Hungarian Soft Drinks: Traubi, Márka, Szóda and What to Taste in Budapest

Two retro Hungarian sodas are back on supermarket shelves: Traubi and Márka. One tastes of grapes, the other of sour cherries, and both cost under 650 HUF (about $2) for a big bottle at the online grocer Kifli. Most of the old sodas, though, were not Hungarian inventions at all. That story, and soda water from a siphon, is the best way into what Hungarians drink when they are not drinking wine.

This guide covers the drinks worth tasting, what each one tastes like, who makes it today, where to find it and what it costs. Wine and spirits are in our guides to pálinka and the best wine bars in Budapest.

The Short List

Drink	What it is	Made by	Price seen
Traubi (Traubisoda)	Grape soda, about 5% grape juice	Márka Üdítőgyártó, Felsőlajos	629 HUF for 1.75 l
Márka	Fruit soda; the flagship flavors are sour cherry and raspberry	Márka Üdítőgyártó, Felsőlajos	499 HUF for 2 l (sour cherry)
Bambi	Orange soda from 1947, now a craft soda with ginger	Art Water Kft.	out of stock online on 28 October 2026
Tikkadt Szöcske	Hungarian craft cola with kola nut and beet sugar	Italműhely Kft.	599 HUF for 330 ml
Kofola	Herbal cola from Czechoslovakia	Kofola, imported	889 HUF for 2 l
HELL	Hungarian energy drink, launched 2006	HELL Energy, Szikszó
Szóda (szikvíz)	Soda water from a siphon, a Hungarikum	local soda makers

Prices are from the online grocer Kifli. Kifli adds a 50 HUF (about $0.15) deposit for each returnable bottle or can, which you get back when you return it.

Traubi: the Grape Soda

Traubi is a grape soda with sugar and sweeteners. It was announced in the summer of 1971, made in Hungary from Hungarian grapes and water, and bottled at Balatonvilágos, by Lake Balaton. The trademark, though, belonged to the Austrian wine company Lenz Moser, and Hungary paid for the recipe and the name. At the time, the press called it a “modern Hungarian soft drink”.

Photo: Fortepan / Tóth József Füles, 1980, CC BY-SA 3.0, resized, via Wikimedia Commons

After 1990 the trademark ended up in legal disputes and production came and went. In early 2025 Márka Üdítőgyártó Kft. took over the rights and restarted production at its plant in Felsőlajos, south of Budapest. Demand was strong: by the end of April 2025 the company had sold nearly half of the volume it had planned for the whole year.

• Flavors: the classic grape, a sugar-free Zéró and a blue grape version.
• What is in it: about 5% grape juice from concentrate, with sugar and sweeteners.
• Price: 629 HUF (about $1.95) for 1.75 liters, and 365 HUF (about $1.15) for 330 ml of blue grape Zéró, at Kifli on 28 October 2026.

Sources: 24.hu (2025 relaunch, flavors, Felsőlajos), Origo (1971 license), Dívány (1970s press, trademark disputes), Pénzcentrum (2025 sales), Hungarian Wikipedia (Lenz Moser, Balatonvilágos) and Kifli’s Traubi and blue grape Zéró pages, all read on 28 October 2026.

Márka: the Soda Hungary Made for Itself

Márka is a fruit soda, and the flavor to try is meggy, sour cherry, made from the sour cherry Hungarians use in soups, strudels and pálinka. The first Márka, a grape flavor, came out in 1973 on a Hungarian recipe developed by Miklós Kállay and Péter Sárkány, and the Délalföldi Pincegazdaság bottled it.

The reason it exists is money. Hungary was paying license fees for most of its sodas, so a strong Hungarian brand on a Hungarian patent became a goal, and that brand was Márka. There was one catch: for the two flagship flavors, sour cherry and raspberry, Hungary soon had to import fruit from Yugoslavia.

Márka has been run as a fully Hungarian family business since 2007, when the Pécskövi brothers bought the trademark, and since 2017 it has its own plant with a natural mineral water well at Felsőlajos. The range today runs from the classic sour cherry and grape to newer flavors and sugar-free versions. The same company also holds the Traubi production rights and, since August 2025, sells RÓNA again, an old brand, in cola and orange.

