Sparkling Water
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AHA
Apple + Ginger (RIP)
We put off trying the AHA Apple + Ginger for a long time. We appreciate apples as a fruit, and definitely appreciate apples in theory, with their long mythological history and crazy biology. But apple drinks are another story. While we might appreciate a little cider here and there, either mulled or hard and dry, […]
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LaCroix
Apricot
Did you know that you can send us review requests? If not, it’s ok, we didn’t know either! But turns out, you can. Because recently we got an email from a fellow Bubblenaut requesting us to review this Apricot LaCroix, and, well, it kind of made our day. We will confess, though, our excitement waned […]
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Aura Bora
Basil Berry
One of the highlights of being a bubblenaut is getting to bask in the glow of Aura Bora. To be sure, we relish any opportunity to sit down with a new can of sparkling water in Proustian contemplation. But there’s no richer subject than the symbolic magdalene of all the sparkling waters than the Aura […]
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LaCroix
Beach Plum
New LaCroixs!!! It’s been about two or three weeks since LaCroix announced their newest trio of flavors, which they vaguely claim are inspired by “summer.” But it’s felt like two or three years to us, because we have been dying to get our hands on this evocative new lineup ever since they graced our Instagram […]
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Dram
Beauty Bubbles
Dram continues to surprise and delight us with its captivating simplicity, both in visual aesthetic and subtle, earthy flavor profiles. So when we saw that in addition to their original herbal waters and bitters, they also offered CBD Sparkling Water called “Beauty Bubbles”, we assumed this was a bespoke creation intended for us, and only […]
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LaCroix
Berry
We found a LaCroix Berry in the back of our fridge when scrounging around for today’s review and shrugged. (Possibly what everyone does when they find a LaCroix Berry in their fridge?) We haven’t reviewed a LaCroix in a while, so why not Berry? Even though it’s been sitting there all by its lonesome for […]
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Waterloo
Black Cherry
A Treatise on Cherry Flavoring. We’d like to start with an announcement: We recently learned that Cherries are scientifically classified as “Fleshy Drupes” and we will be using this term interchangeably from here on out. We also encourage the use of this term in any casual conversation. We can’t think of any exchange that wouldn’t […]
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LaCroix
Black Razzberry
Black Razzberry is the third and final offering in LaCroix’s new 2021 trinity of “summer” flavors, along with Beach Plum and Guava São Paulo. This new LaCroix lineup is a real thinker, the titles of each flavor densely packed with confusing wordplay, the can art exploring new modes of expression for LaCroix’s questionable aesthetic. Black […]
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bubly
Blackberry
It’s kind of wild to us that there aren’t more forays into blackberry sparkling water. Blackberries are objectively and inarguably the pinnacle of the berry kingdom, which is funny because technically they aren’t berries, they’re an “aggregate fruit, composed of small drupelets”. Also included in the “technically not berries” category are strawberries, raspberries, and mulberries, […]
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Langers Organic
Blood Orange
We recently stumbled upon this brand at our local Bristol Farms, and if you aren’t familiar with this pretentious grocery store, Bristol Farms is a “gourmet grocer” in California, self-described as “Your Extraordinary Food Store”, and it basically has a much smaller selection than a regular grocery store (as if Whole Foods was bizarrely stripped […]
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Sound
Blood Orange + Vanilla
Sound’s “tea-infused sparkling water” intrigued us. Ok, all sparkling water intrigues us, but we are especially suckers for an innovative flavor combination (Blueberry Cinnamon Hibiscus?!) and brands we’ve never heard of. (We’re looking for all of you, new brands and under-the-radar gems! Reach out!) AHA’s Citrus Green Tea is such a staple in the Bubbleverse […]
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bubly bounce
Blood Orange Grapefruit
Zing! says the chipper lil’ pop tab on bubly’s latest offering to the bubbleverse: the bubly bounce. Do you feel the spark between us? asks the frenetic, Lite-Brite inspired can, guaranteed to trigger trypophobia in the susceptible. As anyone familiar with us here at The Bubbleverse will know, we have felt many things regarding bubly, […]
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Ugly Drinks
Blue Raspberry
Ugly’s latest limited-edition drop is a time-honored, nostalgia-fueled flavor unicorn: the mysterious and enchanting flavor known as Blue Raspberry. A flavor both familiar as our own names, and yet as apocryphal as the Gospel of Thomas. We can conjure it in our minds instantly, and yet what even is it? After all our time on […]
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Waterloo
Blueberry
Real talk: Sometimes it feels like Waterloo exists simply to be the hipper, hipster alternative to LaCroix. As if a bunch of Austinites sat around drinking LaCroix and said to themselves, “how can we make this even more millennial?” And thus LaCroix faced its Waterloo. Despite the hipster shade, we’re big fans of Waterloo in […]
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AHA
Blueberry + Pomegranate
Periwinkle and garnet is an arresting visual combination, and it sent our hearts aflutter the first time we saw it: a little chromatic dignity amongst the neon shelves of sunshine yellows, bubble gum pinks and 80’s lime. So we had high hopes that this might be an elevated sparkling water as well. If you’re new […]
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Ugly Drinks
