As much as I know how important it is to drink lots of water, unless I’ve been running or I’ve just finished a workout and I’m proper gagging for hydration, I just find water as a day to day drink, well…a bit boring really. And I try to limit myself to only 2 or 3 cups of coffee a day, and never past 3pm or that’s it I can wave goodbye to sleep that night, so it’s really tricky to know what to drink.
Yes there’s squash and of course there’s good old Diet Coke, which is fab on the low calorie front, but I know it’s not particularly good for me, so what’s left? What’s going to inspire me to drink the right amount of fluids each day and something that I’m actually going to enjoy?
I went to Be:FIT in London recently and one of the brands sponsoring the event was a drinks company called Zeo. I’d never heard of them before, so I was keen to find out more and seeing as they were handing out samples left, right and centre, well it seemed rude not to grab a can of every flavour and slurp away.
What’s The Deal?
Well, these sparkling fruit and botanical spring water drinks are low calorie and contain the natural sweetener stevia. Now I know some of the purists out there aren’t too keen on the whole stevia thing, but my stance on it is that drinking something that contains a natural sweetener is way, way better than necking a drink riddled with refined sugar and if that’s what it takes to change the nations drinking habits, then that has surely got to be a good thing.
Zeo has been around for a couple of years now, but it has recently undergone a bit of a makeover and is now looking super stylish and certainly explains its rising popularity among the über trendy London health conscious hipster crowd. From pop up dry bars with up and coming DJs, spin classes, fitness festivals and endorsements from such celebs as Caroline Flack, Zeo is clearly enjoying it’s share of the alco-free drinks market.
What Does It Taste Like?
As I mentioned there are currently four different flavours available:
- Peach and Grapefruit
- Cloudy Lemon
- Orange and Mango
- Cranberry and Raspberry
Each one is super sparkly, in a kind of sherbet fizz on your tongue kind of way, which I really like. My personal fave was Cranberry and Raspberry; a really lovely blend of sweet and sharp and it makes a nice change drinking a cranberry drink that doesn’t completely dry out your mouth – so many of them do that, don’t they? Peach and Grapefruit had me transported back to childhood with memories of peach angel delight, Cloudy Lemon felt sophisticated and grown up and Mango and Orange was subtle and zingy.
With hints of the summer starting to creep in (although we could with some more sunshine please!) I can totally imagine these drinks going down really well at a BBQ and yes I know they’re alco-free, but my goodness you could have some fun mixing up some cocktails with them. I’m thinking Cloudy Lemon and Gin, Peach and Raspberry Long Island Iced Tea, Cranberry and Raspberry with a dash of vodka and what about Peach and Grapefruit Bellini?!?!
To sum up Zeo in three words…refreshing, sparkly, summer.
You can find Zeo in Tesco and Ocado and for more information about the product and pop up events check out their Facebook page @DrinkZEO
