Dannon Light & Fit Mixed Berry Smoothie

Dannon Light & Fit Mixed Berry SmoothiePrice: 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.

August 26, 2007 | 1 Comment 
Filed Under Dannon, Berry, Smoothies, Dairy, Fat Free, Zero Stars

Hornsby’s Amber Draft Hard Cider

Hornsby’s Amber Draft Hard CiderPrice: $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.

August 26, 2007 | 3 Comments 
Filed Under Apple, Hornsby's, Alcohol, Hard Cider, Zero Stars