soft drink

Nonalcoholic beverage, usually carbonated, consisting of water (soda water), flavouring, and a sweet syrup or artificial sweetener. Attempts to reproduce the natural effervescence of certain spring waters for presumed health benefits began before 1700. Joseph Priestley's experiments with “fixed air” (carbon dioxide) led in the late 1790s to the successful preparation of carbonated “mineral water” by Jacob Schweppe of Geneva; by the early 1800s it was being bottled and sold commercially. Today there are hundreds of varieties of flavoured soft drinks. Some of the world's largest corporations (including Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo) founded their businesses on soft-drink manufacturing.

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Any fermented liquor, such as wine, beer, or distilled liquor, that contains ethyl alcohol, or ethanol, as an intoxicating agent. When an alcoholic beverage is ingested, the alcohol is rapidly absorbed in the stomach and intestines because it does not undergo any digestive processes. It is distributed to the rest of the body through the blood and has a pronounced depressant action on the brain. Under the influence of alcohol, the drinker is less alert, less able to discern objects in the environment, slower in reacting to stimuli, and generally prone to sleep.

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A drink, or beverage, is a liquid specifically prepared for human consumption. In addition to basic needs, beverages form part of the culture of human society.

Types of beverage

Water

Despite the fact that most beverages, including juice, soft drinks, and carbonated drinks, have some form of water in them; water itself is often not classified as a beverage, and the word beverage has been recurrently defined as not referring to water.

Essential to the survival of all organisms, water has historically been an important and life-sustaining drink to humans. Excluding fat, water composes approximately 70% of the human body by mass. It is a crucial component of metabolic processes and serves as a solvent for many bodily solutes. Health authorities have historically suggested at least eight glasses, eight fluid ounces each, of water per day (64 fluid ounces, or 1.89 litres), and the British Dietetic Association recommends 1.8 litres. The United States Environmental Protection Agency has determined that the average adult actually ingests 2.0 litres per day.

Distilled (pure) water is rarely found in nature. Spring water, a natural resource from which much bottled water comes, is generally imbued with minerals. Tap water, delivered by domestic water systems in developed nations, refers to water piped to homes through a tap. All of these forms of water are commonly drunk, often purified through filtration.

Alcoholic beverages

An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol, although in chemistry the definition of an alcohol includes many other compounds. Alcoholic beverages, such as wine, beer, and liquor have been part of human culture and development for 8,000 years.

Non-alcohol beverages

Non-alcoholic beverages are drinks that would normally contain alcohol, such as beer and wine but are made with less than .5 percent alcohol by volume. The category includes drinks that have undergone an alcohol removal process such as non-alcoholic beers and de-alcoholized wines.

• Non-alcoholic variants:
• Low alcohol beer
• Non-alcoholic wine
• Sparkling cider

Soft drinks

The name "soft drink" specifies a lack of alcohol by way of contrast to the term "hard drink" and the term "drink", the latter of which is nominally neutral but often carries connotations of alcoholic content. Beverages like colas, sparkling water, iced tea, lemonade, squash, and fruit punch are among the most common types of soft drinks, while hot chocolate, hot tea, coffee, milk, tap water, alcohol, and milkshakes do not fall into this classification. Many carbonated soft drinks are optionally available in versions sweetened with sugars or with non-caloric sweeteners.

Hot beverages

• Hot beverages, including infusions. Sometimes drunk chilled.
• Coffee-based beverages
• Cappuccino
• Coffee
• Espresso
• Café au lait
• Frappé
• Flavored coffees (mocha etc.)
• Latte
• Hot chocolate
• Hot cider
• Mulled cider
• Glühwein
• Tea-based beverages
• Flavored teas (chai etc.)
• Green tea
• Pearl milk tea
• Tea
• Herbal teas
• Roasted grain beverages
• Sanka

Other

Some substances may either be called food or drink, and accordingly be eaten with a spoon or drunk, depending on solid ingredients in it and on how thick it is, and on preference:

• Soup
• Yogurt

Measuring drinks

	UK		US
Unit	fl. oz (UK)	ml	fl. oz (US)	ml
dash	1/48	0.592	1/48	0.616
teaspoon	1/8	3.55	1/6	4.93
tablespoon	1/2	14.2	1/2	14.8
fluid ounce or pony	1	28.413	1	29.574
shot, bar glass or jigger	3/2	42.6	3/2	44.4
can of Coke	11.6	330	12	330
pint	20	568	16	473
bottle of spirits	24.6	700	25.3	750
bottle of wine	26.4	750	25.3	750

See also

• Drinking
• Soft drinks
• Food
• Nutrition
• List of cocktails
• Soda
• Milk

References

External links