Not all cream soda's are created equal. We know this. It's not debatable. Some are amazing and delicious and some just taste like they were dragged through the river. Simpson Spring has always done us good as far as soda goes, so this cream soda already had a leg up before I opened it up.

Lo and behold, I was right. This bottle is delicious! If they were to add a tagline to this flavor, it would be "very vanilla". I don't know if I've ever had a cream soda that has this strong of a vanilla flavor to it. Some people might prefer more subtle cream sodas, but the creamier the better in my opinion.

It has finally happened. I have found a coconut water drink that tastes exactly like I always thought coconut water would taste. To be clearer I mean it tastes like toasted coconut. To be even clearer it tastes like tanning oil. Now I've never used, nor tasted, tanning oil, as I believe it would make me spontaneously combust. I have smelled it and this tastes exactly like it smells. My ladyfriend also confirmed that it has the same taste. That is gross. Who wants to ingest anything like that? I honestly can't imagine a single person out there who would buy this, try it, be able to stomach it at all, and then go back and buy some more. Is this drink some sort of tax write off for Sobe? There has to be some strange back story here and I want to hear it!

What a pile of garbage. Jay is going to be so disappointed, poor little guy. Back on May 21st of this year, I found on the internets that R.W. made a hibiscus cooler. We love hibiscus. It is a miracle ingredient. It makes everything better somehow. I've bought cases of a hibiscus tea I like because it was so exceptional.

This...there isn't much to be said about it. It tastes like a cranberry juice watered down with apple juice. Hello? Hibiscus? Are you even in there? I get it just at the end, that little bit of spicy, flower, but when I say "spicy" do not expect anything. It could be the orange talking. There is also orange in there but it might only be the aftertaste. So disappointing.

Jay, I know you've got a bottle of this at your house. Please don't get too sad about it. I'll talk you out of your inevitable depression.

I bought one of these while I was in Vegas. I had planned on drinking it on our last day, on a trip to Red Rock Canyon, but the temperature was so high that by the time I opened it the drink was almost hot. Bummer. I took a couple of sips and then dumped the rest, as we were flying out in a few hours and I had no way to cool it down. Cut to a couple of days ago when Mike and I found a bunch of Admiral teas in Buffalo. I was excited to try it while actually cold. Hansen's makes it, so my hopes were high. I did find it odd that they sweetened it with HFCS since their sodas all have cane sugar in them. Tall boys of iced tea are usually an exception for me for HFCS. There are a lot of them out there that have it that are still tasty. This wasn't bad, but it wasn't great like it could have been. The sweetener made it a little syrupy and the mango flavor tasted like some other product that is very specific, but I just can't put my finger on what it is. It's driving me crazy. I liked it, but a tall boy was too much of it for me (and I'm a drink glutton). If it had come in a 16oz can I think I would have enjoyed it more, but I was over it by the time I was getting to the bottom of this big fella.

Sometimes water needs a little boost. I'll say it. I drink a lot of water. Probably not enough, but when I'm home, I drink glass after glass. Back to the original issue at hand, sometimes water needs a boost. Carbonation is one thing but, for some reason, it makes it taste different. To me, that specific "different" is not good. "Soda water" as it is affectionately known is gross to me and won't travel down my gullet.

Oddly enough, if you just add a little natural orange flavor and it's a different animal. It still feels good for you because there is no sugar, doesn't taste like there is sugar in there, and doesn't taste too strong that they're trying to surprise you with secret ingredients. It's just like a carbonated water with an essence of orange. That's it. You have to carbonate it yourself and add the ingredients. You are like Jesus except instead of wine you are making carbonated, orange flavored water. Less impressive since you didn't magically perform any sort of rapid fermentation process, but impressive nonetheless.

