Soda / pop / fizzy drinks discussion

So... San Pellegrino Chinò tastes like Irn Bru. Not what I was expecting! Very very sweet.

Gallo Nero in Stokey has about 5 different chinotto drinks, maybe one of the others will be nicer.

Found a can of Tizer in my local minimarket.
My excitement was marred somewhat when I cracked it open.

Not nearly as good as I recall (thanks sugar tax/ Brexit)

Fentimans have now joined all the other brands and added sweeteners. I thought they would be
safe since they always had less sugar and raised prices by 60%.
Big win for Coca Cola as the last remaining Cola standing.

Even the 'sugared' Monster drinks have sweetener. Fucksake.

Yeah, they mix sugar an sweetener. What is the point? I am not drinking it for health benefits but for flavour.

I presume because of the sugar tax shit. Instead of jacking their prices, they reformulate the drink to keep the price the same by using sweetener to keep the sugar levels down.

drinks two cans to get nuf sugar

Rocks orange squash (it’s oranges and sugar and no sweetener) a dash of angostura bitters and sparkling water is pretty close to chinotto

But their price went up 60% compared to pre Covid.

The sugar thing was pre-covid. Post-covid everything went up anyway.

Maybe sweetener is cheaper than sugar - you need far less of it to achieve same sweetness. So, imagine on a massive scale how much sugar and/or sweetener you have to buy and ship around. Maybe it's simply cost cutting?

Higher tax on sugary drinks, so they re formulate to stay in lower tax band.

Yes, sugar is more expensive and that was the reason given why everything went sweeteners.
But with Fentimans they just recently switched and at the same time increased the prices. When I was buying them during Covid it was still sugar, I checked quite a few times because their
amount was already a fair bit less than other soft drinks.

It's a thing:
https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/buying-and-supplying/fentimans-soft-drinks-recipe-change-sparks-complaints/677858.article

So they used to have 7.8g per 100ml, Coca Cola has 10.6g.

That's what I said above. Read the whole convo.

Fever tree do lower sugar versions, so they are a little less sweet, so far they seem to have avoided sweeteners.

Well, there's nothing stopping them doing two things at once.

Maybe they figure if they're going to scare off buyers with sweetener, they may as well jack the price at the same time. Ripping off the plaster in one go rather than hitting buyers will two separate 'negatives'.

analysing the sugar content of soft drinks...

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I wonder if that dislike for sweeteners is similar to how some people don't like coriander. Maybe for some it tastes the same.

Tl;dr

Same as those freaks that think cucumber isn't shithouse? Could be.

Some people are definitely more sensitive to some tastes than other people.

Sweetener tastes horrible and leaves a grim aftertaste.

Exactly, but sometimes I wish I couldn't taste the difference so I could just any get any soft drink.
Now that I think about it I really miss the old Schweppes Ginger Ale.

Rocks is so good!

And the blackcurrant is like ribena before it got ruined with sweetener.

Just did a search for that Rocks squash and goggle also suggested Waitrose squash which it appears also has no sweetener.

It is a bit spendy yeah, so if there's an all sugar alternative go for that...