I have heard alot about the Zestar! apple, mainly for it being one of the parents of the SweeTango. I finally got to try my first slice of Zestar! this morning. To give you some background information, the Zestar! was developed at the University of Minnesota, just like it’s offspring. It was created by combining “State Fair” and “MN 1691″. It was released in 1998.

The Zestar! apple helps fill a gap. Most early season apples are mealy, which is why you should be making applesauce in August and waiting until later in September to start your pies. The Zestar! is a crunchy apple that is available early in the season. It also has a long shelf life, unlike it’s early season counterparts. You can store them in the fridge for up to a couple months. One negative of the Zestar! is that it tends to bruise rather easily, so one must be careful when harvesting and handling. A bruised apple will not have that long shelf live. I think this easy bruising is why I am not seeing this apple regularly sitting next to the Galas and Fujis at the local mega mart.

My Experience with this Apple (Rating Scale 1-10)
Crispiness: 8
Tartness : 4
Apple Flavor: 7
Sweetness: 7
Juiciness: 7

Overall Feeling: I liked this apple. A great out of hand eating apple. It has a nice crisp to it. Not as crisp as a Honeycrisp or SweeTango but it more than holds its own against the other apples harvested at the same time. It’s more on the sweet side with some tartness. The claim about this apple is that is has a brown sugar like taste, and indeed it does. I recommend eating it cold because I think that brings out that taste even more. I think this is a great apple that you can get earlier and if you handle it right you can be enjoying for weeks to come.

Earlier this summer, I was watching an episode of Modern Marvels on the History Channel. The episode was about soda pop. In the hour long show, they interviewed someone who reviews root beers online. He had a bottle of Dang! That’s Good Butterscotch Root Beer to do a taste test with during the show. I thought that sounded interesting, but had never seen that brand in my area. Recently I was able to get acquire some. I learned that this root beer was brewed and bottled by Imperial Flavors Beverage Company out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Besides root beer the company also makes energy drinks.
Here is the ingredient list for this root beer: carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup sweetener, caramel color, citric acid, natural and artificial flavor, and sodium benzoate (a preservative).

So it this good butterscotch root beer or should the company be sued for false advertising?

They are right, this is good butterscotch root beer. They saved themselves by not calling it Dang! That’s the Greatest Root Beer You Will Ever Drink. It has a nice butterscotch flavor, like someone took those candies you use to find in your grandma’s candy dish, melted them down and carbonated them. The strength of the root beer is not what I hoped for. Despite that I still very much enjoyed the drink and think it would be excellent with some vanilla ice cream.

Where to Buy
I got mine through the online business of the Old 52 General Store. They have over 300 other flavors of soda pop. Their physical store is located in Sabin, Minnesota.

A couple weeks ago, I was shopping a local farmer’s store, and was looking for something to drink. I found a bottle of Mistic Bahama Blueberry in the refrigerated section. It has been a long time since I have a Mistic drink. I remember when I was in college, having bought a bunch of Mistic on clearance sale that I really enjoyed and was sad they were no longer producing that flavor. They had a couple flavors at this store, I decided to go with the blueberry. The ingredient lists read like this: Filtered water, high fructose corn syrup, pear juice from concentrate, citric acid, natural and artificial blueberry and raspberry flavors, gum acacia, blue 1, yellow 5.

This drink wasn’t bad, but it certainly wasn’t great. I would have liked the drink to be a little stronger on the flavor and for the texture to be a little thicker. It was an equal balance between blueberry and raspberry flavors. It still hit the spot on a very hot and humid day.

Where to Buy
I purchased my bottle at Alexander’s Farm Market in Whitmore Lake, Michigan
Also Sam’s Club carries a 24 pack of 3 flavors: Grape Strawberry, Kiwi Strawberry, and Tropical Fruit Punch

Next up on the peaches to review, are a member of the Stellar family of peaches – the Glowing Star. Any peach with the name “star” in it’s name is a part of the Stellar family. Each member of the family ripens at a different time, so a farmer can plant several members of the family and have peaches last throughout the season. The Glowing Star peach comes near the end of the Stellar family, ripening 27 days after Red Haven.

