oh dear god why taste test #3(j): frank's kraut juice

oh hell.



before i get started, i want to tell you about my step father. a little while ago, my good friend zach posted a touching, heartfelt little entry about his step father on his blog, and while i was getting ready to put this episode of the taste test together, i couldn't help but feel compelled to do something similar, seeing as we had similar situations. my father passed away while my mother was pregnant with me, so the man you see pictured below has always been "my dad." like zach's step father, he's lived an extremely colorful life. he'd seen more of the planet than i ever will by the time he was the age i am now, knows more about art and art history than anyone i've ever met, and if the shit hit the fan, could seriously make his living playing vegas style solitaire in the casinos. also like zach's stepdad, he never had a family in mind, but when my mother chanced along, recently widowed with a 12 year old daughter and an infant son, something just clicked in his head, and he took us all on, relocated us to the east coast, and proceeded to provide for us for the next two decades and onward.



but it's funny, the things you get from someone. we didn't play a lot of catch. he let my mom handle the parent-teacher conferences. our "quality time" was usually spent playing pool or pinball in smoky bars, listening to working-class blues bands from around syracuse crank out "sweet home chicago" one more time to rooms full of world war 2 vets, sixties burnouts, off duty auto mechanics, and the lifers, all the lifers, career barflies, most of whom knew me by name. i learned to love soul music, robert crumb and mystery novels from growing up with him. he was an art professor who never thought to teach me to draw. i remember smoking a joint with him when i was 19 walking down the street in greenwich village and thinking i had died and gone to heaven.

what does all this have to do with today's entry in the taste test? what if i said nothing, it had nothing to do with anything, and i was just trying to hold off having to taste this swill? what then? sadly that's not the case, as the more perceptive among you have probably put together for yourselves by now, i was also inspired many times in my young life and into my adulthood to try some truly nasty food and beverage items from hanging around with that lunatic (you too, mom. braunschweiger, anyone?) and today is probably the crown jewel in our family's legacy of consuming royally awful stuff: frank's sauerkraut juice. i can still remember the looks on the faces of the cashiers at the IGA in strum wisconsin as we'd buy stacks of this crap, and the look on my dad's face as he'd pound it down. it seemed to me, as a child, the epitome of that "what is wrong with grownups" feeling that so many kids have, so much of the time. i tried it once when i was about 9 and couldn't get the taste out of my mouth all day. i have not tried it since.

what is it, you ask? surely it can't be just the straight liquid from like a bag of sauerkraut, you're saying? i'm afraid that's exactly what it is AND AS AN ADDED BONUS i'd like to point out that in years past they used to sell it in manageable, 7.5 oz pop top cans, like so:



about like a v8 can or so, with a little sealed top that you could easily rip off and chug down. that, i could do. that's what i thought i was going to be getting when i emailed my dear mother and asked her to send down a can. what did i get instead?



THIS slobbering 14 ounce behemoth, almost TWICE the size of the nice little manageable can from my childhood memories. they say the world gets bigger and scarier the older you get and i've always believed that to one degree or another but i had no idea this is what they meant. the nice people at frank's have done away with the pop top at some indeterminate point in the past, probably to discourage people from doing what i'm about to do, but if there's one thing i hope we've learned on our journey together so far, dear readers, it's that a stupid man with a bad idea will NOT be denied, so here i am, staring down my white whale. it's not solely procrastination that's accounted for the monthlong gap between the previous taste test and this one, i promise you. i knew what was coming, even if i have no idea what i'm getting myself into.

one final aside, my dear mother took it upon herself to send TWO cans of this shit down for some reason, leaving me with an entire can's worth left over once i finish this test (IF i finish it) so if anyone wants to try it for themselves, i'll have a nice cold one waiting for you in the fridge. otherwise maybe i'll boil some brats or spike someone's gatorade at work or something. who knows.

okay, enough foreplay. time to crack this bad bitch open and see what she has to say for herself.

ugh. oh. i just sniffed the CAN OPENER and started coughing and gagging a little. let's see what the can has to say for itself. ingredients: cabbage juice, salt. i think they forgot "death" on there somewhere. there's a recipe for something called "tomato tang" which i will not insult you by replicating here, and then four bullet points. here they are, verbatim. parenthetical commentary is mine.

