Fresh Lime vs RealLime vs others...

I found this blog post to be quite interesting, and felt that it would be interesting to others here. It's a comparison of fresh lime juice versus RealLime, Santa Cruz organic and Lakewood organic.

To be expected, the lime juice was the best. Definitely not expected was that the poster considers RealLime to be close enough in most cases...

http://www.killingtime.com/Pegu/?p=77

Wow. Scott, if you think like me, I find the Realime so harsh that I'd have to be in some kind of cocktail emergency to use it. I will turn to Nellie and Joe's in a pinch and not feel too bad. Good blog though--thanks!

I forgot about the Nellie & Joe's. I have an unopened bottle since I'm not a fan of key limes and haven't had an emergency need for lime juice.

But this post added yet another idea to the list of future posts for my blog... I'll have to compare lime juices in tiki drinks one of these days.

I'd love to get a crew together for some comparisons like this. Spend a night doing things like mixing up 4 Mai Tais with 4 different lime juices and split them between whoever's present, and get a consensus. Compare different orgeats in Mai Tais. Things like that.

Nellie & Joe's Key Lime juice is the ONLY bottled lime juice I've ever had occasion to use - and only when fresh limes were not to be had. But my rule regarding Nellie & Joe's is that once I open the bottle (16 oz) I must use it up in three days or throw it out. Once it begins to darken . . . out it goes. In my immediate area the only other brand of bottled lime juice is Realime - and I'd rather make a different drink than use Realime.

Gotta agree that Nellie & Joes is the only decent sub for actual limes.

Don't forget the Santa Cruz organic lime juice! We get it at Whole Foods, and other fine purveyors of quality lime substitutes.

I've had both the Nellie & Joe's and the Santa Cruz organic bottled lime juice. Nellie & Joe's is very good for what it is. The Santa Cruz was not nearly as good as the Nellie and Joe's. If you have to use bottled lime juice, and given the choice, stick with the Nellie & Joe's.

I suspect that Doug, the blogger, discounted Nellie & Joe's because that is a Key lime product and most people mean Persian limes unless they specify otherwise.

Scottes, I think you should acquire a taste for Key limes. For one thing, they are much older relatives of the Persian limes, which only were developed in the relatively recent past. I personally like both and have only really been getting into Key limes over the past few years when their availability in the Greater Washington Area began to pick up.

Once you open a bottle of lime juice of any kind, you've pretty much given it a death sentence. It's first contact with the air touches off a fairly rapid spiral of deterioration. Even if you open the bottle and then close it right away, it's doomed. Because I have not had a deficit of fresh limes, which I will always use before resorting to anything out of a bottle, I have not tried the wine bottle gadget that vacuums the air out of the bottle when you re-cork it.

Here's what it looks like (sold at BB&B).

Anyway, anyone who works with lime juice knows that you have to eliminate its contact with the air to keep it around for any length of time (which is never that long at best). You're better off putting leftover lime juice in a bowl and then put plastic wrap down inside so that it touches the surface area of the lime (so that air can't). Real chore and an act of desperation. I think the bottle vacuum might be a viable solution, but I don't know. I probably won't bother to test it unless I ever start having to rely on bottled lime juice. Just an idea for someone else to try if they use a lot of lime juice out of a bottle.

Here are a couple of links I've posted in the past regarding Persian Limes (aka Tahiti Limes) and Key Limes (aka Mexican Limes; aka West Indian Limes) for those who want to know more about limes than a human being oughta know.

Here's an excerpt from the "Origin and Distribution" section of the Persian Lime page. Clearly, any drinks that were made with limes prior to 1850 used a different variety of lime, most certainly the very popular Mexican/West Indian/Key lime. When the British Royal Navy sailors got the name "Limeys," it was because they were forced to consume a ration of limes, which they did in their daily rum ration which they called "grog." Persian limes would not have been available to them at that time, so it is almost certain that the limes they used were Key limes.

The origin of the Tahiti lime is unknown. It is presumed to be a hybrid of the Mexican lime and citron, or, less likely, the lemon, and it is genetically a triploid though only the normal 18 chromosomes have been reported. Dr. Groff, in a reference to Citrus aurantifolia in his "Culture and Varieties of Siamese Pummelos . . . ", said: ". . .it is represented by a large variety known as Manow klom and by a small one known as Manow yai." One might speculate as to whether the large variety might be the female parent of the Tahiti lime. At any rate, it is believed that the Tahiti was introduced into the Mediterranean region by way of Iran (formerly called Persia). It is said that, for some centuries, a virtually identical lime called 'Sakhesli' has been cultivated on the island of Djerba off the coast of Tunisia, and that the local name means "from Sakhos", an old Arabic name for Chios, a Grecian island. Portuguese traders probably carried it to Brazil, and it was apparently taken to Australia from Brazil about 1824. It reached California from Tahiti between 1850 and 1880 and had arrived in Florida by 1883. It was being grown at Lake Placid in 1897. This lime was adopted into cultivation in California but is not extensively grown there, the bulk of California's lime crop being mainly the Mexican lime. In Florida, the Tahiti quickly took the place of the more sensitive small lime and the lemon. Following World War I, the Tahiti lime became a well-established commercial crop. At first, there was market resistance, buyers viewing the Tahiti lime as a "green lemon", and, for some time, Canadians would not accept it because they were accustomed to the more flavorful Mexican lime. In the 1930's, many Florida citrus growers planted limes for extra income and, in 1949, the development of limeade concentrate provided further impetus to the Tahiti lime industry.

spelling, of course

[ Edited by: The Gnomon 2007-11-27 13:13 ]

So far, I like key limes in pie, and Persian/Mexican in drinks. I don't think that's going to change any time soon, as I'm not really a lime-lover to begin with. I find them necessary for tiki cocktails, but otherwise I do without them.

