Twenty years old. Twenty. Arizona is one year away from being able to drink its own alcohol line. It can vote for your local quarterback as the president of the United States. It can go to the casino and win six dollars playing penny slots. It cannot rent a car without having some sort of authorization from his or her daddy. It can buy cigarettes but it's is also smart enough to know that is not a wonderful decision.

Arizona is almost a full-fledged adult and what better way to celebrate than with a drink fit for a youth? That's right, and cherry lime Rickey. I feel like this is the sibling or close cousin to the Shirley Temple. It's a little bit of cherry with a little bit of lime and a lot of bit of sparkling because that's what you do when you are twenty; you sparkle. You shine your shoes, you walk out the door, and you feel like a million bucks. You've got your ability to perform as an almost adult but while having a drink in your hand that makes you feel young.

This is a limited edition flavor with a timeless taste. Having never been to Brooklyn, I don't have the nostalgia behind this flavor but that doesn't mean that I cannot appreciate it. What am I? An ignoramus? I am not, sir, and I take insult to hear that from the likes of you. Insulting me after all the nice things I said about you. It makes you look like a real turd, you know that?

My good friend and business partner Alex Wrekk went to a brewery in Eugene, OR on her day off yesterday. While she went for the beer, she excitedly called me to tell me about the flavors of soda they also made. Later in the day she surprised me with bottles of two of them! Isn't she the best?!

I've only had one chai soda before, but it's one of my favorite sodas of all time. The smell of this is strong of chai, which is awesome. While I don't drink chai tea as much as I used to, I still love the smell of it. The chai taste isn't as intense as I was hoping, but it's still good. It almost taste like weak grapefruit soda, with a splash of chai.

Since this was made at a brewery, I can only assume by the taste of it that it is a fermented soda. I'm not a huge fan of fermented sodas so that might be throwing me off a bit. They definitely got the 'fizz' part of the name down. This is one of the fizziest soda's I've ever had.

I have a vision in my head. Come with me. There are two groups of kids. One side has oranges and one side has mangoes. These kids are all the pitchers from local little league teams, armed with a seemingly infinite amount of fruit. At the signal, they throw fruit at each other over a big pipe. There is a piece of clear plexiglass in the middle so when the throw their fruit, it hits the glass and slides down into a juicer. All the juice goes through the pipe and gets mixed with carbonated water and canned and the solids are spat at the opposing side leaving the kids covered in a fruity pulp. It's all for fun. Kids have fun and they help out the company.

This tastes like just carbonated orange and mango. It's not too sweet and isn't terrible for you. It makes it better when I imagine where it comes from rather than where my educated mind tells me it's from. Remember that scene in Blues Brothers where the people threw beer bottles at them in the bar? That's what I'm imagining but with fruit and not hooch. That's much better and appetizing than a clean factory filled with hairnets and adults.

As far as I'm concerned if you're not sweetening your beverage with real sugar, the only other option should be agave. Everything else is either gross of unnecessary. Everyone knows the joys of real sugar, well maybe not diabetics, but not everyone is familiar with agave. It comes from a cactus looking plant (the same one tequila is made from) and it's sweet, slightly syrupy and wonderful tasting. Oogave understands this and they created a brand specifically to showcase this wonderful sweetener. They have been making a nice array of unusual soda flavors and the results have been great. With their grapefruit they missed the mark a little. It's a pretty decent soda and for normal people this might be great, but I am a lover of grapefruit sodas and it doesn't have that quasi-sour kick that I like in this particular flavor. It tastes just like grapefruit minus the tartness. I imagine it was the agave that neutralized it and made it into a smooth grapefruit soda. I would drink it again, but I'm just not as excited about it as I was when I purchased it.

Stephen was obsessed with looking like a troublemaker from the 1950s. He cuffed his jeans, wore Doc Martins (he knew it was more a modern adaptation of the greaser look, but he liked the way they looked), he wore his hair short with a slight wave to the side in front and always wore plain white shirts. In his mind he looked exactly like Kiefer Sutherland when he played Ace in Stand By Me. The only thing he needed to make his look complete was a leather motorcycle jacket. In his mind nothing would look cooler than him in his jacket. It was late July when he finally saved up enough money to buy the old broken in jacket he had been eyeing at the thrift store. His look was now complete and even though the weather was in the 90's every day he wouldn't take off his jacket. He felt he had to suffer for his image to prove how tough he was. He sure did sweat a lot though, and he felt dehydrated all of the time.

