You know there are dragons in that water. It's true. In Colorado there are dragons that only come out at night, like in the Smashing Pumpkins song, that swim around in the water. Didn't you ever wonder why there was a "No swimming past sunset" rule statewide? Yeah, that'd be because of the dragons. Thing is, they are messy characters. It's alright though because when they shed their scales, they fall in the water, degrade, and are made of like a sweet, fruity powder. They all flow downstream to the bottling plant where we make this "dragonfruit" drink. It's a really clean process. Sure, poop gets in the mix, but that's what filters are for. It's like a saltwater fish tank. We've got mediums that the poop and dragon hair and cans and garbage goes through so that we are left with the cleanest, purest flavored water.

What do you mean you don't believe me?! Come over here and look at this footage. Tell me that's not a dragon playing with a beach ball in the lake. You can't do it. It's mesmerizing, I know. I had never seen anything like it until I came here. They don't like people and do, even though it's a stereotype, breathe fire. They will breathe fire right on you and you will die. It's no joke and happens all the time. Our filters find people all the time. Parts. Legs and stuff. They think they're so smart with their scientific equipment coming in trying to get them for zoos and stuff. Dragons win all the time.

This drink is a rarity that can't come from anywhere but here, and it's great. There are other dragonfruit drinks but they aren't as authentic as this. This drink is light, sweet, fruity, and very quenching. Colorado's finest. Plus, we've chocked it full of vitamins, antioxidants, and more so that it's even better than regular juice or Vitamin Water. Now that you know that you shouldn't mess around in the water at night, enjoy your stay in Colorado.

Oh man. How am I going to do a 500 word essay on the Emancipation Proclamation in...oh jeez. Fourteen minutes. First thing's first, I need something to drink. This high school is strange. I don't know who is stocking this cooler, but there is no Pepsi or Gatorade or anything I've ever heard of before, just this Cintron stuff. Toronja? I don't know what that is but I do enjoy a good iced tea.

Alright, pen to paper. Let's do this. Oh, this tea is good. It's lightly citrus'd but it is just sweetened tea. What?! Ten minutes? I've only put my name on this piece of paper. Ahhh! Alright, one more sip and I'm cracking down on this paper. This is good tea, man. It's very clean tasting. Not too sweet like a southern style sweet tea but it's got the same ingredients. Eight minutes?! Alright, alright. Let's start.

Emancipation Proclamation, by Mitch Fandis.
Slavery is bad. The president, Abraham Lincoln did not like it. He wanted slavery to be abolished. Not everyone hated slavery, though. The south enjoyed slavery. They used slaves on their plantations. Cider House Rules was a movie about slavery.

There. That's about...less than 50 words? Oh man. I don't know what else to say about it. I can re-write this, double space it, and write larger. That will get me to a whole page. Ahh, the tricks of a tenth grader.

In the 25 years that I lived at home our fridge always had a jug of "blue juice" in it. Yes that's right I didn't move out of my mom's house until I was 25. Sure I could have gotten my own place much sooner, but I was on tour a lot and paying for an apartment when I was gone for a good chunk of time seemed stupid (I did pay my mom rent for the time I was in Buffalo). My living situation isn't the important aspect of this story, the “blue juice” is. That neon fluid was two packets of Kool Aid's Sharkleberry Fin (or whatever the name of that flavor was at the time) and way too much sugar. Our house was famous for this drink, and if we were ever out and my friends went to get a glass there was certainly a minor scene. This may seem like a pointless story, but it is relevant because this drink tastes like Gatorade's version of blue juice. Sure, it has a lot less sugar and that very specific Gatorade taste to it, but the base is all Sharkleberry Fin. I rarely drink Gatorade, but the flavor of this brings me back to a better time before rent and bills were an issue. A time where my friends and I had more of a claim to my family's house than my mom did. Strange times.

