The Perfect Beverage...

2024-02-05

...does not exist. Everything I drink has drawbacks. Carbonated beverages are much in the news for contributing to obesity, rotting your teeth, causing cancer, exacerbating diabetes. Despite the negatives, I enjoy caffeine-free Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi. Diet A&W Root Beer is good. I like an occasional diet Sprite.

I haven't given up on coffee, though Decaf is my jam.

I also like hot chocolate/hot cocoa in the winter.

Not shown above is an assortment box of hot cocoa mixes. The one I'm enjoying now is from Entenmanns.

For cold chocolate, Atkins makes a Dark Chocolate Royale protein shake I'm fond of. Also a Root Beer Float I'm less fond of, but I have some.

My other hot beverage go-to (Much more than coffee or cocoa) is tea. Decaf, of course. I have a lot more tea than the others, and it's easier to brew.

The boxes of teabags are stored two deep. When I say easier to brew, I take into account that coffee needs a serving of cream or creamer (preference: Half&Half) as well as artificial sweetener. Tea just needs the sweetener. What sweetener?

The last main beverage is of course water. I have a filtered jug in the refrigerator and bottled water in the pantry. I should drink more water. The problem is that water has no flavor, and I tend to drink too much. I'd rather run it through the Keurig and turn it into a hot beverage.

One perversion I've suffered for fifty years is something that Bob Mayer has his character Vince from the Liz Danger trilogy enjoy. That's the mixing of coffee with hot chocolate. I did it in the Navy and I do it now, although now it's six ounces of Keurig cocoa to eight ounces of Keurig coffee. No more than once a fortnight.