Review: Light Lab Epcot 2018 Food and Wine Festival

We continue from Coastal Eats.

The Light Lab, brought to you by the Lord of Light, returns to this year’s Festival.

You’ll find it in the same building as the Mickey/Minnie/Goofy Character Spot Meet and Greet.

There are a couple of different things going on over here. In this corridor is where you’ll find the draft beer and cider selections.

This year, there are three ciders and three beers on offer:

As a reminder, each individual beer/cider is six ounces, while the flight arrives with three 4-ounce cups. That means the individual pours cost 70.8 cents per ounce, while the per-ounce price as part of the flights is 75 cents. This is obviously not a big difference – 50 cents across 12 ounces – but it’s worth noting since the flights seem like a good deal outright and are actually more expensive on a per-ounce basis.

Cider Flight – $9

With Original Sin Dry Rosé Hard Cider, 3 Daughters Brewing Blueberry Peppercorn Hard Cider, and Ciderboys Zen Berry Hard Cider

That’s it in the front. It probably looks about like what you would expect.

I’m not a huge cider person, but I was impressed by the Original Sin Dry Rosé Hard Cider. It’s a dry, pretty light pink cider that comes in at 6.5% ABV, juicy, crisp, and refreshing with a pleasant tart quality.

The 3 Daughters Brewing Blueberry Peppercorn Hard Cider may be exclusive to the Festival with a lot more artificial blueberry flavor than anything else backed up by just a smidgen of peppery spice on the back end. I wouldn’t commit to a 6-pack, but it’s worth trying as part of the flight.

The Ciderboys Zen Berry Hard Cider is the sweetest of the bunch – I would have liked more of the tart boysenberry, but it enjoys a crisp finish with plenty of apple.

If you’re interested in trying three very different ciders, all on tap, this is a good introduction. You might discover something that you didn’t know you enjoy, which is part of what these types of Festivals are all about.

RGB Flight – $9

With Playalinda Brewing Co. Red Cherry Tart, GrassLands Brewing Company Green Kiwi Blonde, M.I.A. Beer Company Blue-berry Golden Ale

The RGB Flight is clever this year with one red, one green, and one blue beer. Maybe next year we’ll enjoy 8-bit and 16-bit flights with eight and sixteen beers, respectively.

The Playalinda Brewing Co. Red Cherry Tart tasted a lot closer to a hard cherry soda than a beer, playing sweet and tart evenly in a cup where four ounces was more than plenty. On the plus side, it didn’t taste medicinal at all, which is a feat with anything cherry-related.

It seems fitting that the GrassLands Brewing Company brews a green beer in the Green Kiwi Blonde. Unfortunately, there’s not much going on beyond the vivid green color – it tasted mostly of skunk and rotten fruit. It might have something to do with the keg, but nobody was in a rush to try a second sip.

The M.I.A. Beer Company Blue-berry Golden Ale was just fine with a sweet blueberry flavor backed up by grass and sugar.

Overall, this flight has novelty going for it more than anything, but as far as I can tell, each of these is unique to the Festival. It might be worth trying just to say you did, but don’t expect to taste anything that you’d be too excited to see again.

Heading inside, the Light Lab is dark, air-conditioned, and neon.

I suggest visiting in the late afternoon or evening as things get backed up earlier in the day.

It seems like Electric Umbrella is banking on the fact that your brain will not do this.

Inside, when it’s busy, there are typically two separate lines. One line is for the drinks without the “show.”

The other line is for the complete experience, which typically includes watching some of the ingredients funnel down the various apparatuses.

Phosphorescent Phreeze or Phlight  – $7

As I write this on the morning of September 5th, “not hungover,” Light Lab is apparently out of these branded laboratory flasks and are instead serving the three frozen slushes as part of a “phlight.”

Otherwise, this is a fun little drink that’s served with this experiment card.

Be sure to grab one of the branded “magnifying glasses.”

Considering Disney charges $5 for a standard “Blue Raspberry Frozen Beverage,” it’s worth ordering one of these if you’re interested in the souvenir flask and they have them in stock. The three flavors here are incredibly sweet with a strong artificial flavor. I usually like these sorts of things now and again, but this was too much.

With the souvenir cup:

Taste: 2/10

Value: 9/10

Here’s a look at the “Phlight,” which is served with the flavors each in their own small plastic cup with a souvenir glow cube on the bottom. If you’re after some glow cubes to take home then there is some value here, but otherwise you’ll probably want to skip this.

InfraRED – $3.75

I honestly have no idea what was going on with this drink. It tasted like Sprite and then there was a vial of more sugar to pour in and then it tasted like really, really sweet Sprite.

Taste: 1/10

Value: 0/10

UltraVIOLET – $3.75

This could just as easily be the InfraRED – they’re virtually indistinguishable in how much I’m disgusted by them. I wonder if you could find anyone, at any level of planning the Food and Wine Festival, that would take a sip of this and be like, “Yeah, we should probably serve this to kids for about tree fiddy.”

If “the ability to taste helps keep humans alive,” then we would all be dead after trying this drink.

You might have 10,000 tastebuds now, but you’re going to wish you had zero after trying this drink.

Where does “tastes bad” fall on the chart.

Anyway, you will regret purchasing either of these two drinks. Even calling them “drinks” is offensive to other drinks.

Taste: -5/10

Value: $3.75 to spend elsewhere.

Bleu Spectrum: Blanc de Bleu Cuvée Mousseux with Boba Pearls – $9

It seems sort of silly to serve a blue sparkling wine in the only area at Epcot where you can’t actually tell that the wine is blue. But here we are. This is actually a pretty decent sparkling wine – crisp with a delicate blueberry flavor and a dry finish. The boba balls are kind of fun if you’re into the whole slurping thing. If you’re just after the wine, ask for the balls on the side.

Taste: 8/10

Value: 8/10

Overall, you might bring your beer flight from outside in here as the space is kind of neat. And even if the walls were bare and it was lit like a hospital waiting room, it would still be air-conditioned, which makes it a better place to be than most of the outdoor spaces in World Showcase in Florida in September. The Phosphorescent Phreeze is worth picking up when they have the flask in stock and the sparkling wine drink is fun, but the non-alcoholic drinks are way too sweet to be enjoyed by anyone over the age of nine.