Cranberries are definitely one fruit that are difficult to eat all by their own… most people need to add at least a bit of sweetness to it. Actually, most people either have it as cranberry sauce come Thanksgiving, or as store-bought Cranberry Juice.
I’ve had many different varieties of juice including probably the most popular brand, Ocean Spray. However, the other day I saw these bottles of Langers Cranberry Juice Cocktail for 2 bucks and decided to try it out. For some reason, I had thought before that Langers was one of those generic store-brands for Albertsons, but it turns out that the company has been churning out juice since its formation around 1960 as a health juice manufacturer. Nowadays, they make all sorts of juices including cranberry, apple, grape and citrus. Theyr’e based in the City of Industry in southern California.
Like most cranberry juice-makers, the basic Langers Cranberry Juice is not 100% juice… there is no way that the public would go for that as it would be to difficult to drink. However, they do boast 27% of pure, all-natural cranberry juice in their bottles and don’t include any other juices in this. As such, if you’re not used to non-blended cranberry juice, you might have a tough time at first drinking it. The rest of the juice is mostly corn syrup and water. Still, it tastes pretty good.
So why should you drink cranberry juice? Well, besides having a ton of Vitamin C (100% in this case) it’s been said to help increase levels of “good cholesterol” (HDL) which in turn helps to protect against heart disease. It’s also good at cleansing certain organs of infections (in particular, it is very good for treating bladder infection).
Besides drinking it straight up, you can mix it with innumerable other fruit juices, the most popular often being apple and grape. It also makes a great mixer for alcoholic beverages. In particular vodka seems to be a favorite addition.
It is often difficult to find good cranberry juice for cheap so you may want to wait until it goes on sale. Also, make sure to read the labels before buying… a lot of so-called Cranberry Cocktails contain very little actual juice.
Juicing Basics Rating: 8 out of 10
Approximate Price: $2.00 for 64 fl. oz. bottle
