Trader Joe's Heart of Darkness - Mango Passionfruit

Do you think Joe was originally known as Trapper Joe? For some reason, I always imagine him being from Canada, even though I know his origins are German (at least in some capacity). I just picture him out there in the wild wilderness of Canada, setting traps and collecting his bountiful pelts. He lived like a king, and then slowly, but then very suddenly the pelts dried up. Joe found himself without work, and started to lean on his other skills more, and got more into the commerce side of the game. It wasn't long until he started working with an entirely new set of people, who referred to him as Trader Joe instead of Trapper Joe. Eventually he made his way down to the States and well, the rest is history.

That whole scenario has nothing to do with this drink, but oh wait it does. For some reason they decided to name this juice “Heart of Darkness.” At first glance this seems to make no sense what-so-ever as neither mangos nor passion fruit are native to the Congo where Joseph Conrad set his short story. Since the actual juice has nothing to do with an ivory transporter in central Africa, I can only assume that the name is in some reference to Joe's history as a trapper come trader. Maybe the owners of the company are just fans of late 19th century literature. Either way it's a strange name for a juice.

No matter what the name, this is one tasty juice. While it's not solely mango and passion fruit juice, it is still 100% juice with apple, white grape and pineapple filling out the missing space. It does taste more like a tropical fruit punch then it's namesake, and even though that is a bit of a disappointment at first the taste is more than good enough to make you forget your woes.