Pop Culture: The Soft Drinks Podcast

Hello, welcome back, and Happy New Year! Whether you've just had your first sober Christmas, you're trying Dry January or you just want something in your fridge beyond Diet Coke, we've got recommendations for you – and some live taste testing, too. Find our own new books (and some of our favourite non-alc ones about great drinks) on our Bookshop.org shop . If you’ve got a favourite drink, or a men...

Pop Culture is officially international! A little while ago, Helen visited Board Dublin , another fantastic alcohol-free bar with a massive selection of non-alc drinks. By day, you can enjoy food, coffee and interesting drinks upstairs in the bright and airy cafe, as well as delving in to the massive selection of board games on offer (bagsie the Jurassic Park chess). By night, the traditional-styl...

Kat and Helen are off on another adventure this episode, visiting Club Soda in London. Club Soda is a fantastic resource for those wanting to drink less or not at all: founded almost a decade ago by Laura Willoughby as a sort of non-drinking equivalent to Weight Watchers, a community for non-drinkers, former drinkers or those trying to cut down or cut out temporarily. As well as campaigning for be...

On this special bonus episode of Pop Culture, your hosts Kat Brown and Helen O'Hara reunite to catch you up on what's been happening since you last heard us, and explain the new plans for the show (we're going fortnightly, basically - or if you're American, every two weeks). We also took the opportunity to try a new tipple we'd been sent. Wednesday's Domaine has just launched two new sparkling non...

Is it overkill to say that Ben Branson basically invented the non-alc drinks space as we have it now? Through his invention, Seedlip, a billion-dollar non-alc industry now exists, bringing quality drinks into restaurants, bars, and homes around the world. Ben tells us the hard truths of launching a new product when you're one person (especially when it's non-alcoholic), the best and worst things p...

What the hell happened to Lilt? If you were blindsided over its reincarnation as a Fanta drink in 2023, then consumer journalist Rob Brown is here to tell you what happened and why. Plus, cocktails that taste like Yankee Candles (bad) and Blue WKD's reinvention as a 0% drink (erm, good, we guess?) and a lovely mailbag of listener stories and feedback to last week's Coca-Cola episode with Chris Hew...

After last week's Fat Duck episode where we learned that fine restaurant had created its own cola in part to tempt Coke-addicted diners into trying something familiar but different, we are thrilled to welcome Helen's colleague from the magnificent Empire Film Podcast , and podcasting's number one Coke fiend, Chris Hewitt, onto the show to talk about all things Coca-Cola. We discuss Diet Coke, Coke...

The Fat Duck is one of the most creative restaurants in the world – we've paid to go, twice – and since 2018, Head Sommelier Melania Bellesini has made sure its soft drinks have measured up to its vast wine list. We were invited to get the gossip on their non-alc drinks and, unsurprisingly, jumped at the chance! From Melania's attempts at perfecting an own-label cola to the drink the staff vetoed,...

Listener Richard Kirke emailed in to offer us some explanation of how decisions are made around sweeteners and sugar in soft drinks, and how companies balance them out – especially post-sugar tax. Why Richard? Well, as well as being a composer, Richard glories in the job of beverage technician – he is one of the people who designs drinks and recalibrates them when they need to change but keeping t...

Hello if you've come here from Grazia! If you're listening before Feb 1st, your two favourite pop enthusiasts have written about all things soft and you can read our piece in the current issue. Our guest today is Professor David Nutt, the renowned neuropsychopharmacologist and all-round science legend, who has dedicated much of his career to understanding how alcohol and drugs affect the brain. He...

There's quite a lot of literal pop culture in this episode, with a lot of talk about film – Helen has a new Shakespeare buddy in Tom Hiddleston and a glorious story involving Coca-Cola from Mia McKenna-Bruce – and of equity and equality in the entertainment industry. Our guest is DJ Paulette: international DJ, legend of the Haçienda, author of Welcome to the Club: The Life and Lessons of a Black W...

We're all about spirits this week – not just because both of us went to see My Neighbour Totoro at the Barbican (squee!) but because Helen chatted to Chris Bax of Wetherby craft sprit, Bax Botanics, (those delicious drinks we tried on our New Year episode) about the hows, whys, and whats of making a non-alcoholic spirit. And yes, this includes why they are expensive, and why the likes of Gordon's...

Yes, that is indeed a can of cereal milk pale ale – because when you run a craft nolo (no or low alcohol) brewery, you can do anything. We're talking about all things beer this week, and Mash Gang , co-founded during lockdown by our guest, Michael Baggs, has explored where beer can go more than almost any company we can think of. Helen met Michael to find out whether nolo beer is for her, how to f...

Happy New Year and welcome to the show! Helen and Kat share their Christmas drinks and New Year's resolutions (spoiler: don't do them in January, it's miserable enough) before welcoming the genuinely divine Helen McGinn, wine expert, author, and star of Saturday Kitchen (and, as of Saturday night, Celebrity The Weakest Link!). Helen was a supermarket wine buyer for 10 years before establishing her...

What's it like growing up teetotal in Northern Ireland? Or studying (and working) in England with booze everywhere you go? In our second bonus episode before the series launches on New Year's Day, Helen tells Kat about her background with not drinking alcohol, having your drink spiked "for a laugh", secrets to getting through boozy celebrations without being told you're boring, and how her attitud...

Before we start the series proper – and you'll be shocked to hear that a Dry January episode *will* be landing on New Year's Day – we have a couple of bonus episodes to introduce your hosts and our aims for the series. Helen and Kat come at soft drinks from different angles. Helen is a lifelong teetotaller, and Kat is four years sober. Helen asks Kat about her background with alcohol, why she stop...

Welcome to Pop Culture, the podcast that brings soft drinks to the top of the menu. Your hosts are Helen O’Hara, film journalist, author, and life-long teetotaller, and Kat Brown, jack of all trades and four years sober. We're arts journalists who don’t drink and love to swap soft drink recommendations and pictures of just... bad drinks menus. In this podcast, we’ll be exploring everything that ma...