Butterscotch
We should preface this review by saying that we love Butterscotch. Love. So this will not be a neutral review. Even if this sparkling water were mediocre, we would still be Butterscotch apologists. This is a pro-Butterscotch sanctuary, and if you hate Butterscotch with an undying passion then you should probably see your way out […]
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Aura Bora
Cactus Rose
Every Aura Bora can is a work of art. Truly. This one features a panoply of mischievous desert owls plucking thorns and flowers from sentient saguaros. This drama unfolds against the red rocks of a bone-dry arroyo, watchful mountains shimmering in the distance. You can almost taste the peyote. The only thing rivaling the external […]
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Ugly Drinks
Candy Cane
When this limited-edition Candy Cane holiday offering from Ugly popped up in our inbox, we knew that we had to have it as our first foray into the Uglyverse. We love a refreshing mint on our palate, as evidenced by our obsessions with Good & Gather’s irrepressibly refreshing Cucumber Mint and Aura Bora’s sensory dream […]
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Dram
Cardamom & Black Tea
Is Dram the beauty queen of sparkling water brands? When we walked down the sparkling water aisle and saw them, we just couldn’t help but stop and stare at their arresting and elegant visual design. If there was a Venusian ideal for a sparkling water can, we would offer this to the heavenly bodies. The […]
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Weller
CBD Black Cherry
Like most good things in the world, Weller’s CBD sparkling waters hail from Colorado. What’s going on in Colorado? We’ll wager a guess. (🌿🚬) Seriously though, from our newest favorite hard seltzer to our all-time favorite CBD gummy, there is some real magic happening up in the Rocky Mountain State these days. (Confidential to Colorado: […]
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Untitled Art
CBD Grapefruit
Untitled Art is a brand that’s been on our radar for a while now, we’ve just never gotten around to trying them. From their fun, poppy CBD labels to their uniquely designed craft beer, we’ve kind of felt like they were up our alley. Every time you drink Untitled Art, you’re supporting an artist! That’s […]
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Weller
CBD Tangerine
We love to journey into the Wellerverse every now and again. These Fine Purveyors of CBD sparkling waters continue to impress with deliciously-executed flavor profiles and that sweet, sweet CBD that delivers maximum focus and chill, each and every time. Did you know where the Weller name comes from? We didn’t either. So, Weller-as-brand-name originates […]
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Weller
CBD Watermelon
Watermelon is a constant bugaboo in the bubbleverse. What passes for “watermelon” varies wildly from brand to brand and lands in “bubblegum” territory more often than not. As it turns out, watermelon flavor is “notoriously hard to produce artificially,” so everyone is kind of on their own to flounder out there in watermelon land. Weirdly, […]
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bubly
Cherry
Bubly’s a little hit or miss for us here at the Bubbleverse. While some of their flavors are standouts, or even unique in the field (like the Blackberry), others leave us unimpressed. This one left us dreading having to finish the can. Cherry is a flavor that’s been around for a looong time. Who […]
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LaCroix
Cherry Blossom
Spring has sprung! The Bubbleverse is finally shaking off the shackles of low key/high key Seasonal Affective Disorder, as we slowly emerge from the deep underworld journey that is Winter in the Northeast in a 150 year old stone church. Apologies that our frozen fingers have been out of commission for so long. But like […]
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Dram
Citrus & Blossoms
Do you ever wonder what life you could have led had the dial just been switched just even a mere notch to the right or the left? One decision here or there, and suddenly you’re making organic skincare at a cottage in the vineyards Santa Ynez, instead of slogging away with a bullsh*it sounding title […]
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AHA
Citrus + Green Tea
So it’s obligatory for us to begin any review of caffeinated sparkling water by talking about Hiballs, the life-changing divine nectar that reigns supreme in the bubbleverse. We would drink these all day, every day, if we could. But tragically, we can’t. We mean, we can, at one point we were drinking three a day. […]
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Rōzu
Clear Skies Hawaiian Jasmine
Ever since the effervescent Morning Bloom of Bulgarian Rose entered our lives, we’ve been low key obsessed with Rōzu and their wildly evocative and sublime floral sparkling waters. The pastel vibes, the genuinely superlative product, the strange invocations of circadian rhythms in the names of each flavor. So after polishing off the dewy morning bloom, […]
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LaCroix
Coconut
Okay. We’ve been avoiding doing a Coconut LaCroix review for a long time. In fact, we’ve been avoiding it since we first started this site. We’ve been a little downright tongue-tied around it, because (and here’s a big confession that will no doubt induce a Vulnerability Hangover), LaCroix Coconut is the most-consumed sparkling water in […]
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Good & Gather
Coconut Pineapple
Do you like piña coladas? And getting caught in the rain? If so, do we have the sparkling water for you. Please accept our sincerest apologies for getting Rupert Holmes’ timeless ode to infidelity attempts stuck in your head, but if you didn’t see a reference to this ear worm coming at some point, you […]
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bubly
Cranberry
