Sorta? It's not bad, right? But it has not much nutritional value, and spikes their glycemic index, which is probably fine but... why? I guess it does taste good...
(I'll gladly drink whatever water I find, but I'm not a fan of the plastic taste of some bottled waters and definitely a hater of refrigerator-cold water)
From my holidays in the US I recall shops, even small ones, having lots of drinks. Like, shelves and shelves of any alcohol free drink (and some abv ones) one could imagine. Here I go to my neighborhood small supermarket and there's coke, lemonade, Fanta, tonic water, a few local products such as spuma and that's it
No one drinks coffee or tea or beer or wine in Italy? Pop culture has deceived me.
Wine is definitely more prevalent in the older gens, young people drink albeit less. Up until a few years ago - and in some older people is valid for today as well - there was the belief that a small glass of wine a day wouldn't do harm, or that it had a positive effect on your health...
So yeah, alcohol is often on the table, but there's much less choice about the variety of drinks compared in the us. Then, if you have to work in the afternoon you might choose to not drink alcohol, so you're stuck with water or the other more common soft drinks such as coke (...)
Same reason I cut my OJ with vodka.