Finally, a drink that combines two of my favorite things: a Vitaminwater brand beverage and the toil and satisfaction of making something with my own two hands. Enter Vitaminwater Zero Drops. With only a few effortless squeezes, you can enjoy the familiar taste of Vitaminwater right out of any glass of water or water bottle you have lying around. In what could only have been a response to the general public demanding an additional step in the Vitaminwater drinking process (which was just too goddamn simple before), you can now forgo the accuracy of a formula created by food scientists and received positively by millions in favor of what you think should be done. Remember when you forgot your keys yesterday, walked into your house to get them, blanked for a second, ate some pretzels you had lying around, and left your house without your keys? Yeah, well now the creation of your own Vitaminwater can be in those same hands. With the pressure on, I decided to try the Revive Fruit Punch flavor.
Being a longtime fan of the bottled version, I was wondering how close the two would be in taste. Unfortunately, my local Stop & Shop only had the full calorie version of Revive, apparently unconcerned with what Google tells me will take a 30 minute walk to burn off, so it will have to do. Because Vitaminwater Zero Drops offer little detailed instruction on how much concentrated fluid to add, my strategy was to slowly keep adding it into a glass of water until it matched the color of bottled version. After a few tries, I matched the same reddish pink tone as closely as I think is possible. Had I any last minute doubts which was which, the taste comparison would have revealed which one was made by a Glacéau bottling plant and which one was made on my living room table. While the Vitaminwater Zero Drops were able to create that distinct and pleasing Vitaminwater taste that is much lighter and less sweet than its sports drink and soda competition, it is definitely apparent that something is…well, off.
But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s like eating cereal dry because you’ve already poured it into a bowl before realizing that you’re out of milk. Even without milk, cereal is still pretty good, but, just like any type of make-it-yourself beverage, it’s still gonna taste just a little bit different. Despite the clear presence of that original fruit punch tastiness, it’s still hard to shake the feeling that something is definitely missing, and not in the regular zero-calorie way. But you know, maybe the problem is just me. Try as I might, I will never be as accurate as the industrial robots that pump this stuff out in gallons per minute. Not really helping this issue however, is the fact that Vitaminwater Zero Drops use the word “drops” pretty lightly. Instead, its a laser beam of concentrated flavor firing at an incalculable rate into your water. (Be thankful Glacéau doesn’t make eye drops). So, until you are a veteran at administering Vitaminwater drops (which I have set as my next life-goal) you are going to have to get pretty familiar with administering intermittent taste tests after each squirt.
But don’t worry, this isn’t really a problem unless you purchased Vitaminwater Zero Drops because you were hoping for a fast, convenient way to effortlessly enjoy Vitaminwater on the go. But all in all, at least the “do it yourself” aspect of this product allows you the opportunity to finally connect with your grandfather the next time he reminds you he built his own damn house using only his “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” mentality, and his subtle yet still uncomfortably palpable racism. Vitaminwater Zero Drops may require some elbow grease, but if for some reason you plan on being away from actual Vitaminwater for a while, it’s certainly the next best thing. (Nutrition Facts – 8 fl oz prepared – 0 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 70mg potassium 0 milligrams of sodium, 0 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of Item: Vitaminwater Zero Drops Revive Fruit Punch
Size: 3 fl oz. Purchased at: Stop & Shop Rating: 6 out of 10 Pros: 18 servings of vitamin water for only four bucks. Stays mostly true to fruit punch flavor. Zero calories is not a lot of calories. Cons: Not as effortless as it may appear. Tastes mildly off from the original flavor.“Don’t ever say ‘free,'” my boss told me on my first day working for Vitaminwater. “The word ‘free’ devalues the product.”“So what should I say?” For the next five years of my life, I’d choose my words wisely at work. Marketing, I would realize, can be an almost poetic exercise. At least, that’s what I told myself after writing literature papers on Saturday nights, when I’d wheel a cooler full of Vitaminwater from party to party on my college campus. I’d storm into dorms not as my sometimes disheveled self but as a Campus Brand Ambassador, a “complimentary” Vitaminwater dispenser versed in all the right answers to all the common questions.Almost without fail, question No. 1 is: Are there actually vitamins in this?
A close second: How many calories does it have? Which is basically the same question as: How much sugar does it have? Or: Is it supposed to be good for you? Yesterday, the British Advertising Standards Authority banned a Vitaminwater ad for falsely advertising the answers to that last big question. The ad described Vitaminwater as “delicious and nutritious.” The watchdog group reprimanded Vitaminwater’s new-ish parent company, Coca-Cola Co., for calling a product containing as much sugar as a soft drink “nutritious.” As long as the ad disappeared, the company would face no further action.It’s worth pointing out that Vitaminwater was an independent company the entire time I worked there. While many of the marketing strategies changed after the acquisition, the post-Coke Vitaminwater seems to be in the cross hairs more often. This latest shakeup is just another bullet point on a long list of infractions. Last year, food and nutrition writer John Robbins — who is quite ironically the heir to the Baskin-Robbins ice cream super fortune — published an incendiary blog post called “The Dark Side of Vitaminwater” that condemned the Coca-Cola Co. for how it handled one such lawsuit brought on by a nonprofit organization.
And frankly, he kind of had a point, because Coke’s lawyer’s defense against claims that Vitaminwater falsely advertised being a nutritious beverage almost sounds like a joke: “no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking Vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.”Well, I can’t speak for Vitaminwater. I worked there a few years ago, probably signed a non-disclosure agreement, and frankly, don’t have a bad thing to say about the scrappy, independent flavored-water company I worked for. Coca-Cola is a different beast, and statements like the above baffle me. The verbiage used provides some insight, though.The events I set up to introduce the “complimentary” product to “consumers” tended to involve an “active lifestyle” and usually ended up being a lot of fun. When I talked to “consumers,” I’d act “familiar” and sometimes even “snarky.” If they asked about the vitamin content, I’d point to the nutrition label. When they asked about the calorie count or sugar content — and almost everyone did — I’d explain how it was a “good sugar,” called “crystalline fructose,” which is “the same sugar you find in an apple or orange.”
If they really pried and asked me if it actually worked, I’d parrot the company slogan at the time: “It works.”If Vitaminwater drinkers were misled, well, that was kind of the point. It’s called “guerrilla marketing,” a term best explained as using nontraditional tactics to developing a relationship between a brand and a consumer, sometimes subversively. (Think Che Guevara with a Harvard Business School degree.)I put myself through college saying all the right things and helping to build a company I loved. I left just after my boss’s boss’s boss sat us down in a room and announced that Coke had bought Vitaminwater’s parent company, Glacéau, for $4.1 billion, the biggest deal in beverage industry history. Some of my co-workers who’d been smart enough to secure equity — unlike me — bought houses overnight. I moved to Brooklyn, N.Y., and became a writer. Do I drink Vitaminwater? The fact of the matter is that it’s delicious. It’s also full of sugar but the pharmaceutical-like label somehow eases me into forgetting about the empty calories my body will soon be absorbing.