I found this at a specialty soda shop here in Portland called Cosmic. After visiting Galco's, Village Candy, and Pop Culture, I didn't think there was a chance they'd have anything that I hadn't seen before. To my surprise, there were a good handful of brands I hadn't heard of yet. I decided to give this one a try first, perhaps because I was with two friends from Philadelphia at the time.

Disappointment. That's what the first sip tasted like. It has a very syrupy taste to it, but practically no bite. It honestly was more of a sarsaparilla than root beer. It wasn't horrible (I've had much worse), but it wasn't that great.

I met one person that doesn't like chocolate. Well here's the deal. She said she didn't like chocolate but had a sort of asterisk next to everything. "I don't like chocolate but I like chocolate chip cookies." or "I don't like chocolate but I like dark chocolate." Face it, girl. You like it. Just accept it and move on. She doesn't really eat a lot of food, so I don't think she'd like this drink. It's not as terrible as you would think that a chocolate fudge pop would be, though so if you are weight conscience, you could easily take a sip or two. If you feel guilty, give yourself a Weight Watchers point or something.

It's true. I haven't had a lot of chocolate pop and the ones I've had have been alright. This one is one of the best but let it be known, it's thick, man. It's a dark cola and it does taste a lot like chocolate fudge. Just saying "chocolate fudge" makes me think that I'm just drinking pounds, like I would weigh 150 pounds, take a sip with my eyes closed, and then when I opened my eyes and put the bottle down I'm all of a sudden 160 and my pants don't fit anymore. It's not the case, but "chocolate fudge soda" just sounds revoltingly terrible for you.

I'm going to put this in the "score" category because it's actually pretty good and everyone I've had try it really likes it. Diet or no diet, chocoholic or choco-hater, you'll have a good time drinking this with friends.

For a limited time is such a good marketing phrase. It really forces you to get your finances in place and to make sure you purchase an item before that limited time is over. You never know when it's going to end and sometimes you don't know when it started. You just know that you're smack-dab in the middle of the deal of a century and if you wait on it, you may never get another chance to do it again. A lot of times, these limited time items go away and don't come back and when you don't catch it in time, you kick yourself until they come out with another product that you are sure to snap up.

This was one of those limited time items and I'm glad that Jay jumped on it because it's pretty great. It's coffee in a pretty minimal sense but a pretty strong cookies and cream taste. The combination together is enough for me to give Jay a kiss right on the lips because I'm getting sad at the fact that I've got about one sip left in this bottle. You know a drink is good when you drink it, enjoy the flavor, and then when you start losing it, you drink again because you don't want to be without that taste in your mouth. It's like you are scared to miss it, like normal people unlike Jay and myself feel about girlfriends. It's not our fault. We still feel that emotion but it's our crappy girlfriend experiences that have ruined us for our current ones. They're very understanding. Saddened at the fact that we are dead inside but understanding in that we at least treat them with respect. I haven't been let down by this drink, though, and until I do, I will miss it, like the deserts miss the rain.

I think I found this soda in a little Mexican mart in Philly. There is no flavor listed on it, nor are their ingredients listed. I always assumed that it was a pineapple soda, and since that is something I love I've been saving it for an appropriate time. When I finally drank it last night I felt I had taken a one-way train ride to disappointment city. Where I had expected an uber sweet candied pineapple flavor, all I got was the taste of over sweetened bubbly water, with only the faintest tinge of some sort of citrus. I don't even know if this was supposed to be pineapple anymore. I only made it a quarter way through the bottle when I decided that drinking this wasn't worth it.

As a beverage it's not gross, it's just there, and not what I look for in a soda at all. This is sub-store brand quality. On the other hand it does have a really cool bottle that I enjoy a great deal. Still, that is not enough to save this soda.

Seeing as neither Mike nor I can stand bananas and Derek lives on the other side of the country, this has been sitting in my fridge for at least four months. It just stares at me every time I open the door, taunting me. You know just smirking because it knows that I have to drink it eventually and even though it is being consumed, it ultimately wins because I'm drinking something that I dislike so much. Today I took a deep sigh, opened up the fridge and grabbed the bottle, preparing for its victory.

You often see strawberry banana drinks and strawberry kiwi drinks, but it's rare for all three to be hanging out in the same bottle. I prayed to whatever deity I don't believe in that it would be heavier on the kiwi front. Santa Claus must have heard my mumblings because this drink doesn't taste like bananas at all. Seriously, I swished it around my mouth, just held it there, swallowed and concentrated really hard, but I cant' detect even the faintest taste of that wretched fruit. It's mainly kiwi, with a bit of strawberry in there and then it has that taste that all drinks have when fruits and vegetables are mixed together. It should be a gross taste, you know mixing cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes and beets in a juice, but I kind of dig it. On top of all of that there are no added sweeteners. Fave let the natural sugars in the fruits do the talking, and its as sweet as any juice needs to be with only 12g of sugar per serving.

