Deep in the heart of the rainforests of Canada the Black River flows. It is an anomaly of the country. Every fruit ever imaginable grows on the banks of this river. Who knew that tropical fruit could grow just north of Moosejaw, Saskatchewan? On the southern banks of the river is where the guava orchard exists. Unfortunately the ground isn't very suitable for this plant, so the fruit it bears is not as wonderful from that that grows in reality. The Canadians aren't ones to waste anything so they still decided to bottle the mediocre juice.

I wish that were the actual case, but the downfall of this juice is that it is more of a mixture of grape and apple juice than it is guava puree. The other juices take away from the exquisiteness that is guava. It's a shame for sure.

A few months ago when Dr. B's emailed us to tell us about their microbrewed teas I was very excited. It's no secret that Mike and I love a good tea, and if microbrewing could do to iced tea what it did for root beer, then everyone was in for a good time.

Dr B's obviously cares about the quality of their tea. They took the effort to use quality ingredients and brew them in a special way. By all means this should have been one heck of a beverage. The thing is the company had a lapse in their judgment. They wanted a healthy tea, so they went with a zero calorie sweetener. In that instant all of their hard work went out the window. I understand wanting to have a healthy drink available, but I wish they would have taken it the other way and not added a sweetener at all. There is monk fruit in all their teas and that would have given them a slight sweetness, which is all it would need. Unfortunately they went the Xylitol route and that cold sweetness is the most prevalent flavor in the mix. I really have nothing against natural zero calorie sweeteners, I just think that when companies decide to use them, they should use a smaller amount so it's not so overpowering. This could have been great, but instead it's hard to finish.

It seemed like everyone was either out of town or had plans yesterday so I started my winter ritual of wasting my time playing video games a bit early. Since my ladyfriend was one of the people that were out of town, the cats and I had the apartment to ourselves. I played far too many hours of Final Fantasy, until I got a call that Mike was available and he wanted me to come over and play even more video games. I swear outside of a couple of winter months I rarely if ever play these things. We ended up playing Home Run All Stars Derby for far too long and laughed way too much.

Since the day was filled with electronic fun I decided I needed to imbibe an appropriate beverage. My good friend Kevyn gave me this soda and this seemed to be the perfect time for it. The description of the can proclaims it to be a “citrus wired cherry soda” aka cherry soda with caffeine in it. I suspected it to taste like Mountain Dew Code Red, which it did, but much better. The base is like a cherry soda with a light Mountain Dew taste to it, but the kicker is that there is also orange in there as well. That's what sets the drink off, and gives you these weird orange burps afterwards. I was just struck by the vision of actually being able to see burps exiting someone's mouth and them having an orange tint to them. Strange times.

You would think that a drink that has little slimy chia seeds in it would have a lot to say about itself, but when I put my ear to this bottle all I hear is faint murmurs. The flavors in this line are tame at best. I guess there is nothing wrong with that. Some people want something that is only lightly flavored and this is a drink for them. Hell, I love lightly flavored unsweetened tea; it's one of my favorites. I just can't seem to get behind this. It's like you got a glass of water at a restaurant and they squeezed lemon slices instead of one, but instead of lemon it was equal amounts of strawberry and orange juice. That's about the extent of the flavor. If you take that and dump in a couple hundred chia seeds (that are essentially flavorless) you get this drink.

Would you look at that bottle? Seriously, just look at it. It's a work of art. This is the type of bottle that draws me into the fancy beer section even though I don't drink. Now Mike hands me a sparkling cider (that is pumpkin flavored no less) and tells me that it's safe for consumption. Well I am one happy camper. My letters home to mom won't be full of tears this time around. The kicker is that Mike found this in the most unlikely of places: Aldi. That's right, a budget, cost effective store has the fanciest bottle of cider I have ever set my eyes on.

When I popped the top, oh and how the top popped, I took a big sniff and was concerned to note that it smelled of Worchester sauce with some spices in it. My expectations fell through the floor. I had a friend smell it as well and he said he had a similar reaction. Oh well, down the hatch it went. I felt weird drinking this from the bottle, as I felt like I should pour it into a fancy glass, but you do what you have to do, and I had to try this instantly. Luckily the scent had nothing to do with the flavor at all. It's labeled as a pumpkin cider, but it's really just a nicely spiced apple cider with a tiny bit of pumpkin flavor mixed in. It's probably for the best, as I could see too much pumpkin being over powering. The best part of the flavor is that cinnamon isn't the prime spice like it normally is in cider. It's there, but it's not the all-powerful Oz or anything like that. If I had to pick a prominent “spice” it would have to be ginger. There's no burn to it (oh god that would have been the best. Simply the best. Better than all the rest.) but the flavor of ginger is there and I love Nature's Nectar for it. I also love them because I would expect this to be around the $4/$5 mark, but I looked online and it's only $2. I'm going to have to pick a couple up before the season is over.

