Ten on Tuesday #2 - Favorite Drinks

Today's Topic is 10 Favorite Drinks

1. Water - I confess I drink it all day & through the night when I wake up. Weight Watchers made a believer out of me!

2. Coffee (with half & half) - I grind the beans ... (half regular and half decaf mixed together)... and brew it fresh each morning when I arise ... 1st thing!

3. Pepsi (not Coke) - especially the Cherry Flavored variety, but I seldom indulge this habit any longer because I can't stand 'diet drinks' and try to be mindful of my sugar & caffeine intake these days.

4. Milk - I drink 3 glasses each day, every day ... always have! I prefer 'whole milk' but gave it up decades ago for 2% because of the fat content and in the past couple of years I've managed to switch to 1%. I doubt I'll ever drink the non-fat variety ... but stranger things have happened.

5. Starbuck's Caramel Macchiato (hot or cold depending on the weather)

Venti with 2% milk - 300 calories

A signature Starbucks® beverage. A creamy mix of vanilla and freshly steamed milk marked with intense Starbucks® espresso, topped with velvety foam and our own proprietary buttery caramel sauce.

Venti with 2% milk - 330 calories

The iced version of our signature Starbucks® beverage. A creamy mix of vanilla and fresh cold milk poured over ice, marked with Starbucks® espresso and topped with our own proprietary buttery caramel sauce.

6. Cadillac Margaritas (on the rocks with salt) - but given the calorie count (you really don't want to know if you'd like to keep enjoying them ... trust me) I 'settle' these days for 'wines' instead.

7. White Zinfandel - my usual when I decide to imbibe

White Zinfandel, often abbreviated as White Zin, is an off-dry to sweet, pink-colored rosé wine. White Zinfandel is made from the Zinfandel wine grape, which would otherwise produce a bold and spicy red wine. As such, it is not a grape variety but a method of processing Zinfandel grapes. As of February 2006, White Zinfandel accounted for 10% of all wine sold by volume, making it the third most popular "varietal" in the United States. Demand for White Zinfandel has been falling in recent years, but it still outsells red Zinfandel 6:1 by volume.

8. Pino Grigio

Pinot gris is a white wine grape variety of the species Vitis vinifera. Thought to be a mutant clone of the Pinot noir grape, it normally has a grayish-blue fruit, accounting for its name ("gris" meaning "gray" in French) but the grape can have a brownish pink to black and even white appearance. The word "Pinot", which means "pinecone" in French, could have been given to it because the grapes grow in small pinecone-shaped clusters. The wines produced from this grape also vary in color from a deep golden yellow to copper and even a light shade of pink. The clone of Pinot gris grown in Italy is known as Pinot grigio.

9. Cabernet Sauvignon

Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties. It is grown in nearly every major wine producing country among a diverse spectrum of climates from Canada's Okanagan Valley to Lebanon's Beqaa Valley. Cabernet Sauvignon became internationally recognized first through its prominence in Bordeaux wines where it is often blended with Merlot and Cabernet franc. From France, the grape spread across Europe and to the New World where it found new homes in places like California's Napa Valley, Australia's Coonawarra region and Chile's Maipo Valley. For most of the 20th century, it was the world's most widely planted premium red wine grape until it was surpassed by Merlot in the 1990s.

Despite its prominence in the world of wine, the grape is a relatively new variety being the product of a chance crossing between Cabernet franc and Sauvignon blanc sometime during the 17th century in southwestern France. Its popularity is often attributed to the ease of cultivating, with the grape's thick skins and hardy vines being resistant to rot and frost, as well as the grape's consistency in presenting structure and flavors expressing the typical character ("typicity") of the variety. Familiarity and ease of pronunciation have aided Cabernet Sauvignon wines to be good sellers among consumers, even when from unfamiliar wine regions. Its widespread popularity has also contributed to criticism of the grape as a "colonizer" that takes over wine regions at the expense of native grape varieties.

10. Water - by far my favorite drink deserves a 2nd spot on this list because I drink it all day (and night) long!

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Thought for Today
"Fixedness of purpose is the root of all successful efforts." James Allen