M - Oh my god Jenny like what are you doing?
J - I'm like totally talking to Brad on the other line. He's such a hunk!
M - As if! He doesn't even have a convertible! You should like totally hang up on him and pick me up so we can go to the mall.
J - But Mindy we were just at the mall yesterday. Actually we've been to the mall everyday for the past 8 months. We even went on Xmas.
M - I know aren't we like totally hardcore! So just shut up. You know you love the mall as much as I do, so get your skinny little butt in your Mustang and drive over here. I hear that the mall diner totally has a new root beer.
J - OH MY GOD! I was totally just talking to Brad about that! He told me that it doesn't taste so much like a root beer. He said it's more like a cola that was brewed with some of the ingredients that were left over from a batch of high quality root beer. He said he didn't even realize that it was a root beer until he was halfway done and read the label! Can you believe that! What a dreamboat! He also said that it has a decent amount of vanilla in it and something else that might be a total butt load of wintergreen or maybe some cloves. He just kept going on and on about how awesome it was though.
M - Jenny, what the hell just happened there? You totally sounded like you were from the Midwest or something.
J - Mindy we live in rural Iowa, we do live in the Midwest, we just like totally love the mall.
M - Whatever girl. Just come pick me up. That food court is calling our names.

If I had to choose the number one achievement of the South I think I would have to choose sweet tea. Sure they gave us submarines, miniature golf and antibiotics, but do any of those really hold a candle to sweet tea? It's so refreshing and tasty.

Even though Tradewinds has a tropical ocean scene on their can they make a decent sweet tea. With every sip I feel like I'm sitting in a rocking chair on my front porch and kudzu is growing all over my property. I have an old yellow dog laying next to me, and a 12-gauge shotgun sitting across my lap. It's the southern dream, and this tea brought it all on. Of course people who are from the south whose grandmothers made sweet tea all the time will probably say it tastes all wrong. I wouldn't believe them. Tell them to invent something more important than beverages.

Herbert is a simple man. He goes to work every day and is always five minutes early. He's never been in trouble with the police and has never as much as received a speeding ticket. He pays his taxes on time and never complains about the weather. Herbert is the ideal citizen. Herbert went into work one day and in the cubicle next to him was a new hire. A young man called Bartholomew or, as the nameplate on his desk said, Bart.

Bart came into work fifteen minutes late almost every day, wore sneakers with a wrinkled suit, and wore headphones blasting metal at unsafe volumes. Herbert didn't mind because the partition between them did a good job of blocking the sound. Bart wasn't a bad kid, just young. One day, Bart brought in a case of something and Herbert curiously asked him what it was. Bart told him it was Cintron Cranberry Splash and offered one to him. Who was Herbert to refuse a gift? "Such a nice gesture. Sure I'll have one,” said Herbert. Herbert drank it and thought it was very good. Slightly carbonated with a nice cranberry taste. Herbert thought that it tastes like a sweeter carbonated version of Ocean Spray's basic cranberry juice. All of a sudden, something happened. Herbert switched his radio involuntarily from Daryl Hall's I'm In A Philly Mood to a local, independent hard rock station. His hand grabbed a black marker and drew a barbed wire tattoo on his bicep. "What's going on!?" exclaimed Herbert. Bart looked over the partition and said, "Hey, dude. Did you like that energy drink I gave you? They're pretty rad. I drank two today." Herbert was shocked. He didn't even know it was an energy drink. "It didn't taste like an energy drink. I didn't know. I don't drink stuff like that." Bart noticed his new barbed wire tattoo and said, "Woah, dude! We've got the same tattoo." Bart lifted up his shirt to show the exact tattoo on his arm.

Hebert used his first sick day of his life that day to go home, sleep off his caffeine high, and scrub his magic marker tattoo off his arm. "Never again", he promised.

Yesterday I did a dumb thing, a deliciously dumb thing. I had cake for breakfast. No, not your average birthday cake, it was an intense brownie cake with a cookie bottom and cookies on the side. Needless to say, it was an awesome cake, but not for breakfast. I had it, loved it, and promptly crashed. So much sugar so early in the day was, and is, a mistake. That's where this tea comes in.

