SHOW BLURB

Welcome to Pop Culture, the podcast that puts soft drinks at the top of the menu. Helen O'Hara and Kat Brown are arts journalists who don’t drink: Helen's a life-long teetotaller, and Kat is four years sober. Join us as we explore the culture lifting soft drinks out of the dark ages, hear from guests about their favourite non-booze options, and meet the people making things delicious. If you’re fed up of being given elderflower cordial at weddings, this is the pod for you. Send us your non-booze drinks obsessions (and good/bad/tedious soft drink menus) to popculturedrinkspodcast@gmail.com and see what we've been drinking lately on Instagram @popculturedrinkspodcast.

EPISODE BLURB

What's it like growing up teetotal in Northern Ireland? Or studying (and working) in England with booze everywhere you go? In our second bonus episode before the series launches on New Year's Day, Helen tells Kat about her background with not drinking alcohol, having your drink spiked "for a laugh", secrets to getting through boozy celebrations without being told you're boring, and how her attitude to soft drinks is expanding beyond water as the options improve.

Navigating university and media careers amid social pressure. 4:00
Drink preferences and options for non-sugar and non-caffeine drinkers. 8:31
Restaurants and bars not having soft drinks menus 12:45
A listener writes in about verdita 18:14

Episode transcript

If you’ve got a favourite drink you’d like to share with us or any other non-booze-related gossip, then email us at popculturedrinkspodcast@gmail.com, and you can see what and where we've been drinking lately on Instagram @popculturedrinkspodcast.

Pop Culture is on Bookshop.org! Read books by us, our guests, and others we like, while helping to support the show at https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/pop-culture-soft-drinks-podcast

Artwork: Ilutaka
Music: HoliznaCC0

If you want to read or hear more from Helen, you can order her book "Women Vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film" which is out now in The UK and comes out on 16th December in the USA and Canada.

Helen O'Hara is also on the Empire podcast every week and hosts the Podcast "His Darker Materials" to coincide with the BBC/HBO TV drama "His Dark Materials".

You can find Helen on Twitter @HelenLOHara

This pod was edited by Ben Williams and produced by Helen O'Hara and Stripped Media. If you want to know more about this podcast and others produced by Stripped Media, please visit www.Stripped.media to find out more or email producers@Stripped.media
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