Dear Grandpa Lundquist,
I know we haven't seen each other in many, many years, but I needed to write you about something important. Despite being family, I think it's important that I am completely honest with you. I found a bottle of your "Christmas Soda" in the basement last night and drank it. Well, tried to drink it. Mom said it's called Julmust in Sweden and you used to trick her with it when she wanted a treat. I wish she had warned me before I took a big swig. If I knew it had barley and hops in it, I would have never taken it off the shelf. To quote a friend who I let try it, "it tastes like cough medicine, flat beer, and diet coke". While I've never tasted beer myself, I agree completely. My question to you is why would you make something so gross?

Thanks for the proverbial lump of coal.

Your disgusted grandson,
Derek

I went into this expecting it to be a standard grape soda. You know the kind that in reality tastes nothing like s fruit that grows on vines, but more like a weird unnatural flavor that has been pounded into our taste buds under the guise of grape. I was certain that this was a soda pop that I have had before, but after one sip I had to second guess myself. This is not your ordinary generic brand grape soda. I didn't have to look at the ingredients list to know that there was actually grape juice in this. It's not totally just sparkling grape juice (oh how I wish it were). It's more of as hybrid of grape juice and the previously mentioned fake grape flavoring. It may not be the ideal, but it's a lot better than Johnny No-Name soda. From jelly to soda, Welch's you've come a long way.

It is important to note that this is firstly cider and secondly cherry flavored. That is the way these types of drinks should be. A lot of flavored ciders use too much of the flavoring and it completely takes over the taste, and ruins a perfectly wonderful fall drink. Did I say this was a seasonal drink? Not anymore my friends. I've had cider "out of season" before and it has always left me disappointed. McCutcheon's has broken the mold as this has the most authentic apple cider flavor that I have ever tasted for mass consumption single serving bottles.

Also important is that the cherry flavoring actually tastes like cherries and not cold medicine. It's shocking what you can accomplish just by using actual fruit. This is of such a high quality that I would not have been surprised if I had discovered that it was made by Cherry Republic, and that means a lot in my world.

About five years ago Snapple released their "All Natural" line. I for one was ecstatic. It was around the time that I realized that if I drank beverages that were sweetened with corn syrup it would destroy my stomach (yes I am dumb and I still drink them sometimes). It was just before the big anti-HFCS boom, so having a new beverage I could enjoy without having to deal with some pain was greatly appreciated. Now that some time has passed they are expanding that line to include a few flavors that are "Lightly Sweetened."

This country sure loves its sugar. Even though this has less sugar than their normal version it is right to the limit of how sweet I think drinks should be allowed to be in an ideal world. It is by no means unsweetened, or even "Just a Tad Sweetened," like Honest Tea. It's pretty sweet, but I appreciate the effort in trying to wean the public off so much sweetness.

As far as the actual flavor goes, they certainly got this one right. The peach and passionfruit blend together perfectly, as if to make one new ultimate fruit. It also does not have an overly bitter flavor like white tea tends to have. It all just blends together very nicely.

Snapple, I like what you've done here and I'm excited to try the rest of this line.

I think the median price for energy shots right now is around $3. I rarely/never buy energy shots, but I'm always noticing them at checkout counters and if they were cheaper I would probably buy them more often to review. I'm guessing $3 is what they usually are because that's the price that makes me hesitate with drinks. If it's a root beer, cream soda, or cola that we haven't reviewed this hesitation goes away.

There wasn't any hesitation with this energy shot because it was 99 cents at Aldi. For those who don't have Aldi grocery stores in their town, it's the cheapest store around. If Dollar Tree expanded their food selection by 6 rows and added a cooler and freezer, it would basically be another Aldi store. Don't get me wrong, there's sometimes some great food for cheap there, but more often than not it's bottom of the barrel as far as quality.

With that said, I wasn't expecting much from this energy shot. It tastes exactly like cherry Nyquil. I recently was sick and had to take some so it's taste is fresh in my mind. It's not as thick (thankfully), and hopefully won't put me to sleep because I have a lot of work to do. I thought it was going to taste a lot worst, so I'm pleasantly surprised.

