Sat here with cold hands thinking about how much I miss Ribena

[KatyMac]

Do you think they will ever bring the sugar one back?

It's just so lovely when you have a bit of a cold and need a hot drink

Tea is always nice but there are times when only Ribena would do

For those mourning proper vimto, if you have an Asian supermarket in your area, they might have the Arabic vimto in stock. Proper old fashioned vimto, full of sugar, none of that aspartame nonsense. Bloody lovely it is. More expensive, but worth it for me as I can't abide the taste of artificial sweeteners.

The Belvoir blackcurrant and blueberry is a very worthy ribena alternative.

I feel your pain OP - Ribena was my starter drink when I was hungover, nice and flat and sugary, then I moved on to Irn Bru when I felt I could handle fizz. Now Ribena tastes of vom and Irn Bru just isn't the same.

Thankfully my hangovers a few and far between now but I do miss both when they occur.

We had hot ribena at the top of a snowy mountain today. It still exists…. Tastes amazing hot with whisky in!

I used to work summers on one of the farms that grew the blackcurrants fior
Ribena. I can tell my Ben Lomond from my Baldwin!

Having a lot of sugar won't help if artificial sweetner gives you the shits as well as other horrid bowel symptoms - I nearly ended up at a&e when they changed it without telling us

Doesn't matter how far down the list aspartame is, it tastes rank, and is really easy for me to taste it.

Some people can just taste aspartame - I'm one, it tastes absolutely vile to me! Would love them to bring back normal Ribena. So many things have been ruined by the sugar tax.

Robinsons blackcurrant is pretty good - the double strength stuff

Totally with you on this. Being ill is made even worse by the lack of proper Ribena and Lucozade. I have Blackcurrant Rocks instead as it is better than nothing but it just isn't the same.

I was coming on to say yes this and also Lucozade! I hate the taste of sweeteners and they upset my stomach. Can’t drink lemonade now either and never order Pimms and lemondade when out and about during the summer for this reason.

Is that sweetner free?

The Belvoir blueberry and blackcurrant cordial is the closest I've found to original Ribena. Especially hot!

I think it’s not as syrupy but I still love Ribena. Hot, cold, ice lollies it’s all lovely

but not the sugar free one

T had family over from the US and they drank loads of ribena, hot ribena was a revelation they absolutely loved it

and Vimto is not a substitute not even a very poor substitute

The addition of artificial sweeteners into most soft drinks and squash now means that I only drink water, coffee and wine. I used to love San Pellegrino but that’s ruined now. I also miss proper Ribena.

You need the winter spice ribena, it's lovely and it says to have it hot!

Diabetic friend now needs to drink Coke if she needs a sugary boost as Lucozade is no longer an option, which is crazy, as the one thing Lucozade is supposed to be is sugary!

I'm not averse to a diet drink, but it's when something is changed to low sugar, then it is no longer the same. San Pel...just why? Already a pricey choice, no one would have begrudged a few extra pence to keep the sugar. It hasn't done Coke any harm.

Can still get proper my kids love a warm Ribena drink if poorly

I bought normal ribena in Tesco before Xmas as I was poorly and it soothed my cough

It’s all got added sweeteners now, even the supposed ‘regular’ ribena.

No, all Ribena drinks have some level of artificial sweetener in now. It isn't possible to buy it without.

Ah.this explains why it tastes so fucking terrible now! Thank you.

I messaged them to bemoan the change and was told that in ‘extensive taste testing most people couldn’t distinguish the two’. Grrr…

Even if that is true (and you can use tricks to make surveys say whatever you want them to), surely those who want the stuff with sweetener already have an option to suit their lack of taste. What's the point in doubling up on pretty much the same variant? It would be like having X-brand decaff coffee but then making regular X-brand decaff as well.

But the main thing is that many people don't just care what things taste like - they also want the freedom to make choices in favour of natural ingredients rather than artificial ones. If nobody cared about the health and nutrition content of food and drink and only cared about the taste, we would all have the diet that most 4yo children dream of and eat nothing but chocolate and Haribo all day long.

As we've already seen on this relatively short thread (and I'm not criticising anybody at all here), I think it clearly counts as deliberately deceitful marketing - when companies offer a 'normal' version of a soft drink alongside a 'diet/sugar-free' one. Surely the existence of the latter will make most people assume that the former is still as it always used to be (in some cases, for decades)?

What do they actually hope to achieve? If we must have a sugar tax (even though we don't have a tax on nasty artificial sweeteners, which are deliberately designed to mess with your body's natural functions), then let us have a sugar tax: make it so that you can buy the proper stuff at a higher price and pay less for the artificially sweetened stuff.

When the tax on alcohol-per-unit came in, they didn't just decide to remove all or most of the alcohol to keep the retail price down. Many companies offer (usually cheaper) no/low-alcohol variants as a choice - which is exactly what we should have with soft drinks.

How do people not taste the disgusting aspartame?
First it tastes like there's soap in it. Then there's hours of cloying fake sweet taste afterwards.
And the headaches.
Too much and the shits kick in.

And sugar is supposed to be the unhealthy option?
Introducing diet and fake sweetners has hardly improved the statistics on the population's health.

If I want low-calorie, I know where my tap is, but sometimes it's nice to drink something that isn't water. It's bloody annoying having to traipse off on special supermarket trips to hunt down brands like Rocks in order to drink something that isn't water or Coca Cola because there is no other squash that isn't contaminated with artificial sweetners in some supermarkets.

(Plus Ribena now has to be artificially thickened to replicate the original sugary syrupy consistency)

They’ve brought back full sugar san pel! I got it in tesco the other day. Definitely no sweeteners, I checked multiple times because I find them disgusting!

I still mourn the loss of full sugar drinks, especially ribena and lucozade. I refuse to believe most people can’t taste the difference!

Belvoir blackcurrant and blueberry is the closest but I can hardly find it anymore except in expensive farm shops (it’s worth it)