One of the things I miss in life is Clone High. If you're unfamiliar it was a cartoon on MTV about how the clones of historical figures spent their time in high school. It is a documentary and it was shot in real time.

One of the episodes revolved around an "energy drink" called X-Stream Blue. It was completely hysterical. To quote one of the X-Stream Blue sales reps "It's really just pancake batter mixed with blue paint in a sports bottle…€”Sick! Tight! Cyber! Awesome!"

Luckily this version of Blu does not contain any paint of the color blue or any other hue. At least I think it doesn't. I can't read the ingredients, so I suppose it is completely possible that I am ingesting paint and pancake batter. I don't know how strict other countries versions of the FDA are. I will assume it's okay, as it tastes like melted down candy and passion fruit. You know that normal energy drink flavor, but with decent juice mixed in. It's actually one of the best tasting energy drinks I've ever tried.

Blu: Stick it in your face-hole and slam it!

When I saw the name of this company, I was really hoping the logo would be an awesome drawing of a huge angry hornet sinking its stinger into someone and killing them. I feel like that would compliment the name Killer Buzz a lot better than their current can design. Don't get me wrong; it's nice and classy design. To me, it looks more like a sophisticated sparkling juice than an energy drink.

Like most energy drinks, this is a total mock Red Bull taste. It's good because I like the taste of Red Bull. It's definitely working because I am currently listening to the mellow sounds of Eluvium and now I want to listen to something more upbeat. Score one for Killer Buzz!

Jay and myself got a tour of College Club and I've been sitting on my stock of drinks for months now. I've got a lot of flavors that I really want to try but there are so many other drinks that I have to review I have to put them by the wayside.

Today was yet another scorcher. Maybe "scorcher" is exaggerating a bit but I would say that between the heat and the immense humidity it was borderline unbearable.

This pop sure beat the heat. It was just what I wanted and I was lucky enough to discover that it wasn't too sweet. I am typically scared of that with flavors like strawberry, grape, and other fruit flavors.

This is a large bottle and I put a wine stopper on it. I had to lean it on an angle because it couldn't stand upright. My girlfriend opened the fridge and it exploded...everywhere. It covered the entire bottom half of the fridge and a nice puddle on the floor with a nice coating of strawberry pop.

Needless to say, half of that bottle and went down the drain angrily.

The best word I can think of to describe this tea would be "clean." It's very crisp and flavorful, but there's really no aftertaste. You take a sip. The flavor hits you all at once. You swallow. Clean palate. It's a nice change of pace as many sweetened teas leave a taste in your mouth for a while afterwards.

The peach flavor doesn't taste overly ripe, but it fits the taste of the white tea better because of it. If it were riper it would become too overpowering. I am a big fan.

First things first; why on Earth is this drink blue? It's pineapple, orange, grapefruit and lemon juice. All of which fall in the yellow to orange spectrum. Not a blue fruit in sight. For some reason Everfresh decided to add some blue dye to it. I don't get it. I don't know if they wanted it to appeal to kids more, but there it is as blue and windshield washer fluid.

Lucky for everyone involved it doesn't taste like windshield washer fluid. Actually I can't say that for certain, as I've never actually tasted it. What if that blue spray you use to clean your windshield is actually delicious and fruity. That could be problematic as I'm pretty sure it doubles as poison. I'm going to just assume it tastes like gross sauce. This beverage on the other hand tastes pretty tropical. It's a pretty accurate mix of all of the fruits I previously mentioned. It's tart, but there's sweetness in there that keeps it in check. It actually does remotely taste like Sweet Tarts. Wait does windshield washer fluid taste like Sweet Tarts. Children will die by the millions if this news gets out.

Before I continue I'd just like to state that I have not gone completely beverage crazy this morning and been downing drinks left and right. I'm playing a little bit of catch up, as we like to refer to it down at Initech.

Now that I've cleared that up I'd like to announce that I am completely in love with Triple Berry Smoothies from Orange Julius. I know there are much better smoothies out in the world, but something about the frothiness of their Triple Berry really hits me in the right spot. I've also been conditioned to think of that exact flavor whenever I hear the words triple and berry said back to back.

