I've been blindfolded in a basement for three days. It's not a nice basement either. It's one of those dirt floor basements from the days of old and someone got the floor wet. Perhaps it rained and the foundation leaked and it mudded up the floors. Ugh, why am I here? Why am I doing this? Is pledging to this fraternity that great? What?! What's happening? Why are we in this van? Someone take this blindfold off me! I'm so hungry. I could eat a whole horse. I feel like horsemeat would make good tacos. Listen to me...I've got cabin fever. I'm filled with crazy talk. Horsemeat. Man, what's wrong with me.

Finally, we're out of the van. It was hot and they had the heat turned up all the way. What's that smell? I love it and it's so familiar. Oh, my blindfold is off and what is that?!?!?! The holy grail! Burger King! I'm going to get a dozen double Whoppers. What? Really? We can get whatever we want and as much as we want? Heavens to Betsy! I am going to be a little responsible and get a double Whopper, large french-fry, and regular hamburger, chicken tenders, and a cheeseburger. What? We can't get a drink? Oh, you brought drinks? That's cool. Thanks a lot, brother. I'll take the root beer. Oh, the cane root beer. Nice. I like it. It's a pretty standard root beer taste. A little bit of vanilla and perhaps a little bit of licorice. I like it. Oh, you've got another one for me? Awesome. Oh, a three liter? Really? I can't drink this whole...I have to? It will make me sick. I just ate everything I bought and now you want me to drink three liters of root beer? I can't do it. I have to?! Fine, I'll do it, for brotherhood. No, not the New Order record, although in retrospect, I would have rather have that than the inevitable barf that will happen and here it comes....

Did you know that the only things that vegans consume are leaves and bark? It's true, just ask Derek. When a vegan works up a hunger they scamper out into the woods and fill up their satchel with some nice leaves and bark. Then they bring them home and make a nice sandwich out of them. Don't worry they aren't murderers; they only eat the leaves on the ground and the bark from fallen or dead trees.

Okay that may have been stretching the truth, but I have had basically that conversation verbatim with a woman in a restaurant before. She really believed everything I mentioned above to be true. Some people are just complete idiots.

While vegans don't solely consume those things, there are people out there who eat sticks. I know because all three of us here at Thirsty Dudes did just that a couple of weeks ago. We were in a local natural foods store and on the counter they had a jar of licorice sticks. They were exactly that: sticks from a licorice plant. We were interested. We each bought one and chewed on them for about a half hour. It was actually tasty until they started falling apart in our mouths.

This tea tastes like someone brewed some black tea, added a whole lot of milk and sugar and then drank it while chewing on one of those sticks. There are a whole bunch of other herbs in it as well, but all I can taste in the licorice and I like it....a lot.

It's really great that the pharmaceutical industry has finally stepped up their flavor game for cough medicine. For years it was always cherry, grape or the occasional orange. Now they have finally come out with a pomegranate flavor to get with the times. Oh what's that? This isn't cough medicine, but rather an energy shot? Well that's unfortunate, because it tastes like medicine.

Energy shots by nature are gross, because it's all the chemicals concentrated. It is due to that, that this gets three bottles. If this was a normal energy drink I probably would have given it a one. This does not taste good, but it works, and the pomegranate blocks the chemical taste slightly...I guess.

Thirsty Dude's don't drink alcohol. That doesn't mean that we don't appreciate quality packaging of alcoholic packages. Us straight edge kids finally have our own version of a Saporro can. This can is unbreakable. It has nothing to do with the drink itself, but good packaging deserves mentioning and this can is heavy duty, brother. Now that aesthetics are out of the way, we can get to flava.

It's a coffee drink, so you can expect it to taste like coffee. No-brainer. This is more of a French vanilla Starbucks Frappuccino-esque flavor but less chocolate milk and more coffee. It doesn't have that strong roast flavor that some other coffee drinks have. I liked it, and I, for the millionth time, and not a coffee drinker. If you like cold coffee drinks,
Last week's drink was probably more up your alley. This drink is accessible to more people.

That can though. Bomb shelters could be made out of these. American cans aren't made to the same specs of international canned beverages and every time I lifted it to look at the can, I thought there was more in it. I'm a stupid idiot because there were several times where I went to drink more. I'm like a bird flying into a clean window over and over again. I've got to throw this can out or I'm going to keep doing it.