The consistency of Vita Lina drinks is so strange. From the look of it sloshing around the bottle you wouldn't think that it flowed any different from a random drink. You don't really notice the strangeness until it's in your mouth. It's not syrupy. It's more like a watered down gel, but the viscosity of it is not something that is normal in drinks. I would like to say that I got over it and that it makes the drink fun, but this is my third bottle of their products and I still am hesitant to drink them. I know they taste great, but the consistency just throws me off. It's not gross. It's just weird.

As far as the flavor goes, this has a real pineapple flavor to it, without the harsh edge of the fruit. It tastes like of like it should be a pineapple “drink” and not juice. I don't mean that in a bad way though. Sometimes pineapple juice can be far too acidic to drink a lot of. Once you convince yourself that you're over the texture of this, you can drink this all day long.

Jay doesn't like lemon tea. I don't know if he doesn't like lemons or what manufactured lemon tea has become. You've got about a 50% chance of getting something that tastes like an actual lemon. Lemon tea is becoming the grape of the drink family. Candy grapes taste nothing like real grapes but all candy grape things taste the same. Lemon tea is the same. Well, almost always. This has that tingle on your tongue that you get from letting a lightly sweetened sun tea with a few lemon slices in it gives you. That being said, it reminds me that we have had one gnarly, sun-filled summer and I haven't made sun tea once. Part of me just died inside.

This tea is a nice, honest tea; no pun intended. It's low calorie but you would just think that there simply isn't as much sugar as in another tea. It's no lemon Southern style sweet tea so get that out of your thick skulls. If that is the tea for you and that's all you drink, you will consider this unsweetened. If you like unsweetened tea, you might be able to make the leap. Never downward, always upward.

If this is what the raw food movement is all about, I'm in. I'll stop cooking everything. I'll eat everything cold and uncooked and undercooked. Pizza? Nope. Not unless it's just a ball of cold dough with just a whole beefsteak tomato and just stalks of uncleaned oregano. That's my new pizza. My new taco is more of a taco bowl because I can't eat proper tortillas. My cereal is made with water and instead of marshmallows and chocolate is just corn or peas. My new strange, unconventional lifestyle is all worth it because I get to drink this drink.

This drink...is wonderful. It is a powerful blend of raspberries and lemongrass. That lemongrass, man. That is strong. That is a strong flavor that is wrapped in a secret, deceiving, grass looking disguise. You look at it and think, "Oh, that's grass. No big deal." Then you take a bite out of it and your hair looks like when you used to go to Spensers at the mall and touch that laser ball. The raspberry just cuts some of that powerful lemongrass and leaves you with something you think you've had before but haven't. Oh, raspberry lemonade? I've had it. You idiot. This is not wimpy lemonade. This is lemonade for adults. Adults who have scorched their mouths on pizza hundreds of times and now need something stronger to cut through the scars and your tired, grizzled old tongue.

I would love to see a wimp kid drink this and watch his face as the powerful flavor blasts his dumb taste buds out of his mouth and knocks those rubber bands from his braces across the room hitting his older sister in the cheek. She deserved it. Trust me. She's a brat.

Mike is always complaining about reviewing apple juice. You see unless it's the one out of a thousand times that it's something out of the ordinary and exception, or complete garbage, all apple juices pretty much taste the same. I find that strange because there are so many different types of apples out there with such an array of flavors, that I can't imagine every company uses the same type. I would expect each company to have their slightly unique version of apple juice, yet the all taste the same. Perhaps the problem is that they all mix the various apple types and the result is the standard. I guess I'm okay with that. There are types of apples that I'm not really a fan of, but I can never remember which is which. This way I don't have to worry about buying a juice that tastes like the “bad apples.”

Welch's you've done nothing new, or spectacular, here, but that's fine. You've perpetuated the standard and I enjoyed it. I just don't understand why you ship in your apple juice concentrate from China, Chile and Argentina when your company is based out of the North East which is ripe with apple orchards.

Doctor, Doctor! The city's sick! It's summer and all the coffee is making everyone overheated. Won't these people learn that drinking a hot beverage when it's 80 degrees out is not good for you? Do you have a remedy!?

