edit: a) I'm in Germany, not that many products available here. b) I always steered clear of Coca Cola, Pepsi and so on, those were too sweet for me and the caffeine level was rather low anyway.
After dropping soda I can't even drink half a can because of the sweetness but YMMV.
You can order the ingredients whenever you're sure you want to try it (most of them keep for a long time). Then, when you get a few hours free on the weekend, you can make a batch of soda syrup. You can experiment with the ingredients and fine-tune it to be perfect.
If you want to try something slightly different (which, unfortunately, requires processed sugars AFAICT), you can try making ginger ale at home! Here's a simple and practical guide[2] that I used to learn how to make some, which serendipitously was written by a San Francisco tech startups guy.
[1]: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/427/o... [2]: http://tashian.com/carl/archives/2009/03/ginger_ale.php
Will probably get one of my friends to bring me some when they visit home the next time.
and it tastes good! in fact i like all their products :)
Coke Zero is a lot closer, but Diet Pepsi and Pepsi Max are both vastly better approximations to their non-diet versions.
RC Light, though, is the only diet cola I've tasted that ever got close to fooling me into thinking I got the non-diet version. It's worth a try. But RC tastes quite different to Coke (much stronger caramel taste) so someone looking for a diet alternative to Coke might not be happy with it.
I miss Diet Pepsi (can't get it in Norway) - Pepsi Max is ok, but it's not the same. Since work ditched Pepsi I've cut way back on the amount of soda I drink. I suppose that may be a good thing, but I still miss the taste.
Diet Coke and Coke Zero are only two of their diet colas. The original was TaB, which is still sold today.
I switched from sugar in my coffee to stevia about 1 1/2 years ago, it was the first non-sugar sweetener I tried I didn't find disgusting.