He decided he really needed to hydrate himself, so he went to the corner store and picked up a bottle of Gatorade. He decided that while raspberry melon didn't sound like the toughest flavor, it did sound like it would taste wonderful. He glared at the clerk and paid for his drink and a pack of smokes. He didn't really smoke, but he liked how the guys in Stand By Me rolled them up in their sleeves. Also, it gave him an excuse to take off the jacket for a few minutes and cool down. He went outside, through his coat over a railing and leaned against the building with one foot, all cool like. He cracked open his drink and took a big gulp. Man the drink was good. He hadn't realized that he had grabbed a low calorie drink, but it wasn't that bad. It was sweetened with sucralose as well as regular sucrose, but it didn't taste diet much at all. It had a nice subtle melon taste that was somewhere between a honeydew and a cantaloupe, just where a melon flavor should be. He didn't realize until he was drinking it how raspberry was an overlooked flavor in sports drinks. Sure it was around plenty in teas, but not in anything like this. This was one the best Gatorades that Stephen had ever tried. He was halfway through with the bottle and he decided it would look cool if he chugged the rest. Being the klutz that he was he spilled it all over his white shirt. He looked down in disgust at his once pristine white shirt that had instantly been dyed pink. He didn't look touch at all. He looked like the turd that he really was. Shamed he road his Huffy bike that was made to look like a motorcycle home. Life sure is hard for this 27 year old.

Charlie hated candy. He didn't hate the taste of it, he was just raised to hate candy by his parents who believed that anything unnatural was wrong and raised him on a very healthy diet of all natural foods. He didn't have a McDonald's hamburger until he was old enough to drive to a McDonald's and get one for himself. One day, when he was nineteen, he went to the store and on his way out he saw a candy machine. He decided that he would try it out. He dug out a quarter and got some Cherryhead candies. He ate two or three and his mind was blown. In the middle of the grocery store he dropped his organic eggs, milk, and screamed. He had missed nineteen years of candy and this was his first time ever having it and he was kicking himself for not being able to try it earlier. He ran to a store clerk and begged him to help him find more Cherryheads. The clerk said they only sold the candy in the vending machine but they sold a powder version of the candy that he could buy. He thought that would be perfect because he could just carry a bottle of water out of the house and fill it when he was on the road and his parent's weren't looking. He eagerly paid for the mix, went home, and went to sleep.

The next day Charlie had to go to work. He jumped out of bed, got ready for work, and jumped in the car. He brought his water with him, drove to an empty lot, parked his car, opened his glove compartment and grabbed the mix. Just as he started to pour the mix, he heard a knock at the window. He jumped, spilling some mix on himself. He looked out the window and it was his dad. He rolled down the window and asked his dad what was up. His dad told him that he was driving and saw his car in this empty lot and wanted to know if everything was alright. Just as he said that, he looked over and saw the box of drink mix. He said to Charlie, "Son, it's alright. I've been sneaking candy past your mother for almost three decades. I've hid it in the laundry chute that I convinced your mother was broken but it's really just blocked by my stash of candy. Just hide it from your mother and you'll be fine. Sorry I didn't tell you sooner." He nodded at his father and shook up his drink mix and took a sip. It tasted exactly like that candy he had in the store yesterday. Just as sweet and just as strong of a cherry taste. He was thrilled. He was also very excited that both he and his dad could bond over the fact that over the next few years, they would hide candy around the house together behind his mom's back.

Greg was a troubled teen. He spent a lot of his youth stealing candy and snacks from stores. He never got in any real trouble, as he was a good kid otherwise. He was just a little bit sneaky. Greg would steal a pack of gum or bag of chips or can of pop but nothing worth more than a couple dollars.

One day, he was thirsty and went across the street to get something to drink. He saw a bottle of Martinelli's half and half and thought that it was in a cool bottle and he needed it. He grabbed two off the shelf, put them in his oversized pockets, and walked out of the store. He sat down around the corner and drank a bottle of it. He liked it a lot. It was different because it wasn't so sweet like other iced tea and lemonades. It was an even split, just like how it was advertised. It had a little pulp towards the end, but it wasn't too tart.

He was just about to open the second one and old man Harris, the owner of the store came out and saw him drinking a stolen drink and chased after him. They got around the block and Greg grabbed the bottle like a baseball, which it is in the shape of, and threw it at old man Harris. Harris caught it, yelled at him to stop stealing from the store and walked back. That kind of scared Greg and he only stole a few more times and went straight after that.

