Done Hiding Their Shameful Secret, Pickle-Juice Drinkers Go Public
By Julie Jargon
‘I am a closeted pickle-juice drinker,’ says Dawn Crosswhite. Photo: Dawn Crosswhite
Nikki Ashton West of Evadale, Texas, has gone to great lengths to hide her habit of drinking pickle juice.
“I have to sneak around,” says Ms. Ashton West, 19, “and go brush my teeth right afterwards.”
Her brother, Travis Keith, remembers one Fourth of July family gathering when he suspected she was furtively sipping from a jar of Vlasic dills.
“I was putting pickles on my burger, like a regular person,” says Mr. Keith, 22, “and when I came back for seconds, the juice was gone. It was a brand-new jar.” She had a Diet Coke, which he knew she didn’t drink. He investigated by sniffing the can.
It was pickle juice. “I was like, ‘This is sad.’ ”
our reactions have long driven an untold population of Americans to swig the stuff covertly. “I am a closeted pickle-juice drinker,” says Dawn Crosswhite, 51, a therapist and clinical-social-work professor in Denver, who recently admitted her habit to friend Millete Birhanemaskel.
“I thought I knew my friend,” says Ms. Birhanemaskel, 37, a Denver coffee-shop owner who said the idea is disgusting. “What else don’t I know?”
But now there’s hope. People who privately partake of pickle juice are finding it easier to go public, thanks to endurance sports. Athletes have discovered its electrolyte-replenishing qualities can be a savory alternative to sports drinks. There are more than 33,000 Instagram posts containing “#picklejuice,” many showing people chugging the stuff.
Ms. Crosswhite, a triathlete, has been stealing sips since childhood. A few months ago, a friend offered her what looked like a small energy shot containing pickle juice after a grueling bike ride in the Colorado Rockies.
“I thought, ‘Oh thank God, now I have a place to drink this,’ ” she says. “That little jar in a strange way validates that it’s OK to drink pickle juice.”
Devotees say they like pickles but like the juice even more because it satisfies a salt craving they can’t quite explain. Some gulp with pickles still in the jar, irking nondrinkers. When Mr. Keith went for more pickles at the July Fourth picnic, they were so dry from his sister’s quaffing the fluid that they resembled pickle chips, he says. “She could have waited until the pickles were gone.”
Katie Cerniglia, a Los Angeles podcast producer, tweeted at pickle purveyor Claussen to sell jars of juice without the pickles. Kraft Heinz Co. , maker of Claussen and Heinz pickles, says it is aware people drink the fluid but doesn’t plan to sell jars of it.
Katie Cerniglia prefers Claussen dill-pickle juice. Photo: Katie Cerniglia
spokeswoman for Vlasic maker Pinnacle Foods Inc. says: “We are not actively promoting drinking pickle juice, but if it’s healthy and it sells more pickles, we’re all for it.”
Other food makers are tapping the trend with pickle-juice soda, pickle-juice candy canes and pickle-juice ice pops. Sonic Drive-In introduced a pickle-juice slush this month.
Delayla Bess, 18, a high-school graduate near Seattle, grew up thinking it was normal to sip from the pickle jar. Her mom and other relatives do it, after all.
When Sonic offered its slush, she tweeted: “DID I HEAR PICKLE JUICE SLUSHIES???? I LOVE LIFE.” She says: “My friends were like, ‘Wait, you actually like pickle juice?’ ”
Sonic Pickle Slush Photo: Sonic
Sonic Corp. executives got the idea during a 2016 trip to Austin, Texas, where they were scouting for frozen-drink trends and noticed dill-pickle-juice offerings at snow-cone stands. The base of Sonic’s slush is sweet, turning off some purist pickle-juice fans who prefer the sour notes, says Scott Uehlein, Sonic’s vice president of product innovation and development.
He understands why connoisseurs sip in secret, says Mr. Uehlein, who says he doesn’t drink it himself but likes the slush version. “I can tell you, if I was going to drink pickle juice at my house, I would probably have to do so behind closed doors because my wife would look at me like I’m crazy.”
Some bartenders use pickle juice in place of olive juice in dirty martinis. A drink called the “pickleback” involves chasing whiskey with a shot of pickle juice and is served at bars across the country, from Austin, Texas, the alleged birthplace of the drink, to Los Angeles. The Crocodile Lounge in New York’s East Village serves it with a twist: a spicy pickle brine that contains Tabasco sauce.
When Niles Abston, 23, first saw Ms. Cerniglia of Los Angeles drink pickle juice at the catering company where they once worked, he asked her whether she was pregnant. He says: “It’s just weird.”
Who drank the juice?
Ms. Cerniglia, 29, says other friends, too, have shamed her, but she doesn’t care. She is, however, particular about her daily drink, which must be Claussen dill—“none of that bread-and-butter garbage”—from the refrigerated pickle section.
Ms. Bess says she doesn’t discriminate between dill and sweet. Ms. Crosswhite prefers Claussen dill juice because the sweet kind “doesn’t give me the same jolt.”
Ms. Ashton West says she usually buys Mt. Olive Pickle Co. dills. The company gets requests to sell its juice alone, says a spokeswoman, but the fluid without the pickles to balance it would be too strong. “We suggest people blend the pickles and the juice in a blender and strain it to make their own.”
Nutritionist Bonnie Taub-Dix says too much pickle juice could be a bad thing for people with high blood pressure or some pregnant women, given the high sodium content. “I wouldn’t drink pickle juice as you would your morning juice,” she says. “A shot glass is probably OK.”
Michael Chiappini, 45, a software developer in Parker, Colo., craves pickle juice only when he runs. During a 24-hour race in Las Vegas, he brought a large jar and took a big swig when he went through his campsite during each 5-mile loop, leaving the pickles in place. For him, it’s strictly a sports drink. “Would I just drink it out of the fridge? No.”
Some athletes pooh-pooh pickle juice. During the recent training ride, Ms. Crosswhite says, other riders ribbed her for drinking it. “There were a few riders that were like, ‘Ew that’s so gross, how can you do that?’ ”
Kayla Ferguson, 28, a Denver corporate-event planner, didn’t like the juice until she got into a pickle during the last leg of a 100-mile Utah race. After mile 65, her legs were cramping, her feet hurt and she felt nauseated. Someone suggested she throw back some of the briny stuff—she rallied and placed third.
“Now,” she says, “I will go nowhere without pickle juice.”
