Apple Review #12: Suncrisp

Yes, I have seen Apple Rankings, the website. No, I didn’t write it. (It’s written by comedian Brian Frange.) No, I don’t like it. Yes, I don’t like it because in part he stole my gig goddamnit and also in part because I’m petty but mostly because he loves the Honeycrisp and hates the Arkansas Black, what the fuck. It is a funny site and occasionally offers real information about apples, to be clear, even if it looks like something designed for the Myspace era. (If you want an actual apple review site that is genuinely good and useful, Adam’s Apples is a great site to go to. Visit Adam. Learn about apples. Be better for it.)

With that being said, I think it’s time to jump right into today’s review:

My review of a Suncrisp, from Manoff in PA, early October:

What we got here is an apple from New Jersey, though whether this apple calls the famous meat product from that region “pork roll” or “Taylor ham” remains to be seen, given that was produced by Rutgers, which seems to be in the DMZ where you can’t pin down the proper name. (I call it pork roll, because I am a civilized Pennsylvanian. Don’t at me.) One assumes the apple is at least a little mobbed up, and likes to go Down The Shore for vacation. Maybe it says Gobbagoo. Unsure.

The Suncrisp is, truly, a very sunny apple. It’s fantastically golden in spots, though also sometimes green, sometimes orange, sometimes blushing almost-red. It’s a pretty big apple, too — not too heavy, not too dense, you wouldn’t use it to break a guy’s nose, but it’d take more than a wiffle ball bat to knock this thing into the outfield.

It is reportedly a cross between a Golden Delicious and a Cox’s Orange Pippin, though I also saw someone assert that Cortland is in there, too? My very cool apple encyclopedia says nothing about that, though, so who the fuck knows. (It did also show me that there is a Russian apple called Striped Anis, which I definitely will always pronounce Striped Anus, because I have free will and it delights me, fuck you.)

The skin is lighter than in a lot of apples and I did not find it chewy or overly persistent in trying to stay in my mouth. It’s not as whisper-thin as the Honeycrisp’s skin, but it’s also not “I think I’m chewing a sun-dried condom” like you might get with some russets. The skin is just a little oaty in taste.

Some are quite certain they taste pear in this apple and I do not — I think it’s more of a generically tropical kind of vibe, like a POG juice from Hawaii combo. Sniffing it like the creepy apple pervert I am yields a faint rose scent before biting into it. Once you’re into it, that tropical fruit note hits big — there’s a wave of sweetness that would make the apple seem subacid, and it is, but only just so. The lingering tartness on your lips and tongue tell you it’s still like, a 60/40 split of sweet and tart, which definitely puts it in (for me) a fairly perfect Flavor Zone — not too psycho-sweet, but also doesn’t make your butthole clench from the sourness. Further eating yields some vanilla, honey, and apple pie spice.

This is a favorite apple. It’s just sunny. It feels nice. Like it cares about you. It’ll help you move and hide the bodies while cracking jokes the whole way. This is an apple that doesn’t know how bad the world is, and would you really want your apple to be poisoned by the truth of the world? I don’t think so.

This is an affable idiot apple.

I’ll score it just shy of a Cox’s — let’s go 8.9 outta 10.

Mah video review HERE.

Suncrisp: Big and bold and optimistic about the world — a naive hee-haw waif just ready to brighten a bleak day

Reviews so far this year: Honeycrisp, Sweetie, Crimson Crisp, Knobbed Russet, Cortland, Maiden’s Blush, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Reine des Reinettes, Ingrid Marie, Hudson’s Golden Gem, Holstein