Since Tom has been under the weather lately, I decided it would be a good time to make him some tea.

No wait. I thought it would be a good time to make him some beef tea.

No, wait. I thought it would be a good time to make him some Cranberry Beef Tea!

From Mix Around With Cranberry Juice, Ocean Spray, 1960

[cooked-sharing]

“The men all like this one.”

This recipe comes from the Ocean Spray pamphlet, Mix Around With Cranberry Juice, published in 1960. It is also the pamphlet that contains this lovely picture:

I have to admit, though. That little tiger is pretty cute.

Now, this is only beef tea in a cheating sense. It’s like shortcut beef tea. If you are curious, you can check out this article about actual beef tea.

But I’m using beef bullion, because that is what the recipe called for.

It also did NOT call for real cranberries, it called for low calorie cranberry cocktail. Which was out at my store because everyone found out it was going to be cold and lost their minds. Seriously, whole shelves were cleared out in my grocery store. So I got the 100% juice and hoped for the best.

And it turned out, the best smelled pretty bad.

The recoil is real.

“Does it taste better than it smells?”

“Slightly. But it’s still not very good.”

And then this strange thing happened:

“I like it. It’s good.”

I set down my camera. “Really. Can you tell me why it’s good, please?”

“Because it’s sweet. It tastes like something yummy and sweet at the same time.”

Then she proceeded to drink the whole glass.

The Verdict: Baffling

From The Tasting Notes –

So, this basically tasted like a really sweet soup or stew. It was just…sweet beef. It wasn’t disgusting, but it wasn’t the best. Honestly, it was slightly gross. Tom took a couple of sips and declared himself healed so he wouldn’t have to drink any more. However, Alex loved it. Granted, she is our child, so her taste buds might be slightly screwy, but she normally does not like beef very much. She doesn’t eat hamburgers or steak, and will only eat ground beef when it’s covered with sauce, like spaghetti sauce, sloppy joes or tacos. So the fact that she drank all of this is huge for us. I am actually planning on giving her this next time she is sick. If you are an adult and you want to make this work, I would suggest making actual beef tea and using real cranberries, or at least unsweetened real cranberry juice if you use the shortcut method. I feel like the other fruit juices in the 100% juice I bought may have messed with the flavor. So overall, all men do not like this one, but your kid might.