09-April-08 Going to the Grocery Store (more)

I am sticking with going to the same Tesco as it has a wide selection of items. It is a Tesco Extra (including food, liquor, electronics, appliances, clothing, beauty aids, outdoor equipment), vs. a Tesco Express where it’s closer to a convenience store than groceries. The parking lot is extremely organized. You can only go certain directions through the parking lot, and they usually have someone out there patrolling. This Tesco is also open 24/7, so it’s very convenient (and rare to have stores open late in Bournemouth).

So, I’m seeing this aisle with a bunch of bottles containing liquids, and the whole aisle is called “squash”. And many of these bottles are fruit-flavored, i.e. orange, lime, black currant, strawberry, etc. But on the other side of the aisle are “fruit juices”. Then it has to be something different. I pick up one of the bottles and it says “extremely concentrated, mix 1 part squash to 7 parts water”. I looked it up on-line….and it is just concentrated fruit-based liquid (similar to frozen juice concentrate in the US, except this isn’t frozen, it’s just a liquid in a plastic jug). They also used to call it a “cordial”, and some other types are called “barley waters”.

Other things…..they really don’t call pop/cola/soft drinks by that name. It is called fizzy drinks. Soda reserved exclusively for unflavored carbonated water (club soda). They do use tonic (tonic water), but only refer to that which you use for a “gin and tonic”.

They have ginger beer, which is non-alcoholic and similar to our ginger ale, but a little zestier. In fact, I tried the fiery ginger beer and choked when I first tried it; it is quite strong. But it goes down well with a little rum in it!