Fave you have made a fairly tasty juice here, but you may want to change the name of the flavor. Actually maybe you don't. Maybe this tastes even better to me because I thought it was going to be all gross and banana ridden. This way I was so pumped that I drank two glasses. No I think it's the juice on it's own that made me do that.

Nature's promise is to fill your body with vitamins and minerals that come from nature. Nature does a good job making food and drink. As a matter of fact, it probably does the best job. Technology makes food maybe bigger and faster but that doesn't necessarily make it better as much as it makes it convenient. When nature says something, it means it. Nature doesn't lie. People lie and blame it on nature. Things like "100% Natural" means that it comes completely from nature and that, in my experience, is about five out of ten times true. That's 50% lies. Nature never lies, once again.

When nature wasn't lying, they teamed up with a company that used that phrase as their titular line and made a delicious drink. It's a raspberry white tea. It's not bitter, has a pretty great raspberry taste, and is lightly sweetened. The latter has the keys to my heart because it's an actual relief when something isn't just chocked full of sugar.

Here is where the vegans, namaste-ans, and hipster vegans have a point in that they believe in things that come from the earth and don't really subscribe to things that are "manufactured" and artificial. You guys. You guys and your dreadlocks, fixed gear bikes, patch'd jackets, and 80's secretary glasses. You guys have a point. You have a point about nutrition. Only. Exclusively. Just nutrition. Knock it off with the rest of that nonsense. You girls are wasting your prime years looking like my Jewish Aunt did in 1986.

You gotta free your mind maaaaaaaannnn. Open up your third eye and see the world for what it really is. It's beautiful maaaaaannnnn. You gotta see the trees for the forest maaaaaaan. No maaaaaaan I got it right. It's not “see the forest for the trees,” that doesn't make any sense maaaaaaaaaannnn. You can't have a forest without trees and trees are beautiful maaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnn, just like life.

You know what else is beautiful maaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnn? Guayaki yerba mate, that's what. The stuff is delicious. It's so beautiful maaaaaaaaaannnnnn. It's like the trees. They have this one flavor called Pure Mind, and whenever I drink it I just feel like I'm one with the planet. There are these little birds on the label and they are just so beautiful maaaaaaaaannnnn. It has that wonderful earthy, slightly bitter mate flavor to it, but the bitterness isn't really there because it's sweetened and it has all of this beautiful pomegranate juice in it. Antioxidants maaaaaaaaannnnn, now there's a mind trip. This is seriously one of the best tea drinks I've ever tried maaaaaaannnnnn. The thing is maaaaaaaaaannnnn that it doesn't taste overpoweringly like mate or pomegranate. The two just live in harmony like the trees and the forest maaaaaaaaannnnn. That's where the saying comes from anyways. Some shaman drank this tea and thought of the awesome harmony that it contains and creates and just thought of trees and forests, and little birds. You really just need to drink this and free your mind maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnn.

Warren Phillips was a busy man. His business was his priority, and it was all consuming. When he wasn't in the office he was running around the city to meet up with some client or another or to gather information for his business. You see Warren Phillips was a businessman on the run, and when you're a businessman on the run you need to take your meals and snacks on the go as well. Warren had everything set out around town. Each day of the week he had a separate deli/food cart where he could grab a bite in less than two minutes. He knew where every bodega was in the city, and at what times they got their rush. It seemed that Warren had everything figured out, well except one thing; he had a deep-set love affair with iced cafè mochas. The problem was the time it took for the baristas to concoct this beverage was time that was not being put to use for his business, and Warren certainly couldn't have that. He had tried some canned versions in the past, but they were always vaguely chalky and never really satisfied him.

One day Warren saw a display of Real Beanz drinks under a comically large sign that read “New Product.” Never one to pass up a chance to make his day run smoother, he picked up a bottle of his beloved mocha. In the 12 seconds he was in line to pay for it, he read the label (Did you really think Warren Phillips wouldn't be a speed reader?) and discovered that it was a mocha mixed with green tea extract for added antioxidants. “Well isn't that just wonderful,” thought Warren. If this drink was delicious he could stop his craving and help fight off sickness by helping his immune system out. This really all happened in 12 seconds. It was crazy. By the time he was out the door, he had already downed half the bottle. His dreams had come true. The coffee drink was completely delicious and not chalky at all. It was heavier on the chocolate taste than the coffee, but you could still taste the coffee in the aftertaste. It was just the way he liked it. Also the quality of the chocolate was way better than any other prepackaged mocha drink he had ever tried. He thought it might even taste better than the stuff his favorite coffee shop used. For a second he thought he could taste a little green tea in there, but then he realized he was being crazy.

