Whey Soda

Whey soda is a carbonated soft drink built on milk whey — the thin, watery liquid left over when milk is curdled and the curds are drained off to make cheese. Blended with sugar, fruit and herbal flavourings, carbonated and bottled, it turns an industrial cheese-making by-product into a pale, gently fizzy, fruity-sour refreshment. The archetype is Switzerland's Rivella, launched in 1952, which built an entire soft-drink category around milk serum; the same whey-based idea reappears across Europe and beyond as a genuinely distinct kind of soda, neither cola nor fruit pop, with a soft, faintly milky, mineral edge that ordinary sodas lack.