My ladyfriend's parents went on vacation awhile back and they brought me a couple or rad looking drinks. They were in glass bottles with burlap, rope and ribbons glued to them. They looked incredible and my mind raced with what type of sodas may be encased. I imagined they were some local pop that the residents of that tropical isle made with fresh fruit and love....lots of love. When I cut off the burlap I was a bit disappointed to see that it was only a Goya grape soda. I have nothing against Goya, but I can find then at a variety of grocery stores around Buffalo. As a result this has sat on my "To Drink" shelf for a few months. Today I decided its day had come.

It tastes exactly like you would expect it too. It has the classic grape soda flavor that is somewhere between melted candy and melted freezie pops. If you were expecting something that tasted more like natural grapes, you would be disappointed. Since it tastes exactly like I expected I am fine with it and I'm going to enjoy the ride.

I've been thinking about what I think about this drink for the last hour. I'm not sure because it's all over the place. It's really sweet and that I don't really like but that soon subsides and lets actual flavor through. The first flavor is that of a mediocre lemonade. Following that is a bit of a salty taste and that's because there is actual sea salt in it.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You are saying to yourself "Mike, what did you think of this strange drink?" and I will tell you. It's oddly not that bad. Yeah, sure, it's not the best of everything but it's pretty refreshing. If you drink it fast enough, it tastes like a lemon Gatorade. That's probably good right? Not to mention it's all natural ingredients. That's good right? Also, yeah, to start, everything is kind of "alright" but the more you drink, the more you realize, "Hey, this isn't that bad." and next thing you know, it's gone and you're like "Wait, when did this happen? I remember not liking this and now it's gone and I kind of want more."

Maybe one of the ingredients not labeled was mind control. Although I don't think that the FDA would approve that, a lot of companies get away with "Natural and Artificial Ingredients" and that seems a bit...vague.

I have been tired. I don't know what it is. Something, probably a twenty-five mile bike ride with Jay where we talked about Take The Money And Run and how we would manage to win it, exhausted me. Jay was talking about rope apparatuses and old buildings, bike trips, calling people who would call people, strange drop off points, and more. I think that most of the ideas that he had couldn't be done in an hour or couldn't be done with the rules and restrictions of the game itself. We didn't get back until later and when I got home, I had to feed my son, and then I was wicked tired. I haven't caught up since then.

To combat my tiredness, I decided that an energy drink is a good idea. I have had this one on my shelf for a bit and thought that it was mint, and it isn't but thought that it was and decided to fridge it up and then drink it. I tiredly worked on the yard with some mowing here, and some weeding there, and some trimming here, and some raking there just so that I could further earn my need for an energy boost. I cracked that bad boy open, took a sip, and was promptly disappointed.

At first sip, and more so first after aftertaste, it tastes a little, but enough, how I remember beer tasting. I don't know if the top secret, proprietary blend of ingredients teamed up and decided that they were going to take the shape of a beer, like some sort of alcoholic Voltron, but they did. There was a bit of that "energy drink" taste, but it was pretty stomachable. Sweet, light beer. That's what I'll call this taste.

Although I have liked other Go Fast drinks, this one was not for me. Hybrid flavor? Not for me.

Esteemed members of the board I'm here today to present to you the newest in our line of energy drinks. Are you tired of the same garbage companies have been flooding the market with for years? Yes, the world gets in energy drinks typically taste like liquid Smarties. I think people want something new, something that will shake things up a little bit. It was that thought process that led me to creating this. Ladies and Gentlemen of the board I am proud to unveil our new line of energy drinks "High Energy Drink" or HED for short. The kids like shorter names. I think it has something to do with the internet and television rotting their brains. As I pour you each a can let me explain to you that this "isn't your dad's energy drink." This is new and exciting. It's an energy drink that has the light taste of berry ginger ale. We're also going to advertise that it's made with taurine. That should excite the kids. Now if everyone would drink up and write one sentence on the 3x5 card that's in front of you with your opinions on the drink, I'd love to get some anonymous feedback.