Warren was in love, and the whole experience took 7 minutes less than he would have spent with the baristas. That was more time for Warren to spend on his business, and off he went to sell, sell, sell.

I don't know if I can properly express Mike's disappointment in the Jones Dungeons & Dragons line. It crushed the man. He saw an ad that Jones was releasing this line, and he jumped on it. He ordered us the whole series, and spent a pretty penny doing it. In his mind the new flavors were out of this world and from an older time, some would say a simpler time. Others would say it sucked because you were always worried about dragons or orcs attacking you. One thing that no one would argue about was that the beverages back then were way different. The day finally came when the package arrived. Mike opened it up and said some expletive or another. You see the ad listed the flavors as things such as “Sneak Attack,” “Potion of Healing” and “Eldritch Blast.” What it didn't tell you was that these were just the normal Jones flavors with new wacky names (Cream Soda, Blackberry and Green Apple). Mike was so upset that after we divided the flavors between us it took him nearly six months to review even one, and that was under duress. I feel for him. No one likes disappointment, especially when it comes in the way of sodas you were super stoked on.

What is an Eldritch Blast anyways? I thought it was some sort of creature, as I have no idea what the being on the label is. I Googled it and eldritch just means strange or spooky. I guess that it makes sense as Jones was able to make a green apple soda that actually tastes like pop and not like someone put a handful of Jolly Ranchers in a cup and then microwaved them for two hours. Sure, it's sweet as hell, but underneath the sugar it actually tastes like a nice sour apple and not just candy. This is the first soda I've ever had that has done this properly. I hope that makes up for some of Mike's sadness. I know it won't but a man can dream. Actually if I'm dreaming I should probably be dreaming bigger, like say Mike won a contest when he ordered these lies of soda and he's getting one of those fancy cars that he loves and 25 pachinko machines to annoy his “live in” girlfriend. Now there's a dream.

I have a housemate from Rhode Island who introduced me to Coffee Milk. I had never heard of Coffee Milk before, nor did I know it was the official state drink of Rhode Island. I didn't even know state's had official drinks. After reviewing this list, apparently most states really like milk.

Anyways, Coffee Milk is made by adding a little of this coffee syrup (which is basically high fructose corn syrup and coffee extract) to a glass of milk (or in my case, I added it to soy milk) and mixing it up like you would using chocolate syrup to make chocolate milk. The end result looks like coffee that has a good amount of cream/milk in it. More importantly, it is delicious! I had my doubts at first, but I now wish I lived in Rhode Island where this is the official state drink. It tastes like a coffee milkshake, which now makes me want to make a coffee milkshake with this syrup.

I need to order a couple of bottles of this soon. I can already see myself getting really addicted to this stuff.

Times like this are when my science skills get to shine. What sits in front of me is a delicious honey vanilla chai tea concentrate. There is a whole lot of concentrate in this bottle. The ingredients say that it's enough for eight servings, but I just made a glass, and it barely made a dent in the bottle.

To prove I am a scientist I got out some measuring cups so that I could follow the directions exactly. When it comes to reviewing concentrates like this it's pretty crucial to get it just right, or the favor could be completely off. Yeah, something as simple as that is still science, deal with it. The directions say to mix it with milk or milk substitute. Since I am not proud of my mutant gene that allows me to drink other creature's milk (oh man Professor X would be so disappointed in me) I went with unsweetened almond milk. I also chose to make it the cold way instead of hot, as it's summer and who wants to drink hot tea at 3PM in the blazing hot sun?

So I followed the directions and made myself a nice chilled glass of honey vanilla chai tea, and it is gosh darn delicious. It definitely tastes more vanilla than most chai teas I've had before. You also can taste the honey, which I didn't really expect. If this is what was served to me after I just shelled over nearly $5 at a local coffee shop, I wouldn't be upset or feel cheated. In fact if I didn't know any better I really wouldn't know that it was made from a concentrate. Some of the spices didn't really mix in all that well, and I would get sip that were chock full of clove and cinnamon, but I blame that on my mix of choice. I feel like they may have mixed in better with cow milk. I actually decided to drink a second glass, and I upped the almond milk ratio a little bit, and it turned out more my speed. That's the joy of concentrates, you can make them as weak or as strong as you'd like. Man, I really can't wait to try this hot once the sun goes down.

