Which Among These Is Better: Spindrift or LaCroix

Once upon a time I went to Trader Joe’s and bought Spindrift for the first time, perhaps because they were out of whatever I truly desired or maybe I was stressed out about how the boxes of sparkling beverages are not accessible until you’ve already been permitted to advance from the everybody-begins-here socially distanced line into a focused-on-a-specific-cashier socially distanced line, and if the line they’re trying to get you to stand in is before that sparkling beverages area, you have to be like “I just need to grab a thing” because the line guy is stressed out like… why are you walking past the line I just assigned you?

Anyhow the moral of the story is that I like it better than LaCroix and have partially transitioned to it entirely. However, my alleged friends think it’s bad. I think they’re wrong. They also have mixed feelings regarding LaCroix so there is a lot going on here. This is a conversation we had in the group chat maybe a month ago I think, but I have transcribed it for you. I am interested in your feedback, thoughts and feelings on this topic. Please share them in the comments. Please note that dramatics are strongly encouraged.

Lucy: can we all agree that even if you like la croix it’s still bad
like objectively it’s bad
it tastes like lotion water

Gretchen: i like it but only the first five sips

L: what are you actually enjoying tho

James: i think i drink it in about 5 sips

G: i’m enjoying the idea of a taste ok

L: because my hunch is that you’re enjoying sort of pretending it’s soda
and then when it gets slightly less than chilled you remember it’s water

G: no no no no

Allison: spindrift is good?

G: Ughghhhhh
NOOOOOOOOOOO

J: no
NO
Spindrift is disgusting

G: Spring Drift is so gross

L: Nothing in this category is good, as we understand the word “good”

J: inedible

G: Rinse [editor’s note: my friends call me rinse instead of riese] loves it I hate it a lot

J: I know it was in Rinse’s fridge
I drank one
And it was like drinking the color yellow

G: i love a la croix and i love a soda and i am not trying to pretend they are comparable and sprinfhdrift tastes like licking a puddle

J: Spindrift is actively horrible to my taste buds
it tastes like someone put a squirt of those fake plastic lemon juice things into a cup of pennies and rain water
and then carbonated it

G: does it taste like biting into a citrus from my cirtrereis tree

Riese: spindrift tates like lacroix one day dreams of becoming

J:
just how i like my drinks
a little pulpy

R: It’s not a little pulpy

G: Exactly the splash of pulp is disgusting

R: Little puppy

J: What’s funny

L: Yeah the spindrift I had tasted like a kids vitamin

G: It is a little puddlprly

J: Is that it’s not a little pulpy

R: lil pull-ups

G: it’s a lot of pblegth

R: a lot of pferfect

J: they have no idea what it tastes like i assume

L: Pluppy

R: i’m drinking a spindrift right now like a Queen

J: Which flavor
Which dog breed are you drinking

R: Raspberry lime

G: It’s kinda like if you drank a water with one splash of pulpy oj or strawberry or something

R: you know what i love
is plain seltzer water mixed with orange juice, served with butter popcorn and a classic cinema

G: i love how supportive we all are of each other’s intere… oh

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!
Related:

Riese

Riese is the 43-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3279 articles for us.

61 Comments

  2. I am super pro-Spindrift, but I don’t think all the flavors are equally good. I mostly drink grapefruit and sometimes lime. The first one I had was cucumber, and I was *not* into it. I am meh on LaCroix. I was into the Key Lime flavor over the summer

  3. I like La Croix and probably drink too much of it/drink other off brand sparkling water more. I’ve only had Spindrift once and it was the Raspberry Lime one. It was good! Like sparkling juice but lighter?

  4. Spindrift is good but its like a juice situation, plain seltzer is more of a water situation which is what I’m after most of the time. La Croix is fine. Polar is better though and I have I think 8 cases of various Polar flavors in my home at this time.

  6. Spindrift is by far the superior seltzer. Because seltzers have such little taste I would rather just drink water. And juice is not an everyday drink, so spindrift is the perfect compromise. However, I agree that not all the flavors are as good. If you order a variety pack, you can get a free one to send to a friend. And then you can identify which one suits your tastebuds. I like pineapple, blackberry and lemon – in that order. With others that i’ll drink and some that I won’t.

  7. I like spindrift a little more than la croix but it is more expensive, so I save it for special occasions like after a particularly intense therapy session.

