Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Super Happy Asian Drink Hour - Ramune!
*Wise Guise and I assembled a panel of friends, all possessing varied amounts of experience with foreign drinks, and had them try seven wacky/tasty/exotic drinks from Japan! We cleansed our palates with Japanese salty snacks in-between drinks.*
The name "Ramune" comes from the English word "lemonade". It has been sold in Japan for well over 100 years. The unique bottle design has been around from the beginning - the most prominent feature is its marble stopper, which is pushed down into the bottle's neck in order to open the drink. (The plastic mouth at the top of the bottle is too small for the marble to go through, thus avoiding any unfortunate soda-related choking deaths.) It can take some practice to drink from this bottle without having the marble roll back up into the mouth and block the flow of beverage. It's the perfect sipping drink, mostly because the bottle makes it literally impossible to chug!
Ramune comes in dozens of flavors, some of which rotate on a seasonal basis.
Joe (limited experience): "Tastes more like bubble gum. Melony bubble gum I like it, though. That gets my second vote."
Wise_Guise (moderate experience): "It's more of an apple flavor than a lemon flavor. It's a little too much carbonation for me."
Danithius (advanced experience): "Classic. Tasty Summer drink."
Adam (moderate experience): "Yep, that's Ramune"
Crystal (limited experience): "I feel like [Danithius] is trying to get us drunk. I like this one, though, it tastes a lot like Sprite."
Consensus: Melon-apple fizzy bubble gum sorta-lemony old-school Japanese soda! Worth a try even just for the unique bottle experience!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
SoBe Life Water - Blackberry Grape 'Enlighten'
Not that we really need to do another review on Life Water, but it bears repeating, this is good stuff. And please make sure you never confuse this with Vitamin Water, which contains Crystalline Fructose, and such drinks are banned from site. *Submission guidelines here.*
Again I must mention that I enjoy these even more now that SoBe has changed their formula, this one having a sweet, berry-grape flavor and matching smell. I should probably sip and enjoy it, but I usually just chug the stuff, it sure goes down easy.
Sugar comes in at only 24 grams a 20 oz bottle, and they threw in some L-Theanine and yerba mate for their 'herbal content.' No surprises in here, it's all the good stuff you expect from Life Water, just behind a pretty purple label.
Ingredients: Filtered water, sugar, erythritol, natural flavor, citric acid, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), black carrot juice concentrate (color), calcium lactate, potassium citrate, mofidied food starch, , l-theanine, vitamin E acetate, calcium phosphate, gum arabic, calcium pantothenate, yerba mate exteact, niacinamide, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), cyanocobalamin (vitamin B12).
Score: Would you besurprised if I gave it 5 out of 5?
-- WiseGuise