You're a classy lady and you deserved to be treated right. You don't need that guy over there, giant padded shoulder suit coat, slicked back hair, button up shirt with a skinny tie, hair as tall as the eye can see. You need a man like me. Baby, it's 1985 and it's time to stop getting with "Yes Men" and get with a man that will make you scream "yes!" That's where I come in. Baby, this dance club is playing the right songs, New Order, Joy Division, The Smiths, and we're getting down. Do you want something to drink, baby? I'll get you something nice.

What a strange bar. I got you something but it's not the martini a classy dame like you deserves. Honestly, strange bar. I mean who serves cold cans of mocha coffee at a dance club? Oh, yes, so I got you a cold can of mocha coffee. I've had this before but always at a corner store, never a club. Drink it. I know you've got a cosmopolitan there but just take a sip. It's good, right? It's a nice coffee taste but with a cocoa mix. It has a good coffee aftertaste, too, like real coffee. It's not too sweet that it tastes bad for you but is sweet enough that it's a nice little treat.

Wait, where are you going? Are you leaving with that grease ball? Really? Oh, he does have a rather gorgeous Lamborghini Countach. Why didn't you tell me? I would have saved two dollars on buying you that drink. Naw, you deserve it baby. Can you ask your man if he can take me for a spin? No? Alright. Welp, see you later.

First off, I'd like to say how stoked I am that Mountain Dew included us in their “pre-promotion” group or whatever they call it. Getting two cans of what looks like top-secret soda in the mail is a great feeling. A plain silver can with a inkjet printed label with little to no info makes me feel even more like a scientist working on a secret program. In order to keep up the mystery I took a picture of the can cast in shadows. All that I knew about this drink was that it's their new flavor, that is going to have different regional names, and that it is malt flavored. Now I've had my severe issues with some malt drinks (i.e. Malta Goya), but I've also had some that were pretty spectacular (apple and pineapple ones come to mind). I was hoping this would be more like the latter than the previous, as it has added citrus flavor. It turns out the flavor falls somewhere in the middle of great and gross.

When I cracked open the can I almost didn't take a sip. It smelled so much like beer that I was afraid that Mountain Dew might be marketing a new alcoholic beverage. I made my ladyfriend taste it, and she said that while it did smell like cheap beer, it didn't taste like it. That was all the info I needed and I took a few sips. It really tasted nothing like it smelled. It had a slight malt flavor, but it the main flavor was a slightly more lemon lime ridden Mountain Dew. My relief was great, and I decided that this was actually a tasty beverage. I went about my business, periodically taking a sip over the next 15 minutes. With each sip the citrus flavor decreased and the malty beer taste increased. It was still drinkable, but getting worse. Then I burped. That burp was so reminiscent of beer that it was completely disgusting. I took one more sip, and decided that at this point it tasted like the can was 2/3 beer and 1/3 Mountain Dew. It surely was not for me. If it were just the initial flavor, without the beer aftertaste, I could get down with this. As it stands: no thank you.

I'm not sure who they are going to market this drink towards, but I don't think it's the normal high school/gamer crowd. What high schooler is going to want something that tastes like beer, but doesn't get them drunk? I applaud Mountain Dew for trying something new, and something out of the ordinary at that, but I feel they missed their mark too much for this to be much of a success.

Remember when Jones came out and you thought to yourself, "Green apple pop?! Woah!" Now, look, they've still got strange, fun flavors, those crazy Canadians, but you've got to pay the bills. Diet cola sells and people love the stuff. Even for a company that prides themselves on using pure cane sugar, they can't do that unless they make a super weak, odd tasting pop. Dry does it, but they're good at it and that's their thing.

This, and you shouldn't be surprised, just tastes like a diet cola. It has an alright cola taste but is still diet. I might say that this is a titch (scientific term) better than diet Pepsi. I'm not hating; just doing a poor comparison. I'm not a hater. I'm cynical, but I'm no hater. 'Nuff respect, Pepsi. Let these guys do what they do.

One of the fun things about being a scientist is that you can take one sip of a beverage, mull it over and within seconds know exactly how to recreate it. Are you feeling beat from bombing hills and grinding rails all day? Do you need a pick me up, but don't have the $2 to drop at the gas station for an energy drink? Well just follow these simple steps and you will be on your way.

First take some fruit punch and water it down a little. You don't need to add much water. You still want the flavor, but you just want to dilute the syrupiness of it. Next, mix in about seven red Pixie Stix. Make sure you mix them in nice and proper. You don't want any grit to your drink. Finally you need to dissolve four sour Warhead candies. This is a crucial step, or else your lips won't pucker correctly.