Okay everyone's done and the cards are in. Let's see what you thought. These all basically say the same thing. While this tastes pretty good it doesn't taste like ginger ale at all, and what it does taste like is a fairly standard liquid candy energy drink taste with a slight berry flavor. Also, a couple of you wrote that I'm an idiot and that 99% of all energy drinks are made with taurine. Thanks for crushing my dreams guys. I just wanted to make something new and exciting and you've gone and ruined it for me. Too bad this has already gone into production and I can't tweak the recipe. Well I guess I better re-enroll in clown college.

Son do you know what science is? It's magic harnessed by man. That's right, science is magic that man can control. Ya dig? The Man doesn't want us to know it though. They want to think that magic doesn't exist. They want us to think science is something different, but I got the proof man, and it's in this can! Taste this and just try to tell me that this flavor wasn't made by magic. Just try! Alright now that we both agree that it's got an incredible mix of orange and pineapple, look at the can. What does it say there? "Fusion." That's science man. This can is both science and magic, so it proves that they are one and the same. The thing is that it's too powerful for us to handle in large doses, so they have to distribute it in these little cans. How am I supposed to make a makeshift bowl out of that little thing? The Man is keeping me down again.

The tagline on this bottle is: unique, subtle, refreshing, natural. I like making lists so I'm going to break down each bullet point.

1. Unique- This is not the first mint soda I have had. In 2003 I was at the Toronto zoo and came across Sprite Ice. I ended up drinking 3 bottles of it over the course of the day. It was great! Sadly it never was distributed in the US.

2. Subtle- This is the word I was looking for to describe the mint taste in this. It has a really subtle mint taste. I've had some mint drinks that taste like a blizzard in your mouth. Not this one. This is more like a cool breeze sneaking into a doorway as you close it.

3. Refreshing- It's rare that a soda is refreshing, but this one really is. There isn't much to it, but that makes it really light and delicious.

4. Natural- Carbonated water, cane sugar, peppermint (and other natural flavors), and malic acid are the only ingredients. I'd say that's pretty natural.

Maude, those darn bears are at it again. Last night they got into our cherry storeroom and all but cleaned it out. I think there was maybe one case of cherries that they didn't get to. The completely devoured the rest. I'm talking fruit, stems, seeds and all. There was just cherry juice smeared everywhere. Apparently that wasn't enough for them, because they then broke into the root beer storeroom in the next building over. I didn't know bears liked root beer, but I guess if they were going to you're brew would be the way to go honey. That latest batch tasted so dark in the best way possible. It's just nice and bold tasting. I mean we do live out in the country so a root beer made out here should taste that way.

Sorry I got distracted. Back to the bears. They got into the root beer room as I said, and they thrashed five of your barrels. I know how hard you worked on that soda Maude, and I'm sorry. I did tell you that we needed a new door on the room though. There is this one barrel that they left half empty. Ugh there is cherry juice all over it. This is going to be a pain to clean up. WHAT ARE YOU DOING MAUDE? DON'T DRINK THAT! BEARS DON'T USE STRAWS OR CUPS! DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS ON THEIR PAWS MAUDE? POOP AND DIRT AND WHO KNOWS WHAT ELSE! SHUT UP AND TASTE IT? ARE YOU CRAZY?!!?! WHERE ARE YOU GOING? WHERE!??!?!?!

*Maude comes back with a cup half full of mashed up cherries a few moments later. She opens another barrel of root beer and fills the cup the rest of the way.*

Wait this is delicious. Those bears are on to something! This is like 75% root beer and 25% cherry juice, and you can tell it's fresh. If we filter out the chunks we could definitely market this. It's seriously incredible. Bless those bears and their ingenuity. Oh and Maude I'm not kissing you until you go to a doctor. I bet you're all sorts of crudded up with disease from that bear root beer.

Real fruit juice? Check.
No sugar added? Check.
Fortified with vitamins? Check.

There's really not much to say about this drink other than it's great. It doesn't promise much, but it delivers everything it says it does. If Izze is one thing it is that they are truth tellers. Liars need not apply at their company. I appreciate that and I appreciate this drink. It tastes like clementines mixed in with a handful of white grapes. It's also crazy how sweet this is without any added sugar. Further proof that most companies are dumb, or don't use real fruit juice.

I woke up today knowing that I desired a ginger beer. I don't know why, but I saw it on the shelf and said to myself that I hoped this burned my throat. It's such a little bottle. I just knew that it was some sort of concentrated danger. The whole "big things come in small packages" cliche.

