Drink review: H2Go Chocolate Water

Gold. Brown liquid gold

Last week, Minister for the Environment Nick Smith announced plans to make 90% of New Zealand's streams and rivers more swimmable by 2040, primarily, it seemed, by redefining what is accepted by 'swimmable'. To celebrate this bold vision, Frucor Beverages and their H2Go brand released a drink based on the general appearance of the average kiwi body of water after it has passed through prime dairy country. 

Nick Smith after a swim near Frucor's bottling plant 

New Zealand's first chocolate water was here! Based on the run-away
hysterical popularity of the, let's face it, slightly better than average at best Whittaker's Chocolate Milk, how could this fail to be a hit?

Back in 2000, retrospectively cringe-inducing poor spellers and 'musicians' nu metallers Limp Bizkit released an album called Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog

Flavoured Water. Judging solely on my life philosophy that anything that reminds me of Fred Durst cannot possibly be good for me, this wasn't a good start for H2Go. Speaking of which, did you know that Durst's latest a of douchieness was acting as a Russian regime propagandist trying to spread acceptance of their claim to Crimea? That's true, though I reckon I could make up just about any story about him and you wouldn't look it up to confirm it for fear of being reminded further of his crimes against music.

I did it all for the Putin
WHAT
For the Putin
WHAT
So you can take Crimea and stick it up your YEAH!

Anyway, I put my misgivings about the Bizkit to one side, gritted my teeth, and bought a couple of bottles of the chocolate water, purely for research's sake of course. Limited Edition!! the bottle label screamed at me. Quite the euphemism for 'product which you'll buy once out of curiosity, then never again when you realise what it tastes like.' Though from the full shelves  my local New World drinks cabinet, not even curiosity was doing a good sales job.

I poured some water into a glass. A transparent dirty brown colour greeted me. Really Frucor? This doesn't look appetising. My dog swims in a stream out the back of our property that has cleaner looking water than this. The smell though.... Actually pretty good. Which is disappointing. It's rich and dark and promising, it lingers like the smell of that aforementioned Whittaker's milk. There is no way this is going to end in anything but disappointment when the taste turns out to be insipid and flavourless. It's going to be like if you sit down to a Garage Project Pale Ale, and it ends up tasting like Tui.

Brown, the tastiest of beverage colours

But I'm kind of wrong. It's palatable. I mean, on the fore tongue, it's just water, slightly sweet. But hold it at the back of the mouth, it actually does taste like chocolate. But it's thin and, well watery. It doesn't FEEL like a chocolate drink should. You want some body, and this has none. I'm not going to be dunking my gingernuts into some muddy looking water, and I think that is where the chocolate water falls down. When we taste a chocolatey drink, we expect to to be creamy and milky, and water is neither. So the limited edition label was perhaps right, I can see a lot of people maybe buying out of curiosity, but it's not going to build a loyal following.

There was one last thing I wanted to do with the chocolate water, and that was to make a cup of coffee with it.... Would the sweet cacao flavouring last the boiling process and give my brew a chocolatey mocha flavour? I boiled up, plunged the plunger, and poured. And it worked! The rich hint of dark chocolate actually lingers at the back of the cup! It's pleasant, it's not overpowering, and actually, it's probably got a helluva lot less sugar than you would get in your traditionally made mochaccino. So maybe this is the H2Go Chocolate Milk's future? Not as a refreshing cold alternative to Coke, but as a healthy-ish coffee alternative. 

6/10

Only Organic Teething Rusks

Something a bit different today.

I woke this morning, and realised there was barely enough milk left in the bottle for my coffee and Luke's cereal. Unfortunately a large volume had been used in the preparation of the previous night's evening meal without realising how little was left over. As I usually consume more than one cup of Joe daily, a trip to the local grocer's shop was called for.  There, where normally countless bottles of the white stuff are on display in the chiller, I was confronted by this:

What a fantastic initiative. Some will say this is a crass attempt at milking (haha!) some extra marketing out of a powerful bandwagon. Not me! What better way to show our support for our boys than drinking our national drink out of a novelty black bottle? I suppose using the said milk as a mixer or chaser for your favourite alcoholic tipple down at the pub at 5am before work, whilst waving your NZRU trademarked silver fern flag would be up there... But the marketing practically writes itself: Man Milk, Richie's White Stuff,  Dan Carter's Cream, Goes down a treat, Come on All Blacks, ... Though on second thoughts the All Black fan club president Mr John Key may have vetoed cream getting the black bottle treatment, given what he's on the record as saying about Gay Red Top. The only question remaining is, once the World Cup is over, will Anchor be able to go back to white bottles?

Anyway, milk procured, I returned to my beverage. Feeling peckish, I looked around for a biscuit or cake, and my eyes settled upon Only Organic Teething Rusks. Emily is at the age that she's chomping through these. And don't the South Africans eat something similar with their hot drinks? Sure, it isn't Chanui Biscuits, New Zealand's favourite biscuits (TM), but could they come close?

Contains: Organic wheat flour (certified organic), Organic skim milk powder (certified organic), Whewt germ, Yeast, Salt, Mineral (iron)

Full marks on describing iron as a mineral, Only Organics. Though the fact I guess there are no carbon molecules attached to this trace element I suppose makes it INORGANIC! I dunno, maybe it's in the form of iron polymaltose, or attached to some other complex sugar, which I guess would suit your company name. But if we're being this scientifically specific about classifications, why not clarify some of your other ingredients, eg Fungus (yeast)?

First Impressions: A rather solid baked log. I tried to break this in half, and it required far more force than expected, but came apart with a satisfying snap. Half to Emily for her teething difficulties, half to Daddy for tasting. And herein lies my second first impression, my first equal impression if you will. Only Organic packs these in little sealed packets of two rusks, ten to the box. Why, when my baby, who is perfectly normal, can only manage half a rusk per sitting at most? Why not just ten loose rusks in a box? It's not like they're going to go off or anything? They're essentially crackers!

Emily's reaction: She loves these things, and will happily chew away whilst the rusk dissolves into a sticky mush and distributes itself over her clothing, into her hair, over her face, and usually over whichever parent is nearest. Today the half rusk lasted around half an hour.

Bouquet: not a particularly distinctive nose on this one, perhaps as expected for a baked product with no added flavouring or sugar. Strong flour notes predominate, perhaps with an afterhint of yeast.

Taste test: A sturdy biscuit we have here, in its raw form requiring quite a bite to break through. Use the premolars: I feel an incisor would likely be exposed to too much strain if you tried to snap a piece off this. A floury, slightly savory flavour predominates on the palate, but once dunked heartily in coffee, the baked taste of the ruck stands aside to allow the full benefit of java to be experience. The dipping in fluid does require a committed submersion, as I feel the toughness of this rusk would feature fairly highly on the Moh scale.

Overall: 7/10. Whilst not as flavoursome as Chanui's all conquering cookies, not a bad alternative to accompany your morning tea break.

Enjoy: with a hit coffee, with or without the milk of our fifteen finest men.