- miracle meat tenderizer - marinade (MEAT TENDERIZER? what is this going to do to my stomach lining?)
- adds a zest to mixed drinks (oh that i will definitely have to try - sauerkrautini, anyone?)
- natural laxative (oh that's just great)
- known to heal canker sores (wtf)

the whole time i've been typing this the smell has just been insinuating itself out into the room. i need to take drastic measures before it's too late. if anything happens to me, you can have my stereo. no, not you, you. yeah, you, in the back.

okay. here we go. i love you, mom and dad. this is all your fault.









wow. i honestly do not know what to say. sour, sour just sour beyond all description, and really really salty, the "entry" as they'd say is just this total bitchslap across your entire palate, with this lingering kind of rotten sour saltiness that just goes on and on. holy god. after the initial wave of your entire body just reacting with utter instinctual horror and revulsion, however, there's a kind of moment of clarity not unlike hurling yourself into an icy lake after sitting and soaking in a hot sauna for an hour or two. i can see for miles and miles and miles and miles and it all looks like sauerkraut from here.

honestly, it's not as bad as the yogurt soda. it's bad, don't get me wrong, it's horrible, but it doesn't have a) the chunks (OH GOD THE CHUNKS) or b) the lingering sourness and disgusting curdled cream taste of the abali. i say this all after my first healthy swig, however, which i would roughly estimate took care of about 1/3 of the can. we still have a long road ahead of us, friends and neighbors, and i may not get there with you.

that's right, i just quoted martin luther king jr. whilst discussing sauerkraut juice. nowhere else on the internet will you find such a sublime mixture of high-minded ideals and outright nastiness, i promise you. okay, time for round two.





oh. oh man. well, it turns out on the second pull off the can, once you've coated the inside of your mouth with this mess, the taste lingers on a whole lot longer, and you don't pass that initial rush of disgusting rotten sour saltiness quite so quickly. in fact as i write this i am still waiting for it to fade. i really totally understand why they used to make these cans single chug servings, i totally do.

i seriously don't know if i can do this. it's not just that it's bad, because it is, if that isn't coming through quite clearly enough for everyone, it's just... there's so god damned MUCH of it. i felt like i took another decent pull off of it, but just by my guesstimation i'd say there's still just under half the can left. i've fought long and hard through thick and thin (and chunky) to get through every drop of every beverage that i've personally hand selected for this experiment, dear readers, but i am honestly not sure if my body or the laws of nature will allow me to consume the rest of this can. i think we might have to call it a day.

...

...

screw it. you know what? this can is going down. right now. this is the last big hump, the final hill i have to crest in this tour de pain i've set up for myself, and i am not going to let a measly 7 ounces of fermented cabbage liquid deny me my glory. you wanted this showdown so god damned badly, frank's kraut juice, well guess what? you've got it.

MORTAL KOMBAAAAAATTTTTT!!!!!!







djhfajsdhflasdjbfhlkasjdbflaksdjfbalksdjfalsfghirugalivbzdkjvhlesirthlzskjfhzldkjfhzlkjfhlskfjhalsdjf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YO ADRIAN!!! AAADDDRRRIIIIAAAANNNNN!!!!!!

