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Orange Cream: Is the new Coca-Cola flavour coming to us?
by Patrick Vogt
Help, I'm drinking like a child!
27.3.2026
Translation: machine translated
Coffee? Bitter and scary! Beer? Bitter and gruesome! I don't conform to the beverage mainstream at all and prefer a fine syrup to a good wine. Why this is sometimes exhausting.
I can't just drink water. Doesn't have enough flavour for me. Sure, it would be the healthiest thing. But I forget to drink when only water is available to me. Probably because drinking water is not an «» experience for me. Not a taste experience. I realise that sounds like something from a bad commercial from the past.
Maybe that's the point: I'm a child of the 80s and 90s who hasn't grown up when it comes to drinks. Editorial colleague Patrick Vogt seems to feel the same way. Whenever a new sweet drink is launched on the market, he is at the forefront.
My childhood and youth are characterised by flavoured drinks: Rivella, Sprite, iced tea, Himbo, Seven-Up, Bilz, Fanta, Citro, Flauder, Cola, Sinalco. I can even remember drinking Crystal Pepsi as a child (I liked it, I think).
Please not bitter!
Sugar was my drug. As a young adult, I mixed it with alcohol from time to time. Vodka cola, whiskey cola, rum cola and the occasional vodka red bull (I wouldn't do that today, of course).
Did it taste good? Yes. Did it do any harm? Apart from one or two holes in my teeth and a bit of damaged enamel, I can't complain.
Not much has changed since then. I still loathe anything that tastes bitter, which means no coffee, no beer, no Aperol spritz for me. Where many people like to pretend that it is extremely important to them what they consume and how, I can't have a say - and I don't want to. A full bouquet and fruity finish in wine - good for you. Whether the coffee is lungo, venti or from an exquisite plantation in Ecuador - I couldn't care less; I don't drink any.
So etwas findest du nicht in meinem Haushalt.
I could also have trained enthusiasm
Now you might think that God knows I'm missing out on something because I'm spurning oh-so-indulgent pleasures. But I'm not missing anything. Which is not to say that I'm not sometimes a little envious of the enthusiasm with which others rave about their morning coffee («Highlight of the day») or a fine drop of fermented grape juice («aged to perfection»). Just as I am occasionally a little envious of how fanatically people can celebrate a football team.
Source: Reto Hunziker
This enthusiasm is - at least I think - something I've learnt anyway. If I wanted to, I could celebrate Pepsi Zero, my current favourite drink, in exactly the same way: sparkling, refreshing, fizzing with acidity. After all, tastes are different and no one is better than another. Maybe I should become a soft drink sommelier: «I recommend a Rivella Blue with your spinach potatoes.»
You'll still get a bit of a funny look if you don't like wine, beer or spritzes. In any case, my time in the military was no walk in the park (but all the more of a sugar binge). I now even fundamentally question whether it makes sense to drink alcohol (not really, is it?).
Mein aktuelles Lieblingsgetränk: Ist Cola und schmeckt nach Cola. Erfüllt.
Artificial is also a bummer
Perhaps sweet drinks are my only vice: nutritionally speaking. Although it's debatable how big the vice really is, especially as I mainly consume zero products, or Pepsi Zero.
How did I come to this conclusion? By process of elimination. Drinking too much sugar as an adult is just as unreasonable as ingesting a low dose of neurotoxin. Diluting syrup heavily, on the other hand, works. I can highly recommend the syrups from Sirupier de Berne, but they do cost a little.
I wasn't convinced by effervescent tablets like Dropz: they either have too little flavour or a disgusting one (cola, for example, doesn't taste like cola at all).
Soll Cola sein, schmeckt aber überhaupt nicht danach. Nicht erfüllt!
I experimented with Sodastream for a while. There too: most of the flavours are undrinkable. The Sodastream cola (Pepsi) is just about okay, but it also tastes very artificial. At least I can dose it myself, so I can only make it slightly artificial. This sentence alone shows that I am not a gourmand - let alone authorised to judge others based on their drinking behaviour.
I can clearly distance myself from the pretentious gourmands, but I'm not one of the super-healthy and additive-averse either. I'm neither a nihilist nor a hedonist, but I'm still tricky when it comes to booze.
Syrups
Quantity discount
CHF7.25 per piece for 2 units CHF16.48/1l
SodaStream Syrup 7Up free lime/lemon 440 ml
1 x 44 cl
Kann man notfalls machen, muss man aber nicht.
If a child, then happy
Wait, is this all a big allegory? À la: Tell me what you drink and I'll tell you who you are? What would that say about me? Let me put a positive spin on it: I have preserved the happy inner child in me.
So what's the problem? Apart from the fact that I have a drinking habit that is more associated with a child than an adult. Except that the dentist advises me to drink fewer acidic drinks. Except that I find it difficult because water is too flat for me. Except that I have three bottles of syrup at home instead of three bottles of wine. Except that I bring home nine litres of Pepsi almost every week. Except that I'm an exotic drinker.
The way I see it, there's no problem at all. Or do you have one with that?
PS: I recently sipped another coffee. It was terrible.
Header image: Patrick Vogt
I'm a freelance journalist, communications manager and versatile writer. I prefer to write about topics that fall somewhere between drivel and social relevance.
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