Bubly Cranberry wasn’t really on our radar the way, say, Pamplemousse, or any AHA is. Maybe it’s the combo of feeling like Cranberry should be a seasonal offering only, and within the realm of seasonal offerings, should be relegated to a brand that can deftly execute subtly and seasonality. Like Ugly did with their epic […]
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Good & Gather
Cranberry Citrus
Cranberry is not the first thing that comes to mind for us when it comes to sparkling water flavor mainstays. $5 happy hour cosmos from a mix, or super-sugary holiday side dish? Sure. But for a crisp, refreshing voyage into the bubbleverse, cranberry rarely enters our thoughts. (But we were raised on pamplemousse and coconut […]
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Perrier
Cucumber
Somehow Perrier has eluded us thus far in our explorations of sparkling water. It’s not just that it’s mineral water, and we have tended to skew towards the more millennial, pastel and artificially carbonated in our coverage. But something about it made us uncertain it was for us at all. Didn’t Perrier kind of peak […]
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Good & Gather
Cucumber Mint
Honestly, we are a sucker for anything with a satin finish. As if Good & Gather wasn’t already an inventive and delicious brand, they went ahead and gilded the lily with a sleek satin can, putting the finishing touches on some of our favorite bubblers. And did we mention they come from Target? No, we’re […]
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Ardor
Cucumber Mint
We need to talk about Ardor. Their shimmering oculus of caffeinated illumination winked at us from our local Whole Foods shelves a few months ago, and we’ve been entranced by its third eye tractor beam ever since. Who is this mysterious Ardor, and why are their products astonishingly good? We’re enthralled to a sparkling water […]
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LaCroix
Curaté Cerise Limón
Welcome, once again, to another voyage into “the romance of French and Spanish cultures,” this time with one of the OG Cúrates: Cerise Limón. Yes, along with Pomme Bayá, this was one of two flavor combinations that LaCroix picked in 2014 to launch their culturally appropriative blends of otherwise normal fruits, in an attempt to […]
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LaCroix
Curaté Melón Pomelo
With all these new razzle dazzle functional beverages and the endless parade of caffeinated waters tickling our fancy, sometimes we forget about the simpler things in life, like LaCroix’s Curaté line, the sparkling water that captures the “romance” of Europe and Latin America for people who’ve never been to Europe or Latin America. At this […]
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LaCroix
Cúrate Múre Pepino
If you are a loyal and dedicated Sparkling Water Devotee, then you are familiar with LaCroix. And you are no doubt familiar with the fact that there are different strains of LaCroix, like strains of cannabis. Ok, maybe not quite like that. But there are strange, evocative names that make us want to partake of […]
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LaCroix
Cúrate Pomme Bayá
Welcome to another edition of LaCroix Curaté, aka Wisconsin Carbonated Water Studies Abroad. We like to indulge in enchanting sparkling water fantasies where Cerise Limón, a homespun girl-next-door from Racine, goes Full French during her summer in Provence. A Cherry returning to the farm as beret-wearing resplendent “Cerise”. Everyone call me Odette now, si vous […]
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Ugly Drinks
Dr. Ugly
Ugly’s Limited Editions have long been the bane of the Bubbleverse: fleeting gems that disappear like a carbonated wave upon the shores of our dreams. Crashing on our tongues one minute, sucked back into the big blue void the next. And they’ve been dogged about this approach for a while now, selling out of their […]
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San Pellegrino
Essenza Blood Orange & Black Raspberry
We’re back for more San Pellegrino today, that essenza of Italy that transports you to an Italian dreamscape without the throngs of sweaty tourists and the smells of those Venice canals that give your nose some medieval verité. No, this is pure, crisp fantasy, and frankly we’re all here for it. Finally a taste of […]
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San Pellegrino
Essenza Exotic Vanilla & Coffee
Nestlé recently announced it was dumping all of their cheap-ass grocery store water brands (Arrowhead, Deer Park, Poland Spring, good luck out there) to focus on nurturing and cultivating their chosen ones: Frenchy Perrier and fancy Italian Stallion San Pellegrino. Kind of like a Bachelor competition where contestants have been crawling through mud in frilly […]
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San Pellegrino
Essenza Smooth Caramel & Coffee
San Pellegrino recently launched a new line of coffee-flavored Essenzas, hopping on the lightly-caffeinated sparkling water train that left AHA station and has been picking up passengers over the last year or two: bubly, Chirp, Nixie, Limitless, even Signature Selects have all released sparkling waters with about 30-35 milligrams of caffeine. Not one to leave […]
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San Pellegrino
Essenza Tangerine & Wild Strawberry
If Perrier is the Fancy Water of the French Bubbleverse, then without a doubt San Pellegrino is its Italian corollary. San Pellegrino even goes so far as to call its sparkling water Essenza, which is as silly-sounding as it is awesome. Essenza. We can’t help but feel more refined and cultured when that word is […]
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Veryvell
Focus Grapefruit Tarragon
Veryvell is the first foray into the CBD wellness space by lumbering giant Molson Coors, better known for their cheap beer than their adaptogenic sparkling waters. But, having seen the writing on the wall and realizing that millennials and zoomers now demand their foods and beverages to be “functional,” aka mildly, psychosomatically stress-relieving to deal […]
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Jelly Belly