Iced coffee! Yes, this will work. Mmmmm, it's made with almond milk, and is mocha flavored. It tastes like chocolate milk, but sadly there's not much coffee flavor to it. I know it's in there because I suddenly feel energized. But with a coffee drink, I am hoping for some sort of coffee flavor to it.

So thank you Dr. Chao for saving the people of Portland from this heat. Your service to the community will not go unnoticed.

Dad! I knew you would find someway to ruin my 13th birthday party! I kept you in the dark about most of it, because even though I know you have the best of intentions, you always mess everything up. I had mom take care of the cake, the clown, the decorations and all of the food. Not surprisingly all of that is perfect. You had one responsibility and that was to buy pop for everyone and you somehow messed that up! I even made you a list and told you specifically where you could get it! What, you don't know many 13 year olds who know exactly what stores to buy specific sodas at? Well I'm a new breed, okay?

You completely ignored my list, and obviously went to a discount store. Don't try denying it; you left the price tags on the bottles. Not only did you go the cheap route, but you also only bought one flavor. I know you bought it because you thought it was cute that it's called Dad's and you're my dad. On top of that it's “Big Daddy Size.” I have to tell you, now that I'm a teenager that just sounds creepy and gross. Don't ever say that phrase again! So here we are with a bunch of bottles of Dad's Old Fashioned Red Cream Soda. At first I gave you the benefit of the doubt because cream soda is delicious, and I loved that can of red cream soda mom brought me back from Toronto. The thing is this stuff is garbage. It tastes like someone took 3 parts bubble gum flavored soda and mixed in 1 part cream soda. It's basically champagne cola and cream. It's gross! I hate it! You've ruined my birthday! I'm never speaking to you again!

Remember back in the day where the only half and half we had was Arizona Arnold Palmer? I seriously think that people don't realize that there are options aside from that. It's been a long time since those days and I've got to say that I don't miss that at all. There is nothing wrong with competition and since those days, there are dozens of better half and half's out there that surpass Mr. Arnold Palmer's drink. It's not a dis as much as it just a changing of the times. Better ingredients, smaller companies, easier distribution channels, and so on. Sure, Gold Peak is owned by Coke but it wasn't always and their tea has consistently been good. This intro paragraph is a wake up call to those who drink gallons of Arnold Palmer. Hey, friends. Wake up. There is more out there that was made specifically for you. Stop being lazy and complacent and try something new.

Lemonade and iced tea are a touch mix. Iced tea is a soft taste and lemonade is sharp and stands out in the crowd. This, in my opinion, is an uneven mix of the two. This leans way heavy towards lemonade. It's not bad but it almost cuts down the iced tea so much that if you didn't know better, you would think that this is a weak lemonade. I do not think that was the intention of Gold Peak. This probably came out just as it was supposed to but this is how I think about the contents of this bottle.

This was a nice surprise, as I don't remember the last time Gold Peak came out with a new product. Everything they have put out is good and if you are a half and half fan, try this out. As it stands, I still think it's better than Arizona but if you've been drinking that stuff for as long as I think you have, you've become desensitized to the fake sweetener that I can't stand.

NASA has been having some trouble with their astronauts being little piggies. No lie those space commanders have become real porkers. Long gone are the days of the fit and cut astronauts from our youth. Instead they look more like your unemployed uncle on a good day. NASA decided something needed to be done. Not only is it bad for PR, but also the extra weight causes issues with the flights. They decided to launch a two tiered attack. The first thing they did was to start serving healthy vegan food in their cafeterias and on the flights (that is seriously not a lie, I just read about it today). Secondly, they decided that all of the sugar that “Major Tom” was injesting via Tang wasn't helping at all. After half a century the relationship between the two companies was dissolved and our space scientists teamed up with Glaceau. Instead of the uber sugary Tang, astronauts now ingest a stevia sweetened alternative called Rise (get it, because they are rising to space). It really taste exactly like Tang with stevia instead of real sugar, but they do it well because they use less than 1% of the sweetener. It has a slight diet sting, but it's mostly orange, and you can't really ask for more than that. Now they just need to up the treadmill time. How are they supposed to find God (aka any array of Bowie characters) out there if they are too fat to get off the ground?

