Extinct Beverage Tasting: Fruit Craze I spotted this drink rotting in the "Ice Cold Beverages" section of a local Brooks Pharmacy. Flipping through my Audobon Society Guide to Endangered Beverages I found that this particular species was in a bit of trouble. The most predominant sign of imminent extinction would be the website listed on the bottle, Fruitcraze.com. When this site yielded a "The page cannot be displayed" message in Explorer I knew that things were looking worse for our plastic-capped friends than I thought. The new internet home for the Fruit Craze drink is at Meridianclear.com. This site has all the dazzle of your average Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan fiction site but none of the hard-nosed content I could expect. The fact that this site was divided between advertising three different beverages showed exciting signs of all these beverages' forthcoming demise. The idea that a company can't afford to maintain a dot com is a pretty bleak signal that all will soon be lost. I personally own more than seven dot coms. Owning a dot com costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $11.00 a year and any company unable to maintain that expense is not exactly worthy of having stockholders. The website boasts: Real Fruit Beverage with 100% RDA Vitamin C Custom Wide Mouth 16 oz. Sport Bottle Since the average American consumes about 1100% more vitamin C in a day than can actually be processed by the human body, this didn't strike me as a particularly great selling point. This is especially hollow when you consider that every product on the market these days has extra Vitamin C added, from soft tacos to vitamin C tablets. Also according to the new website, Fruit Craze comes in "four fun and crazy flavors ... Lunatic Lemonade, Raspberry Blues, Tropical Punch Frenzy and Crazy Kiwi Watermelon." I must be feeling the fruit craze because I'm so fruit crazy that I'm going to taste them all! And now on to the tasting...

The Tasting ee Crazy Kiwi Watermelon It is horribly green in color. It reminds me of what alien's blood always looks like in movies. You know, those movies that suck. Lunatic Lemonade Looks like some rather harmless liquid much like a glass of gasoline or witch hazel would. Raspberry Blues It is bright bright blue like only a drink containing 5% fruit juice can be. Tropical Punch Frenzy Looks like anemic Hi-C. niff Crazy Kiwi Watermelon I actually smell kiwi but no watermelon. It also smells a little like the perfume counter at JC Penny. Lunatic Lemonade Its scent reminds me of oven cleaner mixed with some powdered Crystal Light. Raspberry Blues Smells like all the phony blue drinks of my youth. Tropical Punch Frenzy This is clearly just the Crazy Kiwi Watermelon with red food coloring instead of green. ip Crazy Kiwi Watermelon Well I'll be damned! It actually tastes like kiwi. It's rather pleasant. Lunatic Lemonade This drink doesn't resemble lemonade of any type, lunatic or otherwise. If it weren't for the word "lemonade" written on the bottle no one would know what it was they were even going for. Raspberry Blues Aside from the sugar water you can taste the 5% pear juice concentrate (undoubtedly the cheapest fruit concentrate available) peeking through. It's pretty terrible though. Tropical Punch Frenzy This one tastes like the syrup that canned pears come in. I wasn't aware that pears were a tropical fruit. Of course what do I know? I only graduated with a degree in culinary arts and grew up with a pear tree in my back yard. My back yard in Rhode Island. Not an island in the Carribean but rather a state several thousand miles north of the tropics. avor Crazy Kiwi Watermelon The aftertaste is actually rather pleasant. It takes a while before the watermelon kicks in but when it does it is rather delightful. I can't believe this shit! Lunatic Lemonade This drink doesn't go down quite as smooth. It's got a slightly too acidic taste. The same kind that makes you cringe when you just start thinking about Sour Patch Kids. Raspberry Blues The same effect as slurping down the melted juice from one of those freeze pops you had as a kid with a name like "Orange-utan" or "Napoleon Blueberryapart." Tropical Punch Frenzy Same after effect as swallowing some water that's had a pear sitting in it for a few days. uffer Crazy Kiwi Watermelon I spend a lot more time suffering than I do wondering how the hell they made some pear juice taste like kiwi and watermelon. Bravo, you Crazy Kiwi Watermelon! Bravo! Lunatic Lemonade It leaves that disgusting film on the roof of your mouth like any fake lemonade will. Raspberry Blues The suffering began shortly after the first sip. This drink makes me sad. Now I have a case of the "Raspberry Blues." Tropical Punch Frenzy Tropical Punch Frenzy, other than being one of the clumsiest beverage names ever assembled, seems to be having some sort of tropical party in my stomach. Maybe it's a luau! Conclusion In conclusion I think that if I had to rank these rank drinks in order from the tastiest to the most vomitous it would be like so: Crazy Kiwi Watermelon Raspberry Blues Lunatic Lemonade Tropical Punch Frenzy In retrospect I guess tasting these all together was a bad idea. Now they all swish around in my stomach like so much toxic sugar water. I'm still amazed at how they made the kiwi and watermelon drink actually taste like kiwi and watermelon yet I'm disappointed that they didn't use that same technology to make the others not taste like some pear juice. The thing about pear juice is that is does not a good beverage make. Pears are good, but one can only takes so much of its nectar. I'm sure that the fractions of a penny per bottle that they saved over using apple juice was worth having their beverage go belly up. Speaking of belly up... I'm going to go throw--everything in my belly--up.