I do have a bottle of Nellie & Joe's, and 3 other bottles of lime juice, so I may do a comparison sometime soon. When I know that I have enough time to spend 2 or 3 nights comparing drinks before the lime juice goes bad.

As to the oxidation of lime juice, we have had a long and involved discussion concerning the oxidation of rum over at the Ministry Of Rum Forums.
http://ministryofrum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=455
From my studies, the inert gas approach seems to be the better choice IMHO. Studies with wine have shown that the inert gasses double the life of a wine over a vacuum system. Nature abhors a vacuum.

On 2007-11-27 07:54, Scottes wrote:
When I know that I have enough time to spend 2 or 3 nights comparing drinks before the lime juice goes bad.

The lime juice will start to turn in about a half hour or less if left out. If you jump through a bunch of hoops to extend its time, you might get a second day out of it, but it won't be the same, merely satisfactory.

If you do any testing, it should all be done fairly close to the time the bottles are opened.

From my studies, the inert gas approach seems to be the better choice IMHO. Studies with wine have shown that the inert gasses double the life of a wine over a vacuum system.

How is the inert gas dispensed into the opened bottle? The model of wine vacuum that I showed before is about $80 I think.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

That sucks.

The inert gas is simply an "aerosol" can, which feels completely empty actually. You just spray it into the bottle. The inert gasses are heavier than air so they sink and form a layer above the top of the liquid. This thin layer of gas keeps the oxygen in the air from touching the liquid, thus "eliminates" oxidation.

Private Preserve is one brand.
http://www.privatepreserve.com/
$10 a can, and I think 100+ bottles per can. But I can no longer find a quote of how many bottles per can so take that with a grain of salt.

For the lime tests, I was actually planning on using the Private Preserve, too.

Ah, yes. Their wholesale and retail site is http://www.winepreserve.com/. $9 plus S&H ($12.95 total for one bottle sent to a US destination). Looks definitely like the way to go. I'm gonna get one for other stuff I want to open but not use up right away.

As for lime juice, it makes me want to squeeze up a small bottle's worth of fresh limes and see if the gas will preserve it better than store-bought bottled juice. I'd rather do that than compare bottled juices.

On 2007-11-28 09:10, The Gnomon wrote:
As for lime juice, it makes me want to squeeze up a small bottle's worth of fresh limes and see if the gas will preserve it better than store-bought bottled juice.

That's a hell of an idea.

On 2007-11-28 10:27, Scottes wrote:
That's a hell of an idea.

Thanks. I'll even throw in some seeds to give it that look of authenticity.

In looking at the instructions on how to administer the Gas, it is obvious that an amount of air still remains at the top that can always affect the contents if the container is disturbed. Undisturbed, there's always a layer of Gas between the contents and the air at the top.

I think the ideal situation can be created using both the abhorent vacuum in conjunction with the Gas. The weakness of the vacuum is that it doesn't have the strength to remove enough air to matter that much, especially, in a bottle that is not full. If you use the Gas to drive out all of the air except what remains at the very top, the wine-vac can probably remove that small remaining amount along with a little of the Gas. In fact, those cheap vacuum wine stoppers (very weak vacuum) might even be enough to remove any remaining air.

With the vacuum, you really need to remove all of the air. A perfect vacuum would entirely remove oxidation.

With the gas, you need a teeny tiny layer just above the liquid, enough to keep the air from touching the liquid.

And yes, stability is very important here.

Vacuum can be improved by reducing the amount of "dead space" at the top of the bottle. Less air to remove equals a more complete vacuum with the same amount of work. (How many times would you have to pump if a 750ml bottle had 1/4-inch of liquid in it??)

Gas can be improved by reducing the area of the top of the liquid. That is, a tall, thin-necked bottle is much better than a short squat bottle. (You'd need a lot of gas to protect 1/4-inch of liquid in a restaurant stock pot, very little gas to protect that liquid in a test tube.)

On 2007-11-21 20:45, Scottes wrote:
I found this blog post to be quite interesting, and felt that it would be interesting to others here. It's a comparison of fresh lime juice versus RealLime, Santa Cruz organic and Lakewood organic.

To be expected, the lime juice was the best. Definitely not expected was that the poster considers RealLime to be close enough in most cases...

http://www.killingtime.com/Pegu/?p=77

Well, as the blogger in question, let me make a few provisos about my test, and your discussion.
First, I was testing lime juice for use in my favorite cocktail, the Pegu Cocktail, as well as a few other of my favorite martini-style cocktails; e.g. Cosmos and Kamikazes.
I would not use RealLime in Tiki, or other fruit heavy drinks, unless I was desperate!

Second, I did not test Nellie and Joe's for similar reasons. I've used it before, and the key limes just don't really work for my regular uses.
I am aware of how many people swear by it, of course. I even got a comment the the effect that there is no substitute! But key limes are truly different beasts, and I don't think key lime juice is any more interchangeable with lime juice than lemon juice is.

Third, we really didn't like the Santa Cruz juice. There was a faint, but distinct funkiness. If you want organic juice, I think the Lakewood is a much better choice.

Now I just need to crack open the bottle of Whole Foods' new 365 brand lime juice and do a follow up post.

Thanks for reading!