Red Jacket - 8 Reviews

Folks, I feel like an idiot. I have never once in my life considered brewing tea with any hot liquid other than water. Actually the more I think about it, it would more than likely be pretty gross. This beverage wasn't created this way, but imagine if they boiled apple juice and brewed some loose leaf tea in it. Would that be gross, or would it be awesome. I think it may depend on the season. In the Fall I bet it would be delicious and fitting, but in the summer it might seem oppressive. Now I want to perform some experiments where I brew tea in apple juice, and also brew the same type of tea in water and then add apple juice after the fact. How different do you think they would taste from each other?

None of that matters because this juice in front of me is a great twist to a modern day classic. I don't really know if the Arnold Palmer should really be described that way, but that's how I feel in my heart of hearts. Red Jacket not only adds their wonderful apple juice to the mix, but they also didn't just use regular old black tea. They stepped up their game and used guayusa in the mix and it's noticeable in the flavor, in a very good way. I will admit that apple is the strongest flavor in here, but you can definitely make out the lemon and the tea separately. It's great, and Red Jacket has done me right once again. I mean it's more of a Third & Third & Third and not so much a Half & Half, but who am I to complain. Now I have to go deal with the two boiling pots on my stove.

So this is it, friends. This is my last drink review before I board two planes and a ship on voyage to Grand Cayman and Cozumel. No friends for a week. No Thirsty Thursday with Jay and editor Dan. No Trials Evolution. No work. No baby. No dogs. No email. No phone. No internet. I will be handwriting my emails, which I am partially excited about since it will make me feel like a proper writer. "Why don't you bring your laptop?" you ask? Well the answer is that it is incredibly cumbersome to travel with a 17" laptop and virtually pointless if you don't have internet.

To send myself off with a bang, I decided to drink this drink. Now there are several reasons why I chose this drink.
1. I should have drank it when Jay told me to because it expired two weeks ago. Actually, three weeks ago. April 5th, to be exact. I just assume that things keep longer and I don't really trust expiration dates which has gotten me in to trouble before, but I'm still alive so in the long run, I win.
2. I knew this could either be really good or footy. Blackcurrant has exclusively tasted like feet for everything I've drank since doing this site so why would this be any different? Sure, the rest of the Red Jacket stuff has been exceptional, but the powers of blackcurrant are not to be messed with.

These two reasons together invited me to drink this, and only this drink. Sure, I drank that horchata earlier, but my mom got it for me and I couldn't let it sit there. It's milk!

I drink and I drink until there is virtually no apple juice left. It doesn't smell bad and it doesn't taste bad. It tastes like a strong natural apple juice. It actually doesn't have any essence of "foot" at all which leads me to believe that they either forgot it all together or they put just enough in to be able to say they put it in there making it partially but not really exotic at all. There might be some aftermath of the blackcurrant's bitterness, but still, it just tastes like an orchard-ready apple juice to me. For that reason, it's delicious. Nothing really special, just honest-to-goodness apples, vigorously crushed and strained into a bottle that would end up in my fridge only to be drank almost a month past it's "Enjoy By" date.

I made a mistake in the past by not buying a lot of drinks when I went overseas. I might wager a guess to say that 50% of the reason that I got a passport was to go to Canada with Jay to get drinks and not to go with my girlfriend to Ikea and get lamps or something. The latter was actually holding me back. The strength of my love for Thirsty Dudes lured me to fill out that form for the fifth time and actually follow through with it.

This time tomorrow I will be in Fort Lauderdale at a hotel, or if I'm lucky, at some seedy Florida bodega searching for some new drinks. Wish me luck friends, as you might not hear from me for a week.

Dear Red Jacket,
I am now under the impression that there is no juice that you cannot master, well at least not one that is apple based. Everything I have tasted that you have produced is beyond great. You take fresh fruit and cold press them into perfection. This drink has no added ingredients, just apples and strawberries. It's the way juice should be and it tastes incredible. Each sip is like I'm picking a strawberry fresh from the patch and shoving it in my mouth, which is already overrun by delicious apples. That is something that I really feel I must do now. Does gluttony count if it's with fruit? Isn't that just healthy? Either way, keep doing what you're doing and I hope that some day you will expand your juices into the realms of other fruit.

There has been an apocalypse. You and your family are deciding what to do. Sure, solar blankets, Twinkies, Spam, et cetera. Those are given. Now it comes to hydration. Now everyone, and by everyone I mean everyone except you, is going to get water. Why water? It's the best thing for you. Yes. It's true. Here's the thing, though. Have you ever stood in line to buy something that everyone else has wanted at the same time? Think Black Friday times fifty thousand times. Everyone needs and wants one thing, everyone but you. Here's what you're going to do. You're going to go for the perishables. Everyone thinks that they need water because it doesn't expire, but have they ever thought about flavor? Yeah, who cares if it's only going to last like three days unrefrigerated. You are going to be able to sell that juice for a mint because all the watered-down people are going to crave flavor and flavor you've got.

You've got apple juice, dude. Apple juice: the purest of juices, the simplest of juices. This isn't just any apple juice, though. It's fuji apple. Red delicious is what the poor pour. Sure, it tastes like regular apple juice but a little different, more tart, and it even has regular apple juice in it. You can't have all fuji apples or else you'd be paying $10 for a small bottle of juice. This is better than basic apple juice. I'll say it. It's better. You may be able to get $10 for this juice once people are sick of water. You might want to trade some of them since it's not a terrible idea to have some water on hand.