I took my first sip and there it was. Burn. If I had to rate the burn on some sort of made up scale, I would say that it has a medium burn. It kicks you in the tonsils but playfully, like when a dog bites you and you can feel their dog teeth but they don't chomp down, making you lose some of your precious digits.

In the case of ginger beer, most of the time I want to battle with non-playful sharks and I just want straight rusty razor blades rushing down my throat, but this is nice, too.

Something must have gone terribly awry at ye olde apple orchard. You see I have this can of Celsius fitness drink that was made from the harvest of the orchard and it tastes like the entire orchard was marinated in pesticides, or that it was stewing in napalm. Perhaps this is actually made from the soil of the orchard that old apples had rotted in to. No I think it's actually apples covered in napalm. You see this has only the faintest apple taste to it. I think that might even be a stretch. In a blind taste test I would never in a million years be able to pick out that this is supposed to be apple flavored. It literally tastes like poison, like I'm drinking some fluid that is supposed to go in a car, but someone has apple artificial sweetener to it. I can't believe I finished the can earlier. I just needed to keep up the energy so Mike and I could talk all night scheming of what our plan of attack would be if we ever made it on to the TV show "Take the Money and Run." I bet we could totally get away with it. We're crafty and being imprisoned for 48 hours doesn't scare us. We're strong willed. Oh yeah, we were also riding our bikes for several hours while we were discussing this. Now It's almost 4 hours later. I'm sore, I'm all hyped up, and I can still taste this poison on my tongue. For shame Celsius. You can do better than this.

Things have been getting a little Cintron crazy over here at Thirsty Dudes. So far everything has been decent to great. I guess the honeymoon couldn't last forever because this one....not so great.
You see the problem is that I am a fully-grown human. If I were say seven years old I would probably have a completely different view of this drink. You see it has that generic fruit punch flavor that is the basis of every fruit punch from Hawaiian Punch to the gallon of red juice for sale at your local gas station. It's something that kids eat, or rather drink up. As you get older that sugar syrup based flavor just stops being good at some point. If you want a fruit punch you want a bunch of 100% fruit juice all mixed up.

Another this about this drink is that it has that historic fruit punch flavor, but it also has a strange coolness to it that is kind of like how mint feels, not tastes. It might be the lime, but it's strange, and although it does separate this from other fruit punches, it's still not enough to get me to finish this can.

A little known fact about Franklin Mercer is he used to own a robot. He tends to buy into all the latest gadgets, which is how he came into owning cinTRON. You see, in the late 80's helper robots became all the rage. When Franklin found out there was a robot that could bring him drinks from the fridge, he imported one from Japan. It took almost 2 months to arrive at the doorstep of his rural Pennsylvania house. Judging by his reaction when the large crate was coming off the truck, you would have thought he was setting sight on his first child. In fact, he was more excited for the arrival of cinTRON than his first kid.

The first couple weeks with cinTRON were great. Franklin was happier than ever with his new robot helper around. That was until March 13th, 1991. That is the day that will live in infamy in the Mercer-Clarion house. It was a typical Wednesday and Franklin asked cinTRON to get him a bottle of root beer. His calibration must have been off because when he placed it on the table, the bottle shattered and a piece went into Franklin's arm. He got so mad that he picked up the once helpful robot and threw it through the living room window onto the front lawn. He later asked his wife to hire some neighborhood kids to take cinTRON away because he never wanted to see his once loyal robot again.

If Franklin ever saw the name of this drink, he would probably flip out. CinTRON is not a word that is allowed to be said around him. It's too bad he will never try this because it's a good energy drink. It has that usual energy drink "melted candy" taste, which happens to be sweet tarts in this can. As far as Red Bull-esque drinks, this one is one of the better ones out there.

Imagine you are on a sandy beach in the Caribbean. You have just gotten back from snorkeling and swimming with dolphins. Yes, you did hold on to their fins and yes you did name one "Echo". You had to, even though you hated the game because it was impossible. You also went on an excursion where you rode a zip-line from one side of a gorge to the other and at the end there were tacos and instrumental covers of Smiths songs played by an indigenous Caribbean steel drum band. You are in heaven.

