I'm a big fan of Fritz-cola, and they have plenty of other sodas as well. Don't know how easy it is to find though

Many countries have their own brands. Where are you at?

I do recommend a well unknown soda from Denmark... you might never taste it, but its great. Maybe one of the greatest sodas of eu?

I like Fritz though I’m not sure it’s available outside of Germany

Fritzkola is german

Irn Bru!

Sumol is a portuguese brand

Freeway cola from lidl is surprisingly good and almost twice cheaper.

I maintain that the best sugar-free cola you can buy is Freeway XL, the in-house brand at Lidl. Way better than Pepsi Max or Coke Zero.

Cockta is a Slovenian brand. Kofola Czech, I like both.

I recently got a machine for adding bubbles to water. Cost me 10 € used, including an empty CO₂ bottle which I can change for a full one at any hypermarket by paying 7 € for the content (which enbubblifies a 1-litre bottle about 60 times, they promise).
And then I can mix that with some lemonade concentrate to get cola or sprite or orange lemonade or whatever. Or I can just put a lemon juice on the bottom of the glass, add a little bit more sugar than that amount, and then pour that water with bubbles atop it.

Works like charm and has the added bonus that I don't need to lug full bottles of lemonade in my backpack to my district that is located unfairly on top of a very mean hill. I can always make just the amount of lemonade I really want, and I can have one glass of this taste and one glass of that. Any juice concentrate works for adding the taste. I found orange juice concentrate that has simply "orange" as its ingredients and makes much tastier lemonade than anything I could buy from the shop.
Plus, the mark's own cola concentrate is tasty.

And obviously you can always just buy water with bubbles. But then you'll have to lug it around, which kind of meh. It weighs.

Orangina is the first that comes to mind. Almost definitively French

Good question! I've been searching a few minutes for Spanish brands and everything seems to have been bought or is distributed by cocacola, pepsico or suntory.

How many levels are in this industry? What a mess? There are brands, producers, bottlers, distributors and everything seems to be mixed.

The easiest way: go to the nearest supermarket and take a bottle with a name you never heard of. Just read the label too. You can easily expect that local supermarket will have more local brands and they will be cheaper. Approach with looking for the complete list of European manufacturers and then searching for concrete names according to that list looks too tedious and overcomplicated.

Irn-Bru

My big trick over the past few years is make my own. So just squeeze a lime into a glass, drop of cordial and add sparkling water.

Now I’m ready to buy one of the machines, with refillable gas canisters. And not feel guilty about all the plastic bottles.

Fresh ginger, or apple juice is also a good mixer

You can make your own soda without much difficulty, depending on your preferred taste. Carbonated orange juice/lemonade is what I do, but cola is doable. No clue about root beer or Dr Pepper, but ginger ale is supposedly pretty simple.

Ritchie's lemonade in Belgium is quite good, however pricey Personally I have a sweet spot for Club Mate. Kofola and Almdudler are good too

Breizh Cola is a nice exact equivalent: https://www.breizhcola.bzh/

My preference goes for tap water obviously but alternatively I just use an organic concentrated soda juice (such https://www.bigallet.fr/produit/sirop-de-cola-bio/ ).

When I was in Germany I remember liking Spezzi and some other one I can not remember the name of, but it reminded me of Dr. Pepper.

Rivella - Swizz soda Trocadero,. Zingo, champis, pommac, julmust, Loranga, Sockerdricka, Cuba Cola- Swedish soda.

Trocadero and julmust feels pretty unique

• afri cola
• club mate
• Deit
• Gerri
• Sinalco
• RedBull
• Paulaner (They make my fav Spezi)

These are the ones I know and have tasted myself. My favorites would be Gerri who make my favorite orange lemonade by far, and Paulaner Spezi.
I don’t drink energy drinks often but RedBull tastes muuuch better than Monster to the point that the latter makes me nauseated.
Afri Cola is one that I don’t like but it’s an option and not completely horrible.

Sinalco, Spezi (different brands..) and Vita Cola from Germany.

Tirola Kola from Austria

Shout out to Why Not, organic craft sodas from Portugal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium-Cola

Does Apfelshorle count?

Fructal products? https://www.fructal.si/products

It's better to drink kvass and non-alcoholic beer from your local brewery.

I can recommend MioMio. I've tried everything they offer and except the Banana one I loved every sort.

MoleCola, from Turin, Italy. You can find it at Eataly shops.