After a day of sugar, I've got to calm down and drink some water and some unsweetened tea. This satisfied both of those as far as I'm concerned. It's a nice black tea with a touch of Dove Creek mint. What does Dove Creek mint taste like? Normal mint. It's an indigenous thing. That's one thing that I like about Texas Tea is that they use all ingredients from in and around Texas. It's just the right amount of mint that gives it a flavor but doesn't take away from the fact that it's an unsweetened tea.

Do you like unsweetened tea? You'll love it. Do you hate when people mess with your tea like I do when I specifically order an unsweetened tea at a restaurant and they ask if I want any sugar with it? Yeah. Me too. You and I should go to dinner together.

John Goodman is a man amongst men. I have never seen him in a role that I didn't absolutely love. Keep in mind that I don't think I've seen anything he's done since the early 2000's. He may be the most famous for his roles as Dan Conner and Walter Sobchak (which are both incredible), but for my money there is never a better moment of him on the silver screen than when he states "You just got your asses whipped by a bunch of goddamn nerds.....NERDS!" I think that might be the most commonly said phrase by Editor Dan. Incredible. It's because of that speech that I told the other Thirsty Dudes that I was going to review this drink.

The NERD company stresses that their product is not just an energy drink, it is also a focus drink. On top of your normal energy drink chemical ingredients it also has Vinpocetine, Huperzine-A, Chinese Ginkgo Biloba and DMAE in it, which are cognitive enhancers. I drank this can before I went to band practice today, and I wasn't even thinking about the focus part until I just sat down to write this. I think it actually really works. In hindsight I feel like I was way more focused on what I was playing. So it's got that going for it.

Now on to the fun stuff. As a scientist I can assure you that it is a scientific fact that most energy drinks taste like various melted down types of candy. It's something that I both hate and love about them. Now I know what you're thinking, and yes your dreams have come true. This does in fact remind me of liquefied Nerds candy. It may be a psychosomatic thing, but I had my ladyfriend try it and she also confirmed it. This is one tasty, tasty energy/focus drink. It's one of the best energy based drinks I've ever tasted. Also the company wants to be known as a study aid and avoids being associated with anything extreme or bar/club events. To quote them "Basically, if you want to study drink NERD, if you want party drink a Red Bull. " That is something I can get behind. Hopefully this will get the popularity it deserves. Like the company told us

Now in the eyes of your father, your maker and your coach: go get some NERD!

It had been a long day in the studio. Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band we're hard at work recording their "come back" album The Rising. Today had been particularly hard. The Boss was being a real taskmaster and was laying it really heavy on Little Steven. You see all of the music was done being tracked, and now they were working on vocals. Being the professional he is Bruce hit all his parts in one take. When I say one take I mean it. He sang all 15 songs in a row with no breaks, one time through. He didn't even wait for the Brendan O'Brien to load the next track. It sang them all a cappella while the tape ran. It was truly a sight to behold. After he was done and the tracks had been added to the proper song is when the problems started. Little Steven went into the booth to sing his harmonies and he just couldn't hit them because of a dry throat. Bruce just kept telling him to drink some water, but Steven protested. You see he was under contract with HBO for his work in The Sopranos. Part of that contract was that he could only imbibe Sopranos brand soda. Normally he would sneak water and no one would be the wiser, but in the studio they were filming everything for a documentary. He would obviously get caught and sued. Things got so bad that Clarence had to drive all the way out to Newbridge, NJ to pick him up a couple of bottles. Since the show was wrapping up production of the soda had stopped and all the store had left was the amaretto flavor. Little Steven downed a bottle of this strange fake liquor soda with its almond flavoring that is far too strong to seem natural in a soda. Seriously I feel like it's supposed to be mixed with something like the actual liquor. Little Steven loves almonds and it was still hard for him to get through an entire bottle, but he is a champ and he did it. He then marched right into that vocal booth and I'll be damned if he didn't give one of the best performances of his life.

