I remember very vividly the day Jay and I bought this root beer. It has half awesome, half speeding home. I'll tell you the story.

Jay and I and my six-month (at the time) son Max went to a handful of stores to get drinks. We went to a discount store and found this and were both surprised that we hadn't reviewed basic root beer. We bought a four pack and continued on with out voyage. We went to an Asian market that we both know and love, and my brothers and mom were telling me about another one that I should check out in the area. On our way to the new, secret one, we passed another one. Once we went in, Max started to get a little whiny. We sped everything up, went to the new place, got a handful of drinks, and the lady behind the register started talking to Max and he was holding back tears. As soon as we left the store, he exploded. Guttural screams. Throat shredding screams. So mixed between that an Everything But The Girl's "The Language of Love" I sped home to get him changed and fed and napped. All the while, Jay and I were sipping on one bottle of this root beer. It was alright, at best, given the circumstances.

Now, three months later, I am testing it again. It's better than it was that dreadful day, but it's still just "a root beer." It's not moving me in any way. There's a small hint of a licorice or anise, but it's nothing that I would say to someone else, "Hey, this is great. It tastes like root beer with licorice or anise in it." It's a good root beer, but that's about all it is.

So I don't know if Max doesn't like the smell of Asian markets, the soothing sounds of Tracey Thorn, or the sound of Jay and I discussing the irks of today's society, but that day was a bad one.

Soon we will be at the date, which Marty Mcfly traveled to in Back to the Future 2. Unless technology changes at a very rapid pace I don't see that version of the future coming true. Do you know who is to blame for this? Doctor Emmit Brown. He broke his own rule. He brought something back from the future. He discovered a cream soda in 2015 that really excited his taste buds and he just couldn't help himself from bringing some back and marketing it as his own. That's right, Dr Browns is actually a cream soda that "Doc Brown" brought back with him on one of his earliest trips. As a result he really messed with the time space continuum. Our society did not progress as quickly as it would have, but what would you rather have flying cars or tasty soda? Okay, I would take a hover board over and soda any day, but I hear they have a complex out in the desert where they actually made them. It's at that Laser Tag Institute of Technology. I need to make my way out to that desert.

Truth be told, we really have no choice in the way our future turned out. Doc Brown rolled the dice and we get what we get. So let's just sit back and enjoy the soda. It's a fairly light cream soda, with a nice sharp vanilla flavor. It's better tan most canned cream sodas, and that is saying a good deal. Cream soda is one of the few sodas that I actually completely enjoy in can form. Curse Doc Brown if you must for your lack of technology, but at least he supplied us with this tasty treat.

Mark! How many times have I told you to stop eating those damn caramel candies at work? You have absolutely no gauge as to what is an appropriate amount of candy to stuff into your mouth and you end up drooling on everything. It's bad enough when you're working in our cubicle and it gets all over the desk, but now you're working at the cream soda vats and you're disgusting caramel drool is leaking into the syrup. Not only is that just disgusting, but completely unhygienic. What if the health inspector showed up, what would you do then? Jesus Mark! Choking him to death is not going to fix anything. You know as well as I do that if you kill one, two more will show up in his place. This batch has to be thrown out and you're back in the cubicle. What!? You already shipped out a bunch of cases of this stuff and labeled it "Caramel Cream Soda." You're a sick man Mark. No I will not try this. I don't care if you say it tastes like you put 12 caramel candies in your mouth and then drank a cream soda. Who would want that? Who would want a drink that was grosser watered down caramel than delicious cream soda? Oh that's right, you would Mark because you are a sick, sick man. You know what you're fired! I don't care if I'm only the janitor. You're still fired, now drag that sack of caramel out of this factory and never show you're drool covered face around here again.

People rave about Sippin Syrup. Which is weird because Jay reviewed the purple kind and thought it was bad. It's impossible to find in Buffalo, so friends of mine have asked me where to find it. I didn't know what to tell them. As soon as we entered Texas I started to see it in every gas station. I can't distinguish the flavor of this drink for the life of me. "Griptonite" is not a real flavor. It tastes decent though. One thing I do know is this relaxation drink does work. I'm feeling pretty spacey as I type this.

I'm weird because I actually like Big Red. A lot of people give me crap about it, but I don't care. I think it's a decent cream soda. This diet version on the other hand is pretty gross. At first it tasted just like normal Big Red but then has the usual gross diet fake sugar aftertaste. I started to get used to it the more I drank, but it's still not as good as the original.