  9. I think if you’re looking for a seltzer with juice San Pellegrino is the best, especially Pompelmo. And you can say it with the Italian name and feel _worldly_. Also want to third the Waterloo seltzer love. Grape flavor.

  10. Haven’t tried (or even seen) Spindrift yet, but I felt like jumping in with the only sparkling water I’ve ever actually enjoyed drinking so far: Clearly Canadian. I will try Spindrift when the opportunity presents, though. As for LaCroix? Can’t stand the stuff.

  11. I strongly dislike Spindrift. LaCroix is okay. I’m currently drinking a Canada Dry lemon-lime seltzer, which I highly recommend.

  12. I heartily endorse bubbly water/juice combo + a truly enormous bowl of popcorn + a movie. Can’t beat it.

  13. Food fight!

    Spindrift is better, because it has a *flavor* and not just a *scent.* (I really do think the “natural flavors” in La Croix are mostly a smell!) It uses a small amount of juice to achieve the flavor, but at least we KNOW what juice IS, lol!

    Don’t accidentally pick up a can of Spindrift from a few days ago and take a gulp, though. Made that mistake two years ago and I’m STILL brushing my teeth.

  15. Also, I’m thinking today about the LaCroix Cocktails A-Camp workshop, where Heather asked us to go around the circle stating whether we said “la croy” or “la cwoix,” and specifically about the person who said, “I don’t subscribe to false binaries.”

  16. My gf and I are a Big Swig family but unfortunately (for everyone else) they’re an Austin-specific brand! Their prickly pear and chile mango flavors slap. Second choice is Waterloo although it has a bit of an artificial sweetener taste. Honestly I’d usually rather have a topo chico than a canned, flavored sparkling water. Honestly as a sober person I have a lot of opinions but I’m realizing they’re very Texas-specific!!

      • I’m glad it’s making it’s way around the country! Not that I’m traveling rn, but it’s my go-to at bars, so it’s good to know it’s more prevalent outside of the southwest!

        • I’m always so annoyed that topo chico is coke-owned now; I’d be way more into it if I didn’t try to avoid coke/pepsi/nestle owned brands.

          I’m def experiencing Gay Yearning for chile mango seltzer! We should start a thread of favorite region-specific soft drinks (cheerwine drinkers make some noise)

  17. Riese (and anyone else interested in this topic), I feel strongly that you would enjoy lime time, which is a series from a (queer) tiktok creator that pits various lime sparkling waters against each other on the basis of aesthetics, bubbles, lime flavor, and overall taste. Here’s the intro vid: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJKoWAhg/ and the rest of the videos are on the creator’s page!

  19. I stopped drinking alcohol a while back and now consider myself somewhat of a sparkling water connoisseur. If I had to pick either LaCroix or Spindrift to have exclusively for the rest of my life, I would choose LaCroix, simply because I think that, on the whole, they have a better variety of good flavors. However, this would mean I’d have to give up my beloved Spindrift pineapple, and I would be eternally devastated. But then again I’d still have hibiscus LaCroix, which is clearly the greatest sparkling water ever made sooo idk.

    Honorable mentions to the following brands, Waterloo, Good and Gather, and Topo Chico. Thank u Riese for not introducing true chaos and having us pick from all the sparkling water brands, because that would be TRUE MADNESS, I’m stressed just thinking about trying to decide.

  20. Bubbly Mango changed my life. At first I thought, “Bubbly, what a silly name,” and “why do we even need more seltzer brands, we already have so many.” But I was wrong. Bubbly flavors are full and robust. The mango is genuinely the most delicious flavor of seltzer ever, and I think everyone should try it, and you’ll be a convert too.

    • Bubbly also has an excellent level of carbonation. Not too strong, but present to the last drop. Before Bubbly I made my own seltzer, but I no longer feel comfortable supporting that company. Bubbly has been a great substitute.

    • We drink Bubly too but I have never seen mango flavour here in Canada?! Big fan of the blackberry, grapefruit and cherry flavours though.

      • There are many more flavors too! I personally prefer, in this order: Mango, Grapefruit, Lime, Strawberry, Peach, Raspberry. The only one I actually disliked was Passion Fruit. Apparently they make caffeinated seltzer now too, the queens have been drinking them this season on Untucked.

