Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.
Roar Organic’s flavored waters were pitched to me as a soothing balm for Dry January; a meticulously crafted flavored water lineup capable of serving as a mocktail in a pinch. And that’s true.
But it glosses over the true beauty of Roar. These vitamin-packed bottled waters and flavor packets put in heavyweight work when it comes to fighting hangovers whether you’re drinking them the night of or the morning after.
As someone who was in college, sigh, 20 years ago, I’ve come to the shared, sad conclusion my body can no longer shrug off small amounts of poison consumed over the weekend like it used to. Hangovers clock in after three beers instead of six. Early mornings of making breakfast and watching Bluey feel roughly 10 times worse than they should.
Roar Organic was a massive help in this category. Spacing out a night of drinking with any amount of water will make a difference, but one bottle of Roar seemed to make the following day significantly more pleasant. It wasn’t a panacea, but it really, truly did seem to help.
Now let’s talk about how it tastes.
Cucumber Watermelon: A
The flavor alone sounds hydrating as hell; a vegetable-fruit combination where each is essentially rind and water held together by loosely connected fiber. And I’m already all aboard for anything watermelon flavored — gummy candies, energy drinks, etc — so, let’s go.
The smell coming off the pour is subtle, a little more cucumber than watermelon but with a pleasant lingering sweetness. The first sip is a tug-of-war between the two sides, fading in and out between flavors. Behind it all is a thin, syrupy sweetness that works as a backdrop to the whole solution.
It’s much more complex than I’d expected. After three sips I feel like I’ve tasted three different blends; all cucumber-watermelon but in different concentrations. I’m curious to figure how I’d do with it if I were trying to hydrate away a hangover; it seems like a perfect combination of electrolytes and coconut water and vitamins for such a thing, and that flavor is mild enough that you’d be able to stomach it regardless of how much Wild Turkey you’d had the night before.
Anyway, I’m impressed.
Strawberry Lemonade: A-
There isn’t much tart to this lemonade; in fact, it’s got a lot of creamy strawberry flavor that carries each sip. The lemon is more like a Lemon Cooler cookie that dials in toward the end. The finish is a bit dry, owing to the electrolytes and coconut water within and letting you know there’s some nutritional value to what would typically be a 300 calorie drink (this bottle checks in at 20, for reference).
The end result is a creamy middle with an aftertaste that doesn’t quite live up to that layer cake taste it hits at its peak. It’s good and nearly great.
Georgia Peach: A-
I first cracked this one midway through a Halloween party where it became clear I was gonna need some bonus hydration. To its credit, it helped me feel pretty normal the next morning.
Now I’m drinking Georgia Peach in review form and noticing it smells a little … grim once poured. The combination of coconut water and peach creates a stale scent that wafts gently from the top.
This doesn’t translate to the taste, which is sweet, syrupy peach all the way through. Like the strawberry lemonade there’s a minor inherent creaminess that bumps the whole thing up a notch. Roar leaned into that with fruits that pair great with cream — any oatmeal flavor you’ll find at the store, really — and it pays off. It’s rich with flavor, leaves a sweet, lingering aftertaste and will keep you from getting too hungover in the right circumstance. Win/win/win.
Mango Clementine: B
The flavors here don’t quite cover up the lingering influence of the coconut water. It’s also not as sweet as the three other bottled varieties, leaving a pretty boring experience.
It’s not bad. It’s just more what you’d expect from a flavored water compared to a lineup that otherwise goes above and beyond.
Berry Lemonade: B+
The first of the drink packets is this gorgeous lavender mash-up. It’s supposed to be mixed with 18 ounces of water, which is not a bottle size they sell near me or, indeed, in the entire United States. Instead I opted for a half-liter mug which, if nothing else, only ups the beauty quotient of this purple tipple.
The flavor is pretty much par for the course for a powdered lemonade drink mix. It’s a little light — despite the size of the packet, you’re probably good to mix it in a typical 16.9 ounce water bottle — and there’s a lingering saccharine sweetness that’s mildly annoying. Not quite unpleasant, but it’s something you could do without. I’ll chalk that up to the coconut water presence, as it’s not masked as effectively here as it is in some of Roar’s better offerings.
It does get better as the powder dissipates a little more, and after 15 minutes it’s pretty tasty. It’s not as good as the best bottled Roar, but it’s a solid plane ride takealong.
Tropical Twist: B
It’s not quite as pretty as the berry lemonade, but its orange-pink hues are incredibly pleasant, which isn’t essential but is nice. There’s a juicy sweetness to the tropical twist that delivers citrus and mango in gobs but fails to overpower. A little acidity would be nice, but this remains easy to drink and, on a day where my stomach appears to be in rebellion against the rest of my body, a valuable source of hydration.
Like the berry lemonade, a little ice and time to sit and dissolve improves the entire experience. It’s sweet but not overly so and might even work as a mocktail in the right circumstance. Again, it’s entirely pleasant and, hopefully, enough to settle things up inside my body.
Strawberry Watermelon: A
Another pretty pour, this time a light pink. The strawberry is light and authentic; sweet and slightly tart to make it refreshing and extremely drinkable. The watermelon is less obvious, leading to a well balanced but minorly sour finish that I dig a whole bunch.
Would I drink it instead of a Hamm's?
Brother, I’m gonna drink it *with* a Hamm’s so I feel indestructable the next morning.
