Love Letters from Mom :: La Croix

Dear La Croix,

For months, I lusted after you from afar. Living overseas meant we were behind on many of the new goodies the U.S. market pumped out daily (it took years before they could get still-edible Halo Top over to the desert). But your gaudy cans started popping up in my feed. You were being mentioned in podcasts. You became the de-facto food-as-identity curated quirk for hipsters. As a diehard Perrier addict, the idea of flavored essenced bubbles meant I had to find you.

Fast forward a few years and a well-stocked drink fridge means about 40% allocated to your zero-everything sodas. A true sign of hitting mid-30’s, if anything. When we’re all trying to better ourselves in some way or another, swigging cheap and cheery cans of perfumed seltzer seems like an easy win in the battle of “less soda,” “less sodium,” “less calories,” “less alcohol.”

You have also graciously acted as a decoy for the entire concept of soda to my kids. Seeing mama clutching a frosty rainbow can obviously prompted repeated requests to “just trrryyyyy” a sip, and after some theatrical hemming and hawing, I relented. And relished the immediate wrinkled noses and cries of, “the bubbles are spicy! that’s gross!” You just bought me a few more years of their blissful unawareness of Coke & Co.

And speaking of sodas, the constant barrage of barely-there bubbles has heightened my experience of more traditional aspartame-spiked drinks. Diet colas, which used to be my default lunch order, are now a real treat. OMG I’VE JUST BEEN SMACKED IN THE FACE WITH SWEEEEET! CARBONATED! COLA!!

The love runs so deep that I’m forever making excuses for your more lacklustre flavors by saying, “This’d be really good turned into a tropical cocktail,” but never actually following through and instead martyring myself by slowly finishing off the 8-pack of fizzy coconut-farts.

new lacroix flavors!
-transported in a truck near bananas
-hint of hint of lime
-single skittle dissolved in water
-shy watermelon
-imagine like, a strawberry but with low battery

— Pitch (@pitchjokes) June 13, 2018

With affection,

Yasmin

PS – I may have flirted with that real-juice-based harlot, Spindrift, but those taste like the last sip of a restaurant soda: leftover dregs of soggy lemon rinds soaked in melted ice.