I hate to always bring reviews of drink such as this back to this company, but this tastes like a diet Vitamin Water. Sure there are dozens of other companies I could compare it too, but I think most people are more familiar with Vitamin Water than those other companies, so it gives them a better base for comparison. Well that was completely unnecessary and boring.

I will say that while this is a fruit punch, it's not the type of drink I think of when I hear the words fruit punch. I think companies should avoid that phrase because it makes me think of Hawiian Punch and the like, which no one really needs to drink. This is not just a bog bottle of red syrup. This is pretty light and has a more adult fruit punch flavor. I think it's interesting that they still sweeten this with cane sugar, just not as much. They make up the difference with sucralose. The mixture doesn't give it that deadly 80's diet flavor that I dread. It tastes diet, but not like poison.

The thing that differentiates Agua Enerviva from Vitamin Water is that their drinks have guarana in them, which is a natural source of caffeine. There's not enough in here to make you crazy and jittery, but it's a nice slight push to get you through your day.

Black can. I have never seen it before. It caught both Jay and I off guard when we went to the store once again looking for new stuff. I don't know how Arizona keeps churning out new products. They've got to push out a new product every month or so and only two or three per year I know about. My brother loves Arnold Palmer so much. I don't know how he drinks it. I don't particularly enjoy it. It's a little too diet but that could just be the "Lite" flavor. I know a couple kids like that. I always seem them drinking either the regular or the "Lite" but never these new flavors. Why? It's the same base that you love with some more flavors. Safe flavors, too. Strawberry? Who doesn't like a strawberry iced tea or strawberry lemonade? I say "or" because I don't know which side the strawberry lies on. It's good. Maybe it's like 75% half and half and then 25% strawberry Arizona. You know they're just mixing tubes down there in the factory. It's like a bunch of dudes saying, "Alright bring me the green tea tube and mix it with this pomegranate tube and why don't you bring me over that watermelon tube and we'll see what we can concoct." It's like the Mexican restaurant of drink companies where they only have seven ingredients and somehow manage to make a four page menu.

This is good, though. It still retains a little bit of tea, a little more lemonade, and a decent strawberry taste. Maybe Arnold Palmer was upset that Jack Nicklaus got a strawberry lemonade and he wanted some of the action on that. Those golfers. Always competing. Lay off each other, gents. You guys did pretty well for yourselves in your prime. You've each got a closet of green jackets you can be proud of.

I'm not the mix guy here at Thirsty Dudes. The person you would want to talk to about that is Mike. He loves being a participant in the completion of a beverage. Personally I just want the finished beverage handed to me. Proof of that is that it has more than likely been over a year since Oregon Chai sent us this concentrate and I have yet to try it. Tonight the drink gods decided to shine on the northwestern company because my apartment is freezing and I'm a stubborn so and so that refuses to turn on the heat yet.

The carton tells me to just mix this and milk (almond milk in my case) in equal amounts. I did so and decided to give it a try cold. It's really sweet. So much that the sweetness overpowers the chai-ness and I think I even put in too much concentrate. Every Chai beverage I've ever had has had an overpowering spice to it, but not this. The spiced flavor is there, but it's pretty mellow. After I heated it up the sweetness subsided a bit and it was more balanced out with the spice. The more I drink it the more I realize how much I appreciate the lighthandedness of it. Now I'm a bit warmer and I can sit around reading feeling nicely terrible due to the amount of Indian food Mike and I downed at dinner.

Coconut: -2 points. Red Tea: +1 point. Xylitol: +1 point. Knowledge of the previous one I drank: -3 points. It took me some psyching to actually try this. I thought it was going to blow. The math just doesn't add up to something that is good. Now there is a lot to take into consideration when drinking this. Issue one is that the Xylitol in this drink runs rampant like lava flow through the ancient city of Pompeii. If you don't like this new blend of artificial sweeteners, just steer clear of this entire line because it is quite overbearing. That being said, it did a great job of covering up the taste of coconut. It's a little coconutty but not too bad. If you like coconuts, you might not like this because it's not as coconutty as you would like, I can assure you. It does manage to squeak in a little bit of a decent tea taste in between the violent tongue lashings from the Xylitol.

