I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: When it comes to sparkling water, Spindrift is elite. Instead of natural and artificial flavors, their seltzer is flavored with actual fruit juice, and THAT’S the Spindrift difference (feel free to co-opt that slogan, Spindrift!). When we ranked every Spindrift flavor last year, there were 17 varieties to choose from. Now we can add two more to that list: Spindrift Grapeade and Spindrift Island Punch. Spindrift enthusiasts that we are, we tried both to find out if they deserve a spot in your fridge.
Spindrift Grapeade is an interesting concept. I think of most “ades” as fruit juice-based drinks that have been diluted and sweetened with sugar. This one is certainly diluted, but it isn’t sweet. Anyway, it may not capture the spirit of an “ade” in that sense, but it sure is good.
Pros: I love grapeade, but some of them are just too sweet and too artificial tasting to resonate with an adult palate (cough *Arizona* cough). I guess you can think of Spindrift Grapeade as grapeade for grownups. It’s not sweet and it has a very genuine concord grape flavor. There’s also some lemon juice in the mix, which contributes a little bit of tang and brightens up the whole experience.
Cons: I could see people who really like a bold grapeade being disappointed that this mostly tastes like watered-down grape juice, but if you’re a Spindrift fan, you know the drill. Also, I could see this Spindrift being a little less useful than other flavors—Spindrift Lime is gonna come in handy as a mixer for pretty much any booze; Spindrift Grapeade, not so much.
Spindrift Island Punch is their take on PassOGuava, aka the passion fruit-orange-guava juice bev that’s popular in Hawaii. That’s a lot of flavors to cram in a can, but they pulled it off!
Pros: I know warm weather is still a few months off in most of the country, but this is the perfect summer drink. The blend of passion fruit, guava, and orange juices is pretty much perfect—no one flavor overpowers the others. You really can taste all three. I know not everyone thinks of sparkling water in mixer terms, but I gotta say, this stuff will go great with vodka, rum, or even tequila.
Con: This new Spindrift flavor contains citric acid, which makes it pretty tart and tangy. I guess I could see it being a little too tangy for some people.
Howdy! I’m Gwynedd, Sporked’s managing editor. I live in Los Angeles and have access to the best tacos the U.S. has to offer—but I’m a sucker for a crunchy Old El Paso taco night every now and then. I’ve been at Sporked since 2022 and I’m still searching frozen mozzarella sticks that can hold a candle to restaurant sticks.
Why you should trust me: I’ve been a journalist for 20 years (yikes), a consumer of food for 40-plus years, and I’m truly hard pressed to think of foods I don’t like (or that I can’t tolerate at the very least). Oh and one time I cooked my way through Guy Fieri’s cookbook and wrote about the journey through Flavortown.
What I buy every week: Trader Joe’s Original Savory Thins. Fat free plain yogurt (usually Fage or Nancy’s). Honeycrisp apples. Sweet cream coffee creamer for my at-home Americanos. A frozen cauliflower crust pizza and some jarred mushrooms to top it with. Old El Paso Stand ‘N Stuff taco shells and Gardein Ground Be’f, even though I think “be’f” is a nightmarish contraction.
Favorite ranking: Stouffer’s frozen dinners. I don’t own a microwave (I get my cancers the old fashioned way!), so I love taste testing things that I don’t really buy to eat at home.
Least favorite ranking: Soy sauce. Don’t get me wrong, I love soy sauce—but consuming that much sodium in one sitting is probably illegal in some countries. Our frozen enchilada taste test was a close second; the smell of microwaved corn tortillas still haunts me.
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Gwynedd Stuart
Jon Gutierrez
Justine Sterling
Navya Hari
