Day 230 - Mango 100% Juice Smoothie

We are still at the Indy Fringe Festival.  David is performing his solo show “A Little Business at the Big Top” (I directed it).  We travel to festivals all around and all of them have one thing in common – the people involved with productions do not eat healthy and are exhausted.

So on our trip to Trader Joe’s, I picked up this Mango 100% Juice Smoothie, thinking it would be a healthy addition to our diet.

Not cheap, but chock full of health

And it was!  As soon as I took the first sip I felt a jolt of HEALTH coursing through my veins!  (Even though, technically, the juice was in my MOUTH and my esophagus, not my veins, but you know what I mean…)  It felt like I was pouring a whole mango into my body!  And mangos are both TASTY and HEALTHY. 

Mango is definitely the strongest flavor in this juice, but the label tells me it also contains banana puree, apple juice, orange juice, and lemon juice.  And it is an excellent source of vitamin A and a good source of vitamin C. 

Ahhh - a chug of health

I sort of feel like I should invest in a case of these juices and hand them out to weary performers at the Fringe Beer Tent.  They would do everyone a world of good!  David doesn’t like this smoothie and so wouldn’t drink one, but that would just leave more for other performers. 

This is David in the Indianapolis Trader Joe's PRETENDING he is going to like this Mango Smoothie.  He had already decided he thought it looked yucky, but we liked the CLOUDS they have hanging up so he was being all angelic or something...

I wish the juice was a litttttle less thick, but it IS a smoothie and not a juice, so I guess I cannot rightfully complain.  It comes in a one pint plastic recyclable bottle. 

If I had a Trader Joe’s smoothie competition, I would say this one beats the Very Green Smoothie (reviewed on day 156 of this blog) and the Strawberry Chia Smoothie (reviewed on day 145 of this blog).  This one does the best to balance YUMMY TASTE with GOOD FOR YOU.

Price - $2.99

Rating - 4

Day 228 - Rail Splitter IPA (Triton Brewing Company)

If you have read other beer reviews on this blog, you know that I in no way profess to be a beer guru.  I am not a beer snob.  I know almost nothing about beer.  But when I travel to a new city and go to a new Trader Joe’s, I always check and see if they have local beer and/or wine.

Well, when I asked about local wine at the Trader Joe’s in Indianapolis, not one but TWO employees basically steered me away from it.  They both were clear to say that the local wine is SWEET, and the particular varieties that TJ’s carries are the really sweet ones, which apparently are the ones the locals like.  But we are not locals…  So I trusted their “unspoken advice” to skip the wine and went over to the beer section.

Local beer!!

Unlike our beer experience in Chicago where they would only sell us a six pack (it was the law – the store people were totally kind about it but couldn’t break the law, of course), the guys in Indy were more than happy to sell us however many beers we wanted!  So we chose 3 different local beers and one local cider. 

Rail Splitter IPA

This review is about Rail Splitter IPA.  Uncharacteristically for me, I am drinking it without food and at 6:30 pm.  We normally don’t bust out the alcohol until there is a plate of food in front of us and that usually happens sometime after 9:30 pm.  But we are at a Fringe Festival (see http://indyfringe.org/fringe15/little-business-big-top and that means schedules are NUTTY and life is turned on it’s head.  So, here I am post-show drinking this IPA!  (I directed a show in the festival, my partner David’s “A Little Business at the Big Top”!  It’s great, if I do say so myself, but of course I am a tad bit biased…).

"A Little Business at the Big Top" - coming soon to a theatre near you!
(That is, if you live near a theatre in Indianapolis or Cincinnati...) 

Back to the beer.

Yes!  This is good!  If you like IPA and you live in the Indiana area you should try this for sure.  We learned from TJ’s employees that on the TV show “Parks and Rec”, which took place in Pawnee, Indiana, a fictitious town, they always drank Rail Splitter beer!  As non-Hoosiers* we never noticed that, but I guess the locals really dig it (as would I if I had a local connection!).  Here is an article I found recapping the awesome (and certainly missed) TV show” Parks and Rec” - http://www.indianapolismonthly.com/arts-culture/parks-recreation-recap-one-last-ride/

David’s take is that this is not a “day drankin’” beer but would be good with stilton cheese!”.  Note – this is the second time lately in reviews that David has said “day drankin’”.  I think this is because a place we drive by often has it on their marquee and it makes us giggle. 

Anyway, try this beer.  It is good.

*I do not know what a Hoosier is…  I do not think I should need to Google this.  If people here call themselves something, I want them to tell me what that something means, ya know?  So far I have asked two people and they didn’t really know, they said something like, “It means a person from Indiana…”.  Yeah, but WHAT IS A HOOSIER?  Like, why is a person from Indiana called that?

Price – $1.67 per bottle

Rating – 3.75