Michael loved Saint Patrick's Day. Actually, let me clarify, he didn't care anything about Saint Patrick's Day; he loved the few weeks right before the holiday when McDonalds had Shamrock Shakes. Every year for two weeks he would down as many as he could. When they disappeared for another year it was always a sad occasion. This past year he had kept a quarter of a cup of it in his fridge so he could enjoy it again later. He had planned on holding off for a week or two, but truth be told Michael was a weak willed man. Less than 24 hours had passed since he purchased the frozen beverage before he found himself standing in front of an open fridge with an empty cup and a minty taste in his mouth. It had been glorious, but now the joy was over and he was still thirsty. He had opened the fridge to get some yerba mate, but was distracted by the milkshake. With a shrug Michael grabbed the pitcher of tea and filled up his now empty McDonalds cup. He thought for a second that he should probably rinse it out, but along with being weak willed he was also lazy. When he took a sip he was shocked at how minty the residual shake had made his tea. Normally Michael wasn't a fan of mint tea. It was always overpowering. This was different though. It was smooth and the yerba mate and the mint blended together nicely. He was so pleased with what he created that he ran out into the living room and had his roommate give it a try. Ron, the roommate, was annoyed that Michael was interrupting his viewing of Desperate Housewives, but he knew the only way to get him to leave was to try it. “It's good,” Ron said. “It tastes just like the Guayaki Pure Empower Mint that I drink at work all the time.” With that he turned up the volume and Michael went upstairs to his room, leaving the fridge door wide open.

Imagine spending your entire life hating coconuts and everything they flavor. For years your hatred rose to a point where if anything had even trace amounts of the fruit you wouldn't taste it for all the pineapples in Hawaii. I lived those dark days. It got to the point where I couldn't even see the humor in a coconut carved to look like a monkey. Then one day everything changed. You see I wasn't alone in my anti-coconut crusade. All three of us here at Thirsty Dudes had the same aversion. It was an unspoken bond that we would put off reviewing coconut waters for as long as we could, and with so many beverages in the world that could be a long, long time. One day a package showed up. It was full of dozens of cartons of coconut water. Even though our hatred ran strong, our duty to the website was stronger. We each took a handful of the drinks and went to our respective homes to taste the foulness in peace. I don't know about the others, but I can say that the one I drank was better than I expected, but not something I actually enjoyed. By that I mean that I was able to drink the entire bottle without wanting to throw up. We each posted reviews and we thought we were done with it. Then a magical comment appeared on one of our reviews. It instructed us that we should make sure that we drank coconut water ice cold. I thought what the hell and I gave it a try. I can't explain what a difference a few dozen degrees makes. A drink that was chalky and gross suddenly became refreshing and flavorful. I began to truly enjoy coconut water.

All of that took place about a year ago. Oh how things change. Here I sit in my home and within twelve hours of procuring this carton of coconut water I'm leaning back and enjoying it. The flavor is called “Pineapple Punch,” but since it's pineapple and coconut it really is just a pina colada. Who would have thought that I would ever like drinking pina colada? If you had handed me one in the past it would have gone directly down the drain. Now I'm sipping it from a carton, like my computer room was some kind of paradise. It tastes mostly like normal coconut water with just a hint of pineapple mixed in. Our citrus friend is kept in check, so the drink remains nice and smooth. As an added bonus vitamins from GNC added to it. I don't notice them in the flavor or texture, so that is a good thing.

Now that you are done imaging a world where you hate coconuts take a moment to imagine a world where everyone abbreviates everything and “phenom” is used as an adjective constantly. That would be a frightening place to live.

Death Valley gets a bad wrap. Whomever named it should go back to marketing school, assuming they didn't graduate, and try again because they forever blackened the name of that place. Look, sure, things happened, it's hot, it doesn't have a quenching water park, and there isn't a nice suburb filled with crap like Applebee's, TGI Friday's, and Joe's Crab Shack for families to go to on the weekend. I am no city planner but I can tell you that you don't need those things to make things happen. I do know you can't have a place called "Death Valley" and have it give off the "fun" vibe.

Here is a start. Everyone that crosses the border from outside to inside Death Valley gets a complimentary bottle of their root beer. This root beer has a fantastic, real vanilla taste that is with you on every sip and a nice, dark flavor throughout. Dark like Death Valley at night but cool, unlike Death Valley, like...ever.

This might have to be limited to one bottle per car as we are trying to fix the image of Death Valley, not bankrupt them. Limit one per car, please share. Don't forget to stop at the Death Valley memorial on your way in and out for great prices on sweatshirts you would have to be crazy to wear anywhere within 250 miles of Death Valley.

