I Tried Every Drink from the Shelf

My Summer Drink Project

This summer, I gave myself a challenge: daily 5k run till September. My route always ends at the Whole Foods near my home, which has turned the chilled drink shelf by the hot bar into the finish line. I arrive sweaty, grab a drink that I have not tried before, finish it while walking home.

That routine gave me a very specific idea of what makes a good post run drink. I want something cold and crisp. Fizz is optional, but always welcomed. It should replenish some of the liquid I lost without turning into a sugar bomb, and it should not leave that fake sweetener taste (stevia taste) hanging around in my mouth.

Somehow, the drink shelf these days is packed with probiotic and prebiotic drinks from brands I have never heard of. Most sit in the carefully harmless range of about 20 to 40 calories, low enough that nobody feels guilty, while bacteria inside are allegedly good for the gut. Some even add protein. They are all positioned at eye level, so they are impossible to miss. Meanwhile, they have pushed aside my old favorites, the plain, old fashioned seltzers like La Croix and bubly.

So I decided to try them. Then I kept going. This is my record of the shelf, judged from the perspective of a sweaty runner walking home after a 5K.

Tier List

Tier	Drinks
S	Seven Teas, Just Ice Tea, Itoen Green & Jasmine Tea, Poland Spring Sparkling, Spindrift
A	Hal's Seltzer, Bear's Fruit, wildwonder, TEAS' TEA, Culture Pop, Evolution Fresh, De La Calle Tepache
B	Me & the Bees, OLIPOP, SunSip, Nixie Sparkling Water, Local Weather, 365 Organic Prebiotic Soda, Stiller's Soda, Poppi
C	Halfday, Waku, Hoplark Sparkling Tea / HopTea, Leisure Hydration, TRIP Mindful Blend, GORGIE
F	Swoon, RYL Tea, Steaz Green Tea, Humm Probiotic Kombucha

