Not directly related, but there is a cultured beverage called kombucha that is made from strong black tea, and sugar, and a Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast (SCOBY). I wanted to make it, so I read a number of kombucha articles and watched several videos of making kombucha, because I too was concerned about the sugar. But honey, high-fructose corn syrup, agave, and other sweeteners are ineffective for kombucha, because they do not have enough calories or “food” for the SCOBY. By the time the kombucha ferments (10 to 21 days), the sugar is all consumed and converted to probiotics and B-vitamins. The final product is VERY good for you.
So the sugar part of it is probably ok and necessary to feed the yeast, which will consume all of it before dying happily in the accumulated alcohol.
There is a group on Yahoo or Google for making kombucha. You might try to find one for hard cider on Yahoo or Google groups and join. Then you can ask questions and advice, and hear success stories. Good luck!
First, honey in its natural state is almost entirely pure fructose; I only use honey for emergency sore throats, LOL
And any type of corn syrup that you can find in the grocery store has the FRUCTOSE added to it -- check the labels, it says HFCS somewhere in the ingredients.
Of course if you are extremely low carb, and/or rely on a high starch diet, then you are probably below the 45-grams of fructose which is currently at the top end of "safe" amounts.
Regular table sugar or sucrose is half glucose and half fructose and is considered WAY much safer than the high fructose sugars.
Also, be careful when you find on the label of processed food something like "corn syrup solids," as I've read that ALL commercial corn syrup is the high fructose variety.