Fresh Squeezed OJ

Do you squeeze your own orange juice? We used to have a wonderful vintage juice squeezer and I would regularly buy bags of juicing oranges from Jerry's for weekend treats. The lovely machine eventually died and no amount of searching for a repair shop was able to bring it back to working order.

Have you read this absolutely over-the-top gushing tribute to Mariano's fresh squeezed Orange juice in today's Chicago Tribune? The cult of Mariano's orange juice

We love our Florida Natural brand of OJ every morning - albeit in small portions of 4 to 5 oz. only. I appreciate Florida Natural because it is clear where the oranges came from and the 'some pulp' option hits our sweet spot. But I admit it was a shock when the carton size was reduced while the price "remained" $2.98 (at WalMart-- Jewel and other sources always higher). This was during some weather-related orange-killing event and when your raw materials are limited to a relatively small geographic area (Florida, duh) something has to give. There is no cutting the good oranges with some mystery fruit from Brazil or other source. When the carton size reduction hit, I expected (and maybe the FN guys expected) that other brands would follow. But that didn't happen.

Like the author of the article, however, we DO enjoy fresh-squeezed OJ as a special kind of treat on, say, Mother's Day or just because. But I have never thought there was really that much of a difference in the fresh-squeezed from one source to the next. Until I read "The cult..."! Nobody told me there was a cult! Where do I sign up?!

The author does intrigue with the revelation that the 64-ounce jug of juice at Mariano's costs only $3.99. That is eye-popping, to me. And if it is as good as she says, we may have to get into Mariano's on a more regular basis.

Joy wrote:Do you squeeze your own orange juice? We used to have a wonderful vintage juice squeezer and I would regularly buy bags of juicing oranges from Jerry's for weekend treats. The lovely machine eventually died and no amount of searching for a repair shop was able to bring it back to working order.

Have you read this absolutely over-the-top gushing tribute to Mariano's fresh squeezed Orange juice in today's Chicago Tribune? The cult of Mariano's orange juice

We love our Florida Natural brand of OJ every morning - albeit in small portions of 4 to 5 oz. only. I appreciate Florida Natural because it is clear where the oranges came from and the 'some pulp' option hits our sweet spot. But I admit it was a shock when the carton size was reduced while the price "remained" $2.98 (at WalMart-- Jewel and other sources always higher). This was during some weather-related orange-killing event and when your raw materials are limited to a relatively small geographic area (Florida, duh) something has to give. There is no cutting the good oranges with some mystery fruit from Brazil or other source. When the carton size reduction hit, I expected (and maybe the FN guys expected) that other brands would follow. But that didn't happen.

Like the author of the article, however, we DO enjoy fresh-squeezed OJ as a special kind of treat on, say, Mother's Day or just because. But I have never thought there was really that much of a difference in the fresh-squeezed from one source to the next. Until I read "The cult..."! Nobody told me there was a cult! Where do I sign up?!

The author does intrigue with the revelation that the 64-ounce jug of juice at Mariano's costs only $3.99. That is eye-popping, to me. And if it is as good as she says, we may have to get into Mariano's on a more regular basis.

It's been a draw (and likely a loss leader) since they opened. The other juices are inconsistent (watermelon, celery and even grapefruit) but the orange is pretty great. The premium Florida's Natural and Tropicana and others are complex blends that are engineered to taste exactly the same every time and are not, as they would have you believe, simply fruit squeezed into a bottle. I still buy them because they have a longer useful life, but they aren't comparable to fresh squeezed.

And the "mystery fruit from Brazil" are oranges. They are a massive exporter.

I'm not much of an orange juice drinker but I've found Mariano's to be a decent option for purchasing freshly squeezed lemon and lime juices. Not cheap but when I'm making cocktails for a crowd and need a quart or more of fresh juice, it's worth the premium to have them do it for me.

=R=