Want to make this at home? Here's what you need: two parts diet Pepsi, one part artificial cherry flavor. That will about do it. There's not much else to say about this soda. Luckily the cherry flavor cancels out some of the diet taste and it's semi-enjoyable.

Camping. Well, almost camping. Jay, myself, and I went almost camping. He slept in a tent and I slept in a rodent infested cabin. You know what? I would do it again. I always have fun there. We set up a zip line, made s'mores, hiked, stole corn from a cornfield, explored an abandoned barn, ate food, and shot at cans, bottles, and corn with a .22 rifle that was made to shoot cans, bottles, and corn.

We stopped at the store and got some food and drinks. I decided I was going to go "calorie free" and get this seltzer. I think that I made a pretty good decision. It was flavored just enough to cover up that rather terrible "soda water" taste that I actually don't like. It just tasted like carbonated raspberry water. I couldn't really get a lot of lime out of it but some might be able to.

If you don't like seltzer but have a knife pointed at you in seemingly the world's most violent grocery store, you can pick this and get out sans air hole. Seriously, if you are ever in a grocery store and someone has you at knifepoint making you pick out a seltzer, anyone will do. For around a dollar, you can be a good Samaritan and save your life and the need for a rather graphic cleanup on aisle twelve. You might also want to make a mental note to go to a different grocery store next time. That place you go to sounds rough.

When climbing to the peak of some mountain or another there is only one clear choice for hydration and that is Owater. Wait what do you mean that the contents of this bottle would freeze in those temperatures? No one is looking to get their electrolytes and antioxidants from popsicles, while they may be tasty, they wouldn't be refreshing at all, and that is what we want at high altitudes and low temperatures. I suppose one could pour the contents of a bottle of Owater into a container that would keep it from freezing, but then how would that work for promotions? No one would recognize the bottles in the ads. They would just see some guy on a mountain drinking from a canteen. I guess we could slap a sticker onto it, but that doesn't help people recognize the product in the stores. Maybe we should just start packaging it in canteens.

We have a decent product here people. It has a taste that mixes the electrolyte flavor of Gatorade and the actual flavor of Vitamin Water. It really sits right in the middle of those two brands and I truly think there is a big market for it. I mean we use real blueberry flavor, so that puts us ahead of the competition. We just need to think of a better way to promote it. This whole ice mountain climber shtick really isn't going to work out. What do we want our products to end up in a Big Lots or some such store? Of course not, but that is exactly where we're going to end up if we keep with this ad campaign…€¦.ooops.

Over the past decade or so it seems that America has become a more health conscious country. Sure there are still fast food restaurants all over the place, but to me it seems like less people are visiting them, and even when they do there are much healthier items on the menu. Actually I could be completely wrong here. Maybe it's just the people I associate with. I mean people have to still be going to those places for them to stay open, but with the exception of Subway or Taco Bell (it's a guilty pleasure that I can not and will not pass up) it's extremely rare that I hear about someone that I associate with eating fast food. I hope I'm not crazy, because I am proud of people. It's great that people are watching what they eat. I'm not a complete health nut, but I'd like to think that I eat healthy and for the most part watch what I consume on a regular basis.

To further people's interest a bunch of companies are popping up offering healthier alternatives. One such company is Lo-Gly. I had no idea what the glycemic index as until I got my hands on this little guy here. It's a way to measure how different foods cause your blood sugar to increase due to carbohydrate consumption. Foods with a low glycemic index (most fruits and vegetables) release glucose more slowly and steadily so they make you feel fuller for longer. Now that is a diet in the making. You can't argue with science.

Foods like a low GI fall in the range of 55 or under. Lo-Gly was able to make this juice that lands at 23 on the chart, not too shabby. Everything in this bottle is organic, and mostly straight up juice. It's a bouquet of antioxidant rich fruits. The pomegranate and acai make it fairly tart, but I'm okay with that. For some reason they felt they needed to sweeten it a little more than the blue agave was doing, so they added some stevia. Maybe it was even tarter than it is now, which would have been a bit insane. You can taste the stevia in the aftertaste, but the fruit juice mostly covers it up.

As far as beverages go that are marketed towards keeping a healthy diet and weight loss, this is one of the better ones I've ever tried. If it had just said it was Acai Blueberry flavored without listing any diet aspects I wouldn't have noticed, with the exception of detecting the stevia at the end.

