What Are the Best Italian Soda Flavors?

I’ve been learning a load about Italian sodas and was interested in popular italian soda flavors options were available.  Let’s get into it.

There are Italian-made sodas, and there is what’s called an ‘Italian soda’, which can be a bit confusing.

Many people also wonder about San Pellegrino and their different soda flavors such as blood orange.

So, below I’ll explain everything you need to know about the best Italian cream soda variety of flavors.

What does Italian soda taste like?

Good italian soda flavors are made with the same core ingredients: carbonated water, flavors, and sweetener.

Therefore, Italian sodas and regular sodas (carbonated water) are very similar.

Chinotto, though, is made from an orange that is found in Southern France, Italy, Malta, and Libya according to Wikipedia.

In Italy, it’s typically grown in the Northeast, and in Sicily a large Island off the Southern tip of Italy.

Chinotto has a bitter-sweet taste and fruity flavor that is very unique. 

Below is a video of some people tasting Chinotto for the first time, and the two people in the video didn’t like it very much.

To quote the lady who tasted it ‘why would someone drink that?’:

Here’s another video of a lady tasting it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkAvLAgcXG0

It’s clear from their reactions that it’s an acquired taste, and if you’re wanting to drink a sweet, delicious soda like Pepsi or Dr. Pepper, Chinotto is not for you!

There is a range of flavored syrup sodas such as raspberry syrup that have been consumed in Italy for many centuries such as Gazzosa, as CiuItaly says.

However, they are mostly subtle variations of sodas you can find in any country, such as lemonade, and other fruit-based sodas.

But, Italy has a unique culture, and they drink sodas at different times of the day.

For example, they will drink a shot of ‘aperitivo’ – which is a flavored liquor – that’s sometimes carbonated before a meal to increase their appetite.

The blood orange is a citrus fruit that looks very similar to the orange on the outside.

But, the flesh is a dark red/purple/orange color.

And some varieties have orange flesh and patches of dark purple/red blood orange color. 

Spruce Eats says that blood oranges grow in warm and temperate climates, and in the USA they are mostly grown in California and Florida, which have a subtropical climate.

Various sources online such as here also say that blood oranges are thought to have originated in Sicily, and Spain.

San Pellegrino blood orange is called ‘Aranciata Rossa’ which translates as red-orange juice.

The ingredients in San Pellegrino Aranciata Rossa are:

• Water
• Orange Juice From Concentrate (17%)
• Sugar
• Blood Orange Juice From Concentrate (3%)
• Carbon Dioxide
• Orange Extract (0.1%)
• Flavor
• Colors (Anthocyanin, Paprika)
• Food Acid (Citric)
• Stabilizer (Pectin)

It contains slightly less sugar than big-name sodas like Pepsi and Dr. Pepper.

And significantly less sugar or sweet syrups than Coca-Cola.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the amount of sugar in San Pellegrino Aranciata Rossa:

In my opinion, this is probably because it contains so much real fruit juice which is naturally sweet.

So they don’t need to add as much sugar to get a really nice taste.

The links to the data for each of the sodas can be accessed by clicking the names of the sodas at the top of the table above.

On the official San Pellegrino website they provide a handy store locator that you can access here – only for the USA.

San Pellegrino also has a store locator for selected countries.

To find it for your specific country it’s best to do a Google search for ‘San Pellegrino or ‘san Pellegrino your country’.

For example, ‘san Pellegrino UK’. And it should come up.

If they don’t have a store locator for your specific country you can do a Google search for ‘buy San Pellegrino Aranciata Rossa’ will bring up a list of websites and stores within your country/city that sell it.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi energy drinks have a long history and in their early years only sold a few flavors.

But, now they have a huge profile of different drinks, which include fruit-flavored sodas, fizzy drinks, colas, root beer, and ginger beer.

And have almost every flavor of the soda.

Both companies started around 100 years ago, and back then there would have been a difference between regular soda and Italian soda because Coca-Cola and Pepsi had so few flavors.

However, nowadays they have so many different brands and flavors that it’s very rare to find a soda internationally that big companies like Coca-Cola don’t sell.

Here’s a brief summary covering the key points in this article:

The best Italian cream sodas are San Pellegrino – Clementina, blood orange, Chin8neri – Chinotto, and Cedrata Tassoni – an unnamed, lemon flavor.

Italian sodas and regular sodas taste very much the same except for a few unique Italian flavors such as Chinotto.

San Pellegrino blood orange tastes like an orange soda but it has more real fruit juice compared to the Fanta, and Crush, and therefore tastes more natural.