I've blindly been drinking 50% diluted Gatorade because I did it for many years because back when I raced that's what the entire team and other teams drank because that's all there was back then. However when Pepsi Company bought Gatorade in 2010 they eventually changed the recipe and added more sweeteners and their not good sweeteners either, like Splenda, then they added even more sweetener in the form of high Fructose corn syrup, and then added 34 grams of sugar on top of it all! This is per serving mine you.
Just how much is 34 grams of sugar, it's like eating almost two cups of ice cream! Even if diluting it, as I have done whenever I used it, still in todays formula is too much sugar which can actually make a person feel tired and perform worse. The original recipe didn't have any of the artificial sweeteners I listed above plus it only had 14 grams of sugar per serving...now you can really see the difference that Pepsi did to the once really good drink for sweat replacement fluid.
Those artificial sweeteners bother a lot of peoples stomachs as will the added sugar, this not something you want to take on a ride. Even when I diluted it 75% it started to bother my stomach a bit, so I made a switch to Gatorade Perform, the Perform drink is now the old Gatorade, it has the same ingredients that the original Gatorade had, it's easy to find and it's cheaper than bike shop boutique drinks.
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/the-complete-guide-to-sports-drinks-31549 In this article there is a site mentioned that will show you how to make your own energy drink for far less money then even Gatoraide Perform, if you don't mind spending a little time and making it yourself this is a great direction to go.
Always take one bottle of clear water though.
Also on long rides you can make your own energy booster drink for pennies vs buying products like GU etc, all those bike boutique boosters use primarily to boost your energy is caffeine, and other added stuff like vitamins etc do nothing, so all you really need is caffeine in small doses spread out over the course of the ride. So simply make black coffee with no sugar or creamer, put it in a GU flask or something similar, and drink an ounce per 1/2 hour starting about an hour into the ride, the flask holds 5.5 ounces. Another trick is drink a 1/2 cup of black no sugar or cream coffee about an hour before you ride.
CAUTION: This caffeine trick won't work if you drink more than a cup of coffee a day as a daily routine, if you're a big coffee drinker you will be immune to the effects that caffeine has! So if you are a big coffee drinker, got to have that Starbucks 18 ounce coffee you need to stop that if you want to realize the benefits of caffeine while riding. I make my own espresso but i only drink a 1/2 cup in the morning and that's it. On long weekend rides of over 60 miles I drink the 1/2 cup of coffee like normal but then I'm going to be riding in about an hour after that and take along my flask of black coffee.
Another caution: I am not an expert at any of this stuff, it's only been from what I've read and experienced by trial and error have I gotten to where I'm at. There may be better methods I'm either unaware of or didn't work for me but could work for you. Everyone's body is different, what works for me might not work for you, so you have to experiment on yourself, and as you get older those things that once worked for you will slowly change.