25 November 2010

Bensons Totally Fruity - Apple & Rhubarb Juice {by @NLi10} (Gales Farm Shop)


91% pressed apple juice, 9% pressed rhubarb - £1.29

It's not often that you find fresh juice drinks in the supermarket. Most are pasteurised or from concentrate or at least bulked out with something to make it palatable. I thought it was important to start this one with the ingredients list and price to show that this is pretty much as pure as you can get short of eating the ingredients yourself. I expected, with good reason, that this would taste as if it was good for me; that it would have a kind of tang or an aftertaste that some fresh natural products have.

It didn't. It tasted of pudding.

Growing up at home we've always had rhubarb in the garden, and as any child who has eaten uncooked rhubarb will tell you it's quite strong and quite bitter. You can cook it with sugars to break the strength down and you can mix it into other fruits and make nice pies and crumbles for desert. Upon tasting this I was transported back to my childhood and the Sunday deserts that mom used to make (and still does). I'm not quite sure how they managed to get the balance so spot on but they did. The rhubarb is present but never overpowering, and instead of the apple feeling like the cheap ingredient used to make it go further it becomes the main event.

I can see this easily being a range for cafe's and bars in the future, there are probably smart ones out there already stocking it. J20 is OK when you are on a night out, but frankly this is a whole order of magnitude better. There are 6 flavours in the Bensons range and I think I may have to try them all, just to check it's not a fluke you understand.
by @NLi10

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