Apple Review #40: Lemonade Apple

It is the new year, and the apple reviews persist. What, did you think they would stop? THE APPLE REVIEWS CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES.

Anyway, today, my mind is a bit on branding.

I am on the record, I think, as stating that branding for writers is ultimately a bad thing — there is certainly some industry value to it, but I also like to note that a brand is a thing you burn into a sheep’s ass to ensure everyone knows who owns it. Branding sort of keeps you locked into a specific mode and it’s hard to escape the gravity of that. But really, today, I’m thinking about how food is branded. In particular, agriculture like apples.

I think one of the nice things about heritage (aka heirloom aka antique aka old-timey aka ancient occult pomological intrusions upon reality) apples is that they really don’t suffer from the plague of branding — I mean, okay, they do, a little bit. And it’s not like they were entirely free from the clutches of capitalism: apples have long been desirable and part of the resources bought and sold and traded between regions and nations. But still, it’s nice that a lot of the old apples are named without sales magic in mind. “I call this apple GRUNCH because I discovered it and my name is EDWARD GRUNCH.” “This apple is called RUSSETED FUCKLUMP because it is russeted and looks like a nasty fucklump.” There is a purity to this, a simplicity — this is the apple, this its name, we are unconcerned with whether or not you are enticed by its title, by its branding. But now —

Well, now you get PIZAZZ and JAZZ and HONEYCRISP and EVERCRISP and SEXYCRISP and JUICYLUST or whatever the fuck they’re calling apples now.

(This is a small part of my “evil apple” book, Black River Orchard — the family whose orchard grows the aforementioned apple goes through a conversation of what to name it. The father wants to name it after himself, and the daughter — a wannabe influencer — believes it needs to be called something sexier to get people’s attention. So: Ruby Slipper is what they settle on. And if I’m being honest, I think that’s a banger name for a lush, red apple.)

This is, of course, the nature of capitalism — in a perfect execution, capitalism is a secondary mechanism, and one well-regulated, but we are about as far from a perfect execution as we can be, and so capitalism is mostly just a giant machine trying to distract you while it keeps going for your wallet. The sales and branding part of the machine doesn’t even really need to be all that honest anymore — it can just say a thing and give you a logo or an advertisement and coast pretty entirely on vibes, and a lot of products do exactly that. I suppose to their credit, some apples are still aptly named: Honeycrisp is crisp, and tastes a little like honey. But others are like, sure, okay. Jazz doesn’t play jazz music. It is not evocative of jazz. It’s just a jazzy name for an otherwise whatever apple.

Anyway, all this brings me to:

My review of a Lemonade apple, from the grocery store, mid-Dec:

I think it stands to figure that if we are to assume the branding here is true and evocative of the apple-eating experience born of this particular apple, we should then expect that the apple in question tastes like lemonade.

Spoiler alert: this apple does not taste like lemonade.

So, I ate two of these, to note, both from the same day, same store.

The first, you can watch me eat here if that tickles your bits.

That apple was — nnyeaaaah meh? Ennnh? Nnnnmmuhhh? The skin was pleasing. The apple was soft, just on the edge of mealy. The flavor was a ghost of flavor: present, barely accounted for, and what flavor was there was kind of this blunt, watery sweet-tart thing. Lemonade was not in the flavor profile. Nothing was in the flavor profile. Nothing but woe.

Actually, scratch that, woe probably tastes like something.

Then last night I made this ricotta apple cake someone sent me on Bluesky (whoever that was, thanks, it made something more akin to cornbread and less akin to cake, but I like it), and one of the apples I used was the other Lemonade apple, so I took a slice of that and ate it and —

Okay, not an entirely different apple, but definitely an apple in a better place, mentally and emotionally. This apple had not yet been traumatized by time, or perhaps, simply had a good therapist, because this second apple was crunchier — still on the softer side, but on the pleasing side of that fence. Didn’t melt in your mouth or turn to sand, but also didn’t remain asserting itself between your chompers for ten minutes. The apple was also a bit more flavorful — still not like WOW OOH ZING, but it had a taste like a lesser Cox’s Orange Pippin, or a Golden Delicious. Still not a thrilling apple. Still not lemonadey, at all. Not particularly juicy. But enjoyable for what it was.

That second apple punched up the tartness and sweetness a bit. Was sunnier. The citrus was more orange than lemon.

Still not great, but didn’t hate it at all.

As such, I’ll judge the apple based on the better of the two, but know that the first one would’ve gotten a 3/10 easy. Second one, let’s call it a 5/10.

Lemonade apple: more like le-MEH-nade am I right

Reviews in 2025: Honeycrisp, Sweetie, Crimson Crisp, Knobbed Russet, Cortland, Maiden’s Blush, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Reine des Reinettes, Ingrid Marie, Hudson’s Golden Gem, Holstein, Suncrisp, Ashmead’s Kernel, Opalescent, Orleans Reinette, Black Gilliflower, Red Delicious Double Feature, Jonathan, Ruby Mac, Crimson Topaz, Esopus Spitzenburg, Mutsu, Hunnyz, Winesap, Stayman Winesap, Winter Banana, Ribston Pippin, Rhode Island Greening, Roxbury Russet, Opal, Cosmic Crisp, Black Oxford, Ananas Reinette, Sugarbee, Granny Smith, LucyGlo/LucyRose, Ludacrisp, D’arcy Spice