When I purchased this I thought that the ice cream company of the same name made it. It wasn't until I was looking up the website that I realized that the ice cream company spells their name Breyers. Oops. It has the same name (different spelling) and it's a cream based soda. I don't think I was too far off base. Oh well.

Where Breyers makes quality ice cream, Briar's makes a mediocre lemon cream soda. I wanted this to be a really creamy cream soda, but instead I got a bottle of lemon soda with trace amounts of cream. Actually, the lemon wasn't even that strong. This would have been awesome if it was strong lemonade mixed with cream soda, but alas it's lackluster lemon soda.

Briar's red birch beer looks pretty great. I can't wait to try that. Breyer's Blasts Snickers looks more than great. It looks otherworldly. I should probably mix the two together and lose my mind for a while.


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UPDATE
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We received an email from the company asking us where we purchased this because this flavor has been out of production for several years. They also said, "It would be more like an antique bottle with liquid in it than a soda pop!" Ick.

What's the matter boy? Ahh. Scurvy. Twas a terrible disease when we were at sea. There was all that water with no citrus to keep us from getting sick. We lost many men to that dreadful disease. I'll tell you, being a fisherman is not as glamorous as it sounds. Sure, you get to spend all day fishing, but have you ever eaten fish every day for sixty-two days? It gets old kid. Real old. Real fast. Especially when you run out of those McCormick spices. Paprika fish is great until it is no more. You end up marinating fish in other fish to try and get something different. Then you start mixing fish and potatoes or fish and old socks. I'm telling you. It gets bad.

So yes, vitamin C deficiency is no joke. Everyone's wives told them to bring these little packets of True Orange but they thought that they would be picked on for having flavor packets so they traded them for "tough guy" stuff like razors, cigarettes, and fingerless gloves. Me? I brought it and no one made fun of me. It was fine, too. It tastes like if you split a glass of orange juice between ten people and watered it down to make it work. It's lightly sweetened and still, somehow, 25% of your daily vitamin C intake.

I know you like the sea, lad, but please don't worry about what the other guys tell you. There is nothing cool about a dead guy wearing fingerless gloves because as cool as they were when he was alive, you certainly aren't going to take them off his cold, dead hands and call them your own. Well, unless you're Zeke. That dude is crazy.

I like green apples better than red apples. I think it's a matter of crispness and crunch. Red apples just don't have the same pizzazz to me as green apples. I just saw an apple on the can and assumed that it was apple juice. Just regular old apple juice. Nothing special. Apple juice. You know, apples go great with cinnamon and honey. I think it's a Jewish delicacy. I seem to remember wearing nice clothes eating bread and apples and cinnamon and honey. Wouldn't you love to be able to drink an apple and cinnamon juice sweetened with honey? Oh. I'm so excited. I hope this exists.

I was pleasantly surprised that this was green apple, which I didn't know until my first sip. Thing is, initial sips lead me to a delicious, green apple-dom. Aftertaste is a bit bitter and I am on the fence if I like it or not. For all I know, this could be the exact same sensation that happens when I eat a real green apple but without the chewing and the apple skin and the whole experience, I might miss the strange aftertaste that Snapple is telling me belongs there.

This is a nice way to kick off a week. It's different, it's juice, and it might actually be good for you. I look forward to finding more of these 100% Juiced drinks somewhere.

Years ago while strolling down Mission Street in San Francisco my traveling companions and I were trying to decide where we should get burritos. The number of “Mexican” restaurants on that street alone is staggering. Since we knew we only had enough room in our stomachs for one burrito we needed to make it count. I heard the sound of kids skating, and when I looked over at them I saw one of the most glorious sites of my life. On a building someone had drawn a mural of a sombrero wearing chili pepper with a gun chasing a hard-shell taco wearing glasses. I instantly busted out laughing. I pointed it out to my friends, and we went inside. Coming from the northeast I will always appreciate when I can get some authentic Mexican food. This taqueria served the best burritos I've ever tasted. On top of that they were huge and only $3. After we left my friend Gak informed me that hard-shell tacos did not exist in Mexico and they were a “gringo” thing. I previously had no idea, but that made me love the mural even more.