Now I can't vouch that this drink will give you a ton of energy. I'm sure it will give you a sugar rush though. It will also taste exactly like this can of X Games Energy. It was fairly gross, and sour enough to make me pucker my lips as you've read above. I drank this as a little pick me up for a 9 hour drive home from Richmond, VA. It certainly kept me up and gave me the jitters, which is probably not something you want when you're driving that long. If you're carving up the sidewalks on a board though it might work just fine.

So there you have it. The flavor is not very good, but it's easy to replicate and you can shake slightly for several hours with a single can.

I've been having some awful tooth pain lately. I finally made an appointment to see the dentist, but last night was not fun. My mind was racing about how I can't afford to go to the dentist and fearing that the doctor is going to tell me I have to stop drinking soda. With my mind racing and my tooth pain, I was having a hard time falling asleep so I decided to give this relaxation shot a try.

I have been drinking a lot of lemonade lately so when I saw lemon flavor on the bottle, I assumed it was going to be tart. To my dismay, it was not. It wasn't bad, just surprising. My housemate claimed it smelled and tasted like Pine-sol but he couldn't be farther from the truth. It's a smooth lemon taste. It's actually a mellow taste, which is nice.

As we know with "functional" drinks such as this, the taste is only half of it. I was interested to see how well this worked because unlike a lot of relaxation drinks, this doesn't have melatonin in it. They went for the all-natural approach to relaxation, and it worked. Within an hour I was asleep and slept like a baby. On a night where I almost gave up on sleep, this was a miracle drink.

Sadly this is a pretty big bottle of mediocrity. I thought that mate lemonade would be pretty interesting but instead, I was served some sort of light juice that doesn't really taste much like lemonade or mate. Odd how that happened. It actually tastes a bit diet, but not too much. I'm just kind of milling over the taste but from what was advertised to what was delivered, they are worlds apart. This drink was fruity but light almost like if you had some guarana Vitamin Water.

I didn't know what it would taste like as mate is inherently pretty bitter and lemonade is sour or tart. Together I thought that it would have given my tongue a run for it's money, a phrase that my tongue doesn't understand because it doesn't work and as many times as I've tried to become a famed voice-over actor, it decided to work by spouting off negativity, sarcasm, and unfortunately misdirected wit.

I might have the energy to complete my day due to the caffeine in both mate and guarana, but I didn't particularly enjoy the path to get there.

What a wonderful treat. The regular Cheribundi is a tart little number. This was a great step in the right direction. I'm not saying that I didn't like the previously mentioned variety, but this one is like a dessert. It's a little like a chocolate covered cherry, yes. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that anything that is chocolate and cherry must taste like cherry cordials. It does but with less sweetness. It's still tart but still retains that awesome chocolate taste. If you are into that type of thing, dessert at all hours of the day, this could be the drink for you. A delicious little surprise strategically placed in the "nature" or "organic" or "whatever" section of the store. Now that you've read this, you know where to find it. People who haven't read this will be looking in the regular drink section or the dessert section. Idiots. You are now smarter for having read this than everyone else. Congratulations.

In space, no one can hear you scream. This is fine because everyone up there is texting all the time anyhow. It's worse than Earth. Everyone up is there is emoticon-ing so much more than down here that they had to invent phones that have an extra row of keys that are just different emoticons. LOL, ROFL, ASL, and WTF, are so last decade up there. No one talks anymore.

That isn't a bad thing for everyone, though. When word gets out about a new product, since everything is digital and instant, everything happens super fast. When the latest shipment of Earth food came up there, there was a case of Zevia strawberry pop. Some of the people split it up and instantly started raving about it. They said that it was sweet and had a real Stevia taste but the taste of actual strawberries was stellar enough that everything blended together wonderfully. Also, like in the movie Wall-E, everyone is disgustingly obese and rolls around in abandoned Lark scooters so the zero calorie thing really helps.

Are you tired of drinking the same old sparkling cherry drinks? Have they become old hat and boring to you? Well do we have something special for you! We're proud to introduce the sparkling alternative to sparkling cherry! It's fruity and sweet and....wait a minute...this isn't right...according to this drink/label the alternative to sparkling cherry is sparkling apple. All that is in this bottle is sparkling apple juice. According to the ingredients there isn't a drop of cherry juice or anything cherry related at all in here. That makes sense since this really just tastes like a high quality sparkling apple juice. There is no added sugar, like all juice drinks should be. It's really delicious, but the lack of a cherry flavor with a name like is has is off putting. I don't know if it's mislabeled or what, but WTF mate?