Aura Bora

Basil Berry

One of the highlights of being a bubblenaut is getting to bask in the glow of Aura Bora.

To be sure, we relish any opportunity to sit down with a new can of sparkling water in Proustian contemplation. But there’s no richer subject than the symbolic magdalene of all the sparkling waters than the Aura Bora.

Update Nov 2020

In our original review, we lamented the overpowering presence of lemongrass in this flavor.

In fact, we said “Lemongrass dominates. Pulling focus from the basil almost instantaneously, and never letting go until the very end, when a wisp of basil re-enters to remind us of what could have been.”

Harsh.

When we spoke to Aura Bora for our Aluminum Can Shortage update, they also mentioned that they had been working on a reformulation of this flavor, and offered to send us a sample. That sample has arrived! 🙌

So what follows is our review of the new, improved Basil Berry. Quoth Aura Bora: “No doubt, there are plenty of old cans on shelves still, but all should be this new stuff by January [2021].”

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Visually, this can is maximal cartoon exuberance. We love the berry-filled meadows, the strawberries and the distant hills peeking out in wonder at their sparkling paradise, the wide-eyed Porcupines marching around with a spiky backside of impaled strawberries.

Where are they going?

The scent on this objet d’eau is pure basil, picked from a Tuscan garden, ready to adorn whatever fresh Farfalle dish you’re preparing.

Slight hints of a stoic Fennel, lending its anise-hued cloak to round out this powerful, herbaceous aroma.  The hit of rich soil that greets you as you walk into a nursery.

The scents of the natural world are on full display, in robust splendor. A sweet strawberry faintly beckons from under this herbaceous melange, a distant fruit flute wafting from over the basil hill.

Tasting Notes

🎺🍓🍃👣👣

It’s the berry that shines upon first sip. It’s a delightful revelation, sending us to an enchanted Black Forest, as our noses were still Under the Tuscan Herb. Chipper, rosy berry arrives like a surprise sprout in the green garden that’s taken root in our nostrils.

The fleshy, lucious strawberry that we only merely glimpsed in the previous version of this flavor is now fully unveiled, loosed from lemongrass bondage, calling all the lesser strawberries in the bubbleverse to come follow.

And the basil is right there alongside it, intertwining like a symphony of earthy minstrels, rising up to greet the tongue like the herbaceous fresh dew of the midsommer morning. Resplendent flora in full ripened grandeur, pied-piping our children off to somewhere unknown.

Strawberry and basil is a tried and true friendship, the sweetness and the soil a storied fairytale.

And here they are in their highest expression, combining to deliver the quintessence of one of the primal human needs: to experience Fruit and Leaf together in a sparkling water.

The flavors don’t linger too long on the palate, begging us to keep coming back sip after sip. Aura Bora appears to be determined to hook us into drinking with abandon, the nectar disappearing far too quickly around the next bend in the forest path.

As the distant flute entices us further and further into the wild basil forest, clamoring for more and more, we lose sight of our pamplemousse parents.

Following ever further through strawberry meadows and sparkling woodlands, we disappear into the Bavarian countryside, following the Pied Porcupiper through the mists into enchanted Basilberg Hill for all time.