Making water taste good -your favourite drink concentrate
 

There must be tons of concentrates, cordials and other things people add to water I've never tried or heard of.

Personal favourites include:

Fresh lemon or lime juice and plenty of sugar.

Ribena (original) - a blackcurrant flavoured cordial packed with sugar.

Calpis concentrate - we get big litre cartons of this. No need to wait until we're in Japan. Great with still or sparkling water.

Elderflower cordial - recipe here. Absolutely delicious!

And a local product from Sainsbury's (one of our largest grocers) called
High Juice Peach Squash Main three ingredients are: Sugar, Peach Juice from concentrate (35%) & Peach Puree from concentrate (15%)


These are all bad news for the teeth.

The only teeth friendly one I know of is a sugar free French product I can rarely get hold of called

Antesite

There are two varieties I'm aware of - one is based just on licorice (green)- the other has aniseed added to it (red). Alas, I only learnt about this on my last visit to France when I picked up the aniseed loaded one by mistake :(

It's one of the few concentrates I'd actively recommend for children. I had a playmate/neighbour in Spain who came from a French family and they introduced me to it - there's no problem whatsover with drinking gallons of water laced with this stuff. Licorice is incredibly sweet compared to sugar and a couple of drops of Antesite is all it takes to fragrance and sweeten water, leaves a refreshing and very pleasant 'aftertaste' so that water seems less 'harsh'.

Add scotch. ;)

Ding-Ding-Ding, we have a winner!!! ^ ^ :D

I'll second that ^

For once it would have been nice to have a thread on here that didn't focus on alcohol.

Now I have to ask a moderator to amend the title.

Better amend the members! ;)

I second elderflower cordial -- the best is homemade, but d'arbo is pretty good. Ikea's syrup will do in a pinch. Lovely diluted with sparkling water and a couple of frozen raspberries thrown in.

Another favorite is unsweetened cranberry concentrate, again diluted with sparkling water and a slice of lime added. Not so unfriendly to dental health.

I may think of more....

D'oh! Sorry 'bout that. :)

I'm usually pretty happy with the taste of my water. If it's not tasty, I'll drink something else rather than adulterate it.

Tea and coffee make me pretty happy too.

That's very gracious of you, Spiff. Thank you!

Elderflower is one of my favourite flavours: I (as a tee-totaller) had several bottles of Bottlegreen Elderflower Pressé to drink (out of champagne glasses, of course) at my wedding!

On topic... Their elderflower cordial is my personal favourite, I find it has the most bite out of the easily available ones (including Belvoir, etc).

(There's a Suffolk ice cream maker (local to my M-I-L) which does a rather lovely gooseberry and elderflower ice cream, and I currently have Coppella Apple and Elderflower juice as my favourite still drink.)

And there's the French café classic - a citron pressé (or better still, a citron vert pressé, available in a Café Rouge near you, er, if you're in the UK) - nothing but freshly squeezed lemon/lime juice and sugar syrup in the water. The only more refreshing thing I know of is an Indian-style lime soda (with the soda at the perfect temperature, so its semi-solidified form comes halfway out the bottle on opening...)

Otherwise, really, I'm more of a juice person than a concentrate person, so not sure I can help that much.

Since I don't drink tea or coffee, I buy cordials by the bucket load. My absolute favourite is Lime and Lemongrass made by Belvoir - but it's quite hard to come by. Not sure about sugar content, but it doesn't taste too sweet (I have a sweet tooth however). Belvoir do a whole range of interesting adult cordials - expensive, but since I don't do tea or coffee, worth it!

Second favourite is cranberry and hibisicus by Thorncraft - this can be found in most delis - again quite sour and not too sweet.

If I'm struggling to get hold of those, then Duchy Original strawberry and mint cordial is available in Sainsburys - but it is packed with sugar. Once opened, keep in fridge because it moulds up quickly otherwise :(

I like the sounds of the some of the suggestions so far, especially lime and lemongrass cordials. :)

About the only sweetened beverages I'll drink are cane sugar Coca-cola and real ice cream milkshakes, so adding sugar and little else to plain water -- still or sparkling -- is not my custom.

For still water, when I'm away from home, I've recently discovered True Lemon, True Lime and True Orange packets are a winner. Sparkling water I can handle unadulterated, but I do quite like a healthy dash of Angostura Aromatic Bitters and a slice of lime whenever possible. Tastes divine (and pretty, too)!

ETA: I wish Angostura came in 4ml mini-bottles, like Tabasco Sauce does. :(

Oooh! Handy! Especially for hotel rooms.

Is there evidence for "bad news for the teeth"?

My dentist said sugar is only bad for the teeth if you keep it in your mouth for a long time. For example, sucking on hard candies all day is bad for the teeth. However, if you consume the sugar in few minutes, such as in a drink form or a candy bar, there is little damage.

If you're worried about teeth, rinse you mouth with water after consuming the sugar.

Yes there is, plenty:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1121749.stm

There is also the problem where sugary drinks are put into bottles with rubber teats and infants suck on these for extended periods. (But this confirms what your Dentist has said).

Personally, I'm not particularly concerned, but there's been a lot of coverage in the UK, particularly about Ribena's 'toothkind' product. The concentrates I've described are certainly not 'Good News' for teeth and they don't seem particularly neutral either. I've announced the 'Bad News', it's up to everyone to gauge how bad that bad news is for themselves. Obviously I still drink them....