Dannon Light & Fit Mixed Berry Smoothie
Price: 95¢ for one bottle
Serving: 1 bottle, 7 fluid ounces.
Calories: 70
Alcohol by Volume: None
Fat: 0%, 0g
Cholesterol: 1%, <5mg
Potassium: 7%, 230mg
Sodium: 4%, 85mg
Protein: 5g
Carbohydrates: 4%, 13g
Fiber: 0%, 0g
Sugar: 12g
Phosphorus: 15%
Dannon says: Want a deliciously easy way to maintain your balanced lifestyle even when you’re on the run? Enjoy a DANNON™ Light & Fit Smoothie™! No smoothie is lighter than DANNON™ Light & Fit™ Smoothies. With a great taste and only 60 calories per 7 fl oz bottle, you can drink them every day. Do something good for yourself today - have a Light & Fit™ Smoothie.
We say: On summery Saturday mornings we enjoy walking to the local farmer’s market to pick up peaches, a fresh baguette, and a chocolate croissant. When it is cool we go for a small cup of coffee. When it is boiling hot outside (as it was this last weekend), we pick up experimental drinks from the bakery cold case.
Today, the 95¢ sign advertising these smoothies caught my eye. After all, what could be better on an intensely hot and humid day than a yogurt-based smoothie? It turns out that there are approximately 18 zillion items more palatable that this drink.
Dannon’s Light & Fit Smoothie is the sort of beverage that makes you feel virtuous for being on a diet. That’s how awful it tastes. The flavor is nothing but pure artificial intensity, the entire smoothie is only 3 percent fruit, and the color is approximately the shade of a jaundiced version of Grimace. The major culprit in this drink disaster is overuse of Splenda. Just because the marketing folks say it tastes like sugar doesn’t mean that it actually tastes like sugar. And even if it did taste just like real sugar, there is far too much of it in this beverage.
We drank approximately half the bottle before deciding that if long life and health meant surviving off of Dannon smoothies, we’d rather be slightly plump and dead.
Hornsby’s Amber Draft Hard Cider
Price: $6.00 per 6 pack
Serving: 1 bottle, 12 ounces.
Calories: 170
Alcohol by Volume: 6%
Fat: 0%, 0g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 1%, 25mg
Protein: 0g
Carbohydrates: 5%, 16g
Fiber: 0%, 0g
Sugar: 9g
Hornsby’s says: There’s no blurb on the bottle, no website, and no mention from Gallo that this beverage is a part of their product portfolio.
We say: You could easily replicate the flavor of Hornsby’s Amber Draft Hard Cider by leaving a bottle of opened apple juice in your fridge for several weeks. Or you could try your hand at prison wine, an extraordinary concoction detailed in Steve, Don’t Eat It! Volume 8. The ‘Is this spoiled or is this how it is supposed to taste?’ effect is unsettling in a just-opened beverage, so the cider has now been sitting on the kitchen counter for a full 20 minutes while we contemplate just pouring it down the drain.
But that would be a waste of .72 ounces of alcohol (12 fluid ounces times 6% Alcohol by Volume) and the world’s foremost beverage review site is not about to let perfectly good hard cider go to waste.
Except that this isn’t perfectly good hard cider. The 2nd and 3rd swigs simply confirm that there is something very, very wrong with this drink. Perhaps it could be improved by repurposing the beverage as an entertainment device. Simply serve this to your friends and watch their faces contort in horror.
Fun in a bottle.
Honest Ade Cranberry Lemonade
Price: $1.19 at Whole Foods
Serving: 1/2 bottle, 8 ounces.
Nutrition Information Below for Entire Bottle
Calories: 100
Fat: 0%, 0g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 10%, 0mg
Protein: 0g
Carbohydrates: 8%, 24g
Fiber: 0%, 0g
Sugar: 24g
Calcium: 35%
Honest Tea says: When the beverage aisle kept handing us lemons, we made lemonade. That’s because we were thirsty, and tired of super-sweet drinks filled with stuff we couldn’t pronounce. Introducing HONEST ADE. Ours tastes fresh-squeezed - like what you get from a summer lemonade stand, but with a kick of cranberry. It’s pure organic bliss - must a tad sweet so it gets your taste buds doing the mambo without going into sugar shock. All that’s missing is one of those colorful paper drink umbrellas. Real fruit. Real flavor. Honest.
