At it's core, POG juice is a very simple recipe. It consists of Passion Fruit, Orange, and Guava juices at different levels, depending on what sort of flavors you want to amplify. Since it is a very tropical mixture, it has become the backbone of many tiki-like drinks. All you have to do is add some dark rum to a glass of POG juice and you're at the start of a great island drink!
Over at Aulani, they serve POG juice as a breakfast drink - sans rum. POG juice recipes are generally kept under wraps by various drinks-makers, but Disney was feeling good today and decided to open the books on one of their more popular drinks!
Now, just a bit of warning - this recipe is VERY complex, so take your time and be EXACT with your measurements:
- 4 cups passion fruit juice
- 4 cups orange juice
- 4 cups guava juice
Mix together and serve!
Obviously we're joking on how hard that is - it's the easiest thing in the world to make. The story on how POG juice was invented isn't, but it's still just as fun, and ties in with EarzUp! a bit, too.
POG juice was created and sold by the Haleakala Dairy company on Maui in the 1970's. Some sources credit the initial formula for POG juice to Mary Soon, a consultant in the drinks industry, but it was actually Charles Nalepa - Step-Father to our very own Charlie Essers AKA Announcer Man! Charles not only created the blend while playing around in the dairy's testing room, but he also created the marketing campaign for it, which centered around reviving an old game commonly played on the islands called the Milk Cap Game, whereby kids would take the metal caps off the glass milk bottles, stacked them up, and tried to slam their opponents caps to the ground. The dairy was no longer producing milk in bottles, but would still make the caps just for this game. Nalepa thought of using them to market his new POG juice, which led to huge sales for the Haleakala Dairy company, and spreading the joys of POG juice - and Pogs - world-wide. Any '80's kid reading this might be thinking, "hey, that sounds an awful lot like those Pogs I used to collect". The name "Pog" came from POG juice, and Charles was the man who was responsible for all of it! Wild stuff.
So go ahead and pour yourself some POG juice - with or without rum - and raise a glass to Charles. And if you ever played Pogs as a kid, raise two glasses!