French Vanilla
Well, well, well. It’s not just Pepsi and Coke wanting a slice of the sparkling water monetary juggernaut, the pernicious candy world is coming for it, too. So. Jelly Belly makes sparkling waters. This is counterintuitive for a few reasons: Sparkling water is not a jelly bean. Sparkling water does not contain sugar, and if […]
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Ugly Drinks
Fruit Punch Energy Water
Fruit Punch is one of the quintessential flavors of childhood nostalgia. The name alone can conjure halcyon summers of sticky sodas on fingers, greasy hot dogs and a sense of freedom adult existence can never replicate. That sweet and inimitable tropical fruitmalgam wrapped in our memories as the flavor of innocence itself. So when Ugly […]
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Aura Bora
Ginger Meyer Lemon
It’s been a while since we last reviewed Aura Bora, purveyors of the most mystical and exquisite sparkling waters known to humankind. Since blowing the minds of bubblenauts everywhere last year, Aura Bora has remained quietly dedicated to slowly expanding and solidifying their presence in retail stores across the land (with a little appearance on […]
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Limitless
Ginger Mint
Full disclosure: we like Limitless. We do. But we think the name “limitless” is a little ridiculous for this brand. “Limitless” lol. Like this is some “redbull gives you wings” moment. We’re not exactly sure a sparkling water with 35 mg of caffeine is gonna make us “limitless”, but okay. Sure, Jan. And this isn’t […]
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Waterloo
Grape
Purple is the color of royalty, and the robust shade of the highest of chakras. It’s also the color of Tinky-Winky, the goofy Teletubby with a disconcertingly low voice. Purple is polarizing, a mixed bag of opinions and hues, and while some of those tints work, others inspire a visceral repulsion. The color of the […]
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Waterloo
Grapefruit
Grapefruit: fruit of the gods. If the Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil had only been a grapefruit tree, humanity wouldn’t be in the situation we’re in. We’d still be in Eden, lounging by the shimmering pool in our vast and lush inner courtyard, soaking in the dappled sun and sipping on the […]
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Rambler
Grapefruit
Yee-haw! It’s time to mosey on back to everyone’s favorite Lone Star Bubbler, Rambler. Rambler has been on our minds a lot during these hot summer days, because nothing sounds more refreshing than popping open those eye-catching cans, replete with nature scenes and the alluring phrase that gets us every time: “Limestone Filtered”. It really […]
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Aura Bora
Green Bean Casserole
We are officially back on our bullshit! We apologize for the egregious hiatus. It was wrong of us, bubblenauts, and we missed you. Since we last spoke, Ugly has disappeared into the night, never to be heard from again, San Pellegrino Coffee Essenzas limped off in defeat, as if they never existed, and small brands […]
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LaCroix
Guava São Paulo
So, we’ll give LaCroix a pass for launching a flavor for this upcoming summer named after a place that’s currently headed into winter. No hemispheres in LaCroix’s world, it seems. But São Paulo? The largest city in all of the Americas?? The number one. (For scale, New York is number four on that list, after Mexico […]
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LaCroix
Hi-Biscus!
Aloha from Hi-Biscus! This LaCroix offering was the first new flavor for the brand in two years when it debuted in 2019, and the internet was not a fan. They wanted watermelon! The people wanted watermelon! Okay, we can kind of understand that. But let’s see how this stands on its own, away from the […]
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LaCroix
Key Lime
Let’s have ourselves a Key Lime kiki, shall we? Lovers of sparkling water know that Lime reigns supreme in the flavor category, so it makes sense that at some point bubbler creators wanted to tap that Lime Contingent even harder and create funky combinations that didn’t need to exist, and there was no one around […]
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Dram
Lavender & Lemon Balm
Dram Apothecary is a weaver of spells, through flavors and scents and cascades of gentle bubbles, interlaced together to take you on deep time journey into the subtler realms, where adaptogenic angels float across the palate and herbal cherubs sing incantations of otherworldly sparkling water dreams. Or maybe that’s just us, but something about Dram’s […]
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Aura Bora
Lavender Cucumber
Have you ever taken a ride on a cucumber flume? Or swung with a sloth off a vegetal vine into a sparkling waterfall? Now, this may sound like some whimsical, Seussical bullsh*t, but we promise you, it’s not. If you’ve never gone on a mystical seltzer journey before, Aura Bora is your bubble shaman guiding […]
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Voss
Lemon Cucumber
We remember when Voss came into the national consciousness. Yes, we’re old enough to remember the late ‘90s/ early aughts when the tall glass cylinder telegraphed how cool and fancy you were. It was thee cool water. Trotted out at nightclubs with your vodka bottle service, Voss was eye-catching and glam. It said in all […]
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Rambler
Lemon-Lime
So in the time since we first reviewed Rambler’s original sparkling mineral water, it’s become something of a staple for us. It’s just so damn refreshing! The mineral content is relatively light but still makes it feel like you’re actually drinking something substantial. It feels actually hydrating in a way that sparkling waters generally don’t. […]
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Waterloo
Lemon-Lime
