Well, evidently I was wrong when I said I’d never get free stuff from PR people again.

Photo credit: Dave’s Cupboard

Yet again, like a bazillion other food bloggers, I also got POM’s two new flavors — POM Nectarine and POM Kiwi — in the mail. And in this second go-round of product placement, I think I’ve discovered something rather important:

I don’t actually like pomegranate juice.

I like fresh pomegranates. And I like pomegranate juice when it’s mixed with something else, like POM tea. (Oh man, remember when the POM tea used to come in that completely impractical glass? I had like, 20 of those glasses.) But just the juice… no. It’s too astringent, too mouth-puckery drying for me.

With that in mind, I have to admit, I genuinely enjoyed the POM Nectarine flavor. It tasted like pomegranate, but the sweetness of the nectarine juice made it softer and… juicier. After drinking it, I actually felt less thirsty, as opposed to the blech-now-I-have-no-saliva feeling of straight pomegranate juice.

Sadly, POM Kiwi was a bust. The kiwi flavor, what little there was of it, tasted unripe and sour — not a good match for the already sour pomegranate.

If you’re keeping score thus far:
regular POM juice – horrible
POM Kiwi – not good
POM Nectarine – actually kind of good

So… POM .333 Wonderful: Hey, If This Was Baseball, That’s Like Almost As Good As Lou Gehrig