As soon as I read this label I instantly thought of those burritos. The label says, “Hecho en California por gringos!” It also says, “Pierda peso carbon!” which roughly translates to “lose weight bastard!” Basically it's saying that gringos can't handle the real deal Mexican Cola, so here's a light version of it to help them lose weight because they are all fat. It sounds about right to me. I'm normally not a fan of diet sodas, but it looked interesting so I gave it a try. I wish the flavor had been as interesting as the taunts. This tastes like your everyday diet cola. There is no kick to it at all. If I did a blind taste test between this and any store brand diet cola I doubt I would be able to decide which was which.

Now I'm just thinking about burritos. I wish I was a flight attendant so I could just hop on a plane to the west coast right now to get some quality burritos. Man, that would be the life.

I've drunk a lot of peach juices and nectars in my day. For a while I was obsessed with Looza peach nectar. Then I got sick of paying $5 for a bottle of it, and switched over to the Goya version. It wasn't quite as good, but it still got the job done. Throughout the history of Thirsty Dudes I seem to always end up with the peach flavored drinks, and I'm not complaining.

The Sonrisa peach nectar is not as thick as the previously mentioned brands, but it's nothing to scoff at. Sure it has HFCS in it as a sweetener, but it comes after the juice on the ingredients list. That is saying something in this day and age. It's very sweet, a little sweeter than I prefer, but the peach taste makes up for it. Anyone who has downed more than a couple of whole peaches in their life can tell you that different parts of the peach have different flavors. Sonrisa concentrated on the “flesh” of the peach that comes in contact with the pit. In an actual peach that area is a bit tougher, with some rough spots, but the flavor is very specific. If there wasn't a sweetener added to this I think the taste would be dead on. Adding the sweetener just made it more enjoyable.

You're fading fast. You've had a long day at the office. You know, "the grind", and it's time you let loose. Take that tie off and put it around your head because nothing says "loose" like a tie on your head. Your boss rides you really hard but he's not here. You just relax; there aren't any co-workers in here. Go crazy. Stay out past ten. Drink some of that great looking grape punch. Gah! What happened to the punch?! Did someone spike the punch? What is this, a John Hughes film? Spiking the punch. Really? What did they spike it with? Did they spike it with an energy drink and some sort of liquor? What's happening?

Are you feeling alright? You're feeling energized? That's awesome. You've feeling like you've been alcoholized? Well that's not what you want. You wanted to have a good time and now look at you. You're in rougher shape than before you came to this non-work related party. You don't even drink and now you're a wreck. You've got to get to the bottom of this. "Who did this?" you ask, "Who dumped this stuff in the juice? My first glass was great and then subsequent glasses were less than great. Who's the wise guy?" Less than ten seconds later a kid said that he poured some Monster in there because he wanted to pump the party up. He was bored and now you're suffering the consequences. Thanks kid.

Hi, my name is Stephen Milakis and I'm the national champion for "Float Chugging." My record is that I was able to drink a dozen 20oz mugs of the root beer variety in just under 90 seconds. Sure it hurt, and I was on the verge of spewing everywhere, but I'm a champion and I play to win. The post contest belch is also extremely gratifying. Next month I am set to participate in the worldwide championship. I thought I had it in the bag. The kid from Mongolia was the only who actually seemed like a real contender. Yesterday I received a package and everything changed. At every float chugging contest I've been at in the states the beverage used has always been root beer based. There was one time things got a little crazy and sarsaparilla was used, but it's basically the same thing. In the package was an assorted sixer of the various flavors of the company Vio. Apparently they are sponsoring the event, and so their drinks are being used. The issue I have with this is that all of their drinks are prepackaged (no actual ice cream) and are all fruit flavored. I don't know which is more disturbing. First off, these didn't come cold. They are made with skim milk and cream, and the packaging says that it contains no preservatives. How does this stuff not spoil? When I cracked open the first bottle i expected it to be rancid and chunky. Surprisingly it was not. Secondly, I don't know if I'm going to be able to chug fruit flavors. I'm so used to root beer that I've become desensitized to it. This is going to be like starting all over again. Ugh.