It's been a long drive, but now you've reach your destination. 11 hours on the road is a long time. It seems even longer when it's been pouring rain for half of it. You get to the house, but no one is home. Luckily you have a key on your enormous janitor-esque key ring. You let yourself in plop down on the couch to just relax. You suddenly realize that you are starving. Problem is it's pouring out so you can't walk anywhere, and you got a bitchin' parking spot that you really don't want to give up. Looks like it's toast with peanut butter yet again. This time you decide to spice it up by sipping on a can of mango nectar during your meal. The food is as decent as you would expect. You went for the honey roasted peanut butter, and boy are and boy are you glad you did. The juice on the other hand, not so great and you wish you had chosen more wisely. It tastes like mangoes alright, but old ones that have begun to slightly spoil. It has that borderline smoky flavor to it that acidic things that are on the verge of going bad get. It's also more of a thinned out syrup than a nectar. What can you do though give up that parking spot? I think not. You'll suffer through that slightly less than mediocre juice, and you'll live another day to complain about it via the internet.

Along the I-95 in South Carolina there is a little oasis of wonder, Well wonder and racism. I'm talking about the famous tourist trap South of the Border. If you've ever driven on the 95 you've more than likely seen the hundreds of billboards for this rest stop of stereotypes. It's really pretty terrible. I can't believe there haven't been protests of some sort. Our Christian (our drummer for this tour) may have been the first person of actual Mexican descent that any of the employees had ever seen. I wonder if they thought he was one of the many statues around the area come to life. You know to seek revenge for the generalization of his people.

I found this carton of juice in a cooler in a "pantry" there. It looks like the crappiest juice I can ever imagine. This looks like sub prison grade juice. I don't know if I trust any sort of beverage that comes in a little carton like this. It looks like I bought it out of some weird olde timey vending machine on the side of a country road. It actually expires this week, so I wonder how long it's been sitting at south of the border surrounded by ponchos, sombreros and over-sized mustaches. I was told that I would be lucky if I don't acquire some sort of parasite from it.

Shockingly it's not all that bad. I expected it to be ultra thick like Hawaiian Punch, but it's fairly thin. It also has actual juice in it, which is kind of blowing my mind grapes. It's not a high quality juice, but what do you expect form a $.70 carton. It tastes like a generic fruit punch, but you can tell it has some real fruit juice, and not all sugar water. All an all I don't mind it. It's much better than the Sunny D the hotel tried to pawn off as orange juice this morning. That is just completely unacceptable. Now I should probably ride the giant sombrero and call it a day.

Seeing this say cider and be in an Asian grocery store made me need this. I also saw that it said "lemon lime" so I was already bummed out by it but I still had it in my hand and since we had not reviewed it, I had to continue with my original intentions to buy it.

This tastes like most lemon lime pops. I don't know why the call it anything cider and I don't know who or what Chilsung is, but their definition and our definition of a "cider" is nothing alike. Apples make a cider. Lemons and limes getting together to re-create what was done a thousand times is not a cider. This isn't bad, but you've had it if you've had any Sprite, 7-Up, Sierra Mist, and everything in-between.

Jay and I also got cantaloupe popsicles when we were there. Those were absolutely delicious and they made the trip unforgettable. I wish I was there again, eating one of those delicious popsicles. Oh, the memories. I'll buy that all of the darn day.

Seeing as Barq's root beer is famous for untraditionally having caffeine in it, I was half expecting this also to have it. Sadly my hopes of finding a cream soda with caffeine in it will have to wait another day. This definitely lives up to having a French vanilla flavor. I gave Sheena a sip and she said it was "really sweet, and kinda salty." It's weird but she's right. It does sort of have a salty aftertaste, but it is really awesome. I found this in a gas station in the middle of Louisiana but have never seen it around Buffalo before. Hopefully i will come across it again because it is great.

We're on our way to Austin, Texas for Fun Fun Fun Fest and decided to break up the driving today by stopping in Pensacola, Florida to get something to eat. A friend suggested we check out Sluggos so that is where we went. I ordered this with my meal and the only thing exciting about it was that we hadn't reviewed it on the site yet. As you can guess from the can, it is a very generic diet cola. It was pretty gross actually as far as diet sodas go. Luckily the food was incredible and got the awful diet cola taste out of my mouth. Next time I'll get the Abita Root Beer that they have on tap there.

I've got a headache. I wish I could pour this drink on my brain. I've watched enough doctor shows on television to know that when you do things to the brain, it makes you do funny things. Poke here and you pick your nose. Poke there and you'll recite the alphabet in Spanish. If I poured a caramel milk on my brain, I think that it would be bad, number one, but before I went into an inevitable, caramel induced coma, I would hope to do some all encompassing spastic dance and spit out some unintelligible gibberish. I guess that I would be making a big mistake and it would not be funny or worthwhile.

