In terms of preservation, the sugar content of a traditional squash or cordial will preserve its freshness for rather a long period of time, although some cordials or squashes may also have a preservative such as Sulphur dioxide to prolong the shelf life of the squash or cordial. More modern squashes or cordials may contain more complex ingredients such as sugar substitutes like aspartame, more preservatives, and artificial flavorings. The fruits or plants used to flavor traditional squash or cordial may include elderflowers, black currant, lemon, apple, pomegranate, strawberry, orange, chokeberry frequently with spices like cloves or cinnamon added , raspberry, or pear.
The fruits used to flavor modern squash or cordial may include orange, summer fruits mixed berries , apple and blackcurrant together, apple, black currant, pineapple, peach, mango, lemon, or lime. When it diverges from squash, cordial can be defined as the alcoholic beverage or the medicinal tonic which may also be alcoholic. Alcoholic cordial also known as liqueur is an alcoholic beverage formed from distilled spirits as well as other substances such as fruits, sugar, spices, and herbs.
This kind of beverage is often very sweet and dessert-like. As we discussed previously, cordial and squash refer to the same thing when speaking of the nonalcoholic sweet syrup that is used as a basis for other beverages through dilution with water, champagne, or other liquids. Squash and cordial mean the same thing only when they refer to the sweet, nonalcoholic syrup you can dilute to make other drinks or the resulting diluted beverage or cocktail.
Squash has come to denote any fruity or plant based nonalcoholic sweet syrup that can be diluted to form other drinks or to make water more interesting. Cordial later on evolved to refer to a highly sweetened fruity alcoholic beverage. It became synonymous with squash toward the end of the s once it took on the meaning of a nonalcoholic sweet syrup which can be diluted to create other beverages.
The substance to which squash refers in the United Kingdom and elsewhere is known as fruit syrup or flavored syrup in the US. Fruit syrup or flavored syrup is thus the best American approximation for the substance known as squash in the United Kingdom.
You may be wondering if there is really a difference between these drinks and the answer is yes. Cordial, also known as squash, is a non-alcoholic concentrated syrup made from fruit, elderflower or ginger. Brits use it to flavour their drinks and water.
A splash of cordial really helps make a boring old glass of water more interesting. Juice is a drink made from crushed fruits or vegetables. A glass of orange juice is particularly nice with breakfast; green juice, made from various green things such as spinach and green apples, is popular with health fanatics. This one , where a husband and wife hit each other with a cricket bat, was among the more baffling. A notch up the quality list is Ribena, on which I've always been keen.
The purple stuff is now owned by GlaxoSmithKline and has had some thoroughly dodgy advertising over the years, though it enjoyed a pretty innocuous, even noble start. In world war two, Churchill's government realised that blackcurrants represented a reliable domestic source of vitamin C after the U-boat campaign had all but stopped Florida oranges from reaching Britain.
Since , as the ads still boast, almost the entire national crop of blackcurrants has been pulped and sugared into Ribena. Large numbers of British children were given unbranded blackcurrant cordial to stave off scurvy for much of the war.
But in the Advertising Standards Authority gave Ribena a bollocking for having misleadingly claimed that Ribena Toothkind didn't encourage dental decay.
Arguably Britain's most familiar squash is Robinson's, forever netted to Wimbledon in a sponsorship deal that's now lasted three-quarters of a century. Perhaps it's just the fuzz of familiarity, but I find something appealingly sentimental in the combination of the old sweet drink and the white-clad competitors.
It seems far less cynical than soccer players advertising insurance companies and Thai lagers. Posh cordials seem to have emerged a decade or so ago, and now a great syrupy slew comes from high-end companies like Belvoir and Rocks.
I reckon Bottlegreen make by the far the best cordials on the market today. Their standard elderflower — queen of classic cordials — is delicious, their ginger and lemongrass winningly spicy. But something else about them intrigues me.
Browsing the website of this homespun little company, I came across their product manager Ed Wright.
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