LaCroix

Lime

Living in the flashy and exhilarating sparkling world where new brands like Aura Bora and Nixie are locked in a veritable arms races for novel and quixiotic flavor combinations, circling back around to LaCroix Lime feels a bit anticlimactic.

It’s not that lime isn’t a perennial flavor dominator, particularly when it comes to singular flavors!  In fact, lime forever abounds. It’s certainly not going anywhere. But even LaCroix has upped its quirky flavor roster with offerings like Hibiscus and Limoncello.  They even rolled out a hotter, younger version of the Lime, Key Lime.

So intentionally journeying through a LaCroix Lime feels like taking a ride in the Way Back Machine. To a time when Free Range Parenting was just called parenting, and we all dressed like an episode of Stranger Things. Ah, simpler times.

And in a world of endless Lime Offerings and Lime Hybrids (hello, AHA’s Lime + Watermelon oral juggernaut), sometimes you just need to get back to your sparkling citrus roots, taking it back all the way to the 80’s and checking out the aromatics and tangs from whence we came.

So, as we sip upon one of the original bubbles, we ask ourselves: how does this hold up in the current creative climate? Has this stood the test of Flavor Time? (And yes, we imagine Flavor Time to be a figure like Father Time, but like a cool dad with an 80’s mullet.)

But we digress. It’s Lime Time.

The nose on this is full of gentle aromatics. Not the juiciest lime in the box, but it’s certainly appealing and inviting. This isn’t here to hammer you over the nose with piquant limery. No, this is a subtle spritz of the green stuff. In fact, we just want to get to sippin’.

Tasting Notes

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The lime on the palate is even less of a lime reverie than the one that greeted us on the nose. It kind of fades instantly, in a way we didn’t quite see coming.

Dare we say, this is totally underwhelming. Not tubular at all. Not much of anything is going on in here, which is pretty disappointing considering how the olfactory aromatics that greeted us upon first crack spoke of something fresher and more defined. There’s none of that happening in the mouth.

If Topo Chico’s (genuinely refreshing!) lime foray is called “Twist of Lime”, this Lacroix should be called “Slight Bend of Lime”.  This is your dinner date ordering a lime to spritz in their water glass, and a little squirt lands in your glass from across the table.

And this is kind of the LaCroix Way. While we’ve found ourselves reaching for Waterloo over LaCroix in the same flavor categories, due to their more robust and interesting flavor expressions, we’ve spoken with other Sparkling Water Devotees who have said LaCroix is their preferred go-to precisely due to the fact that the flavors are less discernible and overwhelming. Waterloo is too extra for them!

So we get that this is part of LaCroix’s irrepressible appeal that has clearly stood the test of Flavor Time. (Hello again, in your neon windbreaker.) And honestly, we’d never be disappointed to find this lime in the back of our fridge, having exhausted all other options.

Overall, however, we are left underwhelmed, longing for our tangy green friend, and will instead reach for Waterloo’s Lemon-Lime when we want for a real citrus explosion, or go with the exquisite and (possibly) reigning Lime Time champ, Perrier Lime, the exquisitely crafted French Lime sparkling water with a salty, mineral finish. What can we say? It’s the Veronica to LaCroix’s Betty.

One thing’s for certain, though: the LaCroix Lime at least reigns supreme over the bubly lime.  Low bar, but it’s not nothin’.