If I were to miss my giant open head cavity and make some in my mouth, or have some drip out of the crevices of my brain and into my mouth, I would say that it was delicious and calming and perfect for a headache. It's just a very smooth, very caramel drink. You know those little, plastic wrapped caramels that both your grandma and myself love? They taste like that if you ate one and chased it with milk, or, better yet, drank milk, held it in your mouth, and chewed one of those caramels.

It should be known that I didn't remember that it was Halloween when I was talking about brains and stuff. That came to me naturally.

The Fest in Gainesville, FL is one of the best times of year. I would take that weekend over Xmas any time. Even on years such as this where there wasn't very many bands I was interested, I still had an incredible time. It's the "punk rock family reunion." People from all over the country (and world) that I have met from playing in bands are all congregated in a tiny college town. It's really a special thing to be surrounded by so many great people. Fest ended last night, and I was sad to have to leave everyone behind to head out to the next town. I know I'll see everyone again next year, if not sooner, but it's always a bummer.

We had an 11-hour drive to Richmond, VA (we wanted to avoid the south which is over-saturated with touring bands). I was first to bat for driving. I downed this energy shot to help get me where I needed to be. It certainly did its job. We made it well into South Carolina before I felt the need to give up the driver seat.

As far as I know 5-Hour Energy was the first company to get into the energy shot game. I somehow had never tried one until now. It was much better than I expected. It wasn't as harsh and as chemical tasting as other ones I tried. It did have a very distinct grape flavor. That's a rarity in this world. Usually the shots just have a general sweetness to them. I'm still not a big fan of energy shots, but if I have to get one in the future i would pick this over any other ones I've had thus far.

Number one: I have read the title of this product well over a dozen times and I still, in my head, read something about dolphins.

Number two and so on: I saw this at a discount store and due to the price ($1.50) a few emotions came across my mind. This being a company I had never heard of, I assumed that it would be a company I would never hear from again because that's what graces the shelves of stores like that. Bad ideas, poor judgment, and excessive inventory. Thing is, black cherry isn't something I hate, nor are probiotic drinks and Reb-A stuff. Cash in hand, and a ton of baby food later, I purchase my items and headed home.

Side topic: Remember ten years ago? 2001. Great year minus that one thing that happened in early Fall. Think about this, though. No one back then knew or cared about things like probiotics, prebiotics, free radicals, and antioxidants except maybe scientists. Everything was made from either cane sugar or corn syrup and there was no scare or wondering what was going to happen if you OD'd on one or the other except for inevitable tooth decay. We didn't know about ADD or ADHD and things like autism were in their infancy of knowledge. Only hippies and gardeners are organic and we all had a lot more money in the stock market than we do now. What a frightening world we live in now though, in retrospect. We didn't have to worry about anything it seemed. We didn't care where our food was coming from or worry about how it wasn't wise to buy a $450,000 house on a secretary's budget. Everything was A-OK. Look at all the stuff we have to worry about now. Drinking probiotic drinks filled to the gills with new, antioxidant-rich fruits to help avoid getting sick. Taking all our money out of the stock market and investing in cold, gold ingots. Frightening. I don't think I've changed much except I've become deader inside and more cynical than ever before.

Back to drink mix. It's really good. It's a powder that you stir in a tall glass of water. It stirs up nicely, tastes nice, and got me to easily put down two, sixteen ounce glasses of water today. It's good for you, contains no calories, and you can carry it with you. Thumbs up. I really do hope that you come through with your website's promise of new flavors. I'll try them when I see them.

When I saw this Wawa half and half/Arnold Palmer, I couldn't say no. Two things I love in one little bottle. Plus I knew Wawa would do it right, and they sure did. I always complain about lemonade's not being tart enough, but this needs none of that. This was so lip puckering, it make the back of my throat hurt (in a good way). This is exactly what I look for in a lemonade iced tea hybrid, the deliciousness of iced tea with the sour taste of lemonade.

If I didn't know any better I would have gathered from this bottle that Frubob was a company that made knock off Pez and then tried their hand at the beverage game. Look at that picture. It looks like little Pez with pineapple stalks coming out of the top. Lucky for everyone involved that is not the case. This does not taste like a gross candy beverage, and they needn't worry about receiving a cease and desist letter from a classic candy company.

This is in fact a mixture of pineapple and apple juice, with no sugar added. To be honest if they had added sugar it would have been so sweet that it was undrinkable. The best part of this is the chunks of pineapple in it. They are the size of the chunks in most aloe drinks, but with a slightly different texture. It gives the juice a more natural flavor, and feel. I know what you're thinking, and you don't have to worry. This does not cross the line into vomit pineapple flavoring. It's sweet and perfect.

