How to make tap water taste good

I was blogging this week for The Guardian about soft drinks - mainly from the point of view of what to drink when you don't drink alcohol. One of the points that came up, however, is how expensive many soft drinks are - volume for volume, often as much as wine.

It prompted me to point out (in the unlikely event that you're not already aware of it) how good basic tap water can taste if you tart it up a bit. Step one obviously being to chill it and add some extra ice cubes then to add some extra ingredients as they did in this hotel I stayed in in Chile (above) where they flavoured it with peaches, melon and strawberries.

Coils of cucumber also look cool: simply halve a cucumber, peel it and trim off the end then cut it in fine slices with a mandolin or vegetable peeler and drop them in. Lemon and lime obviously taste good too: so much better - and cheaper - than those artificially flavoured waters.

Serving it in a water jug or decanter - easily picked up from a charity shop - makes it look swish too.

If you prefer your water fizzy - which I sometimes do - it's worth shopping around. Sainsbury's own brand sparkling water for example is just 40p for 2 litres compared to 69p for the same amount in the Co-op and £1.01 for a 750ml bottle of San Pellegrino, which is over five times as expensive. If you give it the same treatment (added citrus or other fruits) you really won't notice the difference unless you're a mineral water geek.

Mineral vs tap water

I know anyone frugally-minded would opt for tap over mineral water but I do have 'issues', as they say, with tap water. Common sense tells you that however much you process and filter it it must have picked up a fair amount of baggage on the way to your glass, most worryingly traces of prescription drugs.

But the cynicism of British retailers and restaurants when it comes to exploiting this unease is just breathtaking. Today we stopped twice en route to France, once at an English service station, once at a French one. At the English one they were selling 75cl sports bottles of Evian for £1.99 or £2.65 a litre. At the French one equivalent sized bottles were €1.20 (95p) which works out at £1.27 a litre, less than half the price. And you could buy Evian by the litre for €1.30 or £1.03.

What justifies this rip-off? And why do we put up with it? You can buy perfectly cheap mineral water in supermarkets so how come service stations get away with charging so much? I reckon you should buy your own small bottles, fill them with chilled mineral water and keep them in a cool bag. Which is what we should have done if we hadn't been in quite such a rush setting off.

Away now till the week beginning July 14th. My elderly mother-in-law has had a bad fall so we're off to try and work out what happens next - whether she can stay in her house or will have to go to a home. (It's not a lot of fun getting old . . .) Posting is likely to be a bit more spasmodic but will pass on any great finds.