The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

[Ray de Galles]

Why do twin citrus-flavoured soft drink superpowers 7 Up and Sprite dominate the market to the almost complete exclusion of standard lemonade?

Can anyone pinpoint roughly when it happened? I'm sure until the early eighties at least you were more likely to find Schweppes or R Whites in a shop, pub or other outlet but now you'll be given one of the hybrids even if you specifically ask for LEMONade. It's even more pronounced with the diet versions.

Is it fashion? Is lemon-lime somehow an easier or cheaper flavour to copy so the makers pushed it? Actually it's not even really lemon-lime is it, just an indeterminate sweet/sugar taste with no real tartness.

On a related subject, why do they even make orange squash when lemon squash is so vastly superior? That's before we even get to the question of why the former is so predominant.

[Guest]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Barley water is 4000x better than squash. Also, more things ought to be grapefruit.

[Ray de Galles]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Pink grapefruit especially, I always think it has the not-at-all-unpleasant taste of a punch in the nose.

[Incandenza]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

What the fuck is barley water?

[David Agnew]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Traditionally it's hot water poured over boiled pearl barley pulp/rind and fruit, but these days tend to be lemon and barley or orange and barley concentrate that you dilute with either hot or cold water or lemonade

[Incandenza]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Wow. If that's 4000x better than squash, do I want to know what squash is?

[Guest]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Squash is acidic chemical sludge with aspartame. I get an allergic reaction to orange squash.

[Incandenza]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Sounds better than barley water to me.

[Guest]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Barley water is delightful.

Squash also comes in grim flavours. Orange lemon and pineapple? Ugh. Summer fruits? Chemical weapons level of gross.

[DCI Harry Batt]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

more things ought to be grapefruit.

heh

[Incandenza]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Barley water sounds like the crunchiest drink I can imagine. Even more than kombucha.

[DCI Harry Batt]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Hedge-emony?

Hedge-emmony?

He-jemony?

Hegg-emony?

[ursus arctos]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Clearly it's only the brutal repression of the hegemonic forces that prevents all of those pronunciations from being correct.

I've never had barley water, but I have seen it for sale in New York.

Harry is dead right about grapefruit, and would be happier about the carbonated beverage choices in Italy, which generally don't mix lemon and lime (as well as including bitter orange).

[WOM]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Anyone had horchata? I'm intrigued.

[Taylor]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Robinson's Barley Water is best known over here for its prominent presence on the little drinks trolleys next to the players at Wimbledon (that's Wimbledon the tennis tournament, not the south London football club, which is not yet quite that swish).

I don't recall seeing Nadal or Murray gulping down Robinson's between games. Everyone seems to prefer water these days. I'm fairly sure, though, that back in the day, Billie Jean King or Ilie Nastase were partial to the odd paper cup of horrible sweet-but-not-very-citrusy dilute-to-taste bloody horrible piss. Ken Rosewall certainly was, or at least he liked the lorryload of money they drove round to his house.

[Incandenza]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Worn Old Motorbike wrote:

Anyone had horchata? I'm intrigued.

Horchata is the bomb. I can't imagine not being able to have it easily.

[Sam]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Worn Old Motorbike wrote:

Anyone had horchata? I'm intrigued.

I had it in Valencia. Haven't had it since. It wasn't nearly as nice as I'd been lead to believe (although I didn't dislike it).

[linus]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

I've had it on Valencia, in San Francisco's Mission, made with rice rather than barley. The best drink in those restaurants though is the watermelon agua fresca, made fresh on the premise with the fruit's juice.

The best packaged soft drink I've had was an apple sparkler bottled by a small orchard in southern Quebec. That place also happens to make the best ice cider (a concentrated, high-alcohol cider made from apples that are left to shrivel on the tree and picked in mid-winter). In the bigger brands, the berry-flavored Calistoga is an awesome mix of about half blackberry and cranberry juice and half natural sparkling water.

[Incandenza]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Looking on Wikipedia, the Spanish version of horchata is made with tigernuts, which I've never heard of before, water, and sugar. In Mexico it's made with rice, milk and/or water, and cinnamon. In my favorite local version at the great Oaxacan restaurant Guelaguetza, they also include walnuts and canteloupe.

[Guest]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Tiger milk!

The ice cider sounds great. It works brilliantly for wine.

[diabloinglés]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Sainsbury's do a good pink grapefruit high fruit content squash.
Perfect for drinking tequila. Just mix with lemonade (or 7 Up or whatever..)instead of water.
Mexican shops sell grapefruit flavour pop /soda (Squirt, etc.) everywhere and it's the ubiquitous mixer for tequila.
Never understood why UK shops don't sell something similar.

Horchata? Nah, I just don't get it....
Like Sam, I find it's not as nice as people say it is...

I'm partial to Mexican style limonada . Freshly squeezed lemon juice, a bit of sugar and water (fizzy or still).
Refreshing and natural....

[Sam]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Having said that, I have learned on this thread that there's a Mexican version of horchata too. Valencia is, I believe, its traditional home.

[ad hoc]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

I've had it Valencia too, where it seems mostly to be spelled orxata. I had no idea about the tigernuts thing and like Inca have never heard of them before. I always thought it was made of almonds (and indeed what i had was, I'm sure).

And like others, I can't see the point really.

[ad hoc]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

Oh and I fully agree with Harry's opening post. What happened to what-we-used-to-call-lemonade? Can you still buy it? When people drink shandy do they really make it with Sprite these days?

On a not unconnected note, I was offered a can of Becks Lemon the other day. What insane person came up with that? And who the fuck drinks it? I couldn't finish it. It was utterly rank.

[Spearmint Rhino]

The hegemony of lemon-lime flavour

I thought 'barley water' was just a fancy word for 'squash', just Robinson's trying to differentiate themselves from the competition. I can't distinguish it, taste-wise, from any other lemon squash.

Lemon squash and Ribena are my two dilute-to-taste drinks of choice.

I agree with Harry about the original topic, though. I remember going on my first foreign holiday to Majorca in 1978 and drinking this weird exciting new thing called 7-Up. I assumed it was a Spanish thing, but a few years later it was everywhere.

You can still buy tins of R Whites at supermarkets and some cornershops, usually the ones which also stock minority-interest stuff like Cream Soda, Vimto, Ginger Beer and Irn Bru, but the average newsy with a branded Coke/Pepsi fridge won't have it.

By the way, did every town/area have its own lemonade company back in the 70s? I remember in Barry you could have it delivered to your door, either Lowes or Corona. I think Corona might have been national, and Lowes just a local thing.