Maybe it’s the weird, shiny pouch. Maybe it’s the satisfaction that comes when you extract that golden needle of a straw, then successfully pierce the opening on the first try. Maybe it’s just the simple, sucrose smile of nostalgia.
Whatever it its, there’s something about Capri Sun that brings a smile to just about anyone’s face. When I gathered a group of people around a selection of these wonder juices, everyone immediately recalled memories of little league, summer beach days, and other happy, wholesome times from childhood.
Then I took those innocent memories, and I painted right over them with whiskey.
You see, I brought everyone together to address one simple question: what happens when you mix Capri Sun with booze? There are so many possibilities. For this initial experiment, I chose six flavors and mixed them with six different spirits. Here’s what we found.
Mountain Cooler + Irish Whiskey
Mountain Cooler is just a fancy name for apple-raspberry, so I’m already skeptical. I have to say, though: mixed with Irish whiskey, the concoction was surprisingly smooth. And despite its mellow edges, every flavor came through pretty clearly.
One taster said that if she’d ordered this at a bar, she’d probably be okay with it. Another taster said that was crazy talk. Most people fell somewhere in the middle—about the drink, not necessarily about our collective sanity.
What everyone did agree on was that it made us think of some sort of wine cooler. The kind teenagers would steal for a renegade party. Oh, and it also tasted like green meadows. A little.
Verdict: Not bad.
Strawberry Kiwi + Rum
I expected this one to be pretty straightforward. Just your standard strawberry-kiwi combo, but with a touch of sugarcane booziness, right? Wrong.
People threw out a plethora of things that they tasted in this little number: fruit roll-ups, strawberry shortcake, plum wine and even vanilla. One person said it had a buttery finish. Another said it tasted like Cancun—or at least like the all-you-can-drink tourist bars in Cancun.
Well, all of these interpretations are correct. This mixture gets big points for complexity, but keep in mind: no matter what you think it tastes like, it’s still sweet enough to make your eyes glow.
Verdict: Better than you’d think. Mostly.
Wild Cherry + Bourbon
This is where things got rough.
On first quaff, I thought this cocktail (if you can call it one) reminded me of a really, really saccharin Manhattan. Maybe with about twelve too many maraschino cherries.
As we continued, though, bitter and medicinal layers started to take hold in an aggressive way. The bourbon itself was entirely distorted and lost in the mixture, and the cherry devolved into acrid places we never intended to go.
The best description we finally landed on was: it tastes like Robitussin.
Verdict: Fail.
Lemonade + Campari
This one came off like a sweet and citrusy Negroni, but with less complexity, and definitely with less street cred. It was pretty easy to drink, but by that same token, also pretty easy to forget.
While sipping and pondering, one taster noted that she felt like a sophisticated high schooler. Another taster made unpleasant faces and gave up on the thing altogether. Still another taster, when asked what he noticed first, simply replied, “For me, it was the Mediterranean.”
Verdict: You could do worse.
Pacific Cooler + Gin
Pacific Cooler is a mixture of apple, cherry, pineapple and grape flavors. Kind of a strange combination as it stands, really. So why not get even stranger and spike it with a bunch of gin?
Actually, on first pass, nobody could really taste the gin—it blended in so well that it more or less disappeared. Everyone said it was kind of like drinking straight Capri Sun. However, after a few more sips, new flavors started to appear. Gentle fruit tones, like asian pear and lychee.
Then it hit us. Like a big, chewy asteroid from the flavor galaxy, it hit us: this thing tasted like a white gummy bear.
At that point most of us agreed that this drink was the best one of the night. Except for one taster…who said it was the worst.
Verdict: GUMMY BEAR DON’T CARE.
Tropical Punch + Tequila
Now we go to a dark, dark place, my friends.
Tequila seemed, on paper, to be the perfect fit for Tropical Punch. This sipper is loaded with flavors like strawberry, orange, pineapple, lemon and lime. I expected it would taste like the tropics or a beachy cantina. Instead, it tasted like regret.
I’m just going to let the quotes speak for themselves:
“This tastes like cleaning the bar in the morning.”
“A really shitty Margarita.”
“It’s an ashtray drink.”
“This is King’s Cup.”
“You know that shit that’s in the slop sink?”
“I hate it.”
“It’s what they serve at a racist Cinco de Mayo party.”
Verdict: We’ve made a huge mistake.
All Together Now
Taking a cue from the King’s Cup comment above, I felt we needed buckle down and go all the way to the edge and back on this strange and dangerous journey. It was time to make the Long Island Iced Tea From Hell. It was time to mix all twelve ingredients in one drink.
What happened was not pretty. The only flavor that really stood out was the tequila, with everything else melting into a cacophony of sweet, plastic artificial ruin. Completely undrinkable, and not even in a funny way. Also, it kind of looked like our dish soap.
It was a sad ending to a glorious experiment.
Verdict: Like drinking pee from a frat house. Avoid at all costs. Never again.
There are many more Capri Sun cocktail combinations to try, so by all means pick some up and go for it—but whatever you do, please don’t try this last one. We’ve endured the pain so that you don’t have to. Knowledge is power.
