Depends on how sweet you want it.
My personal fav is to go dry cider and use champagne yeast.
When you talk sweetener for a dry cider, stevia seemed to work best for my “victims” but I like it dry. Avoid the raisins and other fruits they suggest adding. Disasters every time I tried. If you want stronger than 5 to 8 % abv, apple jack it. (Freezer distillation)
Re: sucrose drops... only for carbonation in bottle. No real benefit to the flavor profile other than a bit of co2 in the bottle. Better to keg it and carbonate that way.
Yeah, I’ve ruled out the fruit. In the future, I would like to try some from a flavor perspective: cranberry Apple cider, ginger (I know it’s not a fruit) Apple cider, etc.
It is not legal to distill via freezing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/comments/2sgzw4/psa_regarding_freeze_distillation_for_us/