I can’t remember what life was like before I discovered Emergen-C and other drinkable vitamins. I was probably fighting off the flu by chopping 12 bulbs of garlic into my stir-fry each winter night, chasing away hangovers with Coke Slurpees, and defending against airplane colds simply by keeping my fingers crossed for the entirety of every flight. But those little packets of fizzy goodness make staying healthy so much easier, as many a ThisNext member has realized.

First, there’s the cold and flu factor. Like it or not, fall and winter are right around the corner, as David points out in his recently added shopcast about Airborne. With 1,670 percent of your daily vitamin C needs, the effervescent tablets should give a whopping boost to your immune system. Still, David remains pragmatic about Airborne’s ability to act as superhero-esque protection against sniffling and sneezing:

“If Airborne doesn’t work, the worst thing is you take some vitamins. If Airborne does work, you stay healthy for the season. Not a bad offer. Oh, if Airborne is just some psychosomatic quackery and it works because you think it works, do you really care?”

Gerry Ann prefers to get her wintertime immune boost from Tangerine Emergen-C and then “look with pity on all those coughers and sneezers who haven’t seen the light.”

Among those who have indeed seen the light: East Village Idiot blogger Chris, currently combating a late-summer cold with military precision and turning to weapons such as takeout Chinese food and Emergen-C (a “cutting edge tool in the War on Cold”) in beating down the enemy. The Typewritten Word is employing Emergen-C and echinacea in her own battle, insisting that those vitamins and minerals taste much better when stirred into cranberry juice rather than H20.

While colds and flu may be mostly confined to fall and winter, hangovers are for any old time of year. Which is why I was so excited to read yesterday’s Ideal Bite blog post about the power of vitamin drinks to magically erase hangovers. Jess would most likely give the thumbs-up to Ideal Bite, since her Emergen-C shopcast also speaks to the product’s hangover-easing potential:

“I like to drink. I work 8:30-5pm. Sometimes these things conflict & I feel like crap. My solution - EmergenC. Mix it in my first mug of water at work, feel like my normal self in 15 minutes. Perfect!”

The wee ones can also benefit from vitamin drinks, as Erika W. notes in her Airborne Jr. shopcast. At her daughter’s first sign of sniffles, she says, “I start her on a twice a day regimen of Airborne, and 3 days later she is 100% better. Her colds are also very light and more a nuisance than a real sickness.” Moms and dads may want to get friendly with the fizz as well, since kids are “very effective germ vecots for parents,” as Gordon points out in recommending Emergen-C. “When I feel like I might get sick from some bug going around the playground, I drink one of these and am good as gold,” says Gordon, who also suggests downing some Emergen-C-infused water before and after a long plane ride.

And though they may be the most popular drinkable supplements on the market, Emergen-C and Airborne aren’t your only options for loading up on cold-preventing, hangover-curing, energy-raising vitamins and minerals. Right now in my kitchen cabinet I’ve got both Ola Loa Energy Drink (probably the best-tasting vitamin drink I’ve ever tried, very Tang-reminiscent) and Hansen’s Fizzit Vitamin & Mineral Drink (a lot like Emergen-C, with 32 Mineral Complexes & B Vitamins).