I'm going to still give it my all. I'm an American and we don't know when to admit we've been defeated. I'll start by downing this sixer and see how long it takes. First to go will be the peach mango flavor. It doesn't smell rancid, but it sure does smell strange. It actually tastes pretty good. It's like someone dumped some juice into milk. Wouldn't that also make it spoil? There is so much going on in this can that should make it go bad. The more I drink the worse it gets. As tasty as this was at the beginning, by the end of this 8oz metallic bottle it's hard to get it down. Dairy in liquid form should not be carbonated. Screw this I'm not even going to bother getting on my flight to Norway. I'll feign illness or something. Anything is better than losing to a Mongolian.

Jeez. You know how you've got real strawberries, right? Strawberries are an actual fruit and they're pretty good as-is. If you covered them in sugar, you would have the candy version of strawberries. Take that same rock-solid methodology to pineapples, some of the best fruit that ever touched this earth, and you've got this drink. Holy crap it is sweet. It tastes like candied pineapples, like pineapple candy. I had some pineapples for lunch, alright, one off of someone's plate, and I can say for certainly that it didn't taste like this. It would have had I poured a packet of sugar on it, but who would do that? Idiots and kids, that's who.

Don't mess with a good thing, India the beverage company not the country. Pineapples are great. If you want to make pineapple pop, just add carbonated water to pineapple juice. No sugar. You'll go and ruin it and no one likes a ruiner. The third album "Ruiner" from A Wilhelm Scream, on the other hand, everyone should like, as it's gold.

We made it. Never in our wildest dreams would we think that we would make it to two thousand reviews. Did you know that there were two thousand drinks out there that weren't alcoholic? You might have, but come on it's still impressive. In order to celebrate, we drank this Champayno and it wasn't bad. It tastes like a fine dry ginger ale. If I had to drink non-alcoholic champagne, and the sparkling fruit juice stuff wasn't available, or I was at a lawyers party for some reason, like I was trying to get on the board, or was dating one of the members of the boards' daughter and she brought me to the party, I could drink this and not look like so much of a child. Not overly sweet and different than most ginger ale you have had.

Anyhow, thank you for your support over these past two thousand plus reviews. We've got plenty more in store for you so keep tuned in.

Pineapples out of a can are fine. I'm not a "silver spoon" kind of kid. I have eaten all sorts of disgusting things to get by. Plus, they are actually just plain fine. Who has a problem besides, say, Hawaiians who have the ability to just eat them all day long? Buffalo? We get two months of edible pineapples. Oh, we can buy them more months out of the year than that but they taste like garbage. If I can eat consistently good pineapples that taste a little like the can they come in, I'll take it.

This drink tastes like pineapples out of a can with less of a sting. How did I get this far in the review without even mentioning papaya? Well it's simple. I didn't taste it. Anyone who ingests more papaya than I may have been able to find it somewhere in the mix of tin and pineapple, but I didn't get it. I didn't care that I didn't get it as I was totally fine with a fresh can of pineapple juice.

Jumex from Texas and not from Mexico where I thought you would be from, you're great.

In 1997 the Florida based band Mira (not to be confused with K Records artist Mirah) started putting out albums of shoegazey dream pop bliss. Sometime in the last century a mysterious conglomerate also known as Mira started putting out sugary juice bliss. I think the two must be correlated in some way. I mean what are the chances of so much bliss being created by two separate entities with the same name? I mean sure you could go to the Mira nectar website and you are met by "tropical/island" music, but hey people change. Maybe the fine folks in the band decided they want a more cheery demeanor in their lives.

I'd like to think that when the band went on hiatus in 2006 they directed their efforts into this other endeavor. Each member of the band chose a fruit and it was his or her duty to perfect a juice for production. Guitarist Tom Parker obvious pulled the pineapple card. The taste of this juice is as thick and dreamy as his guitar playing. He took the juice of a wonderful fruit and added some sugar to it to successfully combat the weird bile taste that it's juice sometimes has, while keeping the natural flavor intact. I've lost myself in his music, and I've lost myself in his juice.

I really wish this were all true. Imagine a band going from this to this. It would be simply amazing.

Once again I have been derailed by the taste of a drink. I was planning on writing a big long story about a dog, named Sparky, on a boat and all the adventures she has had. But then I took my first sip of this and was blown away by the taste.

