Flavoured sparkling drinks: 'They offer a healthy take on fizzy drinks and/or bring a bit of bling to an otherwise neutral beverage.' Photograph: Anna Janecka/Getty Images
Has sparkling water come of age?
We pop open a selection of fun but healthy fizzy flavoured waters that should satisfy even the fussiest princess.
I am not a princess about many things, but there has to be sparkling water in the house. Refreshing, enlivening and occasionally hangover-clearing, it is an essential. Thankfully, my husband is aligned with me (it would never have worked with someone who answered: 'Tap's fine', when offered water in a restaurant).
I'm not fussy about my fizzy, though – SodaStreamed tap is fine – but I am increasingly seduced by the rainbow of new flavoured, unsweetened sparkling waters such as Dash Water and Aqua Libra that have turned up of late. Depending on how you look at them, they offer a healthy take on fizzy drinks and/or bring a bit of bling to an otherwise neutral beverage. 'They make water a fun drink,' says the chef and author Jesse Jenkins, who co-founded sparkling water brand Yew.
These drinks are not to be confused with waters to which sweeteners have been added, which is easily done, given that their packaging universally proclaims 'no added sugar' (NAS). (Volvic's A Touch of Strawberry Sparkling, for instance, might be NAS, but it's also horribly cloying, and I can't help but worry about conflating 'water' with something that's quite so sweet.) No, the flavoured waters I love get their extra zhoosh solely from the taste of fruit extracts – and a fair bit of natty marketing, which, I suspect, is where this trend all began.
This isn't the first time I've written about flavoured fizzies. When I was on a work trip to Los Angeles nearly eight years ago, I came across La Croix, the original flavoured sparkling that inspired a kind of cultish fervour that helped double the US sparkling water market between 2013 and 2018. (For Jenkins, who grew up 'a skateboarding soda kid in 80s LA', a steady supply of La Croix helped remedy an addiction to Cola.) La Croix's irresistible marketing – think Miami Vice meets tropical house – plus the product's virality and clear market appeal went on to inspire British dupes: soda waters infused with the flavours of real fruit and delivered in punchy, pastel-hued cans. With Yew, Jenkins' ambition was to use essences, extracts and acids to create maximum flavour without sugar, sweeteners or calories, and it launched three flavours: green apple, yuzu grapefruit and pink rhubarb.
Dash Water, meanwhile, continues to introduce new flavours to its repertoire – most recently, pink lady apple and, in today's pick, cherry, which like all cherry-flavoured things, I imagine will prove divisive, but I love it; likewise, San Pellegrino's dark morello cherry & pomegranate iteration. Across all brands, flavours range from classic citrus such as Maison Perrier's Forever Lime, to moreish original combinations, such as Voss' sparkling strawberry ginger – I was dubious about this one at first, but, served chilled, it really hits the spot on a hot day. Incidentally, with all of these drinks, make sure they are chilled – for optimal, fizzy freshness. I guess that's one more thing I'm a princess about.
Four flavoured sparkling waters to quench your thirst
- Aqua Libra Sparkling Water Infused with Blood Orange & Mango £3.65 (4 x 330ml) Sainsbury's. Tangy and tropical – dare I suggest trying it with vodka and a slice of lime?
- Maison Perrier Forever Lime £4.50 (4 x 330ml) Ocado. A grown-up, zesty and suitably classic option from Perrier.
- Voss Sparkling Strawberry Ginger £8.50 (10 x 330ml) Ocado. Think pink: positively brimming with summer fruit. Bring on Wimbledon.
- Yew Pink Rhubarb £18.49 (12 x 330ml) yewdrink.com. Tangy, moreish and singing with rhubarb flavour – fun indeed.
