Diet soda shootout

For reasons unclear to me, I have started drinking pop again. Maybe just that time of the year. The only pop I can drink in the pop machine at work is diet Coke, and while I drink it sometimes, I am not real fond of it. At $1.25 for a 20 ounce bottle, I figured there has to be something better out there so I went to the grocery store and bought an assortment of 2 liter bottles on sale for under $1 each.

I figured as I drank them I would comment on and grade them. A being excellant, and F being awful. I also added some stuff from their respective web sites.

I grade diet Coke as a B. It's not like I dislike it. I drink it now and then, and diet Pepsi, depending on what is available, as much as anything else.

In no particular order.

Diet SunKist Orange: B+
O calories. I liked it. The orange flavour was pretty good. There was just a hint of some flavor in it that I did not like, but it did not detract too much from the drink.
INGREDIENTS: CARBONATED WATER, CITRIC ACID, SODIUM CITRATE, MALIC ACID, SODIUM BENZOATE (PRESERVATIVE), ASPARTAME, MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, ACESULFAME POTASSIUM, NATURAL FLAVORS, CAFFEINE, ESTER GUM, YELLOW 6, RED 40.

Diet 7-Up: A-
0 calories. I liked it. Not quite as much as the ginger ale, but it is good.
Web site does not allow copy and paste.
Ingredients: filtered carbonated water, natural flavors, citric acid, potassium citrate, potassium benzoate, aspartame, acesulfame potassium, calcium disodium EDTA

Diet Canada Dry Ginger Ale: A
Another one you cannot cut and paste from their web site. I ought to take points off for that and the useless flash animation that wasted about 20 seconds of my time. I liked the product, despite the annoying website.
O calories.
Ingredients: carbonated water, citric acid, sodium citrate, sodium benzoate, malic acid, aspartame, caramel color, natural flavors, acesulfame potassium, calcium disodium EDTA.
Prominently states on the label that it contains "real" ginger and "all natural" flavors.

Diet A&W Root Beer: A
Good clean taste. Sweet but not too sweet. Lots of foam. Says "made with aged vanilla" on the label. Wonder what that means.
O calories.
Ingredients: Carbonated water, caramel color, sodium benzoate (preservative), natural and artificial flavors, aspartame, malic acid.

Diet Rite Pure Zero Cola: D
Pros - no calories, no caffeine, no aspartame.
Cons - did not like the taste. Not quite bad enough to throw it out, but not all that great.
Ingredients: Carbonated water, caramel color, sucralose (Splenda® brand, a non-nutritive sweetener), gum acacia, natural flavors, citric acid, potassium benzoate (preservative), acesulfame potassium (Sunett® brand, a non-nutritive sweetener), phosphoric acid, potassium citrate.

Diet A&W Cream Soda: B-
I can't say I ever drank creme soda before. It was better than I expected.
No calories.
Ingredients: Carbonated water, sodium benzoate (preservative), aspartame, natural and artificial flavors, caramel color, citric acid, flavored with vanilla extract, caffeine.

Diet Schwepps Ginger Ale: A
I am a fan of ginger ale. This is good stuff. Sweetened with aspartame but I can live with that.
O calories.
INGREDIENTS: CARBONATED WATER, MALIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVORS, SODIUM CITRATE, SODIUM BENZOATE (PRESERVATIVE), ASPARTAME, CARAMEL COLOR.
Serving Size: 8 fl oz (240mL) Total Carb: 0g
Serving Size: 1 can 12 oz Total Carb: 1g
Not sure how you get from 0 carbs in 8 ounces to 1 carb in 12 ounces, but that's what the web site says.

[ETA]Here is a previous review of some good diet root beer.
Frostop Diet Root Beer