This may be the most complex root beer I have ever tasted. Given the tagline "old style", I was expecting this to be a middle of the road classic tasting root beer like Dad's or IBC. Instead, what I got was a wave of delicious and interesting flavors. At the base level, it's a nice hearty root beer with a medium bite. But once you sit back and take in all the other flavors, it's incredible.

The ingredients include wintergreen oil, anise, and vanilla which are all strongly present in the taste. Each sip tastes different, which is awesome. Sometimes you get a strong licorice aftertaste, and other times it's a smooth vanilla flavor followed by a minty tingle on your lips.

Congratulations Sea Dog, you have made my top 5 root beers of all time.

I have been sick. Sick as a dog even though I have never seen a dog with anything other than a runny nose and, unfortunately, worms. Ugh, that was a day. Looked like someone spilled a can of Chef Boyardee spaghetti on the rug. I didn't want you to think that I quit and went and worked for some other website reviewing things like slacks. I have had and am slowly conquering strep throat. Accompanying strep throat, if you've never been privileged enough to have it, is a headache that is murderous and the inability to breathe due to a sinus infection. Breathing out of your mouth for like four days straight does a couple things. One, and most frustrating is that it oxidizes your teeth and you get white spots on your teeth that only time will heal but make it look like you don't give a rip about dental hygiene. It also dries out your mouth like crazy but due to the inability to swallow, it makes it hard to drink to fix it.

I might have made an exception if I had this at my bedside table. This has a wonderful blueberry taste, possibly the best blueberry taste I've ever had in a tea. There is also a fantastic sweet black tea taste behind that. I really get a sense that Rob, the mad scientist that he is, has trucks of blueberries coming to the HQ and he's crushing them using just handfuls of mallets. He just grabs like four to six mallets and crushes hundreds of pounds of blueberries, punches out, and then goes home purple, sticky, and smelling rather good to bees. Rob has forearms of steel due to his hours of fruit crushing. He makes it hard to wear shirts because he's also busting through sleeves. Lots of tank tops and sleeveless T-'s for Rob. He's a nice dude who makes great tea but wears an uncomfortable amount of tank tops due to his comically large biceps.

Once a year the abominable snowman takes a trip into town in order to pick up supplies to help get him through the winter. Sure, he was once a savage that lived in the mountains of Nepal, but times have changed. It's a crazy world out there, and he decided for a change. As a result he ended up in northern Canada (How could he say no to universal health care?). The only problem with this is that people would run in terror at the sight of him. Then the pitchforks and torches would come out and it would end up being a terrible day. In order to get around this he has learned to wear baggy clothes and to shave off all of his visible hair. Don't worry though it grows back, fast. In fact it grows back too fast.

Last year he got all ready and trekked into the local town. He purchased everything that he would need for the upcoming winter. He purchased some rice, beans, chocolate, canned vegetables and most importantly a case of Jones' Strawberry Lime soda. It's his absolute favorite. If he could buy 20 cases of it, he would. Too bad he couldn't carry that much with him back up the mountain. It's hard enough lugging a single case up to the summit, but he does what he has to do. He then rations out the bottles to one a week so that they last all winter. It's hard to do and he usually spends the last month of winter soda free and grieving. He really just can't get enough of it. It doesn't really taste like strawberries, but more of a candied version of it, but the lime is pure lime all the way. The way lime mixes with other flavors will always be a mystery, a delicious mystery. It's sweet and bubbly and it hits the spot perfectly during the long Canadian winters.

As I was saying he had purchased everything he needed and was about to leave town, when he noticed people giving him weird looks. He scowled back thinking they were just being rude, until he caught a glimpse of his reflection. His hair was growing back sooner than expecting. During the 2 seconds he looked in the window it had gone from slight stubble to a two-week beard, and it didn't seem to be stopping. He panicked and ran threw town. Leaving most of his purchases by the storefront. He got out of town as fast as he could. He was already back at his mountain before he realized that the only thing he still had on him was his case of soda. Oh well, he might be hungry all winter, but at least he had his beloved soda. You don't believe me? Well take a look at the bottle. Someone snapped a picture of the rampage last year and sent it in to Jones. It won the contest and made it onto the strawberry lime label. If he wasn't so embarrassed to return the town, I'm sure he would be overjoyed that his image now graces his favorite soda.