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES!?!?!?!?!?\\\

oh, the humanity!

the call was coming from inside the house

bruce willis' character was actually a ghost

the coin was in his other hand the entire time

wow. i can smell colors and hear tastes now. okay, maybe not. but i did just drink a whole lot of nasty crap. all of a sudden that "natural laxative" bullet point on the side of the can looks more like a warning than just a friendly bit of information. i suppose i'll find out later.

but for now, in this moment, let me bask in the glow. i might not be an andrew zimmern (although i've eaten more durian than he has) or anthony bourdain level connosseiur of the disgusting, but i'd like to think i can hold my own. i did it. i actually did it.

so what have we learned here, today? well, for one, i will apparently drink just about anything. also, my dad is a complete and utter lunatic. and finally, and perhaps most importantly, you don't get to pick the things that you take from the people around you, nor what they take from you... all you can hope for is that you don't inspire them to chug an entire can of sauerkraut juice on the internet for other people's amusement, because that is a really messed up thing to do to a kid.

just kidding. thanks for reading, everyone, and thanks for all the pool lessons, quarters for pinball, and cherry cokes, dad. you were the coolest. all of my friends are still scared of you.

see you next time

love

d

oh dear god why taste test #3(i): yeo's soursop juice drink

AAAAND we're back, pressing on with the extreme and utter nastiness that has become oh dear god why taste test #3, although i shouldn't raise any false expectations for this outing, the stuff i'm about to taste, sadly, is delicious. how can i be so sure, you ask? well i grabbed this can of "soursop juice drink" off the shelf at dear sweet viet hoa without checking the rest of the can, wherein it's noted that it's actually "jugo de guanabana" to our mexican friends, which is just guanabana juice, sold by the jumex corporation at any grocery store on the planet, and which i've consumed several times in my life and already know to be delicious. so, provided that this particular brand doesn't mess the formula up too badly, i think i know what i'm getting into.

famous last words, right? here we go.

oh i just noticed on the bottom of the can, it's "best consumed before" september of last year, so maybe this will be kind of interesting after all!





nope. it's fine. it tastes exactly like guanabana, although yeo's opts to include a bit more of the pulp of the fruit, unlike jumex's version which is much more watery. i mean it's nowhere near the chunky mass of the caravelle mandarin orange float with sacs (AWFUL) from last time but there is a certain thickness which isn't altogether unpleasant.

if you've never had soursop or guanabana before, the flavor is kind of akin to a sweet tropical fruit like a pineapple or something, with a hint of floral sweetness to it, like clover sugar or the scent of dandelions or something. the drink itself is of course incredibly sugary and sweet (ingredients: water, cane sugar, soursop juice, etc from there) but it's not like painfully sweet or cloying like some of the other stuff i've tried.

overall i like this stuff a lot even if i don't drink it regularly. it's sweet and pretty unique, but it doesn't exactly warrant much more in the way of description or explanation. give it a try sometime.

join us next time for the voyage into fear that will no doubt be my attempt at consuming kraut juice. i'm gagging a little bit already. talk to you then.

d

oh dear god why taste test #3(h): caravelle mandarin orange float (with sacs!)

okay - i honestly have no idea what to make of this stuff, i just bought it because it said "sacs" on the front and i was feeling perverse. how do you put "float" in a can? what are "sacs," exactly? let's find out.

i'm kind of not looking forward to this, for some reason.





not too bad. tastes overwhelmingly of sugar, predictably enough, but there's a creaminess to it that makes it very reminiscent of starburst candy, in fact if i closed my eyes i'd think someone had liquefied an orange starburst and poured it into my mouth. i often find myself thinking about that when i close my eyes though, but for once my fears have paid off in the most delicious fashion. no sacs, though. should i have shaken it up a little? let's try it again.





oh ugh. uuugggghhhhh... that was nothing but sacs. oh man. it's like the surgically removed inside of an orange, suspended in the chemically reconstituted juice of an orange. lots of texture. if there was an orange juice available with "XXXTREEEME XXXTRA PULP PLUS PULP PLUS" i think it would be something like this. it's not... bad, per se, it's just really a lot of orange taste and texture and bits and whatever, happening in one's mouth. it feels a little invasive, bordering on the obscene. too much sac.

