Remedy Apple Cider Vinegar Sparkling Water (Currently out of stock)
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These flavored Apple Cider Vinegar drinks make downing the healthy elixir a whole lot more pleasant.Â
Apple cider vinegar has many benefits. It can kill bacteria, improve cholesterol levels and assist with gut health, making it essential for people with various illnesses. But this is also true: Apple cider vinegar tastes like death warmed up (or on ice, if you prefer it cool), and most of us can’t stomach it. Thankfully, several tasty drinks on the market incorporate apple cider vinegar, including sodas, shots and more, which makes them more palatable.
If you’re interested in the potential benefits of apple cider vinegar but are reluctant to drink it straight, don’t worry: there are other alternatives. These apple cider vinegar-based beverages are mixed with fresh fruit juice, honey, and ginger — also known for their health benefits — and are meant to be enjoyed, not endured.
Of course, if these ACV drinks don’t work for you, it isn’t the end of the world. You can send the leftovers to friends as a prelude to the holiday gifts you’re planning on getting them. Want not, waste not.
I tried seven options in total, including apple cider vinegar (ACV) sparkling water, a few blends of ACV and fruit juices, and some flavored shots of premixed vinegar. Below, you’ll find a list of my favorite drinks and quick shots to help you get your daily apple cider vinegar fix, along with what I thought about how they taste.
Read more:Â The ABCs of Apple Cider Vinegar: Benefits, Precautions and Proper Dosage
Watch this: Taste-Testing 6 Apple Cider Vinegar Drinks
Best apple cider vinegar drinks
Braggs Refreshers contain apple cider vinegar along with juice, lemon and other natural ingredients to create a refreshing beverage anchored by healthy apple cider vinegar. The beverages come in four flavors, but I liked the lemon ginger refresher best. The 40-calorie refreshers taste a lot like kombucha and are best consumed cold or poured over ice.
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Sidekicks are not your typical sugar-packed soda. These fruity and tart sodas mix healthy ACV with plum, strawberry and mango juice and a dash of New Zealand honey. All three recipes I tried were excellent; not too sweet and perfectly refreshing. I enjoyed the plum strawberry the most and found the sparkling beverage was best when poured over ice.
Sidekicks aren’t cheap. You can order a 12-pack from the website for $39.
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This fun and flashy line of low-calorie sodas is marketed as aiding in digestive health and boasts apple cider vinegar as the third ingredient after water and cane sugar. Poppi prebiotic sodas come in several flavors; I tried lemon-strawberry and ginger-lime and found both delicious. The apple cider vinegar flavor is tamer than in some of the other beverages I tried, and with 4 grams of sugar, the sodas aren’t too sweet and have just 25 calories.
A 12-pack of Poppi’s healthier ACV sodas costs $30 at Walmart or $8 for a four-pack at Target.
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If you prefer to down your ACV in one gulp, there are premixed apple cider vinegar-based shots to try. Remedy’s version is intended to aid in digestion and contains apple cider vinegar, prebiotic zinc and vitamin D along with ginger, honey and cayenne pepper to balance the tart flavor.
A 12-pack of 2-ounce shots goes for $50 on Amazon.
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Bragg has a line of apple cider vinegar shots available in several flavor combos. All of them are pretty tasty, but the carrot-ginger and pineapple-cayenne were my personal favorites. The 20-calorie shots are sweetened with organic honey and fruit juice and go down smoother than rum punch in July. A pack of four 2-ounce shots costs about $13 on Amazon.
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If you want your apple cider vinegar with an extra shot of immune-boosting vitamins, try Emergen-C’s daily immune support packets with added botanicals for energy. Each 35-calorie packet contains 260mg of dehydrated ACV. It’s unclear if powdered apple cider vinegar is as potent as vinegar in its liquid form, but the powdered elixir contains loads of vitamins C, B-6 and B-12, so it certainly can’t hurt to slug one mixed with water during cold and flu season.
These drink mixes taste OK but were my least favorite of the bunch. I missed the punch of fresh juice and tartness that comes with the other beverages on this list. A package of 18 packets is $10 on Amazon.
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I’m a massive sparkling water drinker so it’s no surprise that I connected with this ACV drink. It’s lighter and less intense than Bragg’s Refreshers. The sweetness of the blood orange and a bit of stevia helps to offset the tartness of the vinegar.Â
ACV is the second ingredient after water in this 5-calorie beverage, but this balanced sparkling drink is one I could see myself happily downing every day. If you’re a habitual seltzer drinker, you’ll likely find it easy to incorporate into your daily routine, too.
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For more information about general health, find out if unpasteurized milk is safe to drink and how to make an all-natural home cleaner with just three ingredients.