In the long history of famous lovers, from Orpheus & Eurydice, to Marc Antony & Cleopatra, to Garfield & Lasagna, there has been one true everlasting love that, towering above even these storied twin flames, outshines them all: Lemon & Lime. 💛💚 Gods and mortals alike can only attain a paltry and envious shadow of […]
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Dram
Lemongrass + CBD
If you’ve read Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” you know that truth is beauty and beauty, truth. And in the Bubbleverse, we have our own poetic saying: Lemongrass is the most dominant flavor you can possibly put in a can. That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know. Call […]
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Aura Bora
Lemongrass Coconut
Prepare to find yourself in the mystical, slightly-psychedelic lemongrass meadowlands of your wildest spa dreams. Tasting Notes While there’s no shortage of coconut flavored sparkling waters, this one stands out by actually bringing the coconut to the background. It’s not present in the nose, but it emerges subtly and warmly throughout the sip, lingering mellowly […]
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LaCroix
Lime
Living in the flashy and exhilarating sparkling world where new brands like Aura Bora and Nixie are locked in a veritable arms races for novel and quixiotic flavor combinations, circling back around to LaCroix Lime feels a bit anticlimactic. It’s not that lime isn’t a perennial flavor dominator, particularly when it comes to singular flavors! […]
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Perrier
Lime
Bienvenue! Welcome to another round of Lime Time! Now, we feel a little guilty throwing a heavyweight like Perrier into the Lime Time ring like this. Putting the perennial sparkling water roi, the pinnacle of class and sparkles, the ‘80’s scarf wearing, loafers-in-a-smoking-jacket Perrier Lime against punier contenders, like LaCroix Lime? Talk about an underdog. […]
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bubly
Lime
Have you ever read up on the history of limes? You probably haven’t, which is ok, neither had we. We always just assumed limes were always some kind of vaguely ubiquitous tropical fixture around the world. Which they are now, but turns out they originated in the area around northern India, Myanmar, and Malaysia. They […]
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Waterloo
Lime (RIP)
Lime Time! Lime appears to be in an arms race with grapefruit for Most Beloved Citrus in the bubbleverse, and we like to imagine a glorious battle between pink and green sparkling bubbles, each more delicious and bold than the next. Sure, Pamplemousse changed the world, but where was it when Perrier Lime was the […]
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AHA
Lime + Watermelon
This is probably the most outrageous watermelon flavor out there in the bubbleverse. It’s like drinking a Jolly Rancher. It’s like you’ve been cordially invited to attend the christening of Princess Bubblegum’s Skittle love child. While most sparkling water brands try to achieve #nofilter flavors, hewing as close as possible to the real fruit (or […]
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Nixie
Lime Ginger
Today we have our next contender for Lime Time Champion. And for this round, Nixie is tagging a heavy hitter into the ring: Ginger. We don’t know what’s going on over at Nixie headquarters. Their flavor offerings are kind of all over the place, ranging from your basic grapefruit to watermelon mint and pomegranate green […]
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LaCroix
Limoncello
Ciao, Bella! is all we have to say about this epic southern Italia-inspired sparkling water. This is LaCroix’s 2020 addition to their growing list of bubbler staples, and in the blur of this year’s disappointments, the arrival of Limoncello to the LaCroix roster is one of the lone bright spots. Plus, we get memories of […]
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bubly
Mango
There’s something about Bubly Sparkling Water that just feels like we’re being forced to embrace them as The Next Big Thing. From the pop tab that says “haayy”, to the lolling tongue emblazoned on the side of the can, to the ill-advised “love at first phssst” floating in a bubble, it just all smacks of […]
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AHA
Mango + Black Tea
If you like AHA’s Black Cherry + Coffee, we have some bad news for you. It’s been discontinued. But in its caffeinated stead, a Mango + Black Tea has arisen to quench your palate, mildly caffeinate you, and give corn syrup behemoth Coca-Cola more of your hard earned dollars. We love to see it! Actually, […]
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bubly bounce
Mango Passion Fruit
We’re diving back into the bubly bounciverse today. Apparently we are powerless before the inexplicably-beloved and irritatingly-subpar sparkling water brand bubly, which sprang into existence when PepsiCo decided that they needed to make more money. We keep going back time and time again, trying to figure out what we’re missing, and enraging ourselves in the […]
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Ugly Drinks
Mango Soda Energy Water
The third in Ugly’s trifecta of new energy waters, after Mountain Ugly (a Mountain Dew clone) and Fruit Punch (Hawaiian Punch) is…Mango Soda (???). The soda-flavor theme was pretty easy to follow until we got to this one. Maybe we’re living under a sugar-free rock here in the Bubbleverse, but we’re kind of coming up […]
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Veryvell
Mind & Body Strawberry Hibiscus
This is the last of the Veryvell Truss CBD sparkling water trifecta, and we may have taken a little too long to circle back to this one because it wasn’t our favorite of the three when we initially tried them. That honor would belong to their Blueberry Lavender (which we only recently realized tastes incredibly […]
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Topo Chico
Mineral Water
Topo Chico is a mineral water drenched in aztec myth, mexican history, and texan hipsters. Sourced from the eponymous cerro de topo chico in Monterrey, Mexico since 1895, its fabled healing powers and millenial caché poured into the national consciousness when Coca-Cola bought the company in 2017. While we’ve certainly had our San Pellegrino and […]