Every Drink, Ranked

Rank	Brand	Category	Flavor	Texture	Health	Tier	Notes
1	Seven Teas	Brewed iced tea	8.5	9.0	9.0	S	Benchmark. It tastes like actual tea, stays crisp all the way through, and finishes clean. I could grab this after almost any run and never get tired of it. Golden Honey and Georgia Peach were two of the best flavors but the calories were at the higher end (around 70 kCal)
2	Just Ice Tea	Brewed iced tea	9.1	8.5	8.5	S	One of my favorites. It reminds me of Honest Tea, which makes sense because Honest Tea's cofounder Seth Goldman launched this brand. It tastes familiar without feeling boring.
3	Itoen Bottled Tea	Japanese unsweetened tea	8.5	9.0	9.5	S	This tea is everywhere and come with all kinds of flavors. It is basically flavored water, but more refined and pricier.
4	Spindrift	Real fruit sparkling water	8.6	9.5	9.0	S	This is probably the closest thing to the seltzers I already love, just with a little real fruit. It is crisp, affordable $1.19, easy to drink, and the default choice after a run.
5	Poland Spring Sparkling	Flavored sparkling spring water	8.6	9.5	9.5	S	Zero calories, zero sugar, zero sweetener, zero nothing with and plenty of fizz. It does exactly what I want a post run drink to do without trying to turn hydration into a wellness project.
6	Hal's Seltzer	Flavored seltzer	8.5	9.5	9.0	A	Big bottle (600 ml), cold, fizzy, cheap, and uncomplicated. For my purpose, this is almost interchangeable with Spindrift, you can find it even at the self checkout counter.
7	Bear's Fruit	Probiotic sparkling water	8.5	9.0	9.5	A	One of the few functional drinks that remembers it still has to be refreshing. The fruit tastes real, the amount of bubbles feel just right.
8	wildwonder	Prebiotic and probiotic soda	8.5	9.0	9.0	A	Surprisingly excellent. The drink is asian owned and there's a little story written on the back. The fruit and botanical combinations are interesting, although I notice a little cloud of extract like aroma after every sip. It is also pricy ($3.5), but this is one of the rare trendy drinks that I would buy again. I tried all 5 flavors and they are equally good.
9	TEAS' TEA	Unsweetened bottled tea	8.2	9.0	9.0	A	This is especially good when it is served cold. It is the Whole Foods version of the Itoen tea not quite as polished. This is an excellent backup.
10	Culture Pop	Probiotic soda	8.5	8.0	8.5	A	This feels more like a beverage than hydration, but it stays dry enough to remain refreshing. I like the botanical flavors, and it does not hit me with the syrupy weight of a normal soda.
11	Evolution Fresh	Cold pressed juice	8.5	8.0	6.0	A	The first sip is surprisingly delicious. The problem is that every sip after that feels worse, so the satisfaction drops as the bottle goes on. Citrus Ginger has a lot of naturally occurring sugar, which makes this more reward than refresher.
12	De La Calle Tepache	Fermented pineapple soda	8.2	8.0	7.5	A	Genuinely flavorful and much more interesting. It is not as crisp as seltzer, but the fermented pineapple and spice made it taste interesting, feels like something you would find from the Airport vending machine in Santiago Chile
13	Me & the Bees	Lemonade	8.0	9.0	4.0	B	Great mouthfeel and real sweetness. The problem is that it is too sweet.
14	OLIPOP	Prebiotic soda	8.0	7.0	8.0	B	A good soda replacement, but it feels thick next to the drinks I rank highest. I can appreciate it as a functional soda, something that a high end gym might offer. I just do not find it especially crisp after a run.
15	SunSip	Prebiotic soda	7.8	7.5	8.0	B	Very close to OLIPOP in both idea and experience. I appreciate that it does not contain any stevia (the nasty sweetener), although it still uses monk fruit. It is pleasant, reasonably light, and not something I would go out of my way to find.
16	Nixie Sparkling Water	Sparkling water	7.5	7.0	9.5	B	It gets the job done and the packaging looks great. There is no sugar or sweetener, which I appreciate, but the flavor has no personality that I forget it as soon as the can is empty.
17	Local Weather	Sports drink	7.5	7.0	8.0	B	This is not crisp enough for casual drinking, but it makes more sense after a truly hot long run or an intense tennis session than many drinks ranked above it. The sodium and potassium are useful when I have sweated a lot. I just wish it skipped the stevia and the crowded list of functional ingredients.
18	365 Organic Prebiotic Soda	Prebiotic soda	7.2	7.5	7.5	B	Whole Foods made its own answer to the prebiotic soda wave, of course. It depends heavily on the flavor. A few are genuinely good (Caramelized Pineapple), while others (Strawberry Ginger) disappear into the giant category of drinks that are perfectly fine.
19	Stiller's Soda	Reduced sugar soda	8.0	7.5	6.5	B	Better than I expected, but not especially memorable.
20	Poppi	Prebiotic soda	7.5	8.0	7.0	B	Heavily promoted, piled up near the checkout. Easy to drink, decently fizzy, and acceptable. After trying this whole shelf, though, Poppi starts to feel redundant. I can name several versions of the same idea that I would rather have.
21	Halfday	Prebiotic iced tea	4.5	8.5	8.0	C	Reading the ingredients, this should work for me. In reality, the sweetener taste destroys the clean iced tea finish I am looking for. Just buy the itoen and dump some cane sugar in it, it would turn out better than halfday.
22	Waku	Herbal and prebiotic tea	5.0	7.5	8.5	C	A bad drink. The sweetener and fiber character take over my palate, so it never feels as refreshing as a simple bottle of real tea.
23	Hoplark Sparkling Tea / HopTea	Hopped sparkling tea	5.0	8.0	9.0	C	I respect how simple some of the ingredient lists are, but hops turn the aroma and bitterness toward beer. Interesting experiment, wrong flavor profile for what I want after a run.
24	Leisure Hydration	Functional hydration	6.5	6.5	6.5	C	It is fine, but I feel like I am drinking an ingredient list. Nothing about it gives me that clean, cold, instantly refreshed feeling.
25	TRIP Mindful Blend	Functional nonalcoholic cocktail	7.0	6.0	7.0	C	This left almost no impression on me. I looked it up online afterwards, it makes more sense as a calming cocktail alternative than as something to grab at the end of a 5K, which probably explains why it feels misplaced in this ranking.
26	GORGIE	Energy drink	7.0	7.0	5.5	C	It does not taste awful, but 150 milligrams of caffeine and a stevia style finish are the not what I am looking for. This is a redbull pretending to stand near the refreshment section.
27	Swoon	Zero sugar lemonade	4.0	6.0	7.5	F	Don't try it, the artificial sweetness crashes directly into the lemonade acidity, and I cannot get past it.
28	RYL Tea	Zero sugar flavored tea	4.0	5.5	7.0	F	This is exactly what I do not want from bottled tea. Tea already provides plenty of flavor and structure, yet this still gives me a loud sweetener taste.
29	Steaz Green Tea	Flavored green tea	5.8	5.5	7.0	F	Why is this on the shelf? Some versions are surprisingly sugary, while others use stevia. Either way, it moves farther away from the simple cold tea I actually want.
30	Humm Probiotic Kombucha	Kombucha	3.0	4.0	8.0	F	I understand the probiotic argument, but I do not enjoy drinking this. To me, it tastes like sparkling apple cider vinegar mixed with kombucha, which is somehow exactly as rough as it sounds.