Cane or Beet Sugar - 2 Reviews

It's over 80 degrees today. For someone like me who hates the heat, it might as well be 110 degrees. I decided to go on a long walk and drank nothing but water so I wouldn't pass out. But i'm back now and this blueberry juice cocktail called my name as I walked in the door. No, not literally. This isn't Wet Hot American Summer. Although maybe after this I will go fondle my sweaters... I mean make fondu with cheddar.......

This can is tiny. It's the cans of juice you get on airplanes or when you donate blood. It's good, but it's very watered down juice. When I think blueberry juice I want it to be full and sweet and a little tart aftertaste. This just feels like someone took a couple tablespoons of pure blueberry juice and mixed it with some water and sugar. I don't know what I was expecting, but this is forgettable.

We don't get around to reviewing too many large bottle juices. There are so many drinks out there for us to review, that it sometimes seems wasteful to drink the same thing more than once, even if it is different servings from the same bottle. In reality I drink mostly water or unsweetened iced tea that I brew. With all of the sugar that I intake doing reviews I try not to drink too many sweetened drinks for pleasure and refreshment if we have already reviewed them. Taking all of that into consideration I felt I had no choice but to buy this juice when I saw it sitting on the shelf. I love apple juice. Who doesn't? I don't think I could trust someone who told me they didn't like apple juice. They would have to be lying. So there we have it a fairly generic base, that you can't really alter much, but that I love. On top of that you mix in some passionfruit and mango juices and you have an instant party in a bottle. I've never tried anything to do with mango that I didn't like, and you obviously can never go wrong with passionfruit. The result of mixing this holy alliance is a fruit punch like you have never tasted. My initial thought was that they all blended together into one new flavor, but then I realized that if you swished it around in your mouth waves of each flavor rolled over your taste buds. Once you swallow the aftertaste is distinctly apple juice.

My only real complaint about the drink is that the bottle says that it is “naturally sweetened,” which led me to believe that it was sweetened by the fruit juice. It seems Old Orchard tried to pull a fast one on us. You see while they are still natural sweeteners they did add cane or beet sugar and stevia. The result is that there are 21g of sugar in an 8oz serving. It's my humble opinion that the drink would have tasted fine, if not better with no additional sweeteners added, or at the very least have the amount of sugar added cut down. The flavors of the fruit juices would have been enhanced even more, and I wouldn't have to feel guilty about downing half the bottle in a sitting. God I'm a glutton.