As you sit on the beach and look across the crystal blue waters, a waiter comes by and offers you a drink. You don't care what it is since everything is perfect and nothing can ruin your day. You take a sip...and it's strange. You open your eyes and you've got a can of Arizona's new CocoZona drink. You have to drink it because you don't want to upset the waiter but you only kind of like coconut so every sip is difficult. You start going the other route, which is taking giant chugs to get it over with faster. It tastes like you just took a bit out of a coconut. Yes, I know you can't just do that and machetes are involved in the processing of coconuts, but if you could take a bit out of a coconut, that's what it tastes like. You turn the bottle around and notice that the only ingredient is coconut. Why did you even bother looking? You finally finish the drink as the sun sets and as you get up to go to dinner, a young child comes and punches you square in the bathroom area. Your night has been ruined.

Good morning, Ames, Iowa. We're coming to you live from this rented chopper we borrowed from the local high school. Er, I mean hospital. As you can see, traffic is moving pretty well through the highway. We had to get up mighty early to get this helicopter for you and I haven't had my coffee yet so I apologize for any mistakes that I might make on air. My cameraman, Joe, is handing me a can. Joe, what is this? This isn't coffee. It is? This is bad TV, I know, but I really need drink...what is this? It's not in English. Oh, turn it around? Oh, Freeze Extra, huh? Well, down the hatch, right, Ames?

This is great, Joe. Where did you get this? What are you doing at an Asian market? Oh, sure, buying udon. Why else would you go there? Ames, Joe here loves his udon noodles and he eats it every day at lunch. He's even got those cool, ceramic spoons and eats it out of a wooden bowl. Are you Asian, Joe? Irish? Well we seem to have gotten our wires crossed. The milk really smoothes down this coffee. It's like the coffee I get from the coffee shop but cold. I like it. Joe, Ames, Iowa, you have a wonderful day. You down there is the gorgeous new Hyundai Veloster who almost hit that semi, I know you can't hear me but be careful with that thing.

Joe, we've really got to get a helicopter for the station. This thing is great. Oh, we've been off the air for ten minutes? Who cares? It's awesome up here.

Elves. What is worse than stinkin' elves? Everyone is always like "Oh the elves are so cute. The elves never do anything wrong. Stop beating that elf over the head with that leg of lamb." How is it that I am the only one who can see them for the sneaky little turds that they are?

Here's a perfect example. Last week my barrels of cream soda I have been brewing were just about ready to be drank along with the mead. This morning I went to go check on them and give it a little tasting and four of the five barrels were gone, and the fifth had been drained. Of course I didn't see them do it, but as I stormed out of the still one of those little buggers yelled "Sneak Attack" and they all giggled. I know it was them. They are the ones responsible for all of our goods that go missing. If we went and stormed their fortress in the woods I'm sure we'd find it all. We'd find my sweet, sweet vanilla cream soda. Sure, it might actually be a little too sweet, but I don't see you doing any better. The vanilla taste is great, without leaving much of an aftertaste. Oh man I was so smart to use the inverted cane sugar to sweeten it. It made the soda way less syrupy. I'm getting all worked up now. I want that soda, and if it takes elven blood being spilled for that to happen....SO BE IT!!!

ps: I'd like to say this was a special blend, but it's really just the normal Jones cream soda with a different label.

As a pseudo-impulse buy I got a new laptop. I was at the store and I saw they had them cheap. The entire ride home was spent justifying to myself that I could afford it and that I needed a new computer. By the time I walked in the door I was convinced and walked right up to my computer that works perfectly fine and typed in newegg.com. I found a better computer for cheaper within a couple of minutes and after a bit of hemming and hawing, I bought it.

It's now a few days later and I have my new toy in front of me and I have just finished installing what I believe to be all the programs I need. I am now at the point of extreme frustration; getting Traktor to recognize my MIDI mixer for when I DJ. When I first set it up with my old computer I thought my head was going to explode. I convinced myself it would be easier this time, but nope. I'm sure I'll spend hours working on it and get extremely frustrated. I am at a fairly high level of frustration now. That is where this drink comes in.

Like a lot of functional drinks this tastes like some sort of melted down treat. In this case it's orange freezie pop with a medicinal aftertaste. It really isn't nearly as bad as I expected. It's actually kind of like Tang. I wonder if this is what astronauts drink to stay calm and focused. I feel like it's starting to kick in, so now back to my personal hell for the night.