How to Zestify Your Apple Juice

Apple juice is fairly generic even if it's brand name apple juice. But it's also inexpensive and doesn't drown out other flavors. This is probably why apple juice is often the main ingredient in juice mixtures that don't even highlight it on the label.

In this article you will learn just a handful of the many possibilities provided to you by apple juice, apple cider, or even applesauce for that matter.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Apple Juice
• Apple Cider may substitute
• Applesauce isn't exactly a substitute but some of the ideas might work for it too
• Spices
• Other flavors

1. Get yourself some apple juice. I've been able to find it for as cheap as $1 for a half-gallon (64 oz.). If you're paying twice that or more, you're paying too much (unless maybe you live in an extremely high cost of living area). Try a different store or a sale.

2. Spice it Up!
   
   Most of us know that cinnamon goes with apples, so that's the most obvious choice. Sprinkle some in the juice or maybe even try cinnamon oil like we used to dip toothpicks in during grade school, and this was considered a disciplinary problem back in the good ol' days. How things have changed!
   
   If cinnamon is feminine, cloves are masculine. Get tough and try some cloves in your apple juice.

3. Tang it Up!
   
   Did your mom ever make spiced tea? Well my mom did, and one of the ingredients is Tang (what was back then celebrated as being an astronaut drink). Since the other ingredients are "real" spices, and we've already covered those, we'll talk about the Tang/tang part now.
   
   Come to think of it, you might try a little Tang itself in your apple juice. Mostly though I mean tang with a small "t".
   
   Lemon juice is tangy and I love lemon so much that I suggest lemon juice in every aspect of life sans a glass of milk. Try it in your apple juice.
   
   Sulphuric acid has quite a tang to it too, but I suggest leaving your old car battery out of the kitchen.
   
   Try other citrus juices such as lime. Or you can even mix juices that you might otherwise drink separately. Cherry, pomegranate, and grape are just a few examples.

4. Heat it Up!
   
   Is it wintertime? Do you live in the Upper Midwest like I do and there are two seasons, winter and road construction? Do you have a cold or some other drippy, scratchy or stuffy operation going on inside your would-be respiratory tracts?
   
   Nuke that juice! Or if you're a person who thinks microwaves destroy the cellular granolability of foods (or whatever it is), you can always use a Bunsen burner I suppose.
   
   You can pretty much stick with the spice 'n' tang stuff above too. An entire cinnamon stick works better in hot apple juice/cider than it does in cold. Same with whole cloves as opposed to ground. Or try a teabag of your favorite tea in apple juice instead of in water. I like Earl Grey and Lady Grey, and if you're a man you don't even have to toss a box of maxi-pads in your cart when buying Lady Grey (to pretend it's for your wife or girlfriend). Herbal teas might actually be better a fit with apple juice though.
   
   You can also turn your hot apple drink into a hot toddy by adding the poison of your choice.

5. Here's an actual recipe that I saw on my apple juice bottle and that's what inspired me write this article. I can't take credit (or discredit) for this recipe, nor have I tried it yet. I'm blenderless.
   
   2/3 cup apple juice
   1 cup vanilla low-fat yogurt (I think high-fat would work too)
   
   Put ingredients in a blender for half a minute.
   
   Then it suggests different berries and other fruits you can chuck in at your pleasure. Blueberries, strawberries, bananas . . .

Tips & Warnings

• Use your imagination - my ideas are just the tip of the iceberg
• Try mixing in pop such as Sprite or 7-UP for a fizzy drink
• If you have kids, make up different names for your apple juice combinations and they may find apple juice more exotic and thus be more likely to request it.
• If you make popcicles for kids, you might improvise with that too
• You already have hydrochloric acid in your tummy, so that's out along with sulphuric acid

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[melissalewis]

on 8/16/2009 Upper Midwest dweller, myself - it's almost time to start heating it up. I'd forgotten all about the Tang/spiced tea. Reading this made my mouth pucker and water with the memory. You zestify eHow!

[lighthouse1958]

on 8/4/2009 There are so many things you can do with apple juice but didn't think of them. You probably named them all. A very interesting article. Thanks for all the tips. I will never think of apple juice the same. 5*

[kaldrich88]

on 7/24/2009 you're a very funny writer!! winter and road construction - hahahah! 5*

[moikehagirl]

on 5/7/2009 love this article!!! Very cute and I will surely be trying some of these ideas! 5*

[Elizabethknows]

on 5/15/2008 this is a good one thank you