Acerola cherries.  They're like cherries.  Just better.

The US Food & Drug Administration rates them as having more Vitamin C than any other fruit.  That's per ml rather than per fruit.  (They're pretty tiny.  Per fruit wouldn't be fair.)

Latin Name: Malpighia glabra

Sourced from: Vietnam

Found in: Rooibos & Acerola

The only cockney rhyming slang everyone knows.
Why is that?

It's also probably the first word on your primary school wall.  Maybe that's why?

We did a straw poll in the office and Braeburn was the top dog.  (I'm more partial to a Cox myself.)

Latin Name: malum (also means "bad" in the accusative.  we think.  Hmm)

Sourced from: All over the place

Found in: just about all our drinks

They're black.  And black is beautiful.

And they've been really hard to get hold of recently - total headache for poor old Richard in ops.

Latin Name: Ribes nigrum.

Sourced from: Scandinavia

Found in: Chill Out

We love blood oranges.

But the name's a disaster. 

Apparently, when they changed the name from "blood orange" to "red orange" in Denmark recently, sales shot up 70%.

Latin Name: Oh I don't know.

Sourced from: Sicily or Italy

Found in: Health Kick

Those of us of a certain generation can't think of "grape" without bursting out "Ooh I could crush a grape" in a (bad) Lancashire accent. 

Crackerjack - the subliminal inspiration for Firefly.

Latin Name: Vitis vinifera

Sourced from: Actually, as we use lots of grapes, all over the place, but mostly Southern Europe.

Found in: All our Firefly drinks.  Red grapes in Wake up.

Originally from Barbados, you know?

The latin name rather says it all. 

Latin Name: Citrus paradisi

Sourced from: Israel

Found in: Sharpen up

Much as we love redcurrants - the summer ritual of stripping the branches and getting your hands all red and telling Mum you've been in a fight - we've had a bit of a nightmare translating "redcurrant" for all our European labels. 

It turns out that there are actually several different types of redcurrant, and we just call them all "redcurrant", but Scandinavians have one type, and Germans have another, and they're actually all subtley different.

Ripe for some E.U. meddling, surely.

Latin Name: Ribes rubrum

Sourced from: England / Northern Europe

Found in:  Chill out

Lemon is an anagram of Melon.  We haven't made a drink with melons yet.  Perhaps when we do, we can call it Tedox.

Latin Name: Citrus something-or-other

Sourced from: Italy mainly

Found in: Practically all our drinks - lemons are pretty handy.  But especially Detox

Limes are the most acidic fruit.  Or at least lime juice made those little pH litmus tests go reddest when I was at school.  So limes were, like, dangerous. 

And of course, it was limes that British sailors took round the world to prevent scurvy.  So we got the nickname "limeys".  The secret ingredient turned out to be Vitamin C.  So the limeys became smiley.  What is this, pointless anagram day?

Latin Name: Citrus latifolia

Sourced from: Mexico mainly

Found in: Detox

They say danger heightens emotion.  So it's rather appropriate that, whilst the rich interior of the passionfruit is scrumptious enough to evoke "passion", the skin actually has traces of cyanide.

We use the interior bits.

Latin Name: Passiflora edulis

Sourced from: India and South Africa

Found in: Sharpen up

Plums seem weirdly old-fashioned: who'd ever bother doing a make-over for a fruit that grows so abundantly in English gardens that you have to pick them just to stop the branches falling off the tree?  

Then there are all those rhymes to play with plum pudding - tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor - and every boy at school always tried to end up with 5 stones. 
So shallow.

I think we must accept that, like plummy accents, plums will never be "cool".

Latin Name: Prunus

Sourced from: Europe

Found in: Watch this space

 

A French teacher I knew was once asked "Sir, what's a 'canne-a-pêche'?"

Without looking up from his desk, teacher mumbles, "can of peaches".

The boys in the class are puzzled.  What was the fisherman doing with his can of peaches?

Then some "clever clogs" looks the word up.  And, rather proudly, stands up and says "sir, I think you'll find it means fishing rod."

But don't you love this image of casting a can of peaches?   

Latin Name: Prunus persica

Sourced from: Southern Europe.

Found in: Wake up

Pomegranates get all the love.

The ancient Persians, the Greeks, even the prophet Mohammed praised them.

And now scientists are joining in - pomegranates are the new antioxidant wunderkind.  The whole worlds' having a pomegranate love-fest.

It'd be crazy not to join in...

Latin Name: Punica granatum

Sourced from: Asia

Found in: Watch this space

Rosehips are the pretty red fruits you get on roses.

If you pick one, you'll find the skin's crunchy and bitter, and inside you get these little hairs that make excellent itching powder.  Not ideal.

But they're very rich in Vitamin C - so we had to get them in somehow.

Latin Name: Rosa

Sourced from: Eastern Europe

Found in: Watch this space