Cocktail Too Sugary? This Ingredient Swap Is Here To Help

Many traditional cocktail recipes call for various juices or sodas as mixers to help balance the bitter taste of alcohol. However, adding too many sugary mixers to your cocktail can result in a drink that is far too sweet. Next time you decide to imbibe, try swapping out traditional sodas and juices with your favorite flavor of seltzer or sparkling water. A sparkling water or seltzer is a great mixer option that often contains less sugar but still provides that bubbly carbonation and flavor that will balance out your liquors.

If you are requesting an ingredient change at a bar or restaurant, be sure to know exactly what you are hoping to swap out and how it will affect the taste of your drink. This hack might work best with light-colored liquors since dark liquor usually contains a deeper, more concentrated flavor that requires a more sugary mixer to dilute. Switching your Jack and Coke out for a light seltzer, for example, might not be the best move flavor-wise, but opting for a Tequila Sunrise with orange-flavored seltzer rather than orange juice will minimize the drink's high sugar content and provide a much subtler citrus taste. Margaritas and Piña Coladas are two other popular drinks that work well with a seltzer substitute. You can also never go wrong with ordering a vodka seltzer with a lime wedge, swapping out lemon-lime soda for a lighter, bubbly alternative, and fresh lime juice instead of flavored syrup.

Opting for seltzer as your mixer won't just cut back on its sugary flavor; it is also one of the best drinking tactics for avoiding a hangover. There is a myth that hangovers are caused by sugar content in your drinks and not the alcohol itself. While that is not inherently true, sugar does play a part in making hangovers worse. According to Dr. Stephen Harding, a professor at Baylor College Of Medicine, high sugar content in drinks can quicken dehydration, which can make your hangover symptoms even more unpleasant to deal with.

Swapping out your sugary mixers for a lighter alternative may also help you drink more responsibly. Per Business Insider, experts have found that extremely sugary cocktails mask the alcohol so well that people tend to drink more, not realizing how much alcohol they have consumed. This can often lead to overconsumption of alcohol, which will cause a nasty hangover the next day. Opting for a cocktail with a seltzer or sparkling water as a mixer will make the bitterness from the alcohol more present and will cause the drinker to slow down and most likely have less to drink throughout the night. If you keep the sugar content in your mixed drinks low and still aren't feeling too hot the next day, let's hope you have these 10 foods and drinks to cure a hangover already stocked in your kitchen.