The Spicy Red Drink That's The Perfect Blend Of Juice And Soup

The language you use to describe food can have a degree of subjectivity. For example, there's some room for opinion in what you call a burger and what you call a sandwich, what differentiates an appetizer from an entree, and what separates a casserole from a stew. Just to muck up objective standards even more, this spicy red drink may cause you to question and redefine what makes something a juice or a soup.  

The idea of drinking soup isn't that novel. Pack World points out how Campbell's introduced a hand-held container for many of its soups in 2002, and the company insists you can drink the Swanson broths it produces (via Campbell's). On the contrary, if you want to slurp some of these five juices you should be drinking with a spoon, there's no law against that.

Even with simple ingredients and a straightforward blending process, these various spicy red drinks ride a complicated thin line between being a juice and a soup. If you're looking for an answer, it may not be as clear-cut as you'd like.

This spicy red drink will have gazpacho lovers smiling as its ingredients are similar to those in a classic gazpacho recipe, according to Serious Eats. There's red bell pepper, carrot, tomato juice, garlic, and fresh horseradish to bring the heat. There's also room to branch out in your red-drink exploration with the following recipes. Food recommends a mixture of apples, cucumber, pineapple, ginger root, plus beet to provide the dark red color. There's also a spicy tomato vegetable juice from The Blender Girl that includes a mix of green onions, kale, parsley, red bell pepper, tomatoes, and cayenne pepper to kick it up a notch.

But, are these drinks juice or soup? According to Culinary Debates, soups contain ingredients like proteins and starches, creating a broth, whereas juices come straight from fruit and vegetables. The Outline also once considered whether soup is a beverage or a food dish, pointing out that a key differentiation is whether you would normally consume it with a straw or not. The bottom line seems to be that there's a lot of room for interpretation.

You will need a juicer to prepare these red drinks, no matter what you call them. After you prepare them, if someone looks at your concoctions and asks whether they're juice or soup, you can simply respond, yes.