ReaLemon Lemon Juice

With all sorts of sugary carbonated beverages available for cheap, who really wants to drink plain old flat boring water? And even if water is free, sometimes it just does not taste so good. 

In the US, flavoured sparkling water can get as low as US$1 a bottle. Pretty alright, unless you are drinking something like 12 bottles a day. In Singapore, a good bottle of sparkling water will set you back S$2.20 - 4. One of my friends prefers to import Crystal Light all the way from the United States.

So what's a person with a lower budget supposed to do?

Sometimes I pluck limes from my mother's lime tree in the backyard, slice them into two and squeeze into a cup of cold water. But when I have plucked the tree bare or when I have no time, I use ReaLemon's Lemon Juice. The largest bottle comes in the size of the smallest bottled soft drink (443ml), and retails at Cold Storage for S$6.40 (or in the US for US$3.69).

As you can see in the picture above, food preservatives have been added: sodium benzoate, sodium metabisulfite and sodium sulfite. 'course I would prefer squeezing a fresh lemon into my water, but fresh lemons are expensive and I figure I use only a few drops of lemon juice a day. 

If you are good with the ingredients, flip the cap and squirt a little lemon juice into cold water for some flavour. To make a lemonade-type drink, squirt out even more and add your sweetener of choice. And for some pizazz, squirt into chilled sparkling water and add sweetener.