Fever-Tree Premium Lemonade

Flavour Profile

Clear lemonade, with some real lemon in it

Fever-Tree’s UK ingredients list reads carbonated spring water, sugar, lemon juice at 2.5%, citric acid and a natural lemon-lime flavouring. So there is fruit in it, though not much, and the lime in that flavouring adds bite that lemon alone would lack. It is clear and colourless, the British convention for a lemonade meant to stretch a spirit without altering its look.

The standard and the Light versions differ in sugar

The standard bottle carries 35 kcal and 7.6g of sugar in every 100ml. The Refreshingly Light version halves the calories to 18 kcal, with 4.5g of fructose sugar, and its label lists lemon and lemon-lime flavourings but no lemon juice. Fever-Tree’s UK site sells both in 200ml bottles.

Fever-Tree’s cloudy Sicilian Lemonade is the sharper bottle: Fever-Tree’s UK site lists it with 6% lemon and 4.4g of sugar per 100ml; Premium is the sweeter, cleaner pour. Clear, cloudy and still lemonade each do something different in a drink.

It suits fruit cups, gin and vodka

Fever-Tree describe it as balanced for fruit cups, vodkas and gins, and as something to sip neat. That makes it a fit for a Pimm’s, a gin and lemonade or a vodka served long: drinks where the lemonade supplies sugar and fizz and the spirit stays light. Where a liqueur is already in the glass, go easier on the pour or the sweetness takes over.

The sugar figure also has a tax angle in Britain. At 7.6g a 100ml it sits in the lower band of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy, which covers drinks from five grams to just under eight and charges more from eight grams.

Open it at the glass

Sealed, a bottle lasts to its printed date in a cool cupboard. A 200ml bottle holds one long drink or two short ones, and that is the point: carbonation drains within hours once it is opened, so crack each bottle as the drink is built instead of keeping a half-used one in the fridge.

Common Questions