You don't believe me? Watch the video footage it's all in there.

PS. Tony totally dies at the end of the series. I don't care what anyone else says. The screen goes blank like when he got shot before, except this time the music cuts dead instead of fading out. Deal with it.

You've got your flavored waters and you've got this. Hint does a nice job of putting a little bit of flavor into a lot of bit of water and making something both flavorful and pleasing. This drink does a good job of adding a little bit of flavor to a lot of bit of water and making it boring.

Initially it was alright. I thought it was going to be a nice drink but as soon as the temperature rose to room temperature, boredom sets in. It couldn't be blander, really.

I needed be bothered with writing a long, detailed review on this. It's not great and I don't recommend it to you. End of story. Blunt? Yep-ahh.

Is there a juice shortage in the world? If not, does Wegmans think that there is? The last one of these I had was "100% Sparkling Fruit Juice." Now we're down to 50%. Is this going to be a continual decrease? In a few months will there be 12% juice? It will be like a selling point. "Now containing .5% actual fruit juice." People will think it's a good thing and eat it up.

Seriously though, why is this only 50%? Do they think these particular juices would be too strong if sold at maximum capacity? Are they trying to cut down on the sugar? Either way it's still pretty good. The flavor is strong. It tastes like a slightly watered down blend of the two juices it represents. If it were a little bit stronger I would absolutely love it. Maybe 75% is the way to go. I'm talking to you Danny!

Grape Kool-Aid. That's EXACTLY what this tastes like. Sure there's an aftertaste of nasty energy stuff that lingers in your mouth for a few minutes. But as many know, in the world of energy drinks (especially energy shots), it's hard to find one that doesn't taste like chemicals. Sure grape Kool-Aid isn't the greatest flavor of all time, but it's much better and tolerable than liquid death. I picked up a few different flavors of these energy shots at Dollar Tree last weekend. I feared them because Dollar Tree is usually the place where drinks go to die. This has renewed my faith in them and I look forward to trying the other flavors now.

Every review we've done for the Lipton PureLeaf line all say basically the same thing: Brisk is absolutely terrible, but Lipton has redeemed themselves with this line. It's repetitive, but true. The Brisk peach tea is basically undrinkable in my eyes. This on the other hand is very nice. I think there could be a tad less sugar, but other than that it's great. It's a nice black tea flavor with a slightly overpowered by an authentic peach taste. There is no peaches listed in the ingredients, but I expect they fall somewhere under the natural flavors. Above that apple juice is listed. Why aren't there more apple teas? That would be great. Get on that Lipton, but make sure it's included in this line.

Sit down kids; I have a story to tell you. It's about Celon's Mythical Creme Soda. For hundreds of years people have thought it didn't exist. It was the holy grail of cream soda's to some people. But I'm here to tell you that it's real, and I've had it! It's a smooth cream soda with a really nice vanilla/almond taste to it. I know the rumors said it was a bitter cream soda but they were wrong. The other rumor about it being made of the blood of Celon is wrong too. What's that? No I can't divulge where I got the bottle. Let's just say I have a feeling the National Historical Society is going to be really mad in the morning and I might have to flee to Canada.

2 liter bottles are the worst form of packaging for soda to come in. Okay 3 liters are actually worse, and I suppose if a company chose to package their drinks inside of an octopus' stomach that would also be worse. Let's just say out of normal packaging it is the worst.
A. It's plastic, which is inferior to cans, which is inferior to glass bottles.
B. It's too much drink. You generally don't finish it in one sitting and the pop ends up going flat before you get through the whole bottle.
C. If you do finish the entire bottle in a single sitting, you are a glutton and probably are going to end up weighing 398 lbs.

