Coruba is meant to be tall, dark and handsome; a drink to remind you of the tropics, or of anywhere you can reliably hang your washing outside to dry. Coruba Raspberry, Grapefruit & Soda is anything but that. The drink is, in fact, short, white and strange. It’s like that one mate that went on a “life-changing” ten-day holiday and somehow managed to come back with an accent. Yes, I know how to pronounce Ibiza. No, I’m not going to say it like that.
This drink is a poser and it’s a damn shame to think that Coruba is being combined with anything other than a dodgy mix with an almost flat bottle of Coke in your friend's garage. Drinking this makes you feel like you’re being catfished by the Bahamas, except for some reason you keep coming back for their shitty tax laws. It’s a toxic relationship.
The taste of this drink can appropriately be described as “a bit different.” The rum was overpowered by the fruity flavour, and you could really taste the raspberry with the pithy tart flavour of the grapefruit. That’s normally a good thing for an RTD, but with this you really want a bit more rum to get you going. This mix being 5% is a travesty for rum drinkers, and if you expect someone to put themselves through drinking a box of these, they could at least hit a bit harder. However, this did get better as I drank more of it. That, or the erosion of my taste buds and sobriety helped ease the pain.
After drinking about a half-box of these during my drunk escapades at Hyde, I couldn’t hack them anymore and was essentially trying to give my box away. There were no takers. One student, upon having a sip, described the drink as, “Making me want to taccy.” No one else accepted the offer of free piss after this. If breathas won’t drink it, it says a lot about this drop.
Coruba Raspberry, Grapefruit & Soda come in 10 packs of 330ml cans, each clocking in at 5% or 1.3 standard drinks. They sell for $28 for 13 standards, with the golden ratio coming in at a rough $2.15 dollars per standard, which really isn’t worth what this drink is offering you. If you’re not sitting at some tourist trap of a beach, trying to “authentically” experience the culture of the Caribbean, I wouldn’t recommend buying these; in fact, I would recommend you drink literally anything else – a mojito or something, I don't know.
Pairs well with: M Dot R and fake Jamaican music
X Factor: Blackbeard conforming to modern wokeism
Chugability: 4/10. Getting over the taste as fast as possible
Taste Rating: 2/10. Just mix rum with Coke and raspberry. Thank me later