My aunt Linda loves honey. This summer she invested with a co-op of amateur beekeepers with the end goal of getting your own honey from your own bees. She went out and bought a whole bunch of equipment and an official bee suit and this past weekend harvest over 100 pounds of honey, a liquid, which for some reason decides to be measured like a solid. Those bee people, \they deal with bees, for cripes sake. Literally flying needles coming at you from all directions. You can measure anything any way you'd like. Why do I bring this up? Simple. Honeydrop uses honey as their primary sweetener and it's a wonderful treat.

If my aunt found about this, she'd be all over it. As long as I have known her, which has been my entire life, I have never heard her mention her affinity for honey but now she's all about it. I bet she would do fairly well in a bee related column in Jeopardy. Now a delicious tea comes along sweetened by her life's nectar? She'd be all over it, as I mentioned previously. What's nice about this tea is that it's got a nice, soft peach flavor and then a honey aftertaste. It would be like eating a peach that is, somehow, injected with honey. If that was how peaches were naturally created, I'd eat them all of the darn day. Since it's not, I'll stick with drinking peach tea and using honey on peanut butter sandwiches and not eating actual, strangely textured, furry fruit.

It's been a long time since I last took a trip to Hosmer Mountain. It's a great place to visit this time of year. The trees are full, the air is crisp, and there are not too many bugs around to bother you. Let's not forget the best part of Hosmer Mountain, the abundance of delicious soda everywhere. I managed to find this bottle of Sarsaparilla lying on a pad of moss under an oak tree. I had to wrestle it away from a raccoon, but it found another bottle a few minutes later so luckily it didn't claw my face off.

The soda you find at Hosmer Mountain is always delicious. This is definitely one of the best sarsaparilla's I've ever had. It's really smooth with a nice thick molasses taste to it. It's one of the sweetest bottles I've had, not to mention the strong vanilla aftertaste.

So if you ever find yourself in New England, do yourself a favor and climb Hosmer Mountain. Even if you hate nature, it's worth it to find the delicious bottles of soda scattered everywhere. Hurry before those pesky geo-cachers get them all.

Editor Dan picked this up for us. I had no idea what guayusa was, but I'm not one to turn down any sort of iced tea. Seriously, I'll even drink Nestea if it's put in front of me. I drank this tea before doing any research on it, and I would have sworn that guayusa was just another name for yerba mate. It really reminded me a lot of Guayaki Pure Heart tea. The tea is very heavy on the hibiscus and berry (shockingly it's a combo of yumberry and blueberry), and it's great.

While I was writing this I did some research and guayusa is not the same as yerba mate, but it is another plant that grows in the Amazon. The article I read said that it does taste very similar to mate though. It's nice to know that after so many damn drink reviews my taste buds are still up to par. Guayusa also has as much caffeine as coffee and twice the antioxidants as green tea. It's a nice healthy energy kick. I'm definitely interested in getting some guayusa to brew myself. I'm sure I'll mess it up somehow though. Hopefully more companies will start using it, or Runa will become more popular so that my failure won't matter too much.

