Qcumber sparkling cucumber drink review

Time for another Penny Choose review, and this week’s Treat Under a Tenner is Qcumber sparkling spring water drink with natural cucumber. Just in time for the sunshine!

This is a lightly sparkling soft drink for grown ups, and it’s one of the most moreish drinks I’ve tried in a long time, as well as being a bit unusual.

The ingredients are simple: carbonated spring water, sugar, natural cucumber flavour and citric acid. The flavour is nicely complex though, with a strong flavour of cucumber and a hint of melon. The aroma of the drink is more of a pure cucumber scent without sweetness, which I really like.

Overall, it’s a refreshing drink. Yes, it is technically a soft drink rather than a flavoured mineral water, and it does contain some sugar, but it isn’t a sickly sweetness. It contains about half of the sugar per 100ml of a standard soft drink, so that would be okay in moderation for most people.

Having said that, maybe the manufacturers could consider making a sugar-free version. I’d definitely buy it.

Mixing things up

Anyway, this is a lovely fragrant, thirst-quenching drink in its own right. It’s also tasty with a slice of lime, lemon or cucumber in it, and I suspect you could easily pair it with mint, apple, orange, peach, kiwi fruit, strawberries, or other berries too.

For something more unusual, you could try grapefruit, tomato, lemon verbena or lemongrass, ginger, or a black pepper infusion.

You can see where this is going, can’t you? Yes. Cocktails! This would be a great simple long drink with vodka or gin, and you could easily swap some Qcumber in for the sparkling water in a sophisticated pitcher of mojito to get the party started (remembering to omit the sugar).

Qcumber could also be mixed with a dry or demi-sec sparkling wine for something really special, similar to Buck’s Fizz, maybe with a single drop of cocktail bitters in the bottom of the glass. It had also crossed my mind that this would be amazing in Pimms, and the manufacturers recommend this themselves.

This was love at first slurp, and I definitely recommend chucking some of this into your basket next time you’re shopping for a reasonably-priced summery treat.

Qcumber is sold in 750ml (RRP £2.39) and 330ml bottles (RRP £1.49), and 250ml cans. It’s available in-store at The Co-operative, Planet Organic, Whole Foods and Booths, and you can also buy it with your online shopping at Ocado and Tesco. It’s currently on offer at Tesco for £1.89 for 750ml, and at Ocado for £1.59 for 750ml.