This month Reality Tea is bringing you the first of an all-new series – The Booze ‘N’ Book Club. With zillions of reality stars – and new ones popping up every second – and each one with something to sell, we here at Reality Tea decided to test out some of these fetes of literary greatness. And what goes better with books that are badly written than cocktails? So we thought we’d try something fun and review some of these gems!
Each month Reality Tea will be reviewing both a book and a cocktail. This month we kick off with Bethenny Frankel, the queen of reality star promotions and the inventor of the Bravo Home Shopping Network. Coincidentally, Bethenny also has several books and several boozes. We all know she became famous with her grandmother’s diet plan (taste food, don’t engorge yourself – hello 1950) and the Skinnygirl Margarita, but Bethenny has been a busy little bee building an empire of readables and imbibables.
The latest Skinnygirl cocktail to break forth from her, I mean BeamGlobal’s, loins is Skinnygirl White Cranberry Cosmo and of course Bethenny just published her first “novel,” which has already shimmied up the NY Times Bestseller list. In honor of all of Bethenny’s accomplishments and her hard work hawking anything she can find, we salute you with a review!
CLICK THE CONTINUE READING BUTTON TO READ OUR REVIEW!
THE BOOZE:
First up, Skinnygirl White Cranberry Cosmo, which tastes like neither cosmo nor white cranberry (is that a real thing?). Now, I must admit I’ve had the margarita and while I didn’t think it was disgusting, I’ve had much better. But it was in a bottle… so what does one expect? Since BeamGlobal and their billions, along with their billions of mixologists, bought her out I expected some stellar improvements in the ladydrink department.
And this is what I have to say: If you like Boone’s Farm – you’ll love this. White Cranberry Cosmo is sweet. Like burn your throat sweet and after one tasting ( I had to do several for research purposes, of course) I was already getting that sticky throat syndrome that also comes from drinking too much Smirnoff Ice. Hey – it was college!
Now there’s a few nice things about the drink – I didn’t have to do any work but open the bottle – but, then again, wine also has that advantage. And now that there’s twist-off wine bottles… Also, it smelled pretty good. Kinda like gingerale. Which is a nice smell.
As for the taste, there wasn’t much of one. It was pretty hollow, artificial, and one-note. I could see drinking a glass of this at a party, but I couldn’t handle it for more than one go.
The other issue I had with the drink was the supposed low-cal aspect of it. It’s 35 calories for 1.5 oz according to the bottle and it contains 10% alcohol. A real cosmo has 215 calories for 4oz (according to the interwebs) and contains 40% alcohol. So if you are looking to get tipsy, as some of you are wont to be, you have to drink four times the amount of Skinnygirl White Cranberry Cosmo. Which negates the whole low-cal thing.
Now, if you’re looking to sip on something or have a drink or two, you’ll definitely save some caloric intake, but wine is way better and so is plain ol’ vodka soda with lime. This is the genius of Bethenny’s marketing mastermind – a really lame tasting drink is making her millions. I’ll be bottling unicorn pee next week.
RATING: If you simply must have a drink and absolutely nothing is available. Or if you’re at a party and the hostess serves it, thereby forcing you to drink it – by all means, do. Don’t waste your money.
THE BOOK:
Moving on to Bethenny’s novel. Which really is a memoir with names changed to protect the embarrassed innocent. Skinnydipping is the story of Faith Brightstone and her adorable dog, Muffin. Sound familiar? I thought so. Faith, intrepid wannabe actress, is struggling in the wilds of LA trying to make it big in show business. Of course, like millions of young women before her – times are tough, but they are also filled with zany adventures!
Faith drops out of NYU (again, sound familiar?) and hung-over, hops a plane to LA, where she has her heart broken, her professional ambitions slashed, and her friendships destroyed. She has one dream, ok two: To fall in love and to make it big in business. After years of working a series of odd jobs, that are supposed to be leading to better things, but ultimately leave her professionally uninspired she starts planning Hollywood parties and learning about culinary arts. In between she has a series of demented diets and failed romances which leave her jaded.
After it all Faith finds herself the first runner-up on a reality show called Domestic Goddess where she is set to skyrocket her business upon winning the title. Sadly, she loses and finds herself back in New York, depressed and no closer to success than she started. Luckily a drink making challenge from the show inspires her to start crafting mojitos called Have Faith Pink Lemonade Mojitos. And she discovers she has fans and opportunities!
Faith’s story is a little different from Bethenny’s. For one, her relationship with her mother seems to be more positive, as her mom attends her wedding. Secondly, she develops a relationship with the Martha Stewart character from Domestic Goddess, post-show, and she marries her son, Harris. Of, course she is pregnant with a daughter while walking down the aisle. Faith and her new hubby also opt not to put their lives on film for a new reality show – which may be Bethenny’s way of admitting she wished she and Jason hadn’t agreed to film their own marriage.
Here’s the thing, this book isn’t exactly well-written; I would put it in the “beach read” category, but it’s fun and light-hearted and it has a frank nature about it. The storytelling is a little winding and anyone who knows anything about Bethenny knows this is her life story. But whatever, I didn’t hate it and it was about what I expected – a dishy, silly, fluff book with some funny bits.
Bethenny’s novel continues with the ‘say anything’ attitude that she inhabits and it gives a lot of insights on how she perceives people and her life. If you’re on a plane or want a good vacation read, it’s not too terrible – it’s actually kinda fun. I’m surprised I’m saying this, but it was a helluva a lot better than the cocktail!
RATING: Buy it on sale, borrow it from the library or a friend, or if you’re desperate at the airport. Don’t take too seriously.
Next Month’s Challenge: Next month we challenge you, dear readers, to review our selected Booze ‘N’ Book. For June, we will be featuring Teresa Giudice‘s newest cookbook Fabulicious!: Fast & Fit and her signature drink, Fabellini.
Grab the book or the booze – or both – test them out and write your review. Keep them snarky, fun, and fresh – this is Reality Tea here – and be honest! Also, photos of you at your booze tasting or with the book are welcome! Reality Tea will also be reviewing the products, but we’d like to include our amazing readers in the fun!
The best reviews will be featured on the site! Send your reviews to [email protected] by May 25th and title them Booze ‘N’ Books June Review! Make sure to include the name you’d like your review published under – just in case you win!
Also, if you have a reality star’s booze or book you’d like to suggest for review, please let us know. It doesn’t have to be a Bravolebrity – we know the famewhore tendencies to product hawk extend to any and all networks!
HAVE YOU TRIED WHITE CRANDBERRY COSMO – THOUGHTS? HAVE YOU READ SKINNYDIPPING – THOUGHTS?