My Experience with this Peach (Rating Scale 1-10)
Acidity: 7
Peach Flavor: 7
Sweetness: 6
Juiciness: 6

Overall Feeling: This was a pretty good peach. It had a nice peach flavor with a nice balance of acidity and sweetness. It wasn’t the juicy peaches I had this year, but still a decent amount of juice. These peaches do not brown when you cut them and since they are freestone, they make great peaches to use in canning.

Where is the best place to buy a good peach? Click here to read my article on shopping for peaches.

Today we are going to take a look at another member of the “Haven” series of peaches – the Glo Haven. I wasn’t able to find anything on the history and background of the Glo Haven. The only thing I can tell you is that it’s a freestone peach and they ripen about 17 days after it’s “sibling” the Red Haven.

My Experience with this Peach (Rating Scale 1-10)
Acidity: 6
Peach Flavor: 4
Sweetness: 5
Juiciness: 5

Overall Feeling: I wasn’t a big fan of this peach. It is known for it’s milder flavor and that’s not a good thing in my book. It didn’t have a strong enough peach flavor to go along with the acidity. I think there are better peaches out there available at the same time as the Glo Haven. Despite this I would still rather have fresh tree-ripened Glo Haven than almost anything found on a super market shelf.

Where is the best place to buy a good peach? Click here to read my article on shopping for peaches.

All the talk this year regarding apples have been around the new SweeTango variety. It is a cross between a Zestar! and the popular Honeycrisp. It was developed at the University of Minnesota. It is grown by a cooperative of growers, called the Next Big Thing. This includes 45 members at this time, one of them being Stemilt Growers. The SweeTango apples I got to try were grown by Stemilt.

It was first released commercially last year, but only in small quantities. This year there will be more available, but you still have to act fast. As the trees grow and mature, SweeTango will become easier to find. Click here for a list of places that I have confirmed will have SweeTango. This apple is harvested in late August and early September, making it one of the first quality apples of the season.

The first thing you might notice about this apple is that is looks alot like a Honeycrisp. It is the same red color with a yellow breaking background. You will also notice the size of the apple. Young trees tend to produce large apples, as time goes on the tree will produce more, but smaller apples.

My Experience with this Apple (Rating Scale 1-10)
Crispiness: 10
Tartness : 5
Apple Flavor: 7
Sweetness: 5
Juiciness: 9

Overall Feeling: Before I took my first bite, I took some time to smell the apple. This apple is said to have hints of fall spices in it. When I smelled the bottom of the apple, it smelled like some kind of spice, almost like cinnamon or ginger. So then I sliced up the apple and watched the juice run down my knife. And finally the first taste, wow that’s one crisp apple. It for sure has the crispiness that the Honeycrisp is known for. Taste wise it has a nice balance of sweet and tart notes with a solid apple flavor. Now as for those fall spices, you could taste them as you shallow the apple.

Looking for SweeTango? Check out my page on where to find them.
Click here for everything apple related on my site.

Oh how I love root beer. There are so many great root beers on the market to choose from. I don’t think I will be ever done reviewing root beers (and that’s a good thing). Today I am going to review a root beer made by Sprecher, who is a brewery out of Glendale, Wisconsin. Their root beer comes either in a 16 oz glass bottle or a 20 oz plastic one. It has a picture of a crow coming out of a crest, holding a bottle of Sprecher and a frosty mug. The ingredient list on my bottle reads like this: carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, malto-dextrin, WI raw honey, natural & artifical flavors, sodium benzoate (preservative), phosphoric acid, quillaia/yucca extract, sodium chloride, caramel color, and vanilla. This root beer is caffeine and gluten free.

I liked this root beer. The flavor was nice, a bit on the sweet side, but in a good way. The carbonation was alright. I had a plastic bottle, so glass would be a better judge of carbonation. It’s not too spicy and goes down well with any meal. I will buy this again.

