AJ Stephans Raspberry Lime Rickey

Today is a momentous day.  Let it be known that on this nineteenth day of December in the year two thousand twelve that I started to like green peppers on my pizza.  This honestly has nothing to do with the review at hand; I just figured that it would be amusing to have such an odd occasion documented for myself down the road.  Speaking of odd, (nice segue, no?) today’s soda flavor is two of my favorites combined into what I’m thinking will be a royal mess.  AJ Stephans Raspberry (yum) Lime Rickey (what?).  It has been well documented, like my love of green peppers on pizza, that I love both non-blue raspberry and lime flavored things.  With that knowledge existing on this plane of reality I still can’t imagine a Raspberry Lime Rickey being anywhere close to normal.  I know that cherry and lime mix, as do cranberry and lime, and strawberry and lime, but my brain won’t let raspberry and lime be a normal thing.  The ingredient list says nothing about either fruit actually being used in the making of this product, but cane sugar is fortunately present.  Enough wondering, it’s time to drink.  Onward!

Raspberry is the dominate scent floating out of the bottle and I must say it’s a rather lovely aroma at that, rich, sweet, and inviting to my nostrils.  Hopefully the taste is just as inviting to my mouth.

Ultra fizzy and not half bad.  While I’m sure that AJ Stephans would never use that as a slogan for their Raspberry Lime Rickey those were my immediate impressions.  The bubbles are small, but fierce and the raspberry flavor is a bit quieter than what my nose anticipated.  While the taste of lime isn’t dominating the beverage it does add a pleasant twang throughout each sip.  I’m not sure what strengthening the flavor of lime would do to the taste of the beverage, but I think it would be an improvement.  Give me more of that sour pucker feeling in the back of my cheeks.  Make my brain really decide which flavor it wants to taste more.  Right now the raspberry is so strong in comparison to the lime you’re never really given a chance to choose.  It’s like at the animal shelter when you’re looking at dogs and they’re two to a cage.  One of those dogs usually steps out in front of his cage mate and hogs the chain link door.  Meanwhile you have no idea what the other dog has to offer, he’s just back there trying to catch your eye while dodging a waggy tail.  There is a bit of a syrupy mouth feel at the finish, but the flavor left behind isn’t off putting.  I do wish that mouth feel wasn’t there at all as it slightly weakens a fairly solid beverage.  With that said, I will commend AJ Stephans for taking what I consider to be a risk in making a bottled soda with these two flavors.  It just didn’t work out as well for me as I had wished.

~A

Faux Fact: Twist invented the Boston Cream Pie.