Most companies realize how terrible of an idea these bottles are and forgo using them. Quality companies that is. Generally all you see are Coke and Pepsi products as well as store brands like this one. We went up to Canada on Sunday to get some bookshelves from Ikea. Nothing is better for LPs. We stopped at a grocery store and I saw this on the shelf for $1.19. I'm not one to ever pass up a ginger beer I haven't tried, even when I expect the worst. I made my purchase, made my way out to my car, took a photo in the bottle and cracked it open like the impatient American that I am. While it was in my mouth it tasted like an average root beer. Then I swallowed and the ginger beer flavor became more apparent. Two seconds later a very decent burn swept over my throat.

This is a shockingly decent ginger beer. It's not the best I've tasted, but it's far from the worst, which is what I expected. I still think 2 liters are a terrible idea, and this is most definitely going to go flat before I finish it, but flavor wise it was pretty darn good.

John, we've got a good line of drinks here. We've got coconut stuff and our Thai tea, which is fitting because we're from Thailand. I'm sorry to report that sales are down this quarter and we've got a good idea why. We received numerous complaints about how bold the Thai tea is with our proprietary chai blend and how creamy and nutty our coconut drinks are. I know, they sound like compliments but in reality, it's the general public asking for something more.

I have spent literally dozens of dollars on research and development, or as the fellas in R and D call it, "R and D" developing the perfect drink to meet people right in the middle and I am here to announce to you, John, Taste Nirvana's very own creamy green tea. It's green tea, which people have been drinking for ages mixed with a little bit of milk, a little bit of sugar, and a little bit of soy, you know, for fun. It's tamer than our Thai tea, and in my opinion, not as good, but the people get what the people want. It tastes exactly like how a "creamy green tea" would taste if you dreamed about it, as I did.

John, this is how my dreams taste. Can you taste my dreams? Do you like the way my dreams taste, John? Now I need you to go out and tell the world about my dreams and how they taste.

Dear Red Ribbon,
Where do you come off? Your name might as well have a self appointed crown on top of it. Also, on your label it says "The Taste Test Winner". What taste test? THE taste test? Were there any other entries in this taste test? I demand a recount! Don't get me wrong; your root beer is good. It has a great smell to it, but the taste isn't anything special. It is definitely nothing to write home about, let alone deserve to win a taste testing. The only taste test I can see this possibly winning is "The Annual Newbridge Mediocre Root Beer Competition".

Sincerely,
Derek


**********************EDIT**********************
We got an email from Vito who has recently taken over the Natrona Bottling Company which makes this soda. When he took over he revamped the companies labels and agreed that the taste test winner claim was well...dumb. I changed the picture to the new label. He also asked if we would have another go with the root beer. Here I am doing just that, and unfortunately I'm not too impressed. It's not bad by any means, but it doesn't stick out. Like Derek said, it has a nice strong smell, but the flavor isn't quite there. It reminds me of store brand root beer, except it's made with real sugar, so it's a bit better.
-Jason

Before I go into how this pop is pretty tasty I first have to ask; can a soda be considered gourmet if it is sweetened with HFCS and has no actual fruit juice in it (well maybe that's part of the natural flavoring)? I don't think this is a run of the mill store brand soda, but by no means would I call it gourmet. Like I said before it's pretty tasty. It has a fruitiness to it that is something like artificial strawberries and oranges mixed together. I enjoy it, but I refuse to accept it as gourmet.

My girlfriend bought this bread from a local, organic bakery. They are known for their hand crafted, unique, flavorful breads. She bought a loaf of apple cider bread. All day I wanted that bread but we had a million things to do. Next day? Half of the day was filled with stuff to do and finally, in the late evening, we had our chance. I got a knife out and cut a nice slice of bread for each of us and sat down to watch "Jon Benjamin Has A Van" because it's wonderfully hilarious. Do you want to know what wasn't hilarious? How simply awful this bread was. Aside from it having no flavor, the sheer "whole wheat" of it all left a sandy, unwanted aftertaste.

