Go wild with eight different sparkling Wild Fruitz.

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February 2006

Product Reviews / Main Nibbles / Beverages

Wild Fruitz Sparkling Juices

Grandma’s Inspiration

The fruits are not so wild, as much as wholesome. More than fifty years ago in Brandon, Vermont, founder Trev Warshauer’s Grandma Stella began to mix her homemade raspberry preserves with seltzer water to get her children to eat more fruit. She educated her flock on the importance of fruit in a healthy diet. Years later, her teachings have resulted in the Wild Fruitz line of sparkling juices—all natural, vibrant fruit flavors with just a touch of sparkling water.

Originally developed as an alternative to supermarket juices containing high-fructose corn syrup, chemical additives and dyes, the sparkling juices also skip the ubiquitous, inexpensive grape juice often as the main filler in the bottle of many beverage drinks. When competing against the other specialty juices, Wild Fruitz beverages contain a lower percentage of real fruit juice than most (25% to 38%  juice, versus 70% to 100% juice for other brands.) But for the most part, the majority of the juice they contain is the juice that’s named on the bottle. Pear juice is used as a blender in most of the flavors, apple juice is used in the raspberry; but if you’re drinking Pomegranate/Black Currant, much of the juice in the bottle is pomegranate and black currant. The line also has the advantage of being kosher-certified, the only one so noted among the contenders. Click here to see a comparison chart of some of the major players in sparkling juices.

There are eight flavors of Wild Fruitz: Apricot/Peach; Cranberry; Huckleberry/ Blueberry; Lemonade; Orange/Mango; Pomegranate/Black Currant; Raspberry; and Watermelon. As with most of the all-natural beverages in this category, Wild Fruitz flavors do taste like the fruit on the label—the difference between natural and artificial flavors is immediately recognizable. Watermelon truly tastes like watermelon: mild and subtle like the actual fruit. In keeping with the heritage of cranberries: Cranberry is tart and tangy. You will not find any lemonade beverage quite like Wild Fruitz. Mouth-puckeringly lemony, it makes ordinary lemonade taste like lemon water. In all, we were impressed by the flavors in the entire Wild Fruitz line, with the possible exception of Blueberry/Huckleberry, which we found a bit too sweet.

Like other specialty sparkling juices, the Wild Fruitz line has a pleasant, light effervescence that heightens the flavor of the fruit. Although they are positioned in the adult-beverage category, the drinks are colorful enough and have enough carbonation to appeal to kids. After all, Trev Warshauer may have created Wild Fruitz as an adult, but he first fell in love with the sparkling juices as a child. The essence of simplicity, the reliance on quality ingredients, and the desire to make something delicious that stays true to those ingredients result in a refreshingly old-school new beverage.

While Wild Fruitz “was developed and brewed to give children the closest approximation they could imagine to real fruit,” both the flavors and the wholesome “from the farm” graphics appeal to both adults and kids. Perhaps the wild part is how surprised Grandma Stella would be to see what became of her healthy little idea.