• Price: Márka Meggy is 499 HUF (about $1.55) for 2 liters at Kifli on 28 October 2026.

Sources: Márka’s own site (1973, recipe, family business since 2007, Felsőlajos since 2017, range), Origo (license fees, Yugoslav fruit), Budapest Stock Exchange BÉT50 profile (2007 purchase), Trade magazin (RÓNA) and Kifli, read on 28 October 2026.

The License Story: Why So Few Retro Sodas Were Hungarian

Origo’s history of the era puts it plainly: few of the most popular sodas were truly Hungarian. Many were made under foreign license:

• Sztár was a Dutch patent, and its syrup had to be reordered from the Naarden company.
• Arany Gyömbér, the ginger ale, was made on rights bought from Canada Dry.
• Deit was Austrian.
• Traubi, as above, came with an Austrian name and recipe.

Other names from the era were Extra, Gyöngy, Hüsi, Viking, Róna and Oázis, and before them Bambi, Utas and Almuska. Márka now owns Gyöngy as well as Róna.

Sources: Origo and Márka, read on 28 October 2026.

Bambi: the Orange Soda From 1947

Bambi was an orange soda that first appeared in 1947, sold in a 2.5 dl swing-top bottle, and with 12% sugar it was sweeter than Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Western colas arrived in Hungary in 1968, and the original Bambi stopped in 1970. You may hear that Bambi was “made from tar”. It was not: the off taste people remember may have come from the orange oil turning once the drink was past its date.

Since 2020 Bambi has been a craft soda made by Art Water Kft., built on ginger juice fermented for eight days. The flavors include Twisted Orange and Cloudy Rhubarb. Kifli lists both, but they were out of stock on 28 October 2026.

Sources: Economx (1947, sugar, bottle, tar myth, the 2020 relaunch), Hungarian Wikipedia (1970) and Kifli’s Twisted Orange and Cloudy Rhubarb pages, read on 28 October 2026.

Tikkadt Szöcske: a Hungarian Cola

Most countries around Hungary have a national cola. Hungary did not, until Tikkadt Szöcske arrived in January 2016 with the slogan “a kóla magyarul”, cola in Hungarian. A chemical engineer created the recipe, and it uses real kola nut extract and natural flavors, sweetened with beet sugar instead of glucose-fructose syrup. There is also a sugar-free version with stevia, and the drink is vegan.

The name comes from a line of Toldi, the epic poem by János Arany: “tikkadt szöcske nyájak legelésznek rajta”, herds of parched grasshoppers graze on it. Older testers said the taste reminded them of Fagifor, a kola nut tonic once taken by the spoonful.

• Price: 599 HUF (about $1.85) for a 330 ml returnable bottle at Kifli on 28 October 2026.

Sources: Pénzcentrum (launch, slogan, Toldi), HVG (founders, Fagifor, national colas), Tikkadt Szöcske and Kifli, read on 28 October 2026.

Kofola: the Czechoslovak Cola on Hungarian Shelves

Kofola is not Hungarian, but you will meet it in Hungarian shops. It is a herbal cola created in Czechoslovakia around 1960, made with a blend of 14 herbs and a touch of licorice. A Hungarian subsidiary of the Czech company launched it in Hungary in 2007 with the slogan “jobb, mint kóla, tehát Kofola”, better than cola, so Kofola.

• Price: 889 HUF (about $2.75) for 2 liters of Kofola Original at Kifli on 28 October 2026.

Sources: Pénzcentrum (2007 launch, slogan), Kifli (herbs, licorice, price) and English Wikipedia (origin), read on 28 October 2026.

HELL: the Hungarian Energy Drink

HELL is a Hungarian energy drink. The owners ran a confectionery wholesale business in Miskolc, started selling energy drinks, and launched their own brand in 2006. The cans are filled in Szikszó, in northeast Hungary, where the canning plant has run since 2011, and the company says HELL is sold in more than 60 countries. A 250 ml can has 80 mg of caffeine.

Sources: Trade magazin (2006, Hungarian owned, 60 countries), BÉT50 profile (Miskolc, Szikszó) and English Wikipedia (caffeine), read on 28 October 2026.