We say: Considering the wonderful tart-sour combination created by cranberry and lemon, this drink should make you pucker up and say Hello! Too bad that it can’t deliver on the promises that the label makes. Honest Tea took a great concept and watered it down to the point of pointlessness. Plus, this thing is less than 1% juice. Seth and Barry, the owners of Honest Tea must have shunted their ethics to the side when they claimed “Honest Ade, our line of refreshing thirst quenchers, have twice the fresh-squeezed taste of those super-sweet drinks.”
We don’t want something super-sweet, but does that preclude a little tartness and flavor? There’s no good reason to drink this bland, over-organic-cane-sugared concoction unless you’re allergic to clear water and need something with a little carrot-extract-created color.
Should a beverage with the word ‘cranberry’ in the name need carrot extract for coloring? We think not.
Filed Under No Genetically Modified Organisms, Gluten Free, Cranberry, Lemonade, Honest Tea, Organic, Juice Cocktails, One Star
Jim Beam Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Price Per Mini Bottle: $5.00 at Arena Stage
Price Per Liter: $15.00 at a liquor store
Serving: 1.5 fluid ounces
Calories: 100
Fat: 0%, 0g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 0%, 0mg
Protein: 0g
Carbohydrates: 0%, 0g
Jim Beam says: Experts believe that the time bourbon spends in the barrel produces its true character. Jim Beam Bourbon ages for a minimum of a full four years (twice the Federal mandate) to perfect its rich amber glow and uncommonly smooth taste.
We say: Jim Beam Kentucky Bourbon reminds us of late summer days in Texas. Humid, gray, sodden days when tropical storms rolled in off the Gulf of Mexico, preventing beach trips and encouraging games of Texas Hold ‘em and the consumption of Brobdingnagian cups of Jim Beam and ice.
Jim Beam is the ideal gateway whiskey, featuring a sweet smoothness attractive to people who are not yet alcoholics. And at just $15.00 per liter, it is an affordable way to provide a semi-classy mixer at your next event or make killer apple cider.
Our preferred Jim Beam drinking method takes place on unbelievably hot days. Simply fill a glass with medium-to-small ice cubes (not big ones; they don’t melt quickly enough), then pour the bourbon over your glass of ice. Beginners may want to use a shot glass to measure the pour. Once you’ve made the drink, have a seat poolside or on the porch, play some cards, and slowly sip your fantastic glass of bourbon.
Filed Under Jim Beam, Bourbon, Liquor, Alcohol, Five Stars, All Natural, Fat Free, High Fructose Corn Syrup Free
Trader Joe’s Organic Chocolate 2% Milk
Price Per Box: 4 for $3.00
Serving: 1 container, 8.25 oz.
Calories: 230
Fat: 8%, 5g
Cholesterol: 7%, 20mg
Sodium: 5%, 130mg
Protein: 10g
Carbohydrates: 11%, 34g
Fiber: 3%, 1g
Sugar: 30g
Calcium: 35%
Trader Joe’s says: Shelf stable chocolate milk? It’s like moo-sic to our ears! Keep these convenient, single serve packages in your pantry until you’re ready to use them. Best chilled, this chocolate milk is udderly convenient and organic to boot!
We say: The complete name of this beverage is Trader Joe’s Organic Chocolate 2% Milkfat Reduced Fat Milk. The words ‘milk’ and ‘fat’ each appear TWICE in that title. Also, they mention that it is ‘best chilled’. After consuming this milk at lukewarm, we can say that under no circumstances should this one drink this milk at any other temperature than icy.
Now that the labeling shenanigans are over, please be aware that this is not a ‘health’ item. Sure it is only 2% milk (not whole!), but it still packs in a whopping 30 grams of sugar. We happen to not give a damn about that. Why? Because it is super-freaking-chocolatey. And not chocolatey in the sense of candies that contain pseudo chocolate (Baby Ruth, we’re looking at you), but chocolatey in the way that a S’more contains chocolate.
We’re giving this milk 5 stars for these 5 important reasons:
- It is shelf stable. While this might seem creepy, in actuality it is fantastic and will give you more fridge space for beer.
- Zero grams trans fat.
- Organic. Meaning it won’t make us prepubescent at age 7
- Chocolate! Wonderful, wonderful chocolate chocolatiness.
Warning: do not consume with something else chocolatey (Oreos, brownies, etc.) or the milk will be overpowered. - Cheaper than osteoporosis.
- Comes with a straw
Yeah, that’s 6, so sue us.
Filed Under Chocolate, Organic, Trader Joe's, Milk, Dairy, Five Stars
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