Yeo's Asian Juice Boxes: Sugar Cane and Snow Pear

I'm starting to look into eating and drinking a little healthier these days. Don't worry, I'll still inject possibly toxic liquids down my gullet once(ish) a week for my five fans, but I'm looking at some non-soda substitutes in my daily routine. And since Asia has never let me down (that's a goddamn lie) and juice boxes have always appealed to my slimmer inner-child, then why not wind down this Thursday with some exotic Asian juice boxes? What could possibly.........

Ah, Yeo's. Singapore's finest beverage company with such classics as Longan Red Date Drink, Bandung Rose Syrup Milk Drink, Cheng Bou Leong and so many other classics that have graced our refrigerator for generations. Actually, these all seem like flavors of stupid that I'll eventually spend way too much money to try. The website also offers a "cool" tile game that I can't figure out and a "fresh" Yeo's Screen Saver! Party to the MAX. Several of the Asian drinks sitting in my fridge come from this company, but I've never heard of them until today. My two treats this evening are, I'm assuming, juice boxes not marketed to kids with the tag line: "The Natural Choice." Besides the recent Ecto Cooler, I don't think I've had a juice box in 15 years, so let's get our SingaPOUR on! GET IT!!!! It doesn't even make sense because it's a juice box and you drink from a straw and I suck at tile games and punctuation%

Sugar Cane Drink
Now here's an odd thing, pretty much everything I've eaten over the last 30 years contain some type of sugar, but I've never really seen a sugar cane in real life, and I've certainly, to the best of my knowledge, never tasted one. Sugar cane produces sugar, so is this to just literally be sugar water? I can make that at home Macgyver style without all this fancy Asian lettering. Let's read the ingredients: Water, sugar cane extract, cane sugar and caramel." Wait, wait, wait. You have a drink where the main ingredient is literal sugar, and you've added an additional flavor of...sugar? Well I'm probably in for a sweet treat as this little 8.5 oz box contains 7% of my daily carbohydrates. I'm definitely going to have to go stare at the gym after this.
So I opened up the straw, poked it in and tried to smell it by giving it a little squeeze and it literally went up my nose. I wish I was kidding. Can't smell anything since it's in a juice box so I guess I'll go right for the taste. Yea I'd say it's pretty much sugar water. There is a slight herbal flavor to it, but it's basically just really, really sweet water. Singapore kids probably move it. Singaporians?

Snow Pear Drink

Lots of helpful info here...

I can't say I've heard of a snow pear before. Lazy research tells me it's popular in western Asia and has a sour, mild taste. The ingredients are a little more extravagant for this one: water, extract of dried pear, dried mandarin orange, apricot kernal (it's in bold on the box; no idea why), bei sha shen, chaun bei mu, cane sugar, artificial flavor and caramel. So they're just messing with me at this point right? If there's no English translation for one of your ingredients, either leave it off the list or make something up. And WHY is apricot kernal in bold? It makes no sense to me. Just like the last drink, there's really no scent past the cardboard, so for the first time in my life, I assume, let's drink something with bei sha shen in it.


It's identical to the sugar cane drink. I mean identical. It may say it has different ingredients and different nutritional facts, but if you did the Pepsi taste challenge with these two drinks, no one would be able to tell them apart. Well this has been a giant waste of time, and I probably have apricot kernal poisoning. I'm going to go sit on the toilet for six hours and try and figure out that tile game. So long everyone.

Same

Mexican Dessert Sodas

Happy day after Columbus Day everyone. After a day of rockin' out with Chris and thanking him for discovering this badass nation of ours, it's time to take some time to honor that other country that's not Canada that is also part of North America that was sorta, kinda discovered by Columbus. (Run-On Sentences are fun!). Yes, I'm talking about Mexico. Hola! One thing I hear the bosses say at work quite often is that the "demographics are changing." Which is a fancy way of saying, "hey, didn't there used to be more Irish people around here? And why is the guacamole sold out at every grocery store?" I, for one, embrace the Mexican culture, especially their cuisine. So why not drink some dessert sodas based on some of the most popular Mexican sweets? And why not die of a sugar overdose in my early 30s? This trio of triumph comes to us from....of course...Rocket Fizz, who last made me drink grass and dirt and cry for three days straight. Well let's check these bad boys out in the order of least to most excited to try.

#1 - Rosa's Arroz con Leche (Sweet Rice Soda)

It's not so much that I'm not excited as that I'm just not really familiar with Arroz con Leche. My Spanish isn't great and I assumed it meant whale milk cheese truffle with snail droppings, but I was pretty off. It's essentially a rice pudding with cinnamon. How can that be bad? In fact, all three of these sodas have cinnamon included in the flavoring. Is that the national dish of Mexico? Well all three bottles are brought to us by "Dos Amigos" which includes a picture of two definitely white guys pretending to look Mexican, and all all promise to have SABOR GRANDE! (great taste). Best not be lying to me Mexico! Nothing in the ingredients suggest anything natural has ever touched this bottle - no cinnamon, no rice, no hope. But let's open up the bottle and see what's inside, si? I'm surprised at how much it smells like rice. It's not overly sweet smelling - it's more like a plate of Uncle Ben's. Let's drink!.....I know it's not supposed to, but it tastes a lot like Jelly Belly Buttered Popcorn. Which, as you know, is my favorite jelly bean flavor. They could market it as that and make a million pesos or something. I dig this for what it should be more than for what it's supposed to be. I give this four out of five offensive sombrero dances. 

#2 - Jorge's Horchata (Horchata Soda)

I've had horchata once or twice and it's been pretty enjoyable. I'm not a huge milk fan overall, but a milky drink with rice, almonds and cinnamon is something I can respect. My Hispanic friends love horchata and it's pretty much the unofficial/official drink of Mexico. It's been awhile since I've had a glass, but my taste bud memory is pretty hardcore, so I think I know what I'm getting in to. Not surprisingly, it contains pretty much the exact same fake ingredients as the Sweet Rice soda, give or take some Yellow #5. Remember when we were kids and we believed the rumor that Yellow 5 in Mountain Dew would make our most important body parts shrink? Remember? The...the rumor? (wipes away a single tear) Anyway, let's give it a sniff. Well I was expecting more cinnamon once again, but it's overwhelmingly an almond scent. Maybe I haven't had this before? Only one way to find out (takes an el sip). The smell threw me off, but this does taste like how I remember. It's very bubbly yet smooth at the same time. There's some cream, cinnamon and rice for sure, but even though the smell was overpowering, I'm not TASTING almonds. Not bad overall though. 3.5 out of five offensive sombrero dances. 

#3 - Burros Churros (Churro Soda)

This is the one I'm most excited to try. One of my fondest memories when tagging along with a friend or family member with a Costco membership was grabbing a giant dollar churro at their cafeteria. It was just the right amount of cinnamon, sugar, butter and shame sweats. I have nothing more to say; I want to open it up and give it a taste. The smell is a little underwhelming. There's a little sugarness to it but not much. (glug glug) Oh man that's awesome. The butter is the dominant flavor and I mean that in a good way! It's like a churro from Costco, a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and a stick of Country Crock while adding bubbles. I really like this and would seek it out again. 5/5 for sure! Thanks so much my Mexican friends, you're muy bien. Now to go take a siesta sugar coma death sleep. OLE!