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Tehuacán
Mineral Water
Tehuacán Brillante is a brand that’s a little hard for us to get a good read on. Their website is pretty thin on content, opting instead to hammer their tagline A Natural Chill ad nauseum. Here’s what we do know: At 18,491 feet, the dormant volcano Citlaltépetl, or Pico de Orizaba, towers above the Tehuacán […]
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Rōzu
Morning Bloom Bulgarian Rose
Sometimes the sponsored algorithms really get it right, and something pops up on your screen that sends you into paroxysms of impulse buying, rendering you powerless before our silicon valley social media overlords, and you don’t even care. That’s how we feel about Rōzu’s Bulgarian Sparkling Rose Water. We have waxed woo woo before about […]
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Ugly Drinks
Mountain Ugly Energy Water
As the sun rises on the hills and hollows of the Bubbleverse, the sparkling, effervescent condensation that forms on the trees and grasses of our pristine wilderness trickles in bubbling rivulets down into crystal clear alpine streams. This is the image that mountain dew conjures to our innocent & naive minds, at least. In reality, […]
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Perrier
Mystère Potion
Once again, we forgot entirely about Nestle’s French enfant, Perrier. We try to block Nestle out of our minds/pocketbooks as much as possible anyway, but honestly we don’t buy much Perrier, despite how good they usually are, because these “slim” cans are far too small for people who need to be consuming sparkling water from […]
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LaCroix
NiCola Cubana
We didn’t believe these actually existed. Show of hands for who has seen these at their local market ever. Yeah, that’s what we thought. Crickets. So we sort of thought we were hallucinating when we saw these on the shelves of a Meier supermarket in the middle of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We don’t […]
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LaCroix
NiCola LaCola
Coke is it! Or is it? Enter LaCroix’s NiCola LaCola: the sparkling water juggernaut’s attempt to replicate the addicting potion that has the world in its clutches, has a massive museum/shrine devoted to it, and is one of the most recognizable brands in the world. How did LaCroix fare? The internet has strong opinions about […]
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AHA
Orange + Grapefruit
In our Waterloo Lemon-Lime review, we waxed poetic about the love affair between lemons & limes. Perhaps we waxed a little too poetic, because we now believe that the truest twin flames in the citrusverse are Orange + Grapefruit. This one snuck up on us: at first we thought it was a pleasant enough addition […]
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Waterloo
Original
We have to laugh a little at Waterloo calling their unflavored flavor “Original.” Like this is where it all started? Like the brand was founded on an unflavored sparkling water, which they have, over time, reluctantly defiled with flavors? There’s something slightly mysterious about the phenomenon of the big brands including unflavored sparkling water in […]
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LaCroix
Pamplemousse
Where to start with this one? The resounding legend of our age, possibly single handedly responsible for the sparkling water supernova of the last several years. The can that launched a thousand sips. The taste of a generation. Eau de millenial. We’ve lost track of how many cases upon cases that we’ve drunk of this […]
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LaCroix
Pastèque (Watermelon)
After the internet almost lost its mind in 2019 when the LaCroix Mystery Pink Flavor rollout turned out to be Hibiscus and NOT Watermelon, LaCroix listened to the angry mob. In 2020, they decided to roll out not one, but two flavors. One of those was Limoncello, and the other, at long last, was the […]
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Waterloo
Peach
Hey, peaches! We’re taking another ride on the Peach-A-Whirl, the wild stone fruit attraction that often spins us into carny territory and exploitative entertainment. Peach is an evocative flavor no doubt, one that conjures the dream of county fairs and the haze of deep fried desserts on stick. Peaches are a beloved and dreamy drupe. […]
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AHA
Peach + Honey
It’s been a while since we’ve slid down the kaleidoscopic flavor rainbow that is Coke’s sparkling water progeny, AHA. We’ve always found the name AHA to be a little opaque as a choice, not particularly memorable or evocative. We kinda just assume that one day the execs at Coke read a trade piece about LaCroix’s […]
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Nixie
Peach Black Tea
Nixie is always taking us on a journey, and we never know quite where we’re going to wind up. With their Lime Ginger we wound up in Colatown, and somehow Watermelon Mint took us to some tropical bubblegum paradise. As fun as slipping into those gustatory wormholes are, thankfully today we’re staying in this dimension. […]
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LaCroix
Peach Pear
Weirdly, peach-pear was only LaCroix’s 9th flavor, released in 2012. Which is a little remarkable to us, because on first blush, peach + pear seems like kind of a strange combination, at least for your ninth flavor in twenty years. It’s a pairing usually found in cobblers, crisps, and pies, where the flavors are goo-illy […]
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Good & Gather
Pear Hibiscus
Nixie, AHA, Bubly, and a smattering of grocery store lines like Soleil have all been pumping out mellow caffeinaters for a while now. Not blowing our adrenals out like Ugly or Hi Ball, but more dignified caffeine amounts like 30-35 mg: enough to perk you up, but minimal enough to keep you drinking them all […]