verdict? ennnh. probably not. proves conclusively once and for all that there is such a thing as too much sac. this is it. i like oranges, i like juice, i like texture in my beverages, but christ, there are limits. how about we just pretend this never happened, okay?

okay.

catch you next time

d

oh dear god why taste test #3(g): unidentifiable brand lychee flavored soda

i don't even know how to begin capturing the cuteness of the awesomeness of the amazingness of this beverage.



there's no name or other identifying data on the outside of this package that i can relate to you, so i'll just highlight the obvious points:



little face!



little whale!



little pop top marble thing!

allow me to explain. the truly brilliant thing about this bottle is the little marble that comes embedded in the top, sealing the contents inside until you use the tiny plastic nubbin to liberate them... unfortunately that results in an explosion of lychee flavored liquid all over and around the surrounding area of the bottle, but hey, it's worth it. it should be obvious by now that this particular beverage is a ringer, i've had it many times before and love it dearly and thought i should share it with you all because it's so amazing. so basically here's the routine: you take the blue plastic piece and press down on the top of the bottle until the marble pops down into the neck of the thing, where it's caught before it drops into the bottom of the bottle. you are then free to enjoy the rest of the soda, provided you always drink with the "eyes" of the bottle facing you (they're there to catch the marble) otherwise the marble rushes up and seals off the top of the bottle, and you get nothing. why would they make it do that, you ask? because, ladies and gentlemen, you're looking at the world's first capless, spill-proof soda. if the bottle tips over or gets thrown out of an airplane or attacked by an hyena or anything, there's no danger of spillage. amazing, huh? it also tastes good.





i love it! and i love you. this is amazing. wholehearted endorsement. also goes good with gin. available at viet hoa for the low low price of WHO CARES IT'S AMAZING

i will try harder to be objective next time, provided the drinks are slightly less incredible.

d

oh dear god why taste test #3(f): carabao energy drink

cheerio my dearios, we're back, charging towards glory on the good ship "oh dear god why" but LOOKOUT! there's an iceberg in the way... what's that written on the side? i can barely make it out... "CARABAO ENERGY DRINK." damn the torpedos, full speed ahead.



truth be told this is kind of a round off for yours truly, at least i hope it will be, assuming the carabao follows suit with most of the other weird asian energy drinks i've had - sugary, fruity, not GREAT but also not poison. let's find out, shall we?





yep. much as i expected. just sugar and energy chemicals and fruit flavors. there's a little bit of a kick to it, energy-wise, but it's not blowing my head off my socks or anything. i think it's time for a second opinion.





fellow blogger ashley likes it a lot. says: "tastes like sugar!" agreed. how about a third opinion?





the love of my wife concurs.

honestly there's not a lot to say about this stuff. it tastes like candy, like cheap candy with a lot of sugar and... some fruit, i guess. i'd take another picture or something but you're just going to see me smiling again and honestly no one needs to see that.

verdict? thumbs up. it's cheap, there's definitely a kick, and it tastes fucking fine. drink it.

later

d

oh dear god why taste test #3(e): abali yogurt soda

okay. okay okay okay. you can do this, nielsen, you're a professional. you ate durian, for god's sake, this should be small potatoes in comparison.

hi everyone. today for your edification and amusement i'll be drinking abali yogurt soda from the mediterranean grocery store on park ave.



full disclosure: i do have some limited experience in the realm of yogurt-based bottled drinks. on our first visit to the aforementioned grocery emporium i snagged a bottle of "dana" brand yogurt drink, thinking (wrongly) that it would be sweet, kind of thick and delicious like that lassi stuff you can get at indian restaurants. i was wrong. WHOA was i wrong. it was yogurt based, to be sure, and it was in a bottle, that part you could not deny, but all of my other assumptions about it were wrong. over the course of an interminable afternoon i consumed (well my wife and i) an entire bottle of thin, salty, white liquid that literally made your mouth cringe when you poured it in there. if it had not been for the extremely sweet caramels we also bought, it would have been nigh on undrinkable. so when i was out stocking up for this taste test i wanted to share the experience with you all but it seemed somehow disingenuous to pretend to "test" something that i'd already consumed before (and knew to be awful, truly truly awful) so i opted for the other bottled yogurt drink that they sell. also i don't think i could have willingly consumed the dana twice, knowing what i was in for, so i had to pick something new.

