This is the final entry in my Happy Dad journey. I was very optimistic at first, believing that I had progressed enough in the seltzers to be objective about how good or bad they were based on what a seltzer should be. I didn't want to just start off by drinking straight, non-alcoholic seltzer and then build off of that, as that's not my thing. If I followed that line of logic, I would have done a review of water before I started to review beer. Still, the fact that these are all very watery with a little bit of flavor to them is a bit of an enigma. They are very few instances where I imagine myself wanting to get one of these things.
To no one's surprise, this is a very clear beverage that has a little bit of carbonation to it. One of the things I don't think I've noted in previous seltzers was the fact that, at least on this one, the bubbles rising to the top are actually pretty slow. I don't know if it has something to do with the amount of carbon dioxide that is diffused into the liquid and how that changes the specific gravity or something similar. All I know is that these bubbles are slow. The aroma is sweet, and it smells almost more like cherry than it does watermelon. As I have indicated in the past, I am a fan of watermelon and eat it on a regular basis. I know what watermelon taste like. This smells like an artificial interpretation of what watermelon should smell like. I don't know how to be more clear about that.
First sip has a tartness that watermelon doesn't have. Well, I guess there's a little bit of tartness if you eat too far into the rind, but that's not the flavor that you typically go for whenever you're trying to emulate watermelon. I assume watermelon is in some way included under the label of natural flavors, but watermelon would have included some kind of color. This doesn't have any color, so it would seem to indicate that not a whole lot of watermelon was used to create this flavor that isn't really much like watermelon. But, as we have seen with the other three Dad beverages, they get a lot better when you do a full swing.
Tip-in is the dull watermelon flavor that you might get from a Runts candy that has been sitting in the drawer for a few years and lost most of its taste. Carbonation really doesn't enter into it very much. The middle goes down easy, almost as if this was mostly water, and the slight watermelon taste is definitely coming from the rind. The finish is a much stronger alcohol taste than I've had in the other beverages, and it puts me in mind of a vodka or something similar
1.25/5