  21. I know nothing of Spindrift, but I once bought this fancy-ass water brand that had intriguing flavour combinations like strawberry & rose or blackberry & hibiscus, and I was SO EXCITED to try them until I cracked one open and realized that it had NO CARBONATION. It was just a sad, watery memory-of-a-dream-of-a-flavour with no compensative effervescent bubbles. And that concludes my tragic flavoured water tale.

  24. Have you guys seen the lesbian meme asking whether you’re one in the relationship who can’t finish their la croix or the one in the relationship who finishes the other person’s la croix? I felt very seen.

  25. We‘re in love with sparkling / carbonated water here in Germany, there are so many brands, but usually it’s not flavoured. You often mix it with juice though and can buy it already mixed, it’s then called „Schorle“. Most common is a Schorle mixed with apple juice, but rhubarb is quite popular, too. I’m jealous of all the LaCroix flavours!

    • Don’t be jealous. As Queer Girl said in her post, La Croix’s “flavors” are more of a scent. The flavor advertised does not show up at any point while you’re actually drinking it. They advertise a lot of flavors, but really only have one and it isn’t any good.

  26. Raspberry-Lime spindrift is in my top 5 soft drinks! More things should be raspberry flavored. I think Spindrift is a different type of drink because of containing actual juice and not just “essence”- a carbonated juice? In my case carbonated juice (tastier than seltzer but not syrupy like soda) was exactly what I wanted. I also like to do a half-seltz-half-juice combo. I can’t think of many other examples of the genre besides apple gerolsteiner?

    Regular seltzer (carbonated drink with flavoring but no juice or sugar) is fine? I’d say La Croix is a slightly worse-than-average example of the genre? The tangerine flavor is ok. Sometimes I want a drink that is “special”/not water but isn’t sweet and doesn’t come in plastic, and if La Croix happens to be the available option for that then okay I guess.

    I like drinks with texture (aloe juice, basil seed drink, boba) and think pulp and carbonation together are good (orangina). I don’t notice a ton of texture with spindrift tbh.

  27. I’ve never tried Spindrift. Lately I’ve been on a plain seltzer kick, Polar, Vintage, Poland Spring, whatever store brand is on sale.

  28. my brother really likes the arnold palmer spindrift, and I have to agree. it’s got Actual Flavor

  29. oh wow this is my MOMENT i have extremely strong feelings about this. last term i gave a presentation for a class about this very topic. here is the gist of it:

    la croix is disgusting. all of the flavors taste fake. we don’t even know what they use to flavor it – “natural flavors” is a really broad category that, i’m sure you will remember, includes castoreum, which is the secretion from a beaver’s anal gland. (yes i know castoreum is rarely used in food anymore cause it’s “expensive and costly to extract” – let that one marinate – but my point about natural flavors stands.)

    spindrift tastes like getting a mixtape from your crush in 8th grade. it tastes like waking up and thinking it’s monday but then realizing it’s actually sunday and it’s still the weekend! and the most important part: IT’S FLAVORED WITH ACTUAL JUICE FROM REAL FRUITS. now if you’re actually looking for flavored sparkling water, i cannot help you here, but if you’re looking for sparkling water with a splash of fruit juice which is goddamn delightful, spindrift is the drink for you. the only explanation i can think of for the widespread dislike of spindrift is that y’all are trying the wrong flavors. pineapple, strawberry, and cranberry-raspberry are where it’s at. i will drink lemon spindrift all day long. lime spindrift is so vastly superior to lime la croix it’s staggering. they have an ARNOLD PALMER spindrift. i am truly baffled that so many people have such strong negative feelings about spindrift when it is clearly the best flavored sparkling beverage out there.

  30. Having picked up some raspberry-lime Spindrift today, I can conclusively state that I’m a fan of Spindrift now.

  33. Spindrift is the newly pastoral future. LaCroix gets its flavor from some proprietary cocktail of chemicals, some of which may or may not be synthetic. Spindrift gets its flavor from a specified number of blackberries, or strawberries, or limes. The real advantage of real-fruit Spindrift is that it tastes good.

  36. I like Spindrift which offers 11 flavors: pineapple, lime, cranberry raspberry, half and half (tea and lemon), strawberry, grapefruit, lemon, cucumber, blackberry, orange mango and raspberry lime. click

Comments are closed.