If you don't think that a nice quiet night out in the woods watching a fire is relaxing enough, perhaps you should try a can of Lean. There is something hysterical to me about drinking a beverage that was obviously conceived of for an urban setting out in the middle of nowhere, but hey you can drink one and lean on anything to fall asleep, even a tree or a dilapidated barn. Hell, I bet you could lean against a beavers tail and not be disturbed all night.

When I downed this last night I was greeted by a pleasant pineapple flavor that fell somewhere between the fruit and overly sugary candy. It was quite delicious. So much in fact that I had pounded the entire can before I even knew what was happening. About ten minutes later some friends asked me if I was okay because I was looking really dazed. Yes I was feeling fine, I just happened to be falling asleep with my eyes open. I made my way to my tent and slept like a baby bear cub, which I did not see like I wanted to.

This beverage tasted great and its functionality was just as good.

A trip to Hogsmeade isn't something I'm able to do on a regular basis. I wish I did have the time, but my life is so busy. You see I opened a wand shop in Diagon Alley after Ollivander's closed down. Okay, yes I know he didn't just decide to close down the shop. If I were kidnapped like he was I would have probably closed too. Anyways, so I own a wand shop and that takes up most of my time.

Yesterday I was lamenting to a customer about how I hadn't been able to get a butter beer in a long time due to my long hours of work. They told me to wait a minute and came back with this wonderful looking bottle. I didn't know they started bottling butter beer, which goes to show you how much I get out. I wasted no time in opening the bottle and the delicious butter beer smell wafted into the air.

And the taste you ask? Oh man, the taste is perfect! If you've never had butter beer before it tastes like a butterscotch candy (Werther's Original to be exact) in liquid form. So delicious and so sweet. I can already feel my teeth forming cavities. I loved the bottle so much I asked my new friend to buy me four more. I gave them a free wand in exchange. Maybe I shouldn't have done that since a wand costs around 5 Galleons and five bottles of butter beer is only a couple of Sickles. Oh well, it was worth it.

Is it weird that the first thing I think of when I hear the words “key lime” is Natural Born Killers? You know a couple enters a diner orders some pie and then shoots up the place. That's a little bit of America right there, or is it? You're probably right. It's pretty disgusting. That doesn't change the fact that a movie made when I was in high school will pop into my head whenever anyone mentions this particular pie.

I don't think there will ever be another beverage made on this planet that will taste as much like a key like pie as this does. It's like ol' Mickey Knox ordered his pie, but had the nice waitress put it in the blender for say a good ten minutes. I think she may have snuck in a green freezie pop as well, because there is a bit of that flavor mixed in.

Fitness Edge hit a stroke of genius with this one. Protein drinks always have a slightly weird dairy flavor to them that is a little off putting. What better way to combat that than to make it so that the drink is supposed to taste like something that has that flavor already. Whoever came up with the idea better have gotten a raise.

Give this key lime protein drink it's day in court and see what you think about it. Me? I'm definitely sold.

I often praise Jay. Today will not be that day. Today, I dislike him quite strongly. He gave me this FRS a while back, reviewed the other one and claimed it was great. "Awesome" I said to myself. I didn't want a repeat of my last FRS drink. I threw this in the fridge and actually looked forward to it. Mistake.

This drink is as thick as the day is long. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Nope. I'll compare it to the color and viscosity of dog puke. That odd, off-yellow, creamy-ness. It doesn't have any dog food in it, which I guess I should be thankful for. This is just vile. It smells alright but between the texture and the odd, protein-rich flavor, and the fact that acai should not be made for public consumption regardless of it's antioxidant qualities, this drink is, well, undrinkable.

Sorry Jay, but you can't win them all. You lost your shirt on this one and you might lose another because if I throw up, I'm using whatever you have on as my target.

You put the orange in the mango and you drink them both up…€¦wait…€¦that's not right. Oh well they are already mixed together so I might as well go with it. I mean I already checked out and the cashier gave me the weirdest look because I was singing. I didn't really want anything coconut flavored anyways.

Okay, now that I've tried this I'm pretty happy that I messed up. It tastes like tiny mandarin oranges were juiced and then filtered through some mango puree. The flavor starts off completely orange and by the time the aftertaste has faded away it had gotten to a point of pure mango. Somewhere in the middle it tastes like someone spritzed in a little lemon juice, you know the way you add limejuice to guacamole so it doesn't turn brown. No one wants their sparkling juice to turn brown, so make sure you add a little lemon.

