Now that Spring is in the air, and warm and sunny days are not far, it’s nice to have a refreshing beverage.  When you don’t feel like an alcoholic beverage with dinner, crack open your favorite soda. For a change of pace, check out these top 5 artisanal sodas fit for sipping, not chugging.

1. Luscombe: Made in the United Kingdom, Luscombe’s sodas are incredibly complex and appropriate for adult palates. Their Hot Ginger Beer is truly spicy, hitting hard with an eye-watering sting. Tart and floral, Luscombe’s Elderflower Bubbly pairs well with more delicate fish dishes or in your favorite gin-based cocktail
2. Reed’s Jamaican Ginger Beer: Now a popular mixer in New York restaurants, Reed’s Jamaican Ginger Beer is brewed with 25 grams of ginger in every bottle. Sweetened with pineapple juice, Reed’s possesses a clean, fruity taste and a sharp ginger bite.
3. GuS: Standing for “Grown-up Soda,” GuS produces very dry sodas specifically tailored to adults. I particularly enjoy their Meyer lemon flavor, citrusy and a little bit sweet.
4. Fentimans: Fentimans Botanically Brewed Beverages are not for the faint of heart-they are actually fermented and possess a 0.5% residual alcohol content. As a result, their products exhibit funky flavors that expand the expected spectrum of soda taste. Shandy, a combination of beer and lemonade, is surprisingly refreshing. Avoid the dandelion & burdock variety unless you like medicinal, bitter beverages.
5. Fitz’s: Not exactly artisanal, Fitz’s root beer originated at a St. Louis drive-in. Creamy and laced with caramel flavor, Fitz’s root beer is a more mainstream soda option for those wary of numbers one through four. If you visit the St. Louis factory, you can watch the root beer being bottled on 1940s machinery.

More about: artisanal, Ginger Beer, Soda, spring, Top 5