Bradford Tonic

Product Type:Juice: Juice Drink; Container: 16 oz PET
BevNET Review: With a simple list of only four ingredients (water, agave, ginger root, and fresh lime juice), we certainly appreciate the product’s high quality approach. However, the flavor of the product is a bit watered down, and the imbalance of flavors is something that was hard to get past. Really, the issue is a general lack of sweetness, which, despite having 120 calories, seems to be missing. As a result, the ginger flavor is spicy, but flat, while the touch of lime juice hits your tongue too late to make a difference. Packaging is a 16 ounce plastic bottle, which has a rather colorful label. There are a lot of interesting elements on the label, but they don’t seem to exactly go together. Specifically, there are two pieces of text to describe the flavor (“Ginger & Lemon” and “B-Ginger”), while unnecessary marketing text, such as “The Refresher” and “100% vegan”, just get in the way. Plus, there’s something about the name “Bradford Tonic” and the aggressive looking bee mascot that could use a bit of explanation. In its current form, the brand is intriguing, but the follow through is what’s lacking. Overall, we think that the concept could have some legs, although in a niche way, but the execution needs some fine tuning.

Product Type:Juice: Juice Drink; Container: 16 oz PET
BevNET Review: Of the two flavors, B-Sorrel is the clear winner of the Bradford Tonic line. Like its counterpart, this variety is made with only a few ingredients – and it shows big time. The flavor is simple, but complex, with a mellow mixture of hibiscus and allspice providing the majority of the flavor. There’s 7g more sugar in this variety, which gives the product a more appealing level of sweetness and, as a result, a better balance of flavor. It’s definitely one of the better tasting hibiscus flavored drinks that we’ve had to date. On the exterior of the product, they’ve used a stock 16 oz. bottle and a rather colorful label. While we have no issue with the brand’s name, Bradford Tonic (an ode to the founder of the brand), there’s something that seems out of sync between the name “B-Sorrel”, the brand name, and the bee logo. While they are smart to call out the use of agave, pointing out the low glycemic index would be even smarter, even in place of the 100% vegan badge (which is unnecessary in our opinion). Overall, we’re big fans of Bradford Tonics’ B-Sorrel, even with the few tweaks that it needs.