Thinking that we, perhaps, got a dull slice, I brought it to work where I cut another piece for myself. Just as bad. Thank God I had this drink to wash it down. It's very sweet and today I needed it because I couldn't deal with the feeling of someone chewing flavorless, whole wheat bread and spitting it into my mouth like some sort of baby bird. Good sized chunks and totally natural ingredients are the key to a good aloe. I actually like this better than some of the flavored aloe that I have had from these guys.

So there is still half a loaf of bread and it's on the fast track to staying half a loaf of bread with mold on it really soon. Don't mess with Texas and don't mess with bread.

An Ode to Lemonade:
So Simple. So Pure.
Three Ingredients.
Water. Sugar. Lemon Juice.
Tart Yet Sweet.
The Drink Of The Summer.
Harney & Sons Chose Less Tart.
Still Tasty. Still Refreshing.
All Organic.

Apparently "Ode" means writing like a crazy person with every word in capitals.

Sharon, I'm telling you chewing 37 pieces of bubble gum at once is not a smart move. You're going to throw your jaw out of its socket. Of course jaws have sockets how do you think they move? There you've gone and done it. You have 37 assorted brands of bubble gum and you're chewing them all at once. You're just lucky if you ask me. Hey that's my birch beer! Why are you drinking that with all that gum in your mouth? You're just being a glutton now. What's that? It tastes like carbonated bubble gum with a slight aftertaste of birch beer? I would imagine the gum would overpower the soda, I mean you do have 37 pieces in your mouth. Of course it's sickly sweet. You just mixed a butt load of gum and soda. I can't believe how much you're enjoying that. Don't go for 38!

*POP!*

I'll go pull the car around and take you to the hospital. It's a good thing Real Soda makes Girlan Pink Birch Beer since everything you'll be consuming for the next few weeks is going to be through a straw and you can't seem to get enough of bubble gum.

On a side note Mike got called out for being sexist in a review last week. I thought it was funny that the reader complained that he equated something he didn't like to the female gender. He did say it was a "girl's drink" but it wasn't because he didn't like it. I thought it was hilarious and ridiculous that the reader took offense to something that wasn't even stated, yet took no offense to the actual sexist statement that it was a girl's drink because it was pink. This drink is pink, it's called "Girlan," and the bottle says, "It brings out the little flower in you." I'm sure someone is going to have a field day with that.

Sitting here all day...working...but waiting...waiting all of the day. Waiting for what? Waiting for a new computer for my work. I'm anxious because it's always fun to get a new computer. Setting up everything the way you want it and removing everything you don't is what's fun. I love it. A nice, speedy new machine is fantastic. Now it's twenty to four and FedEx still hasn't gotten here even though they said they were going to be here. They'd better not be a pile of liars or I'm going to be really upset.

As I wait, this last hour I have been milking this Body Armor drink. It's not bad at all. It's got a sincere citrus flavor. I would say more orange than mango and I couldn't really taste any tea in it but since it's so many (four) flavors, they all kind of blend together. I mean that in a good way, like when you've got V8 and you're like, "There is no way that all of these vegetables taste good at the same time blended up like this." Boy, are you proven wrong every single time.

So it's been ten minutes and the computer isn't here and now I'm out of this drink. Not my day.

The Honest company has a small team of knights that it keeps on it's payroll. There are really only three of them, but they are in the upper echelon of the payroll, even though they only have one job to perform. That job is to distract without killing the dragon that guards the green tea that lives on a certain mountain whose location I cannot reveal due to legal reasons.

Not only is this physically tolling and extremely dangerous to the knights, but the psychological damage is through the roof. You see knights are programmed from birth to kill dragons. It takes all of their will power and concentration to merely distract the beast and not kill it. That is the true reason for their astronomical salaries.

40 knights once agreed that it was well worth it to taste the tea that their efforts brought forth. It's just a shame that 37 of the 40 perished in the line of duty. The few that are left have discovered that if you mix in a little passion fruit with the tea the already wonderful taste is improved upon. It's still a bitter green tea taste, but the slight fruity hint gives the tea a new dimension. Here's to hoping that the final three knights live long and productive lives!