i don't know if the above picture does it justice, but i feel it necessary to point out that this shit is actually separated in the bottle (see the sediment on the bottom and the liquid on the top?) so it's going to require a bit of violent shaking on my part before it's even mixed together enough to consume. not to be confused, of course, with the violent shaking that my body will probably engage in immediately AFTER consumption, as it tries to withstand the onslaught upon my taste buds that will undoubtedly be abali yogurt soda.

okay have i built it up enough? let's do this.

i can't do it. i can't! i just looked at the ingredients on the side. this is what it says:

milk
carbonated water
yogurt culture
salt

that's it. what have i done? oh, hubris, do you know no limits? why must icarus eternally fly to the sun? why must sisyphus push his rock up the hill, again and again, forever more?

take heart, my good man. think of the words of Mallory, when asked why anyone in their right mind would want to climb Mount Everest. do you know what he said?

"Because it's there."





AGH! AAAAGH AAAAAAAA!!! THERE WERE CHUNKS!!! CHUNKS IN IT!!!!! CHUUUUUUNNNNNKKKKKSSSSSS!!!!!

i feel like i just drank somebody's puke. god. oh god and jesus and dear god and little baby jesus god. it's... awful. i cannot seriously fathom why someone would drink this. it's... it basically tastes like someone strained a huge block of feta cheese through an old gym sock into a big pile of salt, poured it into a bottle of sparkling water, and put some half and half in it. oh. ugh. words fail me, they honestly do, and i still have well over half the bottle left. god. i was kind of hoping that all my hemming and hawing would make it seem way worse than it would actually turn out to be but i was wrong - it's as bad as i thought it would be. all right. all right, pull yourself together here, big guy. come on, you can do it. who's mommy's little tough guy? who's my big man? you are. that's right, you are.





oh lord. more chunks. i guess i should have shaken it up some more. man. i honestly don't know if i can keep this down. who would drink this? call me a xenophobe but i really cannot picture anyone sitting around just casually sipping off a bottle of this stuff. maybe this is the big stupid american showing off his spoiled, sugar-saturated taste buds but i really find this stuff to be awful. it's just salty fizzy milky water. it's like if you put alka seltzer in skim milk. basically.

i just gave some to my wife and she slapped me on the shoulder for not warning her about how nasty it was going to be. couldn't you tell just by looking at it, woman?

all right let's finish this beast off.









uuunnnnnggggghhhhhh. uuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh. uh.

ungh.

uuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnngggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

u

oh dear god why taste test #3(d): pony malta

time to press on, kiddies. wouldn't want anyone to think i was neglecting my bloggerly (?) duties. next up we have pony malta, procured from that breadbasket of all things good in the world, the viet hoa market on cleveland st.



i had no idea what malta was when i bought this. i'm reading the wikipedia entry about it now and frankly, i'm a little scared. molasses? stout soda? non alcoholic? what am i getting myself into here? oh well, no time like the present to find out, eh?





you know what? i've had worse. it's got kind of a yeasty, sweet, grainy, earthy taste to it that is a little shocking to one's palate at the first impression, but you kind of find yourself softening up to it pretty quickly. i actually kind of like this stuff.

yeah. it's weird. it's like beer soda, or something. it's definitely malted and it totally tastes like barley and grain, but there's no alcohol, but it doesn't taste like non-alcoholic beer or anything... it's dark, and sweet, and you would probably drink it over ice (as wikipedia is telling me people usually do) or cold out of the bottle (as i am now). kind of a molasses aroma, but the taste is sweet and grainy. let's have another swig, shall we?



