Tonic water and other drinks with artificial sweeteners

[Chicdrop]

So fed up with drinks with artificial sweeteners-from tonic water, my G & T's not the same anymore.
Also fruit cordials, the only place I can buy from in Jersey is Waitrose, where I can still buy orange, apple & pink grapefruit cordial without artificial sweeteners, thank goodness!
Artificial sweeteners do not agree with me apart from the aftertaste!
So manufacturers please take heed of this!!!

[Over70]

Part of the problem is the govenment sugar tax of either 18p or 24p per litre. To avoid the tax, most manufacturers have replaced most or all of the sugar with artificial sweeteners - aspartame, acesulfame-k, saccharine and/or sucralose. Fevertree and Fentimans have jumped on the bandwagon with no artificial sweeteners, but their tonic water is ridiculously expensive. Fortunately, Waitrose still sell a lovely "light" tonic water under their Essentials label, with reduced sugar, but no artificial sweeteners. The sugar content is just below the sugar tax ceiling, so a litre bottle costs 57p. Lidl also sell small cans of own label tonic water, without artificial sweeteners. However, their litre bottles do contain sweetweners.

[BarbedBloom]

It really annoys me. I cannot drink artificial sweeteners without getting the worst headache and stomach problems for days. I mainly drink water, but am teetotal so when I go out I want a soft drink with sugar in. Two pubs near me don't even have alternatives to sweetener based soft drinks now, so I had to drink water all night. Our local cinema chain only has coke and apparently they are considering switching that now.

Adults should be able to make their own choices.

[DingDongDenny]

lidl has tonic water without sweetner in both the full sugar and diet version. Much cheaper than fever tree

[SilverySurfer]

I loathe sweeteners and they are on my boycott list along with palm oil. The only lemonade I can find without them is from Waitrose but they also do one with sweeteners so you need to be sure which bottle you pick up because they look virtually identical. I also recently bought from Waitrose some Fever-Tree Mediterranean Tonic Water and Fentimans Connoisseurs Tonic Water neither of which contain sweeteners.

[bridgetreilly]

HUGE zombie thread so most of the brands listed have changed their recipes. San Pellegrino is full of artificial sweeteners these days.

[ShinyGiratina]

At least since I had my whinge on this thread a couple of years ago, Morrisons started selling Rocks squash which is lovely, but it is galling having to pay so much for premium products to not have a headache.

The sugar tax has probably increased my sweet drinks consumption as I have to get through my over-priced cordial before it goes mouldy

[ProperSugar]

Hey all! This was really bugging me too- I love a G&T and hate the taste of sweeteners so I actually made a website to help keep track of the different brands I can find that don't use artificial sweeteners.

I made a couple of posts which are relevant to this thread:

Tonic Waters Without Sweeteners: propersugar.co.uk/2019/09/06/tonic-water-without-artificial-sweeteners/


Gin in a can: propersugar.co.uk/posts-feed/premix-drinks-artificial-sweeteners/cans-of-gin-no-artificial-sweeteners/

I hope it's helpful!

Thanks @Chicdrop for starting this thread.

[mrsbyers]

Sucralose makes me very poorly , I stick to normal coke or Pepsi , roses lime cordial or the expensive fruit cordials that remain artificial sweetener free.

[mrsbyers]

Oh and a couple of soda stream syrups are free from artificial sweetners too.
I understand the Hi Juice in Asda to be sugar only but I haven’t been to stock up yet

[ProperSugar]

@mrsbyers thanks for the tip re. Soda Stream! Sainsburys Hi Juice is sweetener free too but have to be careful about getting the dark blue lid. I wrote an article about it- can find it on the site I linked in my last comment- I'll find out which soda streams are OK and add those in too :)