My buddy Dave said it best. His review of this drink was, "You can really taste the 11% sugar." This might be some of the sweetest coffee drink I've ever had. Jay, Dave, Editor Dan, and I went to a couple stores and just hung out all day. It would have been the same day we had when we were ten years ago. A couple small markets, clothing stores, the mall, and so on. Bunch of dudes hanging out. Oh, and Chili's. We all love Chili's. We easily co-drank two gallons of unsweetened blackberry tea that day.

Anyhow, we went to a favorite Asian market and did some shopping and this was one of the drinks we got. Dave got one as well as I and he drank his in the car. We spread it all around because we're all very good friends. Everyone's sentiments were all the same. It's too darn sweet. It's got a good iced black tea taste but the quantity of sugar will inevitably put the majority of this drink down the drain, on the parking lot next to you car where you bought it, rudely on some kid's head, on your table because you accidentally knocked it over forgetting there was still so much in there, or anywhere else that isn't down your gullet.

My boss, in an attempt to save his liver, is eating well. Very well. So well that he doesn't eat hamburgers, sandwiches, tacos, and pizza with us but instead he goes to the gym, rides a few miles on the bike and eats some fruit and sometimes comes back and drinks a protein drink. Today he had this and generously offered some to me.

First of all, I can't appreciate that "health" drinks have accepted the fact that everyone loves the flavors of junk food. I would say that "chocolate fudge" might be the most gluttonous flavor that has ever existed. No, eating chocolate fudge is not gluttonous and no I don't think less of you if you eat it. If I had some in front of me, it wouldn't be in front of me because it would be gone. I don't even care if that makes sense. You know what I mean. This drink is a gift to people losing weight, I'll tell you what. It tastes like a thick, chocolate milkshake and doesn't take a trip to Proteinburg for a couple seconds. Once we round the corner to that final destination, you get that slightly chalky, artificially sweetened taste but it's not terrible. It's expected so it doesn't catch you off guard.

My boss is more fit that me. He might be more fit than you. He's a big dude and lost a ton of weight in order to save his liver. I eat semi-poorly and he is not rubbing off on me. Sure, I would like to eat better and work out, become a hard bodied man of a man, but I don't have time for that. For now I'll eat poorly but eat less than my body wants. That's how I attack obesity; by malnutrition.

Nothing is more exhausting than a kid's birthday party. If you haven't been and are scoffing, I dare you to go to one and come home and not want to sleep. I dare you to go and not want to drive your car into oncoming traffic. It's not bad but if you have every been in close quarters with a seemingly infinite number of kids all making a mess of juice boxes and cake, you too will want it to be over before it began.

For that reason, I am happy that Jesus invented energy drinks and, more specifically, this one. I don't really like Red Bull. I use the same analogy of concentrated candy but it's what I taste. This, though, this is rather great. It's swapped candy for a good, slightly carbonated cranberry. It almost tastes like non-alcoholic cranberry juice. If you need to celebrate in around ten ounces at a time and don't have anyone to celebrate something with and need a pick-me-up then this is the drink for you. I know, I know, there are a lot of prerequisites for this drink, but you don't need to obey them all. I'm just trying to give you an ideal scenario to enjoy this drink. Honestly, you could enjoy this drink anywhere because it's very good. It actually makes me anxious to see what other new drinks Red Bull might come up with.

Walking through a truck stop I spotted this bottle, which looks more like an engine cleaner than a beverage. Even though it was in the cooler I had to double check to make sure I would not be poisoning myself by consuming it. It looks like too cheap of a grade of plastic to contain something edible.

To me the drink had a vague cough syrup scent to it, but my friends all said that the only thing they smelled was Pixie Stix. The taste was more in line with their diagnoses than mine. It essentially tastes like berry flavored sugar candy that was made with fake sugar. It's not wonderful, but it's not a deal breaker either. I just don't understand how drinks that have the polar opposite results (giving you tweeker energy and mellowing you out) can both have such a similar taste.

This had a weird effect on me. I drank it and within 15 minutes I passed out. 20 minutes of slumber passed and then my consciousness returned and I was completely awake for about 5 annoying minutes before I fell back asleep without warning. Luckily that time it lasted until morning.

I don't know what is happening to me, but lately I have found myself craving mocha. Either iced or hot will do, I just want to taste that flavor on my palate. As a non-coffee drinker I find this odd. I still find the idea of regular coffee uninviting.

