Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Vita Coco Coconut Water - Tuesday, Jan. 8th

It's 11:30am on a Sunday. The light pouring in between your blinds is searing your retinas like filet mignon. Your head feels like you've headbutted a sidewalk for a half hour and your stomach is getting ready to rocket its contents at speeds that could be used to bore wells. You're dizzy, and so...so thirsty. You're sick! You've got the liquid flu, the Irish Fever, the fur-tongue. You've got a debt to pay: the high price of low living.

Congratulations, you're hungover.

Most people, when hungover, advocate two things: never drinking again and a quick death. More practical things are cups of coffee, cold showers, greasy food, aspirin, and maybe a nip o the creature to ease out of it. Me? I go for the tried and true. Coconut water. Oh sure, you could go for Gatorade...but it's full of gross sugars and..let's be honest, if you're gonna throw it back up no one wants a neon red toilet. I'm not a huge fan of the "technicolor yawn" and this brings it to a whole new level. Also, I'm not entirely sure what flavor "Riptide Rush" is but it's not something palatable after a night of cheap beer and Jager. You could go for Pedialyte...but that requires me, a 25 year old man, to shop in the children's medicine area and that makes me super uncomfy. I don't care if 300 pound football players swear by it. That's an awkward Sunday no matter how you slice it.

Instead, I stock up on coconut water, the best beverage for curing hangovers EVER. It's been used not just as a hangover cure...but as a blood plasma substitute in the Pacific Islands during WWII and has had relative success in being used as an emergency IV solution for dehydration. Also, it tastes good! So, in honor of my favorite hangover beverage, I'm gonna start putting up reviews of coconut water so that while you're perusing my reviews of booze, you can do a little pre-party planning while you're at it as well. EVERYBODY WINS!

For Christmas, I got a 12 pack of Vita Coco Coconut Water as a present. Vita Coco actually comes in a variety of flavors (like pineapple) but I stick to plain coconut water. This coconut water comes in Tetra-Packs, which is really a fancy word for "adult juice boxes". See here:


Stare into it's inky, gaping maw. It's like a paper coconut!


As for the taste...well...it's hard to describe. It's lightly sweet and slightly tangy. It kinda has a flavor like banana because of all the potassium in it, I guess. I dunno, it's a very distinct and hard to describe flavor. It's definitely not viscous or anything, it's like water sweetened with palm sugar. It has a vaguely coconut-y flavor but not the overly sweet "coconut cream pie" flavor but rather the "chewing on baking coconut" flavor; earthy, slightly vegetal, and coconut-y.

As for Vita Coco...it's pretty decent. It's available pretty much EVERYWHERE (grocery stores, gas stations, health food stores, non-health food stores, semi-health food stores, semi-health stores, semi-stores, semi-trucks) so it shouldn't be too hard to find. It is one of the...drier(?) coconut waters out there since it uses Brazilian green coconuts. I find Brazilian green coconuts to be less sweet than the Thai green coconuts that a lot of coconut water is made of. But it's a good intro and easily available so I'd give it a thumbs up. Not my favorite but gets the job done. Alternate one of these babies with a pint of water and you'll be right as rain in no time. Just be prepared to hit the head frequently.

Also, a word of warning: if you put rum IN the coconut water...you're on your own in the morning. I'm looking at you, Adam.