Review: Innocent juices

We were sent a lovely package from Innocent recently – it contained a bottle each of two of their new juices, some apples and some muesli, and it came via a refrigerated courier, which I thought was rather cool *cough*.

In theory, it was supposed to be for breakfast, though it didn’t turn up until mid-afternoon (perhaps due to our being out in the sticks). While I was planning to wait until the morning to taste it, Rosemary spotted it after getting home from school with her friend and asked if they could have some. She decided to try out the apply juice, as that is generally her drink of choice. So I poured some for her, her friend, Eleanor and me.

Eleanor smacked her lips and said ‘Mmmm’. Rosemary said ‘Nope. Don’t like it’ (fortunately we were spared the ubiquitous ‘Yuck’). On further quizzing, she didn’t like it because it didn’t taste like her normal apple juice (bog-standard UHT stuff – usually from Sainsbury’s). Her friend, on the other hand said it was ‘Really yummy’. Me? I thought it was the nicest apple juice I’d tasted. And I’m really not just saying that because they sent me a free bottle (sorry, carafe) of it. It was sweet and refreshing at the same time. It made me think like I was drinking an apple tart. If that makes any sense at all. Chris tried some later and thought it was ‘very nice’.

I served the orange juice with dinner and Rosemary did like that one. She said that it tasted ‘like the orange juice we squeeze in the morning’. And it did. Basically tasted like freshly squeezed orange juice. Which is what you want from a not-from-concentrate juice.

So, all in all they went down pretty well, though if you have kids who are not keen on things they’re not used to (and you usually give them UHT apple juice), then they might not like it.

I have to admit I was very pleasantly surprised. I love Innocent smoothies, but thought it was a bit odd that they’d be branching into ‘plain’ juice, as there’s just so much of it about. I shouldn’t have been surprised though, really – they do such good stuff with fruit, it would be silly for them not to do juices, too.

Innocent juices are available in most of the supermarkets. Now, to get our local Co-op to stock them…

Disclaimer: I was sent a free sample of the product to review, and some apples and muesli. I didn’t receive any payment to write this review, which is my honest opinion (and the views of others, as stated).