The urge hit me today and I was lucky enough to be able to visit a Sheetz on my travels. Next to QT and Wawa, Sheetz is the third best gas station mini mart I have ever visited, and I've been to way more than any human ever really should. Even though we don't often review store brand beverages, I felt I owed it to them for being such a great little establishment.

The drink wasn't as great as I had expected it to me. I tasted things in this order: milk, sugar, chocolate and then coffee. It was more like sweetened chocolate milk than a coffee drink. Had some of the milk been replaced by a bit more coffee this would have been infinitely better. I also found myself wishing there was a little bit of salt in it. Seeing as I also have been finding myself craving salty chocolate that is not surprising. Someone should really get on making an iced mocha with sea salt. It would be a game changer.

Every once and then Turkey Hill iced teas used to pop up in Buffalo and I always found them to be a treat. Then Tops Markets started always carrying a few of the flavors and I found that once they were readily available, I hardly ever purchased them. I guess that is always the case with me. It's more about the game than the prize itself. Whoa, things just got a bit deep there...anyways since this stuff is based out of PA there are a bunch of Turkey Hill gas stations where their entire line is available. In the past I would have stocked up on all of them, but I only bought this single, smaller, bottle. The game has officially ended.

This is a heavily sweetened black tea (48g of sugar in 16oz) with some real orange juice mixed in. It tastes like a fairly even ratio. While I appreciate the use of real juice, and it does effect the flavor in a positive way, it seems like if they're going to make that effort, they should have used real sugar instead of corn syrup. The sweetener they chose gives the tea a cheap taste that is just unfortunate.

You may find yourself wondering what my new game is, and I can safely say that it is soft pretzels from Philly/Wawa. The amount of them I eat while there is enough to choke a baboon.

Let it be known that I am not a huge fan of NYC. It's dirty, a good majority of the people are rude, and I hate the idea of being a faceless identity in a sea of people. Two things the city does have going for it are a nice variety of veggie food and great drink selections sat all the corner stores. It's been awhile since I have been overwhelmed by what beverages store carry, but the bodega in which I found this chia tea did just that. I spent way too long making my selections, and this came out one of the victors.

If I had come across this s year ago my mind would have been blown, but since then a couple other companies have emerged that have used chia seeds in their beverages. I'm not talking down on this drink, because it is something I really enjoyed. It has a good semi sweetened peach green tea flavor. That alone would make it a drink that I would keep my eyes open before, but on top of that the chia seeds give it a nice unusual texture. They also make it more beneficial health wise as they boost omega 3 and 6, fiber and calcium.

On a side note you have to love that the seeds are the first item on the ingredients list. There are literally more seeds in here than beverage. Ridiculous.

The wonderful establishment Village Beer Merchant in Buffalo has put on tap another delicious soda from Flying Bison. My awesome partner surprised me with this growler and I couldn't have been happier. This is easily one of my favorite sarsaparilla's I've had so far. I wish it had a little more carbonation, but the sweetness is perfect. It has a great licorice taste, which prompted me to buy some black licorice the next day.

Good work Village Beer Merchant/Flying Bison, you've done it again. Thank you!

Ahh, the "other/weird" category of Thirsty Dudes. Most of the stuff isn't domestic so we have to travel and discover this stuff. This was quite the unexpected discovery, I must say.

I had a handful of people try this and here are some of the one sentence reviews that have been provided to me:

• It tastes like plastic.


• It tastes like grass.


• It tastes like pool water.


• I can't get past the texture.

I don't know what the flavor/ingredient of a"groud" and if I had to guess, I would fail. This drink is semi-gelatinous and really tastes like a goopy brown sugar drink. It's not at all offensive and is very smooth both in flavor and texture. It's not completely gross but I can understand how it is off-putting. It's a chunky drink and that is hard for people to take. It's not particularly great or even good. It's not bad, either. It's just kind of...there. It doesn't taste like much. Between that and the fact that most people just can't accept the texture, I can't give this a high rating. The texture caught me by surprise and I usually like stuff like this.

You know what's stopping this drink from being a good drink? The fact that it sucks. This drink tastes like sour apple plastic. If you had a book for kids that every page had a different smell and one of the pages smelled like sour apple, and then you ate it, this is what it would taste like: your child's book. Why are you eating your kids books? Why are you making drinks that taste like fruity flavored plastic? Why did this drink make it to production? Not every non-diet pop is still drinkable when you exchange real sugar for artificial sweeteners. Not everything we drink is a gem. This should be more acceptable than it is but surprise! We just found the reason why we found it for seventy cents.

