Making my own electrolyte drink

[alias_sqbr]

I've been experimenting with making my own lazy electrolyte drinks since all the ones I could find had artificial sweeteners which tend to disagree with me.

Currently I'm basically just making dilute cordial(*) plus about 1/4 teaspoon of table salt per litre in a jug in a fridge, which has been SUPER refreshing.

Commercial electrolyte drinks have other salts like magnesium and potassium but all the easily available unsweetened powders I could find included a variety of other vitamins etc which I'd feel weird having in such inconsistent amounts and they also probably don't taste great in aggregate.

I'm wondering if something like Heart Salt would be better than regular salt, it has a little artificial sweetener to cut the bitterness of the potassium but presumably less than stuff like Hydralyte/Gatorade etc. The fact their website says nothing about it being a more varied electrolyte makes me wonder if the potassium isn't very bioavailable or something.

My favourite flavour combo so far is 1.5L of raspberry cordial plus an extra cup of water to reduce acidity and sugar, with two tulsi teabags left in it for a few hours to add more complexity of flavour. Which is still a fair amount of sugar and artificial colouring but unfortunately lightly flavoured water easily falls into an uncanny valley of undrinkability for me. Though maybe chilled lightly salted water would be ok? Wouldn't taste as nice though...

Experiments continue!

(*)I know people overseas use 'cordial' differently than we do here. I'm talking about an uncarbonated drink made by diluting a flavoured sugar syrup with water.

Comments

[pauraque]

I have no idea how to make elecrolyte drinks, so this is not going to be a helpful comment (fair warning), but I think "squash" in the sense of a drink is a UK term. I've never heard it in the US and at one point I had to ask what it meant. I'm... actually not sure what the right US term is! I would call Kool-aid a drink mix, I guess. In the US, cordials are either alcoholic liqueurs or candies with liqueur or syrup inside.

[alias_sqbr]

That IS helpful! goes to edit post to be clearer

[caramarie]

I think raspberry is the best flavour for electrolyte drinks -- somehow all the others taste too weird to me (except Pocari Sweat, which I like despite not usually liking grapefruit).

I usually skip the drink and just eat salt on its own though :P

[alias_sqbr]

Oh yeah me too, but with the recent hot weather I have been drinking LOT of fruit drinks and thought this might be a better alternative to that.

[caramarie]

Ah yeah, I get that. The temperature here is not as bad as where you are but it is a struggle ...

[lilacsigil]

lightly flavoured water easily falls into an uncanny valley of undrinkability for me

Oh! Yes! Thank you for this term, that's exactly what it is for me too! It's not water! It's not flavour! It's an abomination! But I could never explain why it's not okay for me.

I really like the Hydralyte "lemonade" flavour but right now they only make it in the icypole sticks, so I keep those in the fridge and chug them down.

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah I was pretty happy when it occurred to me as a description of the experience. Cam loves that sort of drink and I have had real trouble explaining why the halfway point between unobjectionable plain water and tasty flavoured water is NOPE.

[lilysea]

I hear very good things about the electrolyte drinks from Skratch Labs[1]

"strawberry lemonade flavor.

Verdict: rather more lemony than strawberry-y, but tasty! Not overly salty"

[1] https://www.bogong.com.au/brands/skratch-labs.html

[alias_sqbr]

Ooh, that doesn't have any artificial sweeteners, nice. Thanks!