The World of Germanic Soft Drinks

Germany is famous for its beer. But it also has its own non-alcoholic drink brands. There’s an entire world of carbonated fruit and cola drinks in German-speaking Europe that few outsiders have ever tasted. Yes, Coca-Cola and Pepsi still dominate the non-alcoholic beverage market in Europe, just as they do in North America and most of the world, but there are local non-alcoholic fizzy beverages that you may want to try. These local brands include Afri-Cola, Almdudler, Bluna, Rivella, Sinalco, and fritz-kola.

A bottle of Rivella Rot (red), a soft drink that is well known in Switzerland. It is the original flavor first created in 1950 by Swiss businessman Robert Barth. Learn more about Rivella below. PHOTO: Rivella AG website

Never heard of them? That’s because they’re domestic brands that are largely unknown beyond Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Each of the major German-speaking countries has its own brand or brands that are popular. Almdudler? That’s a well-known Austrian soft drink. Rivella? You’ll find bottles with that label in Switzerland, where it’s very popular. Fritz-Kola? Invented in 2003 and marketed on a shoestring budget by two students in Hamburg. Sinalco? A much older brand that was founded in 1902 in Detmold, Germany. Sinalco beverages (the name comes from the Latin for “without alcohol”) are now sold in over 50 countries.

The Big Guys Versus the Little Guys
The carbonated soft-drink market worldwide is dominated by three big companies that have multiple brands: Cocoa-Cola, Pepsi, and Keurig Dr Pepper. The average consumer has no idea of who owns many brands. Coke and Pepsi are obvious, but Pepsi now distributes and sells Tropicana and Gatorade. One of my favorites, Schweppes Bitter Lemon, is no longer owned by a company named Schweppes – for its German Swiss founder Johann Jacob Schweppe. It was recently part of what used to be Cadbury Schweppes, but is now part of Keurig Dr Pepper in North America. To write accurately about most of these conglomerates you have to use the word “formerly” a lot! For example: “The Dr Pepper Snapple Group, formerly Dr. Pepper/7up Inc.”

A Brief Overview
Let’s look at the domestic soft drinks you’ll find in German-speaking Europe, and in some cases some other parts of the world. You may not know that Europe’s first bottled carbonated non-alcoholic beverage (Limonade/Limo in German) was a German invention. (In the US, Dr Pepper first appeared in 1885, followed by Coca-Cola in 1886.) Since then – despite Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and other bigger players – Germans, Austrians, and the Swiss have continued to develop their own soft-drink brands and flavors. (Red Bull and the energy drink market were co-invented by an Austrian.)

Sinalco (Germany)
We’ll start with Sinalco, Europe’s oldest bottled carbonated beverage. That brand name dates from 1907, but the soft drink was actually invented in 1902 by a German named Friedrich Eduard Bilz. He named the carbonated drink after himself. His orange colored Bilz-Brause (“Bilz fizzy drink”) contained various fruits. Later a contest was held to rename the drink, and Sinalco was registered as a trademark in 1907. In 1937 a new red circle with slanted lettering spelling out “Sinalco” became the drink’s new logo. A distinctive new bottle was introduced in the 1950s.

Over time Sinalco added new flavors to its orange original, including cola, cola light, lemon, Apfelschorle (a non-alcoholic apple spritzer), and others. Today the firm also uses other brand names for various drinks it sells. Bilz is an organic lemonade. Sinco is a soft drink made with malt. The company is now known as Sinalco International Brands GmbH & Co. KG, with headquarters in Duisburg, Germany.
WEB: sinalco.com

This distinctive 33l glass bottle is a trademark of Germany’s afri cola. The brand dates back to the 1931. PHOTO: afri cola

afri cola and Bluna (Germany)
Although it’s not as old as Sinalco, Afri-Cola has a fairly long history dating back to 1931, when the cola drink was registered as a trademark by the German company F. Blumhoffer Nachfolger GmbH, originally headquartered in Cologne (Köln-Braunsfeld) and run for decades by the Karl Flach family there. Today the brand is styled as “afri cola” and it features a unique pinched-waist bottle shape (see photo). Now under the Karlsberg Group and operated by Mineralbrunnen Überkingen-Teinach KGaA in Homburg, Germany, afri cola continues to be a popular brand in Germany.

However, when the new owners in Homburg took over in 1999, they altered the recipe, causing a consumer rebellion similar to that caused by New Coke in the US in 1985. Since 2006, the brand has featured its distinctive bottles with an indented “waist” in the middle. The formula now has the original lower sugar levels and caffeine content (25 mg per 100 ml). Besides Germany, afri cola is also exported to Austria, Switzerland, France, South Africa, and a few other countries.

Afri-Cola maker Mineralbrunnen Überkingen-Teinach also distributes the Bluna brand, which began as an orange soft drink, but now has other flavors as well. The Bluna brand name was derived in the 1950s from F. Blumhoffer Nachfolger GmbH. The slogan “Sind wir nicht alle ein bisschen Bluna?” (“Aren’t we all a bit Bluna?”) has now become part of the everyday culture of Germany. In parts of southwestern Germany the brand name Bluna is a generic term for any orange-flavored soft drink.
WEB: afri.de
WEB: bluna.de

fritz-kola bottles PHOTO: fritz cola

fritz-kola (Germany)
One of the newest German soft drinks is a cola beverage invented in 2003 by two university students from Hamburg. The secret to their success is a cola with lots of caffeine and less sugar than Coke, plus a hint of lemon. With savings of only €7,000 ($8,300 at the time), Mirco Wiegert and Lorenz Hampl decided to take on Coke and Pepsi. By 2019, their brand had become a household name in Germany, with 71 million 330ml fritz-kola glass bottles sold in German shops, only slightly behind Coca-Cola’s 74 million bottles. The label on the bottles is a Photoshopped black-and-white graphic of their faces, a money-saving idea that was cheaper than color. Even their website (photo) holds true to the stark two-color theme (black + red, black + green, etc.). In addition to the original fritz-kola, today the unique beverage maker also offers some alternative “fritz-limo” flavors. The firm (fritz-kulturgüter gmbh) also takes pride in its sustainable, environmental efforts.
WEB: fritz-kola.com

