by Ken Tuccio

I love Hawaiian Punch.

Without a shadow of a doubt, Hawaiian Punch is my favorite juice drink. I love Hawaiian Punch so much that I have actually given consideration to getting a Punchy ( the Hawaiian Punch mascot ) tattoo.

I’m not kidding. I don’t have any tattoos, but I have a short list of possible designs I wouldn’t mind permanently scarring my body with, and Punchy is one of them. My only fear in getting it is that I'll one day run into the Kool-Aid Man, and he probably wouldn't appreciate seeing a corporate mascot other than him permanently etched on my person.

Kool-Aid Man's petty like that.

I’m a traditionalist when it comes to my Hawaiian Punch, as my favorite flavor is the “original”, Fruit Juicy Red. To me, nothing can beat the taste of the original Hawaiian Punch. For the sake of comparing Hawaiian Punch to an obscure movie, I’d say Fruit Juicy Red Hawaiian Punch is Open Water, while all the other flavors are a variation of Open Water 2.

I think that’s the first time Open Water has been used as a point of comparison for a juice drink. I’m an innovator like that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried the other Hawaiian Punch flavors and they’re not bad, they’re just not Fruit Juicy Red. The thing is, Fruit Juicy Red got it right straight from the start. That flavor had just the right amount of Hawaiian, and just the right amount of punch, and as such it was a summer drink of choice for kids the world over.

Since I have such an affinity for Fruit Juicy Red, I rarely ever give other flavors of Hawaiian Punch the time of day. Normally I’ll give the other flavors a glance, or maybe a polite nod as I don’t want to be rude, but I’ll always grab Fruit Juicy Red to quench my thirst.

That being said, while I was in the supermarket recently these two bad boys caught my eye …

Hawaiian Punch Berry Limeade Blast and Hawaiian Punch Lemon Berry Squeeze.

Those two bottles were sitting in the juice isle, surrounded by those hard tin cans from Juicy Juice, and boxes of Ssips from 1992, and they seemed to be calling out to me to take them home.

As I said, I’m not normally a big fan of the different variations of Hawaiian Punch, but in this case I decided to break my rule. I wanted to make these bottles of fruit juice happy, and the only way to do that was to take them home and document my experience with them on the internet.

Isn’t that what everyone does with bottles of fruit juice?

One thing I love about both of these bottles is my boy Punchy on the label …

Seriously, look at him lounging there without a care in the world. It’s that kind of attitude that makes me seriously consider inking him somewhere on my body, as he’s everything I’d like to be; hip, cool, and a cartoon.

I would also like to point out how amazingly awesome the design of these bottles are, as they kick the booty of the “classic” Hawaiian Punch bottles …

I’m not gonna’ lie, I’m a little disturbed that I happened to have an empty Hawaiian Punch bottle in my apartment to make an accurate comparison. I’m not surprised, just bothered.

Anyways, these newer bottles are absolutely massive in size and are a testament to the innovations in juice drink bottle engineering over the years. These bad boys are perfect containers for Jungle Juice during summer trips to the beach. Granted I haven’t actually made Jungle Juice since my Freshman year of college, but now that I have a proper container I think I just might.

I’m a little more excited about Berry Limeaid Blast than I am about Lemon Berry Squeeze, mainly because of the names. If someone asked me whether I’d prefer to have a blast or a squeeze, I’d obviously choose blast.

If I was to have a “blast”, I can assume it would mean a crazy party on the beach complete with hot girls, loud music, and the eventual calling of the cops. If someone told me I was about to have a “squeeze”, I would fully expect to be greeted by a Doctor putting on a rubber glove while giving me a devious, Patrick Duffy-esque, smile.

Regardless, I’m obviously going to give both of them a go …

I decided to use my circa-1990 WWF glasses for this test of taste, as I’ve found that juice drinks are more pleasing to the palate when consumed from either Brutus Beefcake or Demolition.

Both flavors seem to have roughly the same hue, neither are as dark a red as the Fruit Juicy Red however, but neither should be expected to be. That’s like asking Jaleel White to be as black as Samuel L. Jackson.

The Berry Limeaid Blast has a scent that is strongly reminiscent of Fruit Juicy Red, which gives it points in my book. The Lemon Berry Squeeze smells eerily similar to the Kool-Aid my Mom used to mix when I was a child, meaning it has a very homemade smell for a very store-bought fruit drink.

I decided to try the Berry Limeaid Blast first, mainly because as I’m writing this it’s the closest glass within arms reach.

The Berry Limeaid Blast has a verrry sweet taste to it. You can tell I’m serious about how sweet the taste is because I used three “r’s” in writing verrry, and I don’t fool around with my usage of that letter.

The Blast tastes like a liquified Airhead candy, and I’m not 100% convinced that that’s either a good or bad thing. The taste is sweet, like I said verrry sweet. It’s sweet to the point where I don’t feel I could in good conscience drink more than one glass in a sitting without feeling like I’m mocking diabetics.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a good drink, but I’m not sure it’s proper for everyday consumption.

I tried the Lemon Berry Squeeze next, and I was surprised at how much I liked it.

The Lemon Berry Squeeze had a very tangy kick to it, and as such it strikes me as more of a summer drink than the Berry Limaid Blast, which is a huge plus to me. It’s also not as overpowering as the Blast is. I could see myself keeping Lemon Berry Squeeze in my fridge and chugging it out of the carton when I inevitably wake up and watch TV at 4 in the morning a few nights out of the week.

Any drink that can keep me company while I’m watching reruns of Coach due to insomnia is tops in my book.

While neither of these flavors are going to top Fruit Juicy Red as my flavor of choice, they’re both respectable enough to justify having as cool a cat as Punchy on their label.

So, if these flavors were looking for my nod of approval, they’ve been nodded at.