Joose

Early on in my recent trip to San Antonio, needed to buy a pair of sunglasses as I felt my eyes turning into dried out little raisins rattling around in my skull. We stopped at a gas station and I picked some up, but also discovered something beautiful: a big chest of ice in the middle of the floor loaded with hundreds of 24oz. cans of beer and malt liquor, all for 99 cents apiece. I grabbed the unfamiliar black can of Joose and checked out. It wasn’t until I left the store that I really read the label and realized what I had purchased. It was essentially an energy malt liquor… awesome.

Joose touts itself as a flavored malt liquor with caffeine, ginseng, taurine, and artificial colors, the colors mentioned in the same breath as though that were an equally energizing ingredient.

Joose pours blood red and fizzy like fruit punch soda, with a quickly dissipating pink head. It smells like fruit punch and cherry Kool-Aid with a hint of beer breath. The flavor is oddly bitter and only gets worse over time. It tastes just about as good as you might imagine mixing fruit punch soda and malt liquor might taste. The negative elements of the flavor are averted as long as you are continually drinking it, but as soon as you stop its like tongue-kissing a hobo with cherry chapstick on.

Weighing in at 9% abv, Joose does pack a decent punch, however it is a slow one-two punch where the booze hits you long after the nasty aftertaste has pounded your face in.

Desperately seeking a way to make this drink palatable, I dug out a bottle of Tanqueray gin and channeled Snoop Dogg. If you mix about 2oz of gin to a glassful of Joose, the aftertaste dissipates and the flavor is much more rounded out.

In all seriousness though, to whatever burgeoning rap star or focus-group-milking marketing exec thought it would be a good idea to make this garbage; don’t quit your day job.