I don't know what caused the apocalypse. It might have been that small issue where the power authority thought that they could control the market so they blew up the sun. That might be it. That or that one time you peed in the lake that one summer in 1998 because you really needed to go and the bathroom at camp had that spider that might or might not been alive but was scary right next to the toilet. One of those two things led to the apocalypse.

I wasn't expecting to drink this today, but then I noticed that it was going to expire this week, so it moved to the top of the priority list. There are two ingredients in this bottle: apples and grape juice. I love that it says apples instead of apple juice, because it just makes you think of exactly how fresh this juice is. I can only assume they juice their grapes and then instantly press some apples into said grape juice. The results are beyond delicious.

Grape juice has the tendency to overpower other juices they are mixed with, but Red Jacket knows what they are doing and both juices exist in perfect harmony; neither overpowers the other to any extent. The most important thing to this juice is that there is no sweetener added to it. It's juice and nothing more, the way things should be. It makes me never want to purchase another “shelf juice.” If it's not in a cooler, with a short shelf life it's pretty safe to say it is inferior to this beverage.

Sir, I'm sorry but I cannot let you in with your current attire, as this is a Red Jacket party. Yes, I know that the party is for the company Red Jacket Orchards, but they wanted to take it to the next level. The idea behind it was that “black tie” affairs are far too stuffy, but it would be fun to have a party where everyone just wore red jackets. If you want we have some extra coats here, since we knew people wouldn't get the idea. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find red suit coats in this town. All I could find was this array of “jackets.” Yes, I had to take liberty with the word jacket and a bunch of these are actually coats and other. Sir, you are kind of a big man, so this parka looks like it will be the only one that will fit you. I know it's the middle of August, but you need to ask yourself, “Do I really want to go into this party? Is the juice worth it?” Before you answer reach into the pocket of the parka. I believe there is a small bottle of Red Jacket apple cider in there. Taste that and then choose your fate. Well that sounded dramatic. Just taste the juice and then either put on the parka, or be on your merry way. It's that simple.

Well it took only one sip and you're all parkaed up. Sir, you don't have to zip it up all the way. All that is required is that you have the jacket on. I know the juice/cider is delicious. I do work for the company, I'm not just some hired gun here to sling out jackets at the front gate. I also know that it is kind of weird to drink cider in the summer. It's traditionally an autumn drink, but its not written on any law books that it must be drank during a certain season. The juice is sweet and appley just like a cider should be. It does taste a little lighter than most other Western New York ciders I've had, but I'll blame that on the season and the apples that must have been used to make it. It doesn't make it gross by any means. Obviously it's a completely wonderful juice as you are willing to don a parka in 95 degree weather just for a chance to drink some more of it. No sir, I don't think you are dumb at all. If our positions were reversed I'd be doing the same thing. I mean where else are you going to find a more than decent cider at this time of year? The answer is nowhere. Now get in there and drink juice until your heart is content.

When you grow up you unfortunately are supposed to leave childish things behind. Lighting things on fire, playing with dolls, brushing your teeth with chocolate syrup, and so on. That's kid stuff. You're an adult. You wear a tie three out of five days a workweek and the other two you wear collared, golf shirts. You drive a sensible sedan that gets adequate mileage and you have two kids, one wife, and a dog. Your life is...regular.

You every once in a while you get a hankering to change it up. Sensibly that is. Responsibly. You usually do this by doing something that no one can see or doesn't affect your appearance and doesn't have any consequences. Today you went to the store to get something to drink before work and you grabbed a cup of coffee and you came across it. There it was, very red and very inviting, like a trashy 80's harlot. I'm talking high-heeled red leather shoes, red lipstick, short red dress, and hair with more volume than a Poison concert. Red Jacket Tart Cherry Stomp. The name was fun, the ingredients were minimalistic and you love cherries.

You pay the cashier, walk out into the street, open the bottle, take a sip, and let out a loud, "Wooo!" that Rik Flair would have approved of. Your cheeks involuntarily sucked into your face and the smile on your face went all the way from cheek to cheek. This drink tasted just like it said, tart cherries. You turned around and your boss was right behind you. You, quick on your feet, handed your boss the bottle asking him to take a sip. He did and let out a less convincing but still heartfelt "Wooo!" and handed the bottle back. You both saw eye to eye at that moment and would occasionally let out a quiet holler in the halls of the office at each other. Your boss was now your bro, and that's cool. You're a cool dude. You blended in a little bit over the years, but you've still got it.

I wasn't really prepared for this. I expected a decent juice, but not to this level. Raspberry flavored apple juice sounds great right? Well how about whole raspberries pressed into some of the finest purest apple juice you will ever taste? This bottle contains 100% cold pressed fruit. On top of that it's made semi-locally. It seriously tastes like I'm eating fresh fruit, and I can't get enough. It's known that I am a glutton when it comes to drinks. My ladyfriend always complains when I ask for a sip of her beverages, because to me a sip is a quarter of the bottle (or so she says). With that in mind I am trying to take the tiniest sips possible of this, so that I can savor the flavor. This really is one of the best juices I have ever tasted. If you ever see this at your local market, don't even hesitate to make your purchase.