Gettin' the juice

You know, if you can't get a decent apple juice at a place called APPLEbee's, where can you get a decent apple juice?

News item: The Applebee's restaurant chain says it's changing the way it serves juice after a toddler was mistakenly given a small amount of alcohol at a Detroit-area location.

The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News report that Applebee's will pour juice for children from single-serve containers at the table starting this week. Applebee's also plans to retrain workers.

Madison Heights police say the drink mislabeled as apple juice was actually a leftover mixed drink combination.

Fifteen-month-old Dominic Dill-Reese's mother ordered her son a kid's meal and asked for apple juice as the beverage Friday afternoon. Dominic was checked out by doctors, and the family was told the child's blood alcohol level was .10 percent. That's over the legal limit for an adult driver.

Dominic is expected to be OK.

So, what does this mean?  Some gozzlehead in Madison Heights MI poured an AJ for a 15-month-old and couldn't tell the difference between applejack and apple juice.  Now, in order to reassure anxious Moms in Detroit and across the nation, the waitron will show up at your table with a clearly marked single-serve portion and decant it before your very eyes.  And every single person who works for the Applebee chain will have to attend a mandatory "This is Apple Juice  -and this is NOT Apple Juice" training class. 

Just as long as it isn't Beech-Nut Apple Juice.  Moms with long memories will remember when that firm was caught selling artificially-flavored sugar water as apple juice.  A guy from the firm, ironically named the Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation, went to the Ironbar Hilton for a year and a day, and another bigwig did six months of community service.  I hope he had to hand out Kool Aid in a day care center.  And the Beech-Nuts paid a $2.2 million fine, too. 

I have an idea!  Why not stay home and have breakfast there?  Go to a farm stand, get some cider that you know is pure, and live it up.  And then your kid won't want one of those t-shirts that say, "I went to Applebee's for breakfast and all I got was a buzz!"