Clamato

Am I the only one that thinks mixing clam juice and tomato juice is weird? It's not really the combination but the clam juice itself, I can't fathom the appeal, even as a lover of seafood. Perhaps I ought to try pure clam juice at some point in the future... if I can get over the strange mental blockage that's tied directly to my gag reflex.

Clamato was developed as a New England style cocktail by the Mott's company and it apparently is quite popular in the region. In Canada it inspired the Caesar, one of the nation's most popular cocktails. Anheuser Busch recently released Bud Chelada, a mixture of Bud Light and Clamato juice whose side effects include the inability to decide which of those two ingredients is the most disgusting... my vote goes to Bud Light.

I tried my Clamato without any adulterants and was surprised to find that the taste was rather different from what I had expected. The tomato juice is definitely the dominant flavor in the mix but I really couldn't detect any fishy notes at all. There were hints of celery and a savory tone courtesy of the MSG but the most unpalatable component of the flavor was the sickly sweetness of the high fructose corn syrup. In fact, if it weren't for the added sweetener I may have ventured to finish the bottle but I'll just stick with the V8 and it generic alternatives instead.