Cascal: Fresh Tropical

The Fresh Tropical variety of CasCal is made with a 35 percent juice blend of white grape, tangerine, lemon, carrot (for color), and fermented apple. It’s also one of the stevia-sweetened varieties of the lineup. The aroma of the drink has a mango note to it, which does not line up at all with the flavor of the drink. Instead, we taste orange and white grape as the dominant flavors, with stevia and fermented apple finishing things up. While it’s not an intolerable blend, the lack of balance is noticeable and we’d stick with one of the other flavors. On the outside, the visual look of the product is underwhelming, starting with the generic looking silver can. The orange text is hard to read, while the name, Fresh Tropical, doesn’t seem to be an accurate descriptor of what’s inside. Conceptually, the food pairings (found on the back of the can) are a cool idea, but for a product like this, it seems out of place (we don’t know many people pairing canned soft drinks with food). Overall, there’s some good stuff here, but other parts simply miss the mark.