I hardly gave this drink a proper review but as soon as they get their mix straight and can serve me a proper flavor that doesn't taste like artificial sweetener with a hint of whatever flavor they're calling it, they'll get a decent review. For now, I work with what I have and that's not much.

Every morning I get up, use the facilities, pour myself a bowl of store brand Cinnamon Toast Crunch with unsweetened almond milk and check the internets. It's a ritual that I need in my life. When I'm out of town I try to mimic it as best I can, and if my body is not satisfied, it's going to be a rough day. I need to change up this ritual a bit and add a glass of juice to it. How great is juice? It tastes great, and if you drink the right kind it can be great for you.

I decided to start this change today with this can of mango nectar. Unfortunately this isn't the healthiest of juice due to the unnecessarily added sugar. It's also only 25% juice. When a company brags that their juice is not from concentrate I feel like it should be 100% juice. Oh well.

Mangos and pineapple both have this weird thing where they occasionally smell vaguely like vomit. I don't know what causes it, and I don't know if anyone else has the same reaction as me. One would think that if something has that scent it would be absolutely disgusting, not me. I love both fruits and all their juices. This falls on the average side of mango juices. Sure it tastes like mango, but it doesn't taste like you just bit into the fruit, which is what I'm always looking for in a juice. I guess you shouldn't expect much when juice comes in a can.

I thought we had tried every flavor of Arnold Palmer. Then I saw this bottle, in a Fox News store, in the Houston Airport. Ironically just past this store was a PGA tour shop. This isn't my favorite, but the pomegranate is a nice change of pace to be mixed into the classic drink recipe. I wish this didn't have HFCS in it because it makes in unnecessarily thick tasting.

In my travels to the wonderful town of Austin, Texas, I found this bottle left in a co-op by Saint Arnold himself. It was an unexpected gift, but it was much appreciated for I hadn't had a new root beer in quite some time. Given that it is "old fashioned", I expected it to have a strong bite and rooty taste to it. On the contrary, it had a nice smooth vanilla taste to it. Saint Arnold brews a hell of a root beer and maybe some day he will leave a bottle somewhere else I'll be traveling.

In 1998 Public Enemy released the album “It Takes a Nation of a Million to Hold Us Back.” In the lyrics of the second single from the album Chuck D very emphatically tells to listeners not to believe the hype. Very wise words from a wise man. Listen to Chuck because he knows what he's talking about when it comes to socio-political topics and those same sentiments can also be used when reviewing energy drinks. Hype Organic was great, this one, not so much. It has a traditional energy drink flavor (aka Red Bull/every generic energy drink ever), but it has less candy flavor and more “energy flavor.” It makes sense because it is their maximum energy blend. I could have used more on the flavor side of things, but if I had to trade off some flavor for an energy drink that works well, I can handle that.

Hype will probably focus on some particular lines from the previously mentioned Public Enemy song: “All the critics you can hang'em, I'll hold the rope.” Lucky for me they are in the Netherlands.

Well. What a disappointment. If this wasn't in a fun bottle, it would have gotten a two but I gave it the benefit of the doubt and gave it a three. Flavor alone, two. Undoubtedly. Not because it was bad but because it was one of the most boring colas I've ever had. In the everlasting quest for the world's greatest cola, this is at the bottom of the list. I have had generic, supermarket cola that is better than this. It's just cola. No depth, body, or anything. Oh you want cola flavored pop? Here is some cola flavoring. Done. Corn syrup knocks it down. Just boring. Plain and simple. It's times like this when I really wish that I had that octopus flavored Ramune.

Last night was the US Presidential Election, and Barack Obama will be our president again for the next four years. I was half-heartedly watching the election coverage on my laptop as I read last night. Watching states turn blue was a treat. I was waiting for the swing states to switch over (mostly Ohio, Florida and Virginia). I had decided that when Florida went blue I would celebrate with a nice orange soda to pay my respects to the people in that state who made the right decision. Time went by and Florida stayed grey. I got to thinking about that orange pop and I really wanted it. In my head I justified that by drinking it I would help usher on the counting of the votes. I think I messed things up guys. Luckily other parts of the country picked up the slack and the blue won, but I'm pretty sure the fact that I picked such a lack luster soda was what delayed the count (it's 11am now and it still isn't done).

