How can I save money on drinks?

tomtombeanie

*~Zephyr~* wrote: »

And you can drink fruit tea cold - I often make up a big teapot of fruit tea, leave it to cool and then chill it - it's delicious.

If you like this, try refrigerator tea - put 3 or 4 teabags of choice in a large glass jug, fill with cold tap water and put in the fridge overnight or for at least 8 hours. Same result as brewing tea but you don't waste time & energy heating the water only to cool it again. My favourites are lemon & ginger, mint, and berry - the aldi teabags do a lovely job

RofLaleham

We have three Grolsch style glass bottles which we fill with tap water and refrigerate in rotation. Chilling water reduces its ability to dissolve things (opposite of heating it to make tea), so chilling water removes the nasty taste of tap.

janiebgood

I have a sodastream and that's great for making fizzy water.

happyinflorida

Get yourself a juicer cheap - through bootsale or FridayAd or Ebay or similar and juice fresh fruit and/or salad veg and normal veg.

If you really get into it you can get fruit and veg from your local depot where you'll find them really cheap, it's the same place as shops around you buy them from and they are really good value for money and often have a box going even cheaper if you tell them you want stuff for juicing.

The taste is superb - it goes brown quickly but still tastes the same!

elm

I once did a taste comparison with bottled fizzy water and soda water (usually free in pubs and restaurants, just like tap water) and it tasted no different. It's lovely with a couple of slices of lemon or lime.

stellata

If you have a sodastream you dont have to buy their concentrates. I use the half litre bottles for fizzing, keep in fridge and use to make up squash as I want it. Cheaper than pop and always fizzy! The big pop bottles go flat halfway down.

rachelleigh73

Can recommend squeezing and freezing lemon or lime juice in ice-cube trays! Love it!

Evil_Olive

RE: squashes tasting bad - this might be because almost all brands now use artificial sweeteners in place of sugar and have steadily increased the proportion of them over the years as it's cheaper than sugar, so more profit for them - if you can find a brand which uses 100% actual sugar you might like them better.

I also am not that keen on plain water (bottled or tap) and squash has always offered the best cost/convenience ratio for me. However, like a couple of the other posters, I hate the taste of artificial sweeteners and also they are a trigger for migraines with me (NOT 'bad headaches' - actual proper migraines where I go blind, throw up and lose my balance etc :eek: ) it's getting harder and harder to find squash that doesn't have them - at least when they were confined to 'diet' branded drinks they were easy to avoid

Someone mentioned the 'Bottle Green' branded squashes which are lovely (though VERY expensive) but there is also Roses Lime cordial which doesn't have sweeteners in - this is VERY refreshing in the summer, and there's also 'Sunquick' orange squash if you can find it. It's not as cheap as standard squash but is SUPER concentrated so lasts ages, and tastes delicious because it has a very high fruit content.

Also for lemonade lovers who have had to give it up because even the supposedly good quality brands like R Whites & Schweppes now use sweeteners - try '7 UP' as that still doesn't have sweeteners at the time of writing - I buy a bottle every Christmas to go with my nostalgic bottle of Martini Rosso

I too grate ginger into plain water or add lemon slices (I squish them about a bit to get the full 'zesty' flavour I also use the leaves of a lemon verbena plant in my garden - the leaves taste exactly like those lemonade ice lollies we had as a kid

I once made my own squash when I 'appropriated' a whole box of lemons that had been discarded at the end of market day. It was really easy - just quartered lemons (including peel) and sugar simmered in a saucepan with some citric acid crystals and water and mashed about with a potato masher. Kept for months in the fridge and tasted delicious when diluted.

Lots of other good ideas in this thread too - consider them stolen

rinabean

Evil_Olive wrote: »

Also for lemonade lovers who have had to give it up because even the supposedly good quality brands like R Whites & Schweppes now use sweeteners - try '7 UP' as that still doesn't have sweeteners at the time of writing - I buy a bottle every Christmas to go with my nostalgic bottle of Martini Rosso

Waitrose lemonade has no artificial sweeteners, if you want only lemon. And it comes in a half size bottle if like me you won't drink it all before it goes flat. Took me years to find!

I just wish there was some way to make water hard. I grew up with beautiful hard water - hell on washing machines and kettles but so delicious - and I can't stand the soft water at my new house even after a year. I'd love if there was something like a packet of salts to add a bit of to a jug of water, but no

Evil_Olive

Me too Rinabean, I love tea and drink it by the bucket-load but when I lived up in the North for a year or so I had to switch to coffee because I couldn't stand the way the soft water made it taste. That first cup when I got back down to Essex was heaven