Peek into any office fridge, and you'll find it _ cans of sparkling water in flavors like grapefruit, lime and raspberry sitting chilled, waiting to be consumed.
One of the most well-known brands is probably LaCroix, with its pastel-watercolor-swirled cans and seemingly French origins from that name. (It actually originated in Wisconsin and is now distributed by the National Beverage Corp., which also owns brands like Shasta and Faygo). According to National Beverage's April 2018 SEC filing, LaCroix is the top-selling domestic sparkling water. It's already embedded itself in the millennial-accessory canon, and apparently, tech companies are serving it on tap.
Oh My Green, which provides office snacks and beverages, in June reported the No. 1 item, snack or drink, was LaCroix and the most popular flavor was grapefruit, or as the company calls it "pamplemousse," the French word for the citrus. According to the findings, LaCroix was the single most popular brand of anything the company sells, including Coca Cola, Bai5, Clif, RXBar, Honest Tea and Chobani.
Oh My Green provides office snacks and beverages to companies in nine major cities (San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Nashville, Tenn., Denver, Chicago, Austin, Texas, and Boston) with a focus on tech companies like Apple, Google and Lyft. The company aggregated sales data in March 2018 for the analysis.
It's not surprising. A quick Google search of "pamplemousse LaCroix" yields hits of pink and yellow shirts, swimsuits, bodycon dresses, planters, wall decor, pillows and cross-stitch patterns. The fizzy drink has inspired memes, listicles and even rap songs giving tribute to the citrusy water. And don't forget the dozens of cocktail recipes that use it as a base for a good time.
OK, so, Pamplemousse LaCroix is popular, but is it the best tasting grapefruit sparkling water out there? Or is there another brand that has better taste and bubbles? We decided to find out.
The Food & Dining staff sampled 11 brands of grapefruit sparkling water. (Spoiler alert: LaCroix did not win). We chose to sample the grapefruit sparkling waters plain, from the can or bottle, without mixing in any additional liquids.
This was a blind tasting, which means tasters didn't know which grapefruit sparkling water was which. Each brand was taken out of the refrigerator at approximately the same time before they were poured into glass vessels. Then, each participant was asked to assign a numerical value (1-9, 9 being the best) and comment on the appearance, aroma, taste and texture of the sparkling waters, with an additional focus on the size of the bubbles.
The grapefruit sparkling waters were purchased at Trader Joe's, Target, Jewel Osco, Aldi and Whole Foods. I avoided membership-only club brands like Sam's Club and Costco to ensure that the general public could have access to all of them. Because it's the holiday season, some of the brands were on sale, so the prices listed are what they are priced normally, without any promotions or discounts.
The taste test yielded some fascinating results. There were three ties, which we broke by additionally calculating the median score or choosing which got higher high marks, and almost all of them had scores on opposite sides of the spectrum. While there were some obvious standouts, the rankings of the rest of the sparkling waters seemed up to personal preference.
