Polar – Raspberry Pink Lemonade

I like the can for this one—they were really going for it. It’s pink with five silver horizontal stripes, a big yellow lemon with a green leaf, a couple of pink raspberries, and blue lettering—fonts all over the place. This isn’t going to be pink—in color, is it? Of course not. The raspberry flavor is what adds the “pinkness”—I guess. I believe traditional pink lemonade was just lemonade with coloring—not necessarily flavor. Of course, once people realized that red food coloring was bullshit, some wise guy got the idea—hey, we can add come red fruit juice to lemonade and make pink lemonade, that way. This is a little different than the regular Polar water—which is just carbonated water and natural flavors—in that it also has “essence of fresh lemons.” I don’t know what that means, actually—I guess you would have to know where the “natural flavors” come from, first of all, and then how this “essence” is derived. I guess this might take a bit of research. I’ll have to check how my research grant is coming along. But as far as the flavor goes, it’s pretty weird. You get an initial flavor—which I think comes from the smell—and then you get the water and bubbles, and then you get an after-flavor—which is very different than the initial flavor. At first, I found this aftertaste kind of gross—definitely odd, and off-putting. But just in the course of drinking my first can of it, it’s growing on me a little. Maybe because I keep wanting that sensation—so I can try to figure out what it reminds me of. I’m always complaining about waters not being intense, strange, and mysterious enough—and this one certainly is that. Actually, the more I drink, the more I like it. Outstanding!

9.5.23