Blue sky was one of the first organic sodas that I remember seeing on the market. In 2000 or so I remember going to the local health food store to get a nice seitan sandwich and I grabbed my first can of Blue Sky (not Orange Divine). I remember thinking it was good, but nothing spectacular. That's fine, not everything needs to be over the top. I thought I knew what I was getting into with this can. It has natural orange flavor in it, so I was expecting it to be a lesser tasting/more sweetened Orangina. I ended up getting something that was between a sparkling orange juice and your everyday orange soda, except it had been filtered through the general taste of a health food store. Something was definitely off about it. It tasted as if it had been lightly spiced for some unknown reason. There is nothing listed in the ingredient list that should give it such a flavor, so I'm stumped.

Again, I apologize to the folks of Florida for delaying the count of their votes. If I had chosen a better orange soda I bet this would be all wrapped up.

First things first with a name like Chin Chin this makes me think that monkeys either make it or they serve it. I don't think I've ever watched or read anything with a monkey names Chin Chin, so I have no idea where this thought is coming from, but I just can't shake it.

If there is a monkey that makes this juice, he/she needs to step up their game. This is a decent enough juice, but most guava juices are through the roof good. This is just decent. It's just a bit more watered down than others and there is a tad too much sugar added for my liking. I urge someone who knows sign language to tell this chimp to fix these issues or else they will be shot into space. No one wants to be shot into space. It's scary there.

I was just thinking of how many times I could write the word "wonderful" before you stopped reading. Then I thought that would be a terrible, albeit factual review. In exchange, I will do a review titled: "Some of the best chocolate drink that has ever passed these lips"

This chocolate drink, for some reason not called chocolate milk, is simply splendid. It is smooth, creamy, and has bits of badam in it. "What is badam?" you ask? Almonds, friend. Almonds. And "bits" is a good way to describe them. They are super tiny and in some sips, non-existent. To further extend the experimentation of what we do here at Thirsty Dudes, a friend of "the dudes" poured a quarter of his half of the drink into the remnants of his coffee making a rather delicious mocha.

I bought this at an Indian market and you should, too. Seriously, you should. Five bottles. You know what that means, right? It means quit your job and go buy some chocolate drink!

So I says to Dan I says, "Dan, remember how you were complaining about there not being enough oxygen in your water? Welp, here you go. Together we drink and together we are energized." I don't know why I went a little "80's Russian bad guy" there but I did.

It's water with more oxygen. No one asked for it but if you're going to further perfect and enhance water with no drawbacks, please, you are doing a good thing. Keep doing miniscule, minute changes/fixes to make the best beverage even better.

We recently realized that a handful of our friends haven't really hung out in awhile. As a result Saturday afternoon was a dudes hang of gluttony. We started it off with the dirt mall aka flea market where we sifted through piles of people's garbage looking for a clock for Mike whilst eating soft pretzels, hot dogs, cinnamon rolls and a single cannoli. From there we went to look for a coat for Mike deep in the bowels of hell and come up empty handed. Then we went to another circle of hell that is more commonly known as Guitar Center so I could try out an amp that I thought (correctly) that I wanted. The important part came next. We hit up a few Asian markets for groceries and new drinks. I bought such a variety of weird tofu that I couldn't be happier. Our main market also got a new shipment of drinks and this was one of them.

I have no idea what “common selfheal fruit-spike drink” is, but it sounded more interesting than I could handle. As soon as we walked out I ripped this bad boy open and we all shared it. We all decided that it was okay, but that is had a decent licorice aftertaste, and I'm not talking about Twizzler. Along with never hearing of the fruit that is the namesake of this beverage it also contains grosvenor momordica fruit, that I'm sure 99.54% of American have never heard of as well. Along with that there are dates in here. When mixed together these ingredients have a taste that is something between a sweet tea and a flat herbal root beer (minus the wintergreen). At first I thought this was great, but with each sip my interest wanes. BY the end I really had lost all interest in it. From the name I'm assuming that there is some medicinal properties to this drink, but who knows since the label is in Chinese.

After our shopping spree we decided it was time for a yearly trip to the only sit down chain restaurant that is worth a damn: Chilis. Their real food is nothing to write home about, but they have incredible unsweetened blackberry and mango teas. Also the endless chips and salsa are enough for us to go gaga. You should have seen how many baskets of chips we housed. Mama would have been proud.

Holy crap I feel like I am going to puke. This drink...jeez louise. Just vomit. Gaaah. I can sum this drink up in a lovely simile. Did you, like me grow up biting your fingernails? Did your parents buy you that stuff that you put on your fingernails that made them taste disgusting? This is what that tastes like. Absurdly bitter. Oh it smells inviting but one sip and you are on the fast track to Hurlburg. Please add sugar to this next time. I honestly can't see anyone liking this. I appreciate 100% Juice when it's a good fruit at 100%. Grapefruit juice at 100% sucks.