Bionade (Bavaria, Germany)
The Bionade (BEE-oh-NAH-duh) brand and its various flavors first hit the German market in 1995. This alcohol-free beverage got its start from a master beer brewer in Bavaria. Dieter Leipold of the Privatbrauerei Peter in Ostheim, Bavaria devoted eight years of experimentation in his own lab in an effort to create a non-alcoholic drink that reflected the natural-ingredient principles of Germany’s Reinheitsgebot (beer purity law). Leipold wanted a beverage that consisted only of natural ingredients. In this case, malt, water, sugar, and fruit essences. Corn syrup or other artificial additives were out.

With €1.5 million of financial support from Peter Kowalsky, the owner of Privatbrauerei Peter, Leipold’s hard work finally paid off. But it took more effort to reach a broad market for the new soft drink. With professional marketing that emphasized Bionade as a healthy but tasty alternative to conventional soft drinks, sales grew – to a level that attracted the interest of Coca-Cola in 2004. But Coca-Cola’s offer to buy the rights to the Bionade brand was rejected. Since then Bionade has expanded into international markets on its own. But the Kowalsky family sold part ownership to Schindel-Holding and then to Radeberger, who became sole owners in 2012. Bionade has been part of the Hassia Gruppe since 2018.
WEB: bionade.de

Club Cola’s slogan reflects its eastern German origins: “Not for everyone. Just for us.” PHOTO: Club Cola

Club Cola and Vita Cola (Germany)
These brands originated in East Germany. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Vita Cola has become the second most popular cola after Coca-Cola in den neuen Ländern, the German states that were formerly in the German Democratic Republic. In 1994, the Thüringer Waldquell Mineralbrunnen GmbH in Schmalkalden revitalized the old GDR Vita Cola brand, which is now available in all of Germany. In 1992, Club Cola was also reintroduced to the German market under the management of Spreequell Mineralbrunnen GmbH and is now widely available in Germany. Both brands benefited from Ostalgie, nostalgia among East Germans for the “good old days.”

Almdudler glass bottles with the classic logo. PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

Almdudler (Austria)
In 1957 Vienna businessman Erwin Klein (1924–1983) invented and sold a new soft drink named Almdudler, a reference to “auf der Alm dudeln,” Austrian/Viennese German for “to yodel on the pasture.” Herr Klein’s new drink was made of herbal extracts, carbonated water, sugar, and lemon. The original, traditional “Almdudler” was a mixture of wine and a soft drink. The bottle’s label features a young couple in traditional costume, holding mugs of the drink. Until 1973, Almdudler was produced and sold by Klein’s own firm, Almdudler Limonade A. & S. Klein GmbH & Co KG. Today the Almdudler brand is licensed to other firms in Austria, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland, and is also available in several different flavors.
WEB: almdudler.com (English)

Rivella (Switzerland)
Switzerland also has a national soft drink, widely known in the Alpine nation, but far less known elsewhere. It is in one way uniquely and truly Swiss: It contains 35 percent milk whey (Molke in German), a byproduct of cheese-making. (Most hard cheeses are naturally lactose free.) Yes, Swiss dairy cows help give Rivella its distinct, gingery taste. Although it contains far less lactose than milk, if you’re lactose intolerant, it may be better to avoid Rivella. Most people are unaware of this unless they bother to read the ingredients, grew up in Switzerland, or find out the hard way by drinking Rivella. The company, Rivella AG, based in Rothrist, Canton Aargau, has a 15 percent share of the Swiss soft drink market, behind only number one Coca-Cola. The original Rivella Rot (red) was created by Robert Barth in 1950, when he was living in Stäfa, Canton Zurich. Rivella now also comes in blue and green flavors, and is sold in several other countries, including France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and even Australia. The flavors and varieties depend on the country. The Rivella name was inspired by the Swiss town of Riva San Vitale in Canton Ticino (Tessin) and the Italian word rivelazione (revelation, epiphany).
WEB: rivella-group.com

Fanta (Germany)
We can’t conclude our look at Germanic soft drink brands without mentioning Fanta. Yes, Fanta is now US-owned (by Coca-Cola), but it was in fact sort of a German invention. During World War II, Nazi Germany was cut off from Coca-Cola, forcing Max Keith, the head of Coca-Cola Germany (Coca-Cola GmbH), to come up with an alternative drink to sell. His recipe depended on local ingredients (sugar beets, whey, apple pomace, etc.) and was nothing like the orange-flavored Fanta of today. (The modern-day orange Fanta was first produced in Naples, Italy in 1955 by a local bottling plant using locally sourced oranges.) Keith helped Coke’s Dutch plant to also produce Fanta, although it had a different flavor than the German version.

After the war, in 1955, Coca-Cola returned to West Germany. A version of Fanta was distributed there. Fanta did not appear in the US until later, as Coke feared it might cut into its sales of Coca-Cola. Today’s Fanta varies widely from nation to nation. The flavors and sugar (or high fructose corn syrup) levels vary. By the way, the Fanta name also comes from German. It is a shortened form of Fantasie, German for imagination or fantasy.

– HF