. Any citrus juice, really. Really tart lemonades, limeades, grapefruitades (we need a better word for it). Homemade five alive.

If I am consuming sugar/caffeine, I do love a great root beer or ginger ale. Four seasons chocolate chai with maple syrup to sweeten.

San Pellegrino grapefruit (there is a trend forming here...)

Elderflower soda mixed with Sprite. I tried this at the Ikea cafeteria and it's delicious.

My go-to champagne-flute-esque cocktail is good quality ginger ale with kiju pom/cherry juice and a few pomegranate seeds floating in it.

Milk. Really cold, fresh milk. Cochrane's milk. Mmmmmm milk.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. It looks like San Pellegrino and grapefruit and elderflower seem to be trending but all suggestions sound delicious!

I went to an all day workshop at IDRC a few years ago and they left jugs of water at each table with fruit in them. The strawberry water was most popular. One more idea to add to the list.

I love to freeze fruit (mango & berries) and let it melt into my water, it is a very mild flavor, but yummy!

I also like to drink hot water with a cinnamon stick, the more you reuse it the sweeter the water gets.