As an after thought what the heck was Harry Nilsson talking about? Who wants to have lime and coconut mixed together? It just seems like it would curdle and that is way gross.

Once again Mike and I are on the same wavelength. We both randomly drank and reviewed Sonoma Sparklers today. We know each otherâ…‚¬…„¢s bodies. He said his raspberry was pretty tasty, and I can verify that the natural peach flavored one is out of this world. It tastes exactly like Looza peach nectar if it were carbonated (and not so thick). Itâ…‚¬…„¢s out of control good. Itâ…‚¬…„¢s like someone took the worldâ…‚¬…„¢s most perfectly ripe peach and injected it with a syringe full of carbon dioxide. Itâ…‚¬…„¢s apparently mostly apple juice with peach concentrate added, but I really only taste peach. There was no need to add sweeteners, so they didnâ…‚¬…„¢t. When I say Iâ…‚¬…„¢m in love you best believe Iâ…‚¬…„¢m in love, and I am 100% in love with this sparkling juice.

Jimmy loved the Fourth of July. He loved both the holiday and the Soundgarden record. When he rode to his aunt and uncle's house every Fourth, he would see how long he would be able to listen to that song on loop before he couldn't take it anymore and turn it off. His record is nine.

When he got to his relative's house, his aunt said that she had some sparklers for him. Now Jimmy was nineteen and didn't get the same kick out of sparklers as he once did. He went to go get some pulled pork and corn when he saw his aunt coming out with a small box. She handed him the box and he asked her what it was. She told him that it was a box of sparklers. He looked inside and there were small bottles of a carbonated drink that was all fruit and no sugar. Jimmy was pretty psyched because it was either this or off-brand colas.

He sat down to talk to his grandpa about what each other have been up to and cracked open the raspberry Sparkler. He was pretty excited about how good it was. It tastes like carbonated apple juice with crushed up raspberries in it. He then went through all his relatives at the party and told everyone to drink some. They all liked it. He was more than happy to have this box of drinks to share with his entire extended family. He doesn't really have a lot to talk to a lot of them, even the ones that he sees outside of the annual reunion. Now that he had this drink, that wasn't going to be a problem for at least two years.

Yesterday we went to the Buffalo 66 (watch it) Denny's, which has been turned into a Mexican restaurant. It was wonderful and if I didn't know better, which I do, I would never guess that it was ever a Denny's. I would never guess that I would eat there around once a week after some punk show downtown.

Jay proposed that we go across the street to an Asian market get our dessert. That dessert? A honeydew popsicle. Look, Jay and I like the simpler things in life. We're by no means simpletons, but we like simpler things. We're kids, basically. We're children. Either way, I ate a delicious honeydew popsicle and made our boy Jerid drive my car, which is standard, so that I could eat it.

While I was at said market, I bought this little number: coffee milk. You want to know what it tastes like? Coffee and milk, right down the middle. Fifty fifty. I've tastes a lot of drinks in the vein of this but never with so much milk taste. It tastes like I made a sweetened coffee and then poured milk in it and called it a day. So much milk flavor. It took me by surprise.

After all that we went to Big Lots, as usual, bought drinks, as usual, and traded drinks, as usual. Typical Thirsty Dudes hangout.

Oh I get it. Nawgan, it's like noggin. You know, your head. I'll give them points for being cheesily clever, seeing as this beverage is supposed to boost brainpower and help you concentrate. I picture young nerdy kids in grade school saving up to buy can after can of this so that they can become smart enough to be an astronaut or a nuclear physicist. That's a cool job, right?

The “secret” ingredient in here is citicoline, which according to the never wrong Wikipedia, increases dopamine receptor densities. It also helps to improve focus and mental energy. It also says that it may be useful in the treatment of ADD. Does that mean that this is basically Ritalin in beverage form? From what I gather, they do the same thing.

I like the ideas that are behind this drink. I would much rather have kids drinking something like this than normal energy drinks. It's just too bad that the flavor is fairly mediocre. It tastes just like any other orange drink. You know the kind that doesn't taste like orange juice, but it doesn't taste like orange pop either. I don't know who decided to call the flavor orange, but it has been around for a long time and it's not going anywhere. Also, the skinny can fooled me again. I expected this to be carbonated, but it was just an orange drink with quasi Ritalin in it.