Trader Joe's Grapefruit Sunset

I've been burned time after time after time with Trader Joe's big, 64-ounce, plastic bottles of juice like this. They have generally been quite bad, and the labeling has often been deceptive. In fact, at first glance I thought this might be another in that sad line of disappointments; the name "Grapefruit Sunset" seems like the sort of thing they'd slap on a product when they knew they couldn't get away with calling it the most obvious thing, "grapefruit juice."

(To be fair, we have found a few winners, such as Honey Crisp Apple Cider Unfiltered and Pear Cinnamon Cider. And there have been some good ones in bottles other than TJ's ubiquitous 64-ounce plastic jugs: To The Power Of Seven, 100% Pomegranate Juice, Cold-Pressed Juice--Yellow, Tart Cherry Blend, 100% Cherry Juice, and others.)

But I looked more closely, and found that (1) it's organic, (2) it claims on the front of the label to be "100% organic pink grapefruit juice," (3) amazingly, it is not from concentrate, and (4) in the small print on the back, the list of ingredients is just one item long: "organic pink grapefruit juice." No pumping up the sweetness with apple and grape juices, no "natural" flavorings. This all gave me a glimmer of hope that I might have finally found the juice prince, after kissing way too many juice frogs.

So I bought it, and brought it home, and drank it.

The heavens did open, and choirs of angels did sing. At last, I had found One True Juice among the shelves and shelves of Trader Joe's impostors. This stuff is freakin' delicious. It is exactly what grapefruit juice is supposed to be. If I were having breakfast at a nice restaurant, selected the $5 fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice from the menu, and got served a glass of this, nothing would tip me off that the server had simply poured out some Trader Joe's Grapefruit Sunset instead of running actual grapefruit through a juicer just for me.

At $4.99 for the bottle, it's not as cheap as most of the "blends" that TJ's tries to pass off as juice, but it you measure it in flavor and/or enjoyment per dollar, it trounces the others.

Does this sound like the lead-up to the induction of a new member of the Top Ten list? Yes it does. And it is. It may seem odd to add to that list something so seemingly mundane as grapefruit juice. But this is probably as close to the pure, platonic ideal of grapefruit juice as can be found in any grocery store in America--and it's hiding right there among all the similar bottles of what Nina so aptly refers to as Trader Joe's "melted lollipop" line of juices.

Will I buy it again? 

It's already on my list for a second bottle on my next trip. I also have a half-baked idea to buy some other bottled grapefruit juices at other stores to compare them on cost and quality. I'm curious whether equally good products are readily available elsewhere, and, if so, how they compare in price. No promises, but there might be follow-up here.

Addendum 

Since writing the above, I had a glass of honest-to-goodness fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice in a local restaurant--and it wasn't as good as TJ's Grapefruit Sunset. I have also bought Grapefruit Sunset twice more, and have loved it again and again; the first bottle was no fluke.