Where to Buy
Here are a few places where I know you can get Sprecher:
Ski’s Meat Market (Stevens Point, WI)
The Produce Station (Ann Arbor, MI)
Wilson’s Cheese Shoppe (Pinconning, MI)
Hiller’s (Ann Arbor/Detroit area)
Holiday Market (Livonia, MI)

Looking to buy it online, check out:
Located in Sabin, Minnesota, this store offers Sprecher Root Beer through their online business.

One of the best things to wash down your morning meal is grape juice. There is nothing like a good glass of Welch’s Grape. The grapes used in making this classic juice are concord. So if I like the juice, wouldn’t I also like the grapes? Well the only problem is that concord grapes have seeds in them, that can be difficult to deal with. However, there is another grape on the market that can bring you that concord flavor with the annoying seeds. The Thomcord grape was by combining the concord with the Thompson Seedless (the classic grape that you are most likely to find in your supermarket.). Thomcord grapes were developed in California during the 1980s. It wasn’t until around 2003 that they were ready for wide scale growing. The skin of the Thomcord is blue-black.

My Experience with these grapes
Tart/Sweet: Sweet
Seed/Seedless: Seedless
Grape Flavor (Rating Scale 1-10): 10

Overall Feeling: Wow, this are the most flavorful grapes I have ever had. The 1 lb container I bought advertises the rich concord taste and it is not false advertisement. Eating these grapes definitely makes you think of drinking the classic grape juice. The medium sized grape is excellent for out of hand eating, but could also be used for juice making or jelly just like it’s concord parent.

Availability: The grapes ripen in August. So far the only place I have been able to find them is at Trader Joe’s. They came packaged by Brandt Farms in Reedley, California. I also heard that you can buy them at Brennan’s stores in Wisconsin.

This year has been a “peachy” peach season here in Michigan. And as it comes to an end what better way to celebrate than with some peach soda. Peach has always been one of my wife’s favorite flavors of pop, so I was excited when I had the chance to acquire some Nehi Peach to share with her. Nehi has been around since 1924. It comes in a clear 12 oz glass bottle. The ingredients of Nehi Peach are: Carbonated water, sugar, citric acid, malic acid, potassium benzoate (preservative), potassium citrate, artificial flavor, gum acacia, red 40.

I knew I was in for a treat when I first popped the cap and my nose could detect a fresh peach scent, despite the fact the drink is artificially flavored. The flavorful was wonderful and you could not ask for the carbonation to be any better. You will be hard pressed to find carbonation this good in a plastic bottle or can. This peach soda pop is now at the top of my list (my wife’s too) of the best peach carbonated drinks. I look forward to getting my hands on some more Nehi beverages in the future.

Where to Buy
I got mine through the online business of the Old 52 General Store. They have other Nehi flavors available for purchase as well as over 300 other flavors of soda pop. Their physical store is located in Sabin, Minnesota.

A few weeks ago, I saw some pictures of Clapps Favorite pears on a farm’s facebook page. Their comments made me really want to try this pear, so I searched it out, and purchased some at the farmer’s market in Port Huron. The pear is green with some red blush. The amount of blush differs in each pear. I had some with a lot, but most only had a little bit.

Clapp’s Favroite ripens about 2 weeks before the popular Bartlet pears, which makes it one of the earlier pears. These pears must be picked before they have fully ripened on the tree or their core will rot along before the consumer has a chance to eat them. Since these pears do not keep well you probably won’t find them in the supermarket, your local farm is the best option. But you must act quickly as the season is short for these pears.

My Experience with this Pear (Rating Scale 1-10)
Texture: 8
Pear Flavor: 7
Sweetness: 7
Juiciness: 9

Overall Feeling: This is a real juicy and flavorful pear. It has a nice texture to it, not too grainy. If you like Bartlet pears, you are going to love Clapp’s Favorite. This pear is good for eating out of hand or in cooking applications. It’s one pear I will be sure to pick up when they are in season.