How to Make your Own Fruit Cordials
Most of us will go for ready-made organic fruit cordials. But if you wish to make your own, Welsh chef Gaz Oakley has a simple recipe for homemade Ribena. It only needs water, blackcurrants and maple syrup.
If making fruit squash, it’s important to avoid unpasteurised drinks for pregnancy/nursing and weak immunity.
You’ll also have to sterilise glass bottles by running on the highest setting in the dishwasher or washing in hot soapy water, then drying (no tea towel) in the oven. Sterilise rubber seals, by soaking in a jug of boiling water.
You can find simple recipes online:
Modern Issues with Ribena
Whether you make your own or (more likely buy organic blackcurrant squash), both are alternatives to modern Ribena (not the same drink as we enjoyed growing up). The upcoming sugar tax means the recipe has been changed, and includes artificial sweetener.
Ribena was created (by a biochemist and scientist combined at Bristol University) back in 1938, to help people get vitamin C during World War II, when citrus fruits were not available. The government encouraged people to grow blackcurrants, and children were given the drink for free.
The name is from the botanical name for blackcurrants (‘ribes nigrum).
Now owned by a Japanese corporate food brand, modern versions are (like all squash – even Robinson’s Barley Waters) adding artificial sweetener to reduce the sugar level. Today around 90% of all our blackcurrant harvests, goes to make Ribena (profits moving out of England).
One user who found that Ribena now adds artificial sweetener to her favourite drink wrote online ‘‘Adding sweeteners to Ribena was intended to reduce our sugar intake. This has worked, as I no longer buy Ribena’.
The company recently spent £7 million on a TV ad campaign, to have people hark back to the days of nostalgia, when drinking Ribena. However, the sugar tax has now changed the recipe completely.
There is now less blackcurrant juice, and ‘blackcurrant flavour’ has been added. This reduces the sugar content, to make more profits. One user said it now just tastes of ‘summer fruits’, and it’s like the makers have filled the bottle with a completely different drink.
