Nu-Grape

   This week’s review, which you already know if you listen to the Popcast, is Nu-Grape.  If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m the resident Grape Soda reviewer.  Since my title is as such, I must now review Nu-Grape.  Let us begin.

   This is the some of the worst bottle art I’ve seen in a long time, and I realize I bring up bad bottle art more often than not.  It’s like they didn’t even try.  I’m all for simplistic art, in many cases it works better than highly detailed art.  Sadly though a yellow background and three simple stars will never catch my eye, or convince me to purchase something.  Time to open this up.

   The initial smell is that of a standard grape soda, even the chemical scent wafting out of the mouth of the bottle doesn’t scare me away.  While I usually try to stay away from chemicals in my soda, grape soda is the exception.  I’m sure I’ve explained that somewhere on the site before, but let’s just leave it at that for now.  Bottom’s up!

   This tastes like a standard grape soda, with a little more sugar in it than I’m used to.   You can definitely taste the chemicals, but something doesn’t quick sit right with me.  Maybe it’s the nail polish taste I occasionally get from it, maybe it’s the fact that I’d enjoy this flavor more as a Popsicle, or maybe it’s the fact that the label is now all over my hands.  My hands are covered in label ink now; someone must have taken the cheap route when making this label.  I will say that the design is way more interesting with a few smears here and there though.  This can’t really be blamed on Nu-Grape; it probably is the fault of the bottler.  I won’t list their name here incase I’m incorrect.  The long of the short of it is this… this is a basic grape soda.  It’s not overly special, it’s not overly gross.  The perfect situation for drinking it is this.  You’re out in the middle of New Mexico on some lonesome road.  You notice you’re running out of gas and stop at what seems to be an oasis of a gas station.  It looks like it hasn’t been touched by human hands in over 50 years, but that’s ok, all you need is gas.  After filling up you shamble inside out of the heat for just a bit to get something cool to drink.  The wooden floor echoes beneath your boot, as you wander over to the drink section.  This isn’t an ordinary drink section though, it’s just a big wooden box filled to the brim with ice.  In this ice sits one bottle.  Through the smearing label you can see that it reads “Nu-Grape.” So being thirst you buy a bottle.

~A

Twist doesn't like being at Mike's... hence his absence