Mondo Fruit Squeezer (Jel-Sert, $1.99 a six-pack): This stuff’s fruity but not sickeningly sweet. The short 8-ounce bottle fits easily in lunch bags. The drink, the cheapest we found, comes in six slick flavors, like Global Grape and Primo Punch. It’s an A+. Look for it and the others at grocery and discount stores.
Kool-Aid Bursts (Kraft General Foods, $2.15 a six-pack): You’ll find eight of Kool-Aid’s most popular flavors, like Great Bluedini and Incrediberry, packed into these 6.75-ounce bottles. They’re way, way sweet and fakey tasting, but kids who like liquid sugar might just suck them down. We give them a C-.
Gelooze (Betty Crocker, $2.59 a six-pack): Ugh. The only kids we found who liked these were really young, like 3 and 4. The 7.25-ounce drink comes in four basic flavors, like Orange and Cherry. It’s goopy, and if you freeze it, the stuff won’t come out until it totally melts. As a drink it’s an F. (But hey, you might like it as candy.)
Squeezit 100 (Betty Crocker, $2.79 a six-pack): These are decent and fruity-tasting, and you have three flavors to pick from: Caped Grape, Acrobat Apple and Pilot Punch. They’re all made of real fruit juice and have 6.75 fluid ounces in each bottle. We give it a B, since it costs more than the others and you get less than with most of them.
