vitaminwater stur-D

I was planning on writing about the act of freezing yogurt to create a sweet treat for tonight's food review, but it didn't seem fair here on the eve of Lent. Those of you who will be fasting tomorrow or using Ash Wednesday to start a new pie-in-the-sky diet -- does anyone actually manage to give up sweets for the full 40 days? -- would hardly appreciate that, however.

Ever mindful of my loyal foodie followers, I've switched gears with a review of one of the latest vitaminwater flavors: stur-D. I hope you all appreciate that this is a bit of a pre-Lenten sacrifice for me. Glaceau, maker of vitaminwater, sees fit to run roughshod over standard rules of capitalization when naming products, making reviews of vitaminwater a painful experience for those of us who like pressing the shift key.

Drinking stur-D is somewhat less of a painful experience, fortunately. The beverage combines blue agave, passion fruit and citrus flavors in a bright blue liquid that's stranger to look at than it is to drink. If you can get past the fact that it looks like you're about to guzzle a liquefied Smurf, stur-D makes a tasty beverage.

Let me get the prerequisite disclaimer out of the way: vitaminwater is not packed with flavor. Do not confuse it with soda, fruit juice or flavored Seltzer Water and do not expect it to have the same strong taste as these aforementioned liquids. Evaluate it for what it is -- a washed-out tasting drink -- and you can enjoy it.

Having said that, I can tell you stur-D is one of the more flavorful iterations of vitaminwater. It's about as close to full-fledged fruit-juice flavor as the brand gets, and it fills that role without any major flavor imbalances. I find it to start a little on the sweet side, but some subtle citrus notes flare up at the end of each swallow to mute the sugary tones and leave a somewhat-crisp finish. It's a much more successful use of citrus than vitaminwater energy, which amps up the sour to near-grapefruit levels.

So how does this hypnotically colored drink fare in the realm of sporks? Pretty well, it turns out. Four sporks out of five. Dial down the sweetness, bump up the citrus a tad and ratchet back the color tone so that it doesn't remind me of "Breakfast at Tiffany's," and we could have a perfect beverage on our hands.