Yes, my friends, another installment in our continuing series of tasty drinkables in Romania. Not everyone wants to fill the pockets of filthy rich Coca-Cola executives by constantly buying their bottles of sugar water and caffeine. Not that Coke is the only company to create uninspired flavors, mind you. Most of the carbonated soft drink brands sold in Romania are actually owned by Coca-Cola or PepsiCo. In fact, a great many non-carbonated beverages sold in Romania are also owned by Pepsi and Coke. Reminds me of another tragic dichotomy.

So, once in a while, you’ve got to poke around and see what else is out there. I happen to think the Kool-Aid-like drinks make a flavorful break from the norm, although that may only be true because I didn’t drink much as a kid. After much consternation about the lack of Kool-Aid available in Romania (and receiving some generous packets from family back in the States to keep me from suffering a complete culture clash relapse), I eventually found there were some powered drink mixes here.

Interestingly, I may have started at the bottom of the quality totem pole because it certainly seems like each subsequent brand of instant fruit flavored drink seems better than the last. Yet, the more things change the more they stay the same. For, once again, we find that Bulgaria continues to expand its export business into Romania in order to build up its economy even as Romania continues to sell out.

Bolero “Swiss Formula” Sugar Free fruit-flavored instant powered drink mix is a marked improvement over the already-good Sunny brand, which in turn was better than the Frutti flop. It’s curious because Bolero is owned by Eurostok in Sofia, who created the Sunny brand. They claim the sachet is designed for 1,5L of water and I’m here to promise you that you can stretch the great flavor a little further by putting the packet contents into a 2L of apa plata without any compromise in taste. It’s great!

By far the best flavor is Raspberry and I’m not afraid to admit I’ve drank entirely too much of it recently… but, uh, that was just, er, um, part of my research for you dear readers. Quality control, consistency, and all that. Right. There’s also “Multi-Vit” which is named to have a health-related sound, but in fact is just a tropical fruct de padure. Familiarly, we see the Cola flavor being commonly available. It might take a time or two in order to adjust to the idea of uncarbonated cola, but the taste is very close to a Pepsi. While I’ve not yet seen any other flavors in Romania, the company claims to make Apple, Pear, Nectarine, a mixed berry, and handful of other flavors.

You’d think a Romanian company could create something just as delicious, then go compete in the regional market. In the meantime, I want to thank our friends across the Danube for exporting their goods north so we can sample your wares. And then I’m left to wonder if I’ve now discovered all there is to find or is there another popular Kool-Aid out in Romania?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 8th, 2006 at 1:13 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.