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.
Gwynedd Stuart, Sporked’s managing editor, is an L.A.-based writer and editor who spends way, way too much time at the grocery store. She’s never met an Old El Paso taco or mozzarella stick she didn’t like.
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