{"id":63091,"date":"2026-01-07T08:45:50","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T13:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=63091"},"modified":"2026-01-07T08:45:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T13:45:50","slug":"apple-review-40-lemonade-apple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2026\/01\/07\/apple-review-40-lemonade-apple\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple Review #40: Lemonade Apple"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It is the new year, and the apple reviews persist<\/em>. What, did you think they would stop? THE APPLE REVIEWS CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, today, my mind is a bit on branding<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am on the record, I think, as stating that branding for writers is ultimately a bad thing — there is certainly some industry value<\/em> 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<\/em> is branded. In particular, agriculture like apples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/em>, 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<\/em> 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<\/em> by its title, by its branding. But now —<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, now you get PIZAZZ and JAZZ and HONEYCRISP and EVERCRISP and SEXYCRISP and JUICYLUST or whatever the fuck they’re calling apples now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(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<\/em> 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.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/em> and branding<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, all this brings me to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My review of a Lemonade apple, from the grocery store, mid-Dec:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spoiler alert: this apple does not taste like lemonade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I ate two of these, to note, both from the same day, same store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first, you can watch me eat here<\/a> if that tickles your bits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually, scratch that, woe probably tastes like something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 —<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, not an entirely<\/em> 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<\/em> apple was crunchier — still on the softer side, but on the pleasing<\/em> 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That second apple punched up the tartness and sweetness a bit. Was sunnier. The citrus was more orange than lemon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still not great, but didn’t hate it at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lemonade apple: more like le-MEH-nade am I right<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Reviews<\/strong>\u00a0in 2025<\/strong>:\u00a0Honeycrisp<\/a>,\u00a0Sweetie<\/a>,\u00a0Crimson Crisp<\/a>,\u00a0Knobbed Russet<\/a>,\u00a0Cortland<\/a>,\u00a0Maiden\u2019s Blush<\/a>,\u00a0Cox\u2019s Orange Pippin<\/a>,\u00a0Reine des Reinettes<\/a>,\u00a0Ingrid Marie<\/a>,\u00a0Hudson\u2019s Golden Gem<\/a>,\u00a0Holstein<\/a>,\u00a0Suncrisp<\/a>,\u00a0Ashmead\u2019s Kernel<\/a>,\u00a0Opalescent<\/a>,\u00a0Orleans Reinette<\/a>,\u00a0Black Gilliflower<\/a>,\u00a0Red Delicious Double Feature<\/a>,\u00a0Jonathan<\/a>,\u00a0Ruby Mac<\/a>,\u00a0Crimson Topaz<\/a>,\u00a0Esopus Spitzenburg<\/a>,\u00a0Mutsu<\/a>,\u00a0Hunnyz<\/a>,\u00a0Winesap<\/a>,\u00a0Stayman Winesap<\/a>,\u00a0Winter Banana<\/a>,\u00a0Ribston Pippin<\/a>,\u00a0Rhode Island Greening<\/a>,\u00a0Roxbury Russet<\/a>,\u00a0Opal<\/a>,\u00a0Cosmic Crisp<\/a>,\u00a0Black Oxford<\/a>,\u00a0Ananas Reinette<\/a>,\u00a0Sugarbee<\/a>,\u00a0Granny Smith<\/a>,\u00a0LucyGlo\/LucyRose<\/a>,\u00a0Ludacrisp<\/a>, D’arcy Spice<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-63091","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-theramble","9":"has-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/55028634766_298ad7333f_k.jpg?fit=2048%2C1365&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-gpB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63091"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63099,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63091\/revisions\/63099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}