Now you know where my head was when I opened this drink. Unfortunately Hydrive couldn't live up to that glory, but this is in no way a bad drink. It's a non-carbonated "enhanced water energy drink." Like most energy drinks it tastes like some sort of melted down candy. Not a brand name candy, but some sort that you would buy in the bulk section. What is that company? Brachs? I guess that is a brand name. Oh well. It tastes like a melted down hard candy. I'm okay with that. You should be too.

Sometimes it's 90+ degrees out and you suddenly have the undying need to go out walk a creek and search for the worthy opponent General Sherman. For the record General Sherman is a catfish that lives in 18 Mile Creek out in the Derby/Hamburg area of New York. Rumor has it that his belly is filled with gold and the ultimate iced tea. Few people know of his existence and even fewer have lived to tell the tale of their battles with him. That is mainly because I think only three of us ever tried to catch him. I have had two encounters with he and all his glory through the years (last year). Editor Dan and I nearly had him once. He exited the water and we grabbed him, but his hide was just too slippery for us to keep a grasp.

So I returned, I saw the corpses of many catfish (three) but none of them were the General. He was nowhere to be found. Maybe he was laying in wait to build up his armies, or maybe he swam out into the lake. I doubt we'll ever know for sure. One thing that I do know is that I worked up one hell of a thirst on this adventure. I had hoped to quench it with the previously mentioned "ultimate tea" I was going to gather from the gullet of General Sherman, but since I failed I had to resort to POM tea.

To be fair it wasn't really a resorting to it, as POM makes some incredible tea. This flavor has the perfect blend of pomegranate and blackberries. I am a sucker for anything with blackberries in it, they are your money berry. Something strange happens in this tea. There is the great fruit and tea flavors, but there's something else. It almost tastes like mint. It has the same cool crispness, but without the actual mint flavor. I had never experienced this before this week, but this is the second drink I've had with this effect. I have to say I really enjoy it and it makes the drink that much more refreshing.

Somewhere in the sands of the Sahara there is a paradise-esque oasis. It is only 30ft x 30ft, but that 900 square foot patch is considered by many to be heaven. It is extremely treacherous to journey to the area that locals call Gondelavisti, but it is said that anyone who completes the journey never returns the same person. It is in this are that the ever-elusive rain berry grows. A common misconception is that the rain berry grows in tropical rainforests. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is the rain berry is what causes the desert. The plant sucks up all of the moisture from the ground leaving everything for miles around cracked and dusty. Honestly without the rain berry deserts would not exist on this world. Luckily it is not an invasive plant of Earth would be the opposite of Water World.

The other side of this coin is that a single berry contains so much water and electrolytes that it could quench the thirst of an entire village that has withstood a 20-year drought. It seems that Gatorade has made its way to Gondelavisti and returned with a supply of rain berries, which they have used in their line of sports drinks. It is very light and absolutely refreshing. The rain berry tastes like a mix between grapes and strawberries. I appreciate that it isn't as syrupy as the original Gatorade line. I've heard that they only use one rain berry for every ten batches of this stuff that they make. That's how insane those berries actually are.

There is nothing that infuriates Sharon Clarion more than when people make the wrong assumptions about the flavor of her favorite sodas. As you can see by the picture on the bottle her husband, Franklin Mercer, did just that and she promptly shoved him down a staircase.

Now Franklin is no world-renowned rocket scientist, but I can understand where he's coming from. I also thought this was going to be a cola. From the tiny pictures in the background of peppers and candy canes I thought it was going to be a spicy cola with some mint in it. I admit now that it would have been the craziest pop ever and probably disgusting. It's my sworn duty to be honest though and that is what I expected it to be.

Luckily for Franklin he got a straw in the bottle before the aforementioned shove, and somehow the bottle landed next to his crumpled body on the floor, and the straw was in reach of his mouth. As soon as he smelled the soda he instantly knew his folly and he couldn't blame Sharon for shoving him. What is a person without passions? Franklin would tell you that it is a person that he wants nothing to do with.