I was thinking aloud today that it would be awesome if you could change the color of your pee. It is not gross. It's awesome. Obviously I wouldn't use a dye or anything not "natural" but I would like to use something like the things they use for food to make it a certain color. Carrot juice, beet juice, and so on. Concentrate the living daylights out of it, put it in a pill, sell it to kids, have them laugh as they pee purple. I would buy a year supply out of it and just drink so much water that I would pee every fifteen minutes.

Just as luck would have it, I would have this drink in the fridge queued up and ready to go. It's got all sorts of stuff in there for color and although I can almost guarantee that I'm not going to pee light pink, I am going to enjoy twelve fluid ounces of delicious and nutritious juice. A full day's vegetable and fruit servings in one with no added sugar and all the vitamin C a man can handle. This is great for this time of year when I could get a cold at any minute. I need all the help I can get. Now if someone can help me pee neon pink I would be ever so grateful.

I have to admit that my knowledge of Rio is solely that there is a giant statue of what I believe is Jesus and little tidbits that I picked up from reading Carioca Fletch. That's right, I so cultured that I've read a bunch of the books that spawned two of the funniest movies ever, and yes I did hear Chevy Chase in my head as I read them. Oh yeah, I also have some friends who have a cat named Rio. Does that count for anything? No? I didn't think so.

Okay, so I'm going into this with limited knowledge, but that knowledge has expanded now that I know that yerba mate is grown there. That alone gives the city a thumbs up from me. I love yerba mate. It has such a distinctive unique taste in the world of teas.

As Mike likes to point out in every review he does of a lemon flavored beverage, I am not a huge fan of the fruit. Sure I love lemonade, but just adding it to another beverage that is not solely lemon just doesn't do much for me. I'd have to say the same goes for this drink. I would have preferred it to be straight up tea, but I cannot deny that it tastes pleasant. I also know that there is a world of people out there who love the lemon flavor, so I won't hold it against this drink. It tastes exactly as it's advertised; just like you brewed a pot of yerba mate, mixed in some lemon juice (not too much) and put it in the fridge to cool down for an hour. If you are a fan of lemon iced teas, and are looking for something a bit different, look no further. The future awaits you.

VBlast is a terribly disgusting name for a company. Anything really. Just "Blast" would have been fine but as soon as you added the "V" in there, my mind only goes one place and it gets grozz. I just had to get that off my chest first.

Secondly, this is just juice. This tastes like cherry Kool-Aid. I know there is pomegranate allegedly in there but he is hiding and shouldn't be paid for his role in this drink. It's diet and zero calories and sucralose is not offensive so if you love kid juice and just can't get past the fact that it has like a trillion calories, here is a good supplement. Also, it's got vitamins in it so all of a sudden juice is healthy. Blows your mind with what science can do nowadays, right?

It's a good thing 7-11 isn't known for their lemonade, because this is a sad excuse for one of my favorite drinks. I don't know why I thought this would help my craving, high hopes perhaps? Nevertheless, I think I figured out 7-11's lemonade recipe:

10 parts water
1 part lemon juice
.005 sugar

The only thing I hate more than watered down lemonade, is flat soda. That doesn't make me dislike this lemonade less, but it makes me thankful that I'm not drinking flat soda.

When my ladyfriend was down in NC visiting her sister a few weeks ago, she sent me a message raving about the iced tea that she got at Bojangles (a fast food chicken place down in the bottom states). She also told me that had it bottled and she was going to bring me home some. When I saw it I was relived to find there was no cartoon chicken on the label trying to sell the product. There is something intermittently creepy about a chicken selling out his/her own kind in order to make a few bucks. I just want to grab their little feathers and shake the hell out of them and scream, “THEY ARE KILLING YOUR PEOPLE!” So yeah, good job on that guys.

Unfortunately they did not as good of a job making this tea. After taking a sip, my ladyfriend announced that this was completely different from what she drank in the restaurant. What she described as authentic southern sweet tea had now become a step above sweetened liquid plastic. There are no ingredients or anything listed on the bottle, so I can only assume they melted down some plastic, added some tea powder and a whole mess of sugar and bottled it. This is probably the single worst iced tea I have ever tasted.