To cite the good painter Salvador Dalí: “The distinction between false reminiscences and true ones is identical as for jewels: It’s all the time the false ones that look essentially the most actual, essentially the most sensible.” I keep in mind nothing concerning the sociopolitical local weather of the summer time of 1997, however I keep in mind precisely what I consumed each day in vivid element. Between bouts of skateboarding, pick-up baseball, and hours-long multiplayer video games of Magic: the Gathering, I quenched my soul with the music of Third Eye Blind, and I quenched my thirst with Lipton Brisk Raspberry Iced Tea. I most likely drank 2 liters of the stuff day-after-day. Impressed by a latest journey down reminiscence lane when “Jumper” performed on my native “trendy” rock station, I sought out a can and was instantly appalled by how sugary and faux it tasted, which had me questioning which different reminiscences from that summer time have been false.
Third Eye Blind continues to be a no-skips masterpiece, and I’m completely satisfied to report that AriZona’s providing is a supremely crushable, future-proof substitute that hits identical to my reminiscence of Lipton’s. The raspberry taste is mild, and it commingles completely with the black tea base. If a time machine might take me again to that scorching Walgreens car parking zone the place I loitered so typically in these halcyon days of the late ’90s, I’d hand my 12-year-old self a can of this, together with a advice to purchase that Black Lotus he’d been eyeing on the card store earlier than its worth shot as much as the moon.
Rating: 7.8