He sucked down a mouthful from the straw and assured himself that his super sniffer was correct this is a Dr. Pepper knock off. Of course it is, thought Franklin. Dr. Cane....duh. Also the peppers in the background now made a whole lot of sense. The thing is that it's way better than Dr. Pepper. It's not just the cane sugar, because we've had Dublin Dr. Pepper and this is superior to that. This is the same basic idea of Dr. Pepper, but it tastes more natural and fruity. Franklin and I agree that we're not big fans of the original, but that this is a pop we can get behind.

Don't worry. Franklin has been healing nicely. He's still trying to get Sharon to switch to his last name, but she's a fiery woman with conviction, and to be honest that is what he likes about her.

Flavored water? No thanks. It usually tastes gross to me unless it's really sugary like vitamin water. You're telling me this has no calories, no sugar, no sweeteners, just water and natural flavors? That sounds like it's going to be really bland and boring. But this "Pure Cool" name is kind of intriguing. Okay, I'll give it a try.

Hmmm, it has a slight berry taste but it's more of an afterthought. Wait, what is this? It suddenly feels like a blizzard in my mouth. It's not like a peppermint cool, it's a smooth cool, and feels like you're breathing in really cold air. It's weird, but a really awesome sensation. I stopped caring that this doesn't taste like berry or pomegranate at all, this after taste is amazing! I hope I can find more flavors to try them all.

Fikes used to be THE ghetto iced tea of choice among my friends for a long time. They were 69 cents for a little jug of it and was only available at a gas station on the corner of Main and Winspear in Buffalo. They changed their label at one point and for the longest time I hung onto an empty jug of it. I wish I still had it.

Anyways, as Jason mentioned in the Mountainberry review, Fikes is now Marburger Farm Dairy. Sure it doesn't have the same classic label, but it's still delicious. I bought this at the same gas station as Jason and I could have sworn I saw Franklin Mercer coming out of the store as I was entering. It sent chills down my spine. Anyways, this flavor is great. It tastes like iced tea mixed with a melted freezie pop. Even for a tea made with high fructose corn syrup, this is great! I just wish I had stocked up on more while I was in Zelienople.

Jay and I recently stopped at a great store in Sewickley, PA called Village Candy. We ended up spending over $80 on pop and talking with the owner for over an hour. It was great and I already can't wait to go back. I had exhausted all the root beer I could find to review in Buffalo so I was happy to see they had a really good selection.

This bottle was among the 12 different bottles of pop I bought. It's a really hearty root beer. It's not super heavy, but it definitely isn't smooth. It has a lot of flavor to it and has a really good bite to it. I can't really taste the molasses but that doesn't mean it's not great. If this is what root beer tastes like in "Olde Rhode Island", I want to go back to that time!

This is something that we don't normally do over here at Thirsty Dudes; explain the origin of a drink. Not history as much as the story of how we got it.

About a month ago I was contacted by Krish from India. He introduced this drink to us. I was honestly about to write it off because I though the guy was trying to give us coconuts, but it turns out that I can't read and he was telling me about a drink that is pure coconut.

I apologized for being a stupid idiot, gave him the address and he shipped it out. About a week later, a package came, and what a package:




I have never seen a package like this. It was woven in some sort of cloth. Hand stitched closed and it was done well. This guy was a pro. As I opened it, I thought to myself, "There could very easily be a finger in here. I hope there's not a finger in here." Once I got the woven layer off, there was a paper cover. I removed that to find that there was a box a Christmas lights. I found that odd, but promptly opened it up. There were paper shavings and inside was a small bottle of coconut water. "Pfew", I thought to myself. Now that this isn't a finger or any other sort of appendage, I decided to put it in the fridge and wait for the right time.

A few days later and with no real rhyme or reason, I thought that now would be a good time. I pried off the cap to reveal a little divot where a straw would be perfect but since I didn't think of that, I put a knife in it, opened it up, and started drinking.

There is nothing in this but coconut and "bio-preservatives" which I can only assume are natural preservatives that will allow the coconut water to keep longer than two days. It's good, too. It's exactly like what I would think cracking a coconut open and pouring it into an adorable container would taste like. The super light, inherent, natural sweetness of coconut mixed with its dry flavor is actually pretty good.

