Snacks Across the Pond

I like milk. It may not be a particularly popular drink amongst adults, but that doesn’t bother me. I still like to pour a pint of milk in to a glass and enjoy a cool, creamy drink. A milkshake to me is a popular choice in restaurants. I also like coffee-flavoured snacks. I was never much of a drinker of coffee itself until recently, but coffee-flavouring has always been a good choice for sweets, ice cream and, where available, milkshakes. Coffee-flavoured snacks may not actually taste of coffee, in the same way that banana- and other-flavoured snacks don’t, but that doesn’t matter in the case of coffee flavouring. Kerri was awesome enough to send the official state drink of Rhode Island, I kid you not, of Eclipse Coffee Syrup. It is a coffee-flavoured syrup to add to milk to make a coffee milk drink, surprisingly enough. I am excited by this snack.

Taking the seal off the lid to enable me to pour the syrup in to a glass of milk gives me my first chance to smell the syrup, and it is an appealing coffee-flavouring scent that greets me. I have a pint glass full of milk waiting for the syrup to be added, so I put the top back on the bottle and start pouring. Asking me to add ‘2 tablespoons to an 8 ounce glass of milk’ is confusing for me as we don’t measure drinks in ounces over here, which is why I have the pint of milk ready poured. The fall-back position of ‘or to desired taste’ is what I’ll be working towards. I put a few squirts of the syrup in to my milk and decide to go with that for now. A quick stir, and I lick the spoon clean so as not to waste any of the drink. Mmm, tastes of coffee milk. That’s a good start. I now have a glass full of what looks like a really weak latté. Time to give it a proper tasting.

Cor, that’s good. This tastes just like the best coffee milkshakes I have had, but without the thickness of the added ice cream. The coffee flavouring is delicious, and adds to the texture and coolness of the milk wonderfully. I often add Nesquick powdered flavouring to my drinks of milk, generally the strawberry flavour as I don’t like banana flavouring and despite liking chocolate itself chocolate flavouring is distasteful to me. When I have my strawberry flavoured milk I drink the whole glass pretty quickly, as I have the texture and chill of milk mixed with a sweet flavouring. There’s something different about this coffee syrup. I don’t want to drink this quickly. I want to savour it. I want to enjoy every sip, feel all the flavouring pass down my throat. Just lifting the glass to my mouth offers me a smell of the coffee syrup as it sits mixed with the milk, enhancing the whole sensation.

This is a fabulous drink. Rhode Island have the right idea about official state drinks. I’m not even going to look further at the bottle or labels, the drink is clearly the focus here. It’s good. I heartily recommend this product and/or service. I will have to pretend that I never got this in the package so that Kerri will be compelled to send me some more. What are the odds that she doesn’t read this blog?

Country Time Lemonade is a little worrying to me. Let me explain why. On these shores, at least to me, lemonade means a carbonated drink that, except for special cases, tastes almost exactly nothing like lemon. To drink a glass of lemonade is effectively to drink a glass of sugared tonic water. That doesn’t entirely explain why this product worries me. That this Country Time Lemonade comes in powder form coupled with what I think of lemonade worries me as it makes me think that this powder is some kind of sherbet or pop rocks, that I will cause a reaction similar to pouring water on to sodium when I try to make this concoction. Even if I don’t need safety goggles and gloves to make this drink what could a powdered fizzy drink taste like? Crikey.

Of course, it could be that it isn’t a carbonated drink. I dunno. If I think to popular images of the US I remind myself of kids setting up lemonade stands outside their houses, selling lemonade to passers-by for 5 cents a glass. It is entirely possible that lemonade is something entirely different across the pond, and is more akin to a squash drink.

Before I find out, a quick scan of the packaging reveals some interesting information. The ingredients list informs me that the citric acid ‘provides tartness’, and other ingredients ‘control acidity’, ‘prevent caking’, and ‘preserve freshness’. That’s a bit more information that I’m used to, but it seems like a good idea. The packaging also provides its own ‘easy measure cap’, so that I can ensure the correct proportion of dust per, um, quart, whatever a quart is. Thankfully each quart is listed as making four servings of 8 fluid ounces each, and I’m pretty sure I have a measuring jug with fl. oz. on it. Right, one cap’s worth of dust in to some water, and let me give it a shot.

It’s a good thing I spotted that dead spider in my measuring jug, or this review could have been quite scathing.

I measured the powder out, added water, and I even had some ice handy. Luckily, it didn’t fizz, so it’s more squash-like in nature and even promises to be a lemony drink, and nothing like what I know as lemonade. sip, sip It tastes lemony, but a slightly fake lemony. The packaging doesn’t lie when it states that it is ‘not too tart and not too sweet’, and I think it is this timidity that makes it taste fake. A more tart drink would bring a stronger sense of lemon and perhaps be more refreshing too. Were it sweeter it would be more likely to appeal to kids, but it would be too much for me I would think. As it is, the drink is nothing particularly special, although that it came from powder is what makes it interesting. The container is compact and you can make as much or as little as you like at a time, and not have to store large bottles. And the drink is good enough. Maybe I should try it again when it’s not Winter and I have no heat working in my home.

Two points to finish. One is that this snack helps me get closer to my ambition to be the king of hobbies, beating Simon Quinlank finally. The second is that the final direction for making the drink concerns me and piques my interest: ‘do not store in a metal container’. I wonder why not.