I pose to you a question: When Kurt Russell was escaping from New York, and later L.A. would he have had an easier time if this drink were on hand? Would it have given him the refreshment he needed in such dire situations? Would he have just been able to trade a bottle of this for the president? I can only imagine that pineapples and guavas would be like gold on a prison island. If you lived in an area that was cut off from the world for years and suddenly someone dangled those fruits in front of you, I think you would be surprised as to what you would do to procure it. The joke would be on you though if you traded something as precious at the president for a bottle of this. You see there are four main ingredients in this bottle: aloe vera, pineapple and guava (which are all incredibly delicious), but then you also have sea buckthorn berry. I've never actually had one before, or heard of it until now, but a quick internet search tells me they are extremely healthy an also extremely tart. My question is if they are so tart why does this drink taste like someone took a delicious tropical aloe drink and mixed in a little bit of vegetable soup? There is just this little flavor of soup that makes this whole thing really, really weird. It counters the tropical flavor, and once you realize what the taste reminds you of it's hard to concentrate on any of the other flavors. It's still enjoyable, but it's just a weird drink. Snake Plissken sure pulled a fast one on those cons. Now he just needs to get the president back to his glider.

Oh yeah, in case you didn't already realize it this drink also has chunks of aloe in it. I normally love them, but they kind of add to the vegetable soup scenario in here.

Well if Dr. Pepper can create Ten, Pepsi can create their own beverage for men. Just for men. It's not so directly pointed towards men, but women love "diet" and they have it in their minds that “diet” is their drink. Men don't "diet." They eat less pizza and have one scoop of ice cream instead of three. Men are sensitive individuals who won't admit they have a weight problem until they start breaking chairs left and right. As soon as it happens, they head to the store to find manly, low calorie drinks. Pepsi Next is that. It's for the workingman. It's hard to work in an office full of men who love things like burgers, steak, potatoes, and the like and not put on a couple pounds. It comes with the territory. If you can change one thing, like your pop intake, you're on to something.

This is my maiden voyage into the Pepsi Next line and I believe Derek described it as something like regular Pepsi mixed with Diet Pepsi and although I can't argue with that, I will say that this new flavor line is pretty good. This cherry vanilla is right where I want it to be. Strong cherry and even stronger vanilla flavor easily mask the corn syrup, aspartame, and sucralose; all of which are in this drink which combined with real sugar, make up the most comprehensive list of sweeteners in one drink I think I have ever seen. That combination of sweeteners leaves you with a sweet, but not too sweet, 100 calorie bottle of a pretty decent flavored cola. The warmer it gets, the more the other sweeteners come out, but the first half of this bottle right out of the cooler were pretty good. If this came in a responsible eight-ounce can or something of that nature, I would love it. That is a not-so-subtle hint, Pepsi. Not everyone needs twelve plus ounces to satisfy themselves.

I'm going to make some enemies with this statement, but I don't care: I don't like cranberries. It's true, I've always hated cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving and most cranberry juice/drinks I've had are just gross. That was until I had this soda.

Now I'm not saying "I LOVE CRANBERRY" now. I'm just saying that this is the best cranberry drink I've ever had. That being said, I'm still not crazy about it. It's nice that it's naturally sweetened (no real or fake sugar), and yet still tastes sweet. The cranberry taste is strong yet not overpowering like straight cranberry juice.

This was really supposed to be one of the greatest things to ever grace my taste buds. The Bundaberg flavors I've had in the past have been nothing short of greatness. On top of that it has been scientifically proven that guavas are one of the greatest fruits to even ripen on this planet of ours. Even better this was the third part of a gift that my great friend Terry brought back from a work trip to Australia. As you can tell from my wording everything was aligned for greatness. If there was a god then this had to be the greatest soda to ever be produced. Apparently Homer Simpson's flat tax plan was correct, there is no god.

While this is a soda made with actual guava juice, and it is carbonated just like their other flavors, the other flavors masked the fermented taste that the yeast used caused. Unfortunate for me fruit juice doesn't do as good of a job masking that flavor. It turns out that Bundaberg Guava Soda tastes like a wine cooler. My friends who drank loved this. They were all raving about it. To me it was a disappointment that I still enjoyed. It still tasted like guava juice, just a little fermented, the way that Fentimans fruit flavors do. I will give the company credit for making the soda the old fashioned way though.