Now obviously if you find this stuff, it's not going to come inside an adventure of a container and I was lucky enough to have Kirsh take the time to send it to me, but you will get the same great drink inside. Want to take a trip to an island but don't have the money? Find this stuff, go to a home improvement store and buy some sand, and don't forget the umbrella toothpicks. I hope that you can get it at some sort of Indian market. Perhaps I can get Kirsh to comment and let you know where in the States and abroad you can get it.

I just realized that I have not had a Vitamin Water since we started this site. That seems insane because there was a long stretch of my life where I got them for free so I drank at least one a day. Since this incarnation of Thirsty Dudes ten months ago I just figured there were other, weirder, drinks that needed my attention. When I was in a gas station and I wanted something that wasn't carbonated I went with a new flavor of an old standby.

As soon as I opened it I remembered how much I actually enjoy Vitamin Water. Glaceau took the traditional sports drink and upped the ante. They add extra vitamins and minerals to make their drinks more functional, but at the same time they take extra care to make sure that all of their products have a strong pleasant flavor. The only thing that could really make these better would be if they actually used the juice from the fruits listed in the flavors. I guess this would fall under a different category if they did though, and it might lose its functionality.

This particular bottle is supposed to be blue agave, passion fruit and citrus flavored. The individual flavors don't stand out at all, but it does taste like a hodgepodge of the flavors combined into something new. Maybe it's just passion fruit and citrus. I've never had straight up agave before, but I've had it as a sweetener and I don't really remember it having a distinct taste. Overall it taste rather great. I would definitely pick this over a Gatorade any day. I don't think I will be waiting nearly as long before I pick up another bottle of this.

Hydrive is slowly becoming my favorite non-carbonated energy drink. For being in a market full of carbonated drinks, they really needed to step up the game to stand out. First, the tall slender bottles are not used often. Plus, they are really good to hold while drinking. Secondly, it's only 30 calories a bottle and this is almost 16 oz! Even though this is a low calorie drink, it doesn't have a diet taste to it at all, which is great.

Speaking of taste, for an energy drink, this is awesome! It has no chemical taste to it at all. It's basically like Vitamin Water with a blend of energy giving ingredients. I'm only half the way through the bottle and I can already tell it works. I was yawning before I opened it up but now I'm wide awake and ready to be productive. Since it's not full of sugar and calories, I actually feel good after drinking this.

Ahhh, big city boy like you coming down to the South, eh? Well we've got a thing or two to teach you about how we do things 'round here. For starters, we only wear overalls. For the women-folk, they wear sundresses. That's the way 'tis and that's the way it's gonna be, now and forever. Number two is that we make our pies with lard, the way that mama made 'em. None of that fancy, low calorie margarine like you city slickers have up there. Lard. If y'ain't got lard, butter. Ol' fashioned butter'll make everything go down smoother. Third, it's hot. Get used to it. Fourth is that we make our sweet tea with two things; tea and sugar. That's it and that's all, now and f'ever.

What's that you got there, boy? Sweet tea?! In a bottle?! That better be a bottle that used to have paint or some sort of gas-o-line in it or I ain't tasting' it. Alright, give her here, I'll take a swig. Ppppttttt!!! What's this, here? Swill is what it is. It's too thick. It's downright syrupy, if you ask me. Not that bad?!? City boy, number five is respect your elders so don't you forget it. Real Southern sweet tea is smooth and sweet. This is smooth and sweet and syrupy. Do you remember me saying that real Southern sweet tea is s'posed to be syrupy? 'Cause I didn't.

Boy, you've got some learnin' to do before you make it down here. It's not all swamps and gators and biscuits and gravy. What'd you say, darlin'? I've got to go, boy. M'wife made gator stew with biscuits and gravy.

Does anyone besides the elderly drink, let actually like instant coffee? My grandfather drank it, but I think he may be the only person I've known that has. I don't like coffee to begin with, so an instant version sounds like pure hell. Why do they even make it if no one buys it, well besides the elderly? When you get to a certain age do you just suddenly develop a taste for it, or did it just have it's time and place and once that generation dies out the "art" of instant coffee will be gone?

