How much sugar is in your bottle of flavoured gin?
Flavoured gins are a perfect summer drink – from strawberry pink gin to chocolate orange.
But have you ever considered the amount of sugar in your flavoured gin and tonic.
While most standard dry gins contain no sugar, many flavoured gins contain more that you would expect.
Some contain up to 15 teaspoons (90g) per 700ml bottle (though of course, you are unlikely to drink that all in one sitting) and because brands arent required to list the amount of sugar, like soft drinks companies are, its very difficult to even find out how much your drink contains.
Looking at some of the UKs most popular flavoured gins, the worst was Whitley Neills Raspberry Gin and their Rhubarb & Ginger Gin, with 9.3g of sugar per 100g.
Although that equates to 2.33g per single measure (25ml), it can add up over the course of an evening.
Advertisement
Advertisement
It gets worse if you add standard tonic, rather than slimline. A 250ml serving of tonic contains up to 12g of sugar, meaning two single flavoured G&Ts would be almost all your recommend daily amount of 30g of sugar.
Other gins with a higher sugar content include Warners Victorias Rhubarb Gin, which contains 9.2g per 100ml or about 2.3g per 25ml serving.
Gordons Premium Pink Distilled Gin contains 1.8g of sugar per 25ml serve or 7.2g per 100ml.
Beefeater London Premium Pink Gin contains 4.6g of sugar per 100ml, which is 1.15g per 100ml.
A can of Coke contains 11g of sugar so its not as much as some fizzy drinks but might be more than you thought you were having.
To compare, a can of Stella Artois has 0.3g sugar per 100ml, which is 1.3g per 440ml can and a can of cider has 11g per can.
If you want to try a flavoured gin but dont want as much sugar, Blooms pink gin and their Jasmine and Rose flavour contain zero sugar.
And Greenalls Wild Berry and their Blueberry flavours are also free of added sugars.
Of course, its also important to choose something lower in sugar to mix it with – diet tonic or lemonade will be much better.
Greenalls Master Distiller, Joanne Moore comments: We dont use sugar in any of our Greenalls gins as I prefer to allow the botanical flavours to come through and provide a natural taste and sweetness that complements the juniper character.
Advertisement
Advertisement
With our flavoured gins, the sweetness comes from the natural berry flavours infused with the gin, which is our Greenalls Original London Dry.
We work hard to balance the botanicals and natural flavours to create a smooth taste, so we dont need sugar to mimic smoothness or mouthfeel.