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Aura Bora
Peppermint Watermelon
“Hello, world!” is emblazoned on each Aura Bora can, friendly, an unassuming proclamation. 👋🏻 But it is perhaps a little misleading. It’s like simply saying “hey what’s up?” to your Raya date, when really what you want to say is, “I am about to burrow into your soul. I will haunt your dreams. You won’t […]
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Perrier
Pineapple
Nestlé…ahem, Perrier is a brand that we continually feel conflicted about. From its dubious messaging around the veracity of its legendary French springs, to the corporate death star peddling it (yes, Perrier is owned by Nestlé), we just never know if we can fully trust the Fancy Way it wants us to feel. It often […]
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Waterloo
Pineapple
We finally got our hands on some Waterloo Pineapple! 2021 has been a big year for new flavors of sparkling water, a legit whirlwind of offerings from the giants in the field: Topo Chico, LaCroix, AHA, even San Pellegrino. And into this sparkling maelstrom, Waterloo has dropped the mic pineapple. By and large, and much […]
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Polar
Pink Apple & Lemon
Polar is a brand that is woefully underrepresented on this site. That is definitely our fault, but having spent our adulthoods on the west coast, Polar just hasn’t really been on our radar. It’s just not really out there, so we’ve been stuck bopping back and forth LaCroix and Waterloo for what seems like eternity. […]
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Chirp
Pink Grapefruit
We have been Hiball devotees for over a decade, and our abiding addiction soul-entwining persists to this day. But while we’ve been lashed to their mast, enraptured by the siren song, a whole ocean of sparkling energy water has tsunamied into the bubbleverse. We were skeptical, convinced that these were imposters, lesser entities, nay, remoras, […]
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Nixie
Pomegranate Green Tea
On today’s Bubbleverse episode, we’re doing a Very Special Nixie. It’s the last in our series of their flavor combos (somehow we’ve missed even trying their solo flavors Grapefruit, Lime & Lemon thus far — we chalk it up to those beguiling sounding match-ups being irresistible vs the idea of pounding yet another Lime). And […]
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Ugly Drinks
Pumpkin Spice
We missed the sparkling gourd boat last year when Pumpkin Spice was Ugly’s official Ltd Ed drop for an entire month, so we were ecstatic when Ugly brought back their Pumpkin Spice for a mere 48 hours just in time for the arrival of Spooky Season. Aside: We aren’t entirely sure when “Spooky Season” became […]
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HyVida
Pure Hydrogen Water
“Functional” water is all the rage these days. Which is understandable: between the ceaseless grinding of late stage capitalism, climate change, and pandemia, our souls have become black holes into which we all must pour endless amounts of carbonated Ashwagandha and l-theanine. And it’s getting cut-throat out there in the adaptogen-verse: evil empire PepsiCo, not […]
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bubly
Raspberry
Here we go down another can of bubly, Pepsi’s bubblin’ baby in their relentless foray into the seltzer world. A foray that we suspect is motivated by the ever-expanding financial possibilities of sparkling water universe, because let’s be honest, everyone wants a piece of that billion dollar LaCroix pie. Bubly is not here to create […]
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Klarbrunn
Raspberry
The Bubbleverse is currently summering in the Midwest. While it might sound like we’re in pursuit of some pure, idyllic Americana fireworks-and-hot-dogs summer, in reality we’re recovering from relentless west coast wildfire seasons and droughts, prepping in the woods in search of off-grid living and fresh water supply. Welcome to the Anthopocene! But while we’re […]
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AHA
Raspberry + Acai
Açaí has had a wild ride in America over the last couple of decades, starting when a couple of bros on a trip to Brazil decided they could replicate the success of Brazilian Açaí bars in America. So they ordered a shipping container full of frozen pulp and hit up every juice bar in Southern […]
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Boylan
Raspberry Seltzer
Sometimes it’s hard to find new brands when shelves and hearts are lined with case after case of LaCroixs and bublys. Often, finding the smaller, boutique, artisanal brands takes some concerted effort and peeled eyes. So it was a sight for sore ones to cast our gaze upon Boylan’s clean, throwback bottles, tucked away on […]
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LaCroix
Razz-Cranberry
Back when we did our LaCroix Apricot review, written at the request of a Bubbleverse reader, we mentioned that we were actually quite tickled to take review requests, so send away. And then, much to our delight, more requests came in! But what we didn’t see coming was that all of these review requests would […]
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Ugly Drinks
Root Beer
We ordered a case of Ugly’s latest drop into the bubbleverse the first day it was announced, and it sold out before our box even landed on our doorstep. So you’re already reading a tale of a bygone era. Sorry. It’s back to A&W for you, unless you’re one of the blessed few who got […]
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Polar
Ruby Red Grapefruit
We always knew there would be a time when we would embark on reviewing “seltzer”, even though the word itself doesn’t do much for us. We’re much more into the “sparkling water” sounds and vibes. What can we say, we sparkle around here, we don’t seltz. Perhaps it’s the bygone-soundingness of the word, or the […]
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Hiball
Sparkling Energy Water
These are not a supplement, but they are the foundation of my mental and physical well-being.