For as few people who purchase instant coffee I can only assume that even less buy instant tea. I think every mother buys a huge tub of it once. They make one pitcher of it. It takes one glass to realize it's way gross and then the tub sits in the pantry for years never to be opened again. It turns out that all of that unused instant tea on the shelves of grocery stores ends up in the factories of "ghetto" tea companies. You know the ones that are brands you never really heard of that come in huge jugs for less than a dollar. They all seem to have the names of farms, but I don't know why a farm would make iced tea. I could understand juice or some nice chocolate milk, but tea makes no sense.

Galliker's is one such company. They are based out of Pennsylvania and I believe they are also known as the "in-store" brand for Sheetz gas stations. I love Sheetz. I wish more gas stations were like it. They are clean and have a great selection of drinks as well as the "Made to Order" deli section.

I would probably never have picked this up, except the sugar cubes on the label caught my attention. Sure enough this is corn syrup free. That made up my mind, along with the fact that it says "no lemon." It's cheap sugar tea. That is for certain. The thing is sometimes drinks like that have a certain charm. It's on the higher end of the scale of cheap teas. I would never go out of my way to pick it up, but if I saw it in a gas station and it was between this and a Nestea or a Brisk this product would certainly win out.

Derek and I drove to DC and back in two days in order to be judges for the Clear Choice Awards, which is the glass bottling competition. According to Google Maps the trip should take 7.5 hours each way. Due to the fact that we are men of leisure we took our dandy time getting down there and stopped at a bunch of places to pick up some yet to be reviewed drinks. We ended up spending 14 hours getting down to our nation's capital. We got to our hotel at around 1:30am and I finally got to sleep at 3. After that long of travel you want to get a good nights sleep. Especially when you're sleeping in a comfortable hotel bed like I was. Unfortunately we were on a schedule and at 8am my alarm went off and I was up getting ready. Completely groggy I scarfed down a bagel and pounded this juice.

Would I have made it through the day without this juice? Probably. Would I have been as happy? No way. It's delicious. It's grape, pear, apple and peach juice all mixed together. The grape and peach juice is all you really taste though, and their flavors are strong and smooth.

As I said before if a juice is made properly it doesn't need added sugar. Fruit is sweet enough as it is. Welch's is wise. They understand these things and they make a good mass produced juice.

I like a lot of Honest Tea's tea. Is that redundant? I don't care. I like a lot of it, which is good because there is a lot of it to like. They definitely crank out flavor after flavor and never look back. I look at the shelves more than one should and I'm not even surprised when I can't keep up to what they come out with; this, CocoNova, Ade, and so on and so forth.

I think that this is a tricky one. If you make a cup of tea, and add one sugar packet, you're pretty set. It's a good ratio. This tastes like a gallon of black tea with one sugar packet. It's in there, but it's so lightly in there that you almost wish it was not there at all. It's not a bad tea, but for my money, this is too "Just a tad sweet" for me. I do, on the other hand, appreciate the maple syrup as an additional sweetener and flavoring. It's light in the mix, but it's there and you like it. It's bitter, almost like a green tea, but it's black tea.

I like this tea, but there are other teas out there that do what this tea does better. I am sure that this will sell like hotcakes, just not to me.

When you read the following please pretend that the guy who announces movie previews is reading it to you. That is the way the artist meant for it to be absorbed.

In a world of plastic bottle sodas, one pop had the courage to climb the top of the mountain. She wasn't a normal birch beer. A pigment disorder rendered her clear, but she wasn't about to let that stop her from reaching the top of FROZEN RUN!

FROZEN RUN is the tale of a young girl who fought the prejudice against her to stand out amongst the plastic bottle sodas. She fought long and hard to shrug off her roots of cheap discount store sodas to climb a mountain in the Pennsylvanian countryside to proclaim to the world that she had a voice and it would be heard.

FROZEN RUN is a tale about love, life, loss and the crispest birch beer you will ever taste. It has the crispness of mint with out the actual mint flavor.

FROZEN RUN. Coming soon to a gas station and mini mart near you. That is if you live in central PA.