Never heard using plain sugar water but have heard of people using unsulphured blackstrap molasses, specifically the brand "Grandma's", and in the ratio you mentioned.

And to the original poster - you can probably get away without ph-ing the water, but if you're using straight tap - I wouldn't recommend it. I actually don't ph my water. I do run it through a 2-stage filter, one of the filters is a 1 micron filter, and I also airstone/bubble the water overnight (at least - using 24hours). My water ends up coming in about 6.5, sometimes a little less or more depending on the time of the year. Used to use r.o. water but got sick of all the wasted water. Optimally one would use r.o. or distilled as even filtered water is going to provide some nutes to the plant, but I haven't noticed enough of a difference for me to justify the additional costs.