Squash is mixed with a certain amount of water or carbonated water before drinking. The amount of water added is to taste, with the squash becoming less strong the more it is diluted. As a drink mixer, it may be combined with an alcoholic beverage to prepare a cocktail. Citrus fruits or a blend of fruits and berries are commonly used as the base of squash. Traditional squashes are usually flavoured with ginger, chokeberries, elderflower, and sometimes orange or lemon.
Preparation
Squash is prepared by combining one part concentrate with four or five parts water. Double-strength squash and traditional cordials, which are thicker, are made with nine parts water to one part concentrate. Some squash concentrates are quite weak, and these are sometimes mixed with one part concentrate and two or three parts water.
Storage
Most cordials and squashes contain preservatives such as potassium sorbate or sulphites, as they are designed to be stored on shelves. They keep well because of the preservatives and their high sugar content. Nonetheless, some choose to store their squash in refrigerators.
Ingredients
Ingredients in squashes and cordials have evolved over the years. A traditional cordial contains three ingredients: sugar, juice or plant extract and some water. Usually it can contain an acidifier such as citric acid or in very old-fashioned cordials lemon juice, or even spices such as cinnamon or cloves. Recreations of these traditional preparations often contain a preservative especially sulphur dioxide, although sugar alone will keep it fresh for quite a long time. Modern squash drinks are generally more complex and sugar free squash even more so; the ingredients are usually water, sweetener such as aspartame or sodium saccharin, juice in a low quantity, large quantities of flavouring, preservatives and sometimes a colour such as anthocyanin. In the middle are ordinary squashes, which contain sugar, water, a larger amount of juice, preservatives, colouring such as anthocyanin and often a small amount of flavouring. Although colours such as Allura Red AC and Sunset Yellow FCF are occasionally used in squash, most modern British companies are gradually aiming to use natural colours such as beta carotene or anthocyanins, and natural flavourings.
Flavourings
Traditional squashes may be flavoured with elderflowers, lemon, pomegranate, apple, strawberry, chokeberry, orange, pear, or raspberry. Modern squashes usually have simpler flavours, such as orange, apple, summer fruit, blackcurrant, apple and blackcurrant, peach, pineapple, mango, lime, or lemon.
Terminology
"Cordial", "diluting juice", and "squash" are similar products, although the products known as cordials tend to be thicker and stronger, requiring less syrup and more water to be blended. In British English, "cordial" refers to a sweet fruit-flavoured drink. High juice is a type that contains a larger amount of juice, around 45%. Squash is often colloquially known as "juice". However this term is a misnomer; no squash is pure juice. Squashes are commonly called according to the fruit from which they are made. More rarely, they may be called "fruit drink", especially if they are ready-diluted in a plastic bottle or paper carton.
Squashes are measured by their juice content, the average being 30%. A variety of squash that contains a larger amount of fruit juice, up to half or more of the volume in juice, is sold in markets as high juice, and squashes are quite often called "juice" when talking to children, especially these high-juice beverages, although this may be confusing. However, many squashes contain less than 20% juice, and some as little as 5-10%. The latter are typically low in nutritional value, and the high juice versions are reasonably higher in nutrients, although one downside is that it is high in sugar and does not contain fibre or minor nutrients. That goes with almost all squashes. A low juice squash may state "with real fruit juice" on the label.
Low-sugar squashes
Squashes labelled "no added sugar" are artificially sweetened, usually with aspartame, acesulfame K, saccharin or sucralose, which is much cheaper for the manufacturers than both HFCS and natural sugar. They are very low in calories, sometimes having as few as 4 per 100ml diluted, and they are marketed towards families seeking low calorie alternatives. They tend to be very low in fruit juice, as fruit juice contains natural sugars, so they usually also contain natural or artificial flavourings to make up for the lack of fruit juice taste.
The gorillas at London Zoo are given both squash and cold fruit tea to drink. When a silverback called Kumbuka escaped from his enclosure in 2016, he drank of undiluted blackcurrant squash that was in the keepers' area.