hm! i'll tell you what... i am not entirely un-impressed by this. i really don't know what i was expecting but it wasn't this, whatever it was. it's sort of like a soda, sort of like a beer, sort of like an energy drink and sort of like nothing you've ever had before. i probably would not want to drink it every day but if you want a dark soda that tastes like rice krispies then i know where to send you to now.

thumbs up for pony malta. A+ - would drink again.

okay kids catch you again soon with... oh no. i just looked at the next drink on my itinerary. oh dear god no.

d

oh dear god why taste test #3(c): ace brand energy drink

whew! well frankly after consuming that crappy soybean juice drink with tapioca ball i am bushed! i wonder what i could have for a little pick me up? ooh! how about



an off brand energy drink that cost 60 cents? that's sure to put a little extra pep back in my step.

ugh.

yeah so what we have here is your basic heavily caffeinated, taurine/guarana/ginseng/inositol intensive soda type energy beverage. these fucking things are a dime a dozen (or i guess $7.20 a dozen in this case) and i've had nearly ALL of them at one point or another - red bull, blue ox, NOS, vitamin energy, stinger, monster, rockstar, rampage, xenergy, joker, psycho, bookoo, and a million other no-name knockoff brands that were so anonymously disgusting that they don't even merit mention here. basically whenever i'm at a gas station, convenience store, or closeout emporium and i find one i haven't had yet, i try it. there is no good reason for this other than masochistic curiosity, but who needs a better reason than that?

anyway "ace" is a new one on me, apparently modeled after some sort of world war 2 bomber plane or something. let's see what their website has to say:

"Ace Mission
For individuals who value their own unique personality. Ace Energy originates upon American tradition, but thrives on today’s custom culture lifestyles, Inspiring you to be an ACE in whatever it is you do.
To those who appreciate American music, custom cars & choppers, or a day’s hard work, Ace Energy delivers effective endurance for finishing the job.
A nostalgic imaged can encourages a unique lifestyle. Whether you are a soldier or a civilian, life demands energy.

Personality
The can design strongly communicates the brand’s core values. ACE Energy’s bullet riddled cockpit with alluring imagery directly connects with the danger, excitement and honor of military fascination."

well then! i'm not sure what any of that means (the honor of military fascination? custom culture lifestyles? this cannot be english as a first language here) but they conveniently sidestep any mention of the taste, which is not usually a good sign. but at least i'll have something to drink while i listen to my american music and work on my custom car and chopper after a day's hard work. okay, time to take the plunge.

i can already tell this is going to be disgusting





surprise of all surprises, it's not totally horrible. it's your basic sugary juice water energy drink model, but since they're not making any concessions to low-cal, low-carb, or anything else that would even be remotely considered healthy, they can basically just load up the sugar and disguise what is basically just an unremarkable carbonated juice drink under a mountain of sweetness. all in all not nearly as bad as some of the other abominations in energy drink form that i've consumed over the years. let's give it another go here and see what we get.



it's okay. i'm honestly a little surprised. this cost 60 cents and i'd say it's on par with monster or rockstar or amp or any of the other run of the mill, not good but not terrible energy drinks you can get at the average gas station. there have been a couple over the years (vitamin energy) that i actually thought tasted good and a few that i would never put in my body again under any circumstances (xyience big apple, i'm fucking looking at you here, you piece of shit) and this falls squarely in between those two poles, maybe even a little towards the "i don't totally mind this" end of things.

it's got a bit of a kick to it too, i took two or three good sized swigs and i'm already starting to feel a little jauntier, although that's usually just an indicator of the sugar content right off the bat more than anything else, but we'll see. let me get up and wander around for a minute here and see what happens.

yeah sure, why not. this stuff isn't bad. we'll say thumbs up, more for my extremely lowered expectations than anything else, but i would probably drink this again. the price sure doesn't hurt.

okay catch you next time

d