APPLE ‘JUICE CRAZY’

$10 fruit drinks

Cronuts and cupcakes are so yesterday.

The latest craze in the Big Apple is juice bars that charge 24carat prices for a small cup of liquefied vegetables and fruits.

The bars, seemingly almost as ubiquitous as Starbucks, also allow customers to add such exotic extras as bee pollen, chlorophyll and wheat grass.

The drinks come with names like “Curvy Carrot,’’ “Green Goddess,’’ and “Mean Green.’’

New York is not America’s only juicecrazed city.

Last year, juice bars raked in $1.3 billion nationwide, according to Crain’s.

“I can buy a crate of blueberries at Trader Joe’s and honey and greens for a lot less and make it myself,” said Paul Sachs, who nevertheless spent $7 on a juice Sunday afternoon.

“For the money I spent on this, I could have made two or three at home.”

But that’s not too bad. Some places pulverize their customers’ wallets by charging more than $10 for a slurpable drink.

“I went through a phase where I was spending $8 to $9 every morning for a juice,” said Christina Houghton, 30, a patron of Liquiteria in the East Village.

The bar’s most popular drink is the Mean Green, which mixes mango, bananas and pineapple with kale and spinach.

Cecilia Mezulic estimates she spends up to $30 a week in the bar.

“I’m willing to spend the money because I think it’s good for me,’’ she said.

Liquiteria manager Jovan Navario said, “It was a trend, but now it’s a business.

“It’s a fad that has become a norm. It’s definitely going to bloom and continue to grow.”

Karen Friedman of Pittsburgh, who’s visiting her son in New York, said that when she’s home, she makes her own juices.

Fortunately, she came to New York prepared. She has an app that guides her to all the juice bars in the city.

She tried one of them, Organic Avenue, on 20th Street and Broadway, where she got her daily juice fix.

“There’s no way to eat all the greens we need in a day to keep our bodies healthy,’’ she said. But, she pointed out, you can drink them.

“This is the way to do it,’’ she said.