non-alcoholic/very low alcoholic beverages

Water, soda pop, fruit juice, etc.

You can buy bottled water, but the tap water in Spain is totally safe.

What do you drink at home and what safety issues are you concerned with in Spain?

My question is are there any non-alcoholic beverages that are wine-based? with no alcohol or little alcohol? I have been warned about drinking tap water? Are fruit juices readily available? I know wines are a safe bet.

I'm confused. You said you can't drink alcohol, but then talk about wine-based drinks. How can wine be OK if you can't have alcohol?

Tap water is perfectly fine in Spain, but fruit juice, pop, bottled water, coffee, tea, etc., are all readily available.

Kathi, I do not know why someone warned you about the water. That seems pointless as it is perfectly fine to drink.

What is wonderful to drink over here are the fruit juices. Spain grows all this great fruit and it will be common to have fresh squeezed OJ. There are all kinds of juices here and they will taste ever so much better than what is in the states. Believe me, I cannot drink what is sold in the US. It all has some kind of weird preservative after-taste.

Thank all of you for your suggestions and comments!!
Kathi

In some European countries, e.g. in Germany, non-alcoholic beer can contain up to 0.5% vol. alcohol (!). It's not a lot but it certainly doesn't qualify as totally non-alcoholic. Do read the fine print on the reverse side of the bottles. % and alcohol are pretty much the same in every language ;-) They've got great sodas and juices in Spain.

Kathi, if you want a "wine-based drink with no or little alcohol", why not drink well-watered down wine? As you have already been assured by others, the drinking water is safe, it really is.

vino verde is a nice white with lower alcohol - maybe you can concoct a wine spritzer - wine and fizzy water.

The water in Madrid and in in Spain generally was not good, sorry I took your advise! More than 1 person on our tour had gastro problems. I switched to bottled water pronto. Never had water problems elsewhere.

If someone had gastro problems it had nothing to do with the water. We were recently in Spain from Madrid to Malaga and no one in our group had problems. Same a couple of years ago. It would easily be related to a dozen other items.

I disagree. using bottled water stopped the problem. Some may have a predisposition to not be affected. Water in Northern Europe was never a problem, nor Italy or France. Occums razor, if you go-drink bottled water.

You may be unique or it may be psychological, but I don't think anyone else has every posted a problem with water in Spain.

Have never heard of anyone having stomach problems from drinking the water in Spain. People have problems and they look for a reason and decide, oh, it must be the water. It would be like me coming to NY and having a stomach ache or other problems and deciding it must be the water. Would you not think this was a little silly? Same thing here.

If "more than 1" person had gastro problems, it's more likely to have come from unfamiliar food that they ate, not the water. I have never had a problem with tap water in Spain. The only place that I have ever even been advised to avoid the tap water was in China, where even the locals drink bottled.

Gastro bugs can affect people on tours as they tend to get those preset meals ,, where the food may have sat in kitchen a bit long,, or chef may have had dirty hands. My doctor said diarehha is most commonly caused by eating food prepared by people who did not wash hands well after using toilet. Sorry to be blunt.

It is possible your stomach may have been sensitive to water though,, but its not that the water is unsafe or bad. It isn't.

A good choice is Bottled mineral water. I never liked sparkling mineral water before spending time in Europe; it always reminded me of drinking alka-seltzer.

In Europe there are no-fizz, low-fizz and regular fizz mineral waters (what you see mostly in the US). I found I liked the low-fizz mineral water. While I rarely drink it at home, it's now a staple when I'm in Europe.