To cite the good painter Salvador Dalí: “The distinction between false reminiscences and true ones is similar as for jewels: It’s all the time the false ones that look probably the most actual, probably the most good.” I keep in mind nothing in regards to the sociopolitical local weather of the summer time of 1997, however I keep in mind precisely what I consumed every 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 daily. Impressed by a latest journey down reminiscence lane when “Jumper” performed on my native “fashionable” 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 pleased 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 light, and it commingles completely with the black tea base. If a time machine may take me again to that sizzling Walgreens 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 suggestion to purchase that Black Lotus he’d been eyeing on the card store earlier than its value shot as much as the moon.
Rating: 7.8