In the wild world of Canada, there are live exotic fruits. It's true. You don't believe me? Take a trip up to Toronto. While you're there, go do yourself a favor and go