Drinking Through Disney: Club Cool Edition

Today's Drinking Through Disney taps the brakes on the eating and drinking blitz through the parks and the hotels. Don't get me wrong...I love all that Disney World has to offer when it comes to food and beverage, but you have to come up for air every now and then. Additionally, if you are racing through the parks trying to hit all the rides you can in the searing Florida sunshine, chances are high that you are getting worn out.

One of the best ways to help chill yourself down while you are at Epcot is to stop into Club Cool, a soda shop featuring soft drinks from around the world. Anytime we went from Future World to the World Showcase and vice-versa, we brought the kids here to recharge the batteries.

Club Cool has multiple stations of eight different drinks to try; the selection changes every so often, but here is what the taps looked like when we visited last month:

The sodas on display feature a wide range of styles, sweet and fruity to bitter yet refreshing. Starting at the left, the Beverly is an Italian clear bitter soda that will get your appetite going before you start eating through World Showcase OR help you digest everything you just ate at World Showcase. It's a wake-up call for your system that has the most medicinal impact of the eight sodas. This was one of my favorites.

Fanta is a well-known worldwide brand of soda, and both Greece and Thailand were represented. If you are trying to scale back on the caffeine, the pineapple Fanta is a great choice; it certainly has a sweet taste, but it is very lively. Thailand's tropical melon soda has a similar sweetness/fruitiness profile of the Greek version, but with a more exotic flavor.

Japan's VegitaBeta is actually more of a juice than a soda, but the bright orange elixir was very flavorful. It has a combination of apricot, passionfruit, and carrots that acted as a restorative for me as it was not overly sweet and the fruit/vegetable combination tasted great together. Another favorite of mine.

South Africa was represented with Bibo, which was released within the last 20 years. There are many flavors of juices produced by this brand, but the one being dispensed on our trip was tasting like very sweet strawberries. Next is Zimbabwe's Sparberry, which is a raspberry cream soda. It has a deep red color that smells very fruity with vanilla tones.

The last two represented South America. Inca Kola is a fruity-earthy Peruvian soda that has a candylike sweetness. The Guarana Kuat is based on Guarana berries in Brazil, which turns into a maple syrup/caramel flavor that doesn't finish sweet...it finishes clean and dry with a tropical fruit flavor.

So remember this...a trip the Disney is a marathon, not a sprint. Take a break at Club Cool for a few moments before pushing through to your next FastPass or dinner reservation.