Last night my band played in Atlanta. After the show we went to a friend's house to crash for the night. As soon as we got out of the van he told us that even though it looks like a bad neighborhood it was in fact a safe place because the house Martin Luther King Jr was born in was a block away. Less than a minute from him finishing that sentence a guy came up to us with a gun demanding wallets. Several of the people got a gun pressed to their head and a handful of them got pistol-whipped. It was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. Luckily no one was seriously injured. The cops came took statements and we went to a different neighborhood to stay. One of the kids who lived there put this drink next to me while I was sleeping. We were in the ghetto and this was a "ghetto" energy drink. Little Jon makes it so yeah it's backed by southern rap.

Let me tell you this drink was nearly as terrible as our night. It's in the running for worst energy drink I've ever had. it tastes dark and heavy. Almost smoky and only vaguely like pomegranate. I will never drink one of these again and I really have no interest in going to Atlanta again for quite some time. Watch yourself kids.

What we have here is a miracle of science. No it's not a cure all or some sort of tonic or elixir. What we have here is a watermelon flavored drink that doesn't taste like candy. Specifically it does not taste like watermelon Jolly Ranchers, which has been the standard for watermelon flavor for the past two decades, even though it tastes absolutely nothing like a fruit.

Somewhere in an underground laboratory a group of rouge scientists gathered to tackle this problem for once and for all. They did so in fear of losing their scientific titles, as the Grand Science Authority has strictly prohibited research in this field (Jolly Rancher donates obscene amounts of money to their organization in return for them not working on the "watermelon problem." These brave men and women worked against the grain and achieved something great. It turns out that all they needed to do was use watermelon juice concentrate.

Martinelli's used this new technology to create this sparkling lemonade. It tastes pretty much as is to be expected. A carbonated lemonade with a hint of watermelon to it. I'm personally not a huge fan of carbonated lemonades. Something about the bubbles and the bitterness doesn't quite sit well with me. If it's something you are into you should stand up and salute the brave scientists who risked it all to bring this new and exciting drink to your lips.

Blackberry is sacred between Jay and myself. We used to go to Chili's all the time. Alright, maybe once a week, tops, but that's not the point. The point is that every time we would go, and this is probably still true, we get the unsweetened blackberry tea. It's quite marvelous and I believe bottomless. When the person who runs L3 Home sent us this flavor, I was pretty psyched.

I've had these samples at my house for a while but they're so small, they often hide behind even the smallest cans. I put my hand in what I thought was an empty space and found them and decided that I would review them, finally. So here goes.

You've got MiO, and that's cornered the market. It's a great product. It's small, able to be carried in a purse or something, and comes in an array of flavors. The only unfortunate thing about Crazy Drops is that you may have never heard of it. You can buy all their stuff on their site, which is nice and they've got like twenty flavors, including CinnaCherry, which intrigues me to no end. Onto the flavor...

It's not bad. It's a titch diet, but between a diet Pepsi and this, I'd rather have this. It doesn't have a sting and actually tastes like a lightly diet, watered down juice. Also, there is no color to it which is nice considering it's a concentrate and all that colors got to come from somewhere and therefore also has to go somewhere.

If you've had all the flavors of MiO and you crave more options and you like to help out a small business, try them out. They've got to have a flavor you are curious about.

Yesterday I embarked on a 6-week tour with the band Lemuria. We left DC this morning and just made it to The Fest in Gainesville, Florida. This is the longest tour I've ever been on but I'm excited to see a lot of the US and Canada that I've never seen before. I'm also obviously excited to find and try new drinks along the way.

Our first rest stop after leaving DC was a Wawa near Richmond, VA. If you've never been to Wawa, it's a chain of gas stations that have tons of great flavors of iced tea. They have soft pretzels too which are delicious. But back to the iced tea, it's really good. It's made with real sugar and is just really refreshing. Sometimes iced tea can taste way too much like the flavor it has in it with barely any tea. Wawa knows how to balance it out and it's more like an iced tea with an orange aftertaste.

I'm kind of glad there isn't a Wawa in Buffalo. If there was, I'd drink their iced tea so much I'd probably eventually get sick of it. It's a great treat when you're on a trip.

Derek's daddy went back to Taiwan and brought back more goodies. This is, apparently, a hot ticket item. Does "hot ticket" mean that it's hard to come by or that it sells like hotcakes? Let's assume that it means the latter and continue.

I didn't know what to expect, you know, because most of the can is not in English. I knew it was carbonated and that's about it. When translating the site from Chinese to English, the product title actually came through as "Victoria vigorously soda". I can only assume that it's a bit of Engrish but it could also mean that it's an energy drink. "vigorously", and adjective which seems like a strange word to use in that context, would, to me at least, mean energy.

It tastes a bit energy and a bit cola and a bit citrus and a way bit sweet. It's not bad, just very candied. If you could carbonate a sugar stick, this is what it would taste like.