Essence - 5 Reviews

I love that Sparkling Ice is taking a step back from sucralose, well at least with their Essence line. I just could not get into the dietness of it all. These new ones though have been mostly pretty great. It's just flavored seltzer water, but the flavors have been good, up until now. This isn't bad per say, but it really teeters on the “tastes like a cleaner” line of things. I feel like everyone involved in the lemon industry should file a class action lawsuit against household cleaners because they have ruined a once great fruit. I feel like the world used to embrace lemon in all its forms, but now folks are reminded of cleaning chemicals and it's a turn off. Big money could be made. Big, big money.

Once you get past the association, this isn't bad. I could do with a tad bit more lime, but I'm always going to want more of that. It's not really a flavor for me, but I wouldn't dump it down the drain.

Back to basics. I can't tell you how refreshing seltzer is after some of the crap we drink. Look, nothing we drink is literal crap or figurative crap. Everyone puts their hearts into the products they put out but come one, after 4600 reviews, we have earned the right to start calling things "crap."

This is great. It's pure simplicity. Water, bubbles and peach. I assume they have some sort of vat of peaches just stewing all their Georgia essence into some tube mechanism that sucks up the scent, injects it into water by way of science/witchcraft and then stores the vapors for someone lucky enough to drink it.

If you like seltzer, this is just seltzer. They can call it whatever fancy name they want. It's sparkling water with flavor. La Croix? Polar? The other one? Same deal, bro. Same deal. It's all great seltzer.

Do you like water? Do you like having your throat itched by tiny bubbles? Are you sick of sugar? Then here you go. This is simply carbonated water and there's not much to it, because there is not supposed to be. Enjoy.

I have to come clean. I have had a handful of new flavors that Sparkling Ice sent me sitting in my fridge for a little while now. Every time I would open up the drawer to choose a drink they would be staring right back at me and I haven't had it in me to taste a zero calorie sweeter tainted drink. Tonight I decided t finally give in and deal with that nonsense on my tongue and what is that? The Essence line isn't sweetened at all. They are all just seltzer water. This instantly made my night better. I expected to take a few small sips and introduce the rest of the bottle to my sink drain, but now I can sip it throughout the night and enjoy it.

This is fairly lightly flavored. It just has slight hints of citrus, which happen to be tangerine. A lot of sparkling waters, sweetened or otherwise tend to go pretty strong on the flavoring, but this is subtle. I could do with a little more, but I do like what they are going for. I also like that this doesn't taste like sucralose and my taste buds would like to express their thanks as well.

PREVIOUSLY ON THIRSTY DUDES: (Insert montage of how I thought the green tea Chai Elixir. It's highly dramatized and leaves you on a cliffhanger).

Now that we're all brought up to speed I wonder what excitement this week will bring us. Oh this time around it is white tea with a little bit of white peach nectar thrown into the mix like some quasi interesting secondary character. I have to say that yet again Chai Elixir has delivered something interesting. The chai isn't as strong in this variety, but I'm okay with that. It's mostly white tea with hints of peach around the edges. There's some extra spices in there, but they are more subtle notes than a full on flavor. I don't think a higher level of chai would really have worked well with the peach so a wise choice was made.

I must warn people that these drinks are not your everyday soda. They are unique and are made for sipping and pondering, not just mindlessly gulping them down. So go in with an open mind and you can go on an interesting little trip. Speaking of trips I hear they are going to Asia next week to work with oolong tea.