Szóda: Soda Water From a Siphon

The most Hungarian soft drink is the plainest one. Szóda, or szikvíz, is carbonated water, and the classic way to serve it is from a heavy pressurized siphon bottle. Szikvíz is on the national list of Hungarikums, the official register of things Hungary counts as its own. Hungary credits the Benedictine monk and scientist Ányos Jedlik with making soda water in 1826, and the first soda water plant in Pest-Buda was built to his plans in 1841. Soda water was made elsewhere in Europe before that, so take the “invention” as the Hungarian telling.

Szóda is what turns wine into fröccs, the Hungarian spritzer, and the rule is that fröccs is made with szóda, never with mineral water. Restaurants have their siphons refilled by soda makers, and the bottles are often engraved with the restaurant’s name. It also goes with cake: soda water became a favorite partner for sweet pastries.

At home, the rule in many families was that whoever drank the last glass from the siphon made the next one.

Sources: hungarikum.hu, Szikvíz (Hungarikum, Jedlik, 1841, pastries), University of Pécs teaching text on Hungarian drinks (fröccs rule, household custom), Taste Hungary (siphon refills) and English Wikipedia (Priestley 1767, Schweppe 1783), read on 28 October 2026.

Syrup and Soda: Málna and Bodza

Before bottled sodas, and still today, the Hungarian soft drink was fruit syrup, szörp, diluted with soda or water. Raspberry, málnaszörp, is the classic, and elderflower, bodzaszörp, is the one to taste in summer. Ask for it “szódával”, with soda.

Source: University of Pécs teaching text on Hungarian drinks, read on 28 October 2026.

Hungarian Mineral Waters

If you just want water, two Hungarian brands to know:

• Szentkirályi, still, lightly sparkling or sparkling, plus a lemonade in five flavors. The still water comes from a protected layer 206 meters deep. A 5 liter bottle of still water was 829 HUF (about $2.55) at Kifli on 28 October 2026.
• Theodora Kékkúti, from a spring in the Káli Basin in the Balaton Uplands National Park, sold as Hungary’s highest calcium mineral water. Six 1.5 liter bottles of Calcia were 1,299 HUF (about $4).

Sources: Szentkirályi (range) and Kifli’s Szentkirályi and Theodora Kékkúti pages, read on 28 October 2026.

Where to Buy and Drink Them in Budapest

Supermarkets. By April 2025, soon after Traubi returned, Reál, Coop, Metro, Auchan and Tesco had put it on their permanent shelves, while Lidl, Penny and Spar carried it only in promotions. For prices before you go, the online grocer Kifli lists Traubi, Márka, Tikkadt Szöcske, Kofola and the mineral waters, and it delivers in Budapest.

In a bar. Ibolya Espresso, a retro café and beer bar on Ferenciek tere 5 in District V, lists Márka, Traubi and Bambi on its website. That page is undated and the online menu covers food only, so ask at the bar. It is a minute from the Ferenciek tere stop on metro line M3. Our guide to communist and Soviet-themed bars has three more retro rooms.

Szóda. Look for “szóda” or “szódavíz” on the drinks list, or order a fröccs, which is wine topped up with it.

Sources: Pénzcentrum (chains, April 2025) and Ibolya Espresso (drinks), read on 28 October 2026.

How to Order in Hungarian

You say	It means
Egy szódát kérek.	A soda water, please.
Egy kancsó szódát kérünk.	A jug of soda water for the table, please.
Egy málnaszörpöt szódával kérek.	Raspberry syrup with soda, please.
Van Traubi? Van Márka?	Do you have Traubi? Márka?
Egy kisfröccsöt kérek.	A small spritzer: 1 dl wine, 1 dl soda.
Egy nagyfröccsöt kérek.	A big spritzer: 2 dl wine, 1 dl soda.
Egy hosszúlépést kérek.	A “long step”: 1 dl wine, 2 dl soda.

Kérek means “I would like”, and kérünk is the same for a group. For more phrases, see our Hungarian phrases for tourists.

Source for the fröccs ratios: University of Pécs teaching text on Hungarian drinks, read on 28 October 2026.

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