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Liquid Death
Sparkling Water
Sometimes you don’t want a mango hibiscus lavender rose. Sometimes you find yourself being dragged by tormented & craven entities to the deepest pits of the black abyss that awaits us all at the end of our sorrowful journeys. Sometimes you want to ride the lightning. But for silently tragic aeons immemorial, when we found […]
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ever & ever
Sparkling Water
ever & ever is a brand with exactly one trick up its sleeve: aluminum. That’s right, ever & ever has staked their claim on the same thing that literally every sparkling water can has been made out of for decades. To be fair, ever & ever is attempting to differentiate themselves not in the sparkling […]
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Rambler
Sparkling Water
Deep in the heart of Texas, a labyrinthine subterranean limestone honeycomb twists and snarls for hundreds of miles, carving bizarre and psychedelic underground caverns and waterways from the fossilized skeletons of billions of tiny, prehistoric organisms. On Memorial Day in 1981, Austin’s limestone aquifer was deluged with 11 inches of rain, resulting in a massive […]
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Waterloo
Strawberry
Perhaps the most famous love letter to strawberries came from the Beatles. Which was helpful, because until 1967, humanity collectively and erroneously assumed it was Banana Fields that we weren’t supposed to get hung about. And then we stood corrected. And as it turns out, one corner of the strawberry field has a babbling strawberry […]
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AHA
Strawberry + Cucumber
For a brand founded under the aegis of Coca-Cola, that lurching golem of high-fructose 20th century American imperialism, AHA has managed to consistently surprise us. Both with their slightly experimental flavor combinations, and (occasionally) with their subtlety. Some of their offerings are exactly what you might expect from Coke: fully-saturated hyperfruits like their Lime + […]
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Ugly Drinks
Strawberry Cream Soda
At this point, we basically imagine the masterminds behind Ugly’s Ltd Edition Flavor Drops in some Charlie Kaufman-esque “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” room, technicians furiously observing the minds of seltzer addicts, trying to pinpoint that sweet spot between Childhood Nostalgia and Guilty Pleasure, in order enthrall us to their products forever and ever. […]
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Good & Gather
Strawberry Mango
Strawberries are one of those fruits that never fail to surprise us. In a world awash in artificial strawberry flavors, it’s inevitable that the fake taste is the one we generally associate with the fruit in our brains. Which makes a bite into a real strawberry a revelation every time. They’re so complex! They’re sweet, […]
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LaCroix
Tangerine
Welcome to this edition of RuCroix’s Bubble Race, the competition where Sparkling Waters show off their charisma, uniqueness, nerve and carbonated talent in order to be crowned America’s Next Sparkle Superstar. Today we’d like to enter Miss Tangie onto the runway for your consideration. (Sissy that walk, kitty girl). The sassy, citrusy sparkler that stole […]
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Good & Gather
Tropical Cherry
We’ll admit we were a little hesitant to try this one. We are fans of all things citrus, so the tantalizing lemons and limes depicted on the cans called to us, but…cherry is not the easiest flavor to do well. Often it seems as if the cherry pendulum just swings back and forth between the […]
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Topo Chico
Twist of Grapefruit
Despite the fact that seeing Twist of Grapefruit on the bottle cap somehow always leads us to believe that these glass bottles have twist-tops (really? tricked again! 🤦🏻♀️), we can’t stay mad at Topo Chico. And it’s not just that Topo Chico has epic mineral expression and piquant bubbles in each and every bottle: in […]
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Topo Chico
Twist of Lime
Topo Chico is just about the gold standard for bubble-forward, sparkling mineral water. As well they should be. But how do they fare when they foray into flavors? Just because they get the delectable mineral balance and perfect deluge of crisp bubbles straight out of the mountain spring, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be able […]
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Topo Chico
Twist of Tangerine
Well, well, well. There’s a new Miss Tangie on the block: Topo Chico Tangerine. We’ve long held the LaCroix Tangerine in high esteem, high enough to compare it to a summer’s day one of our all-time favorite drag queens. And while we’ve quaffed our share of Weller’s Tangerine CBD nectar, there aren’t too many other […]
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Veryvell
Unwind Blueberry Lavender
Let’s all put our hands together and welcome Veryvell to the stage. Veryvell is a brand sparkling new CBD sparkling water, a product of Truss CBD USA. (For some reason Truss, the name of this Molson Coors subsidiary, always enters our brain like Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk!”, and we’re not mad about it.) So yes, Truss […]
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Waterloo
Watermelon
Perhaps the most famous quote about watermelon comes from the cherished cinematic classic “Dirty Dancing,” when Baby proclaims that she carried one. The phrase has become a universal shorthand of sorts, a way to indicate that in that awkward moment, when face-to-face with the impossible hotness of your crush, you were only capable of saying […]
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Nixie
Watermelon Mint
We are always on the hunt for great flavor combos and new sparkling water brands in the Bubbleverse, so we were elated to discover Nixie Sparkling Water. An 2019 offshoot from organic powerhouse Late July, this sparkling water is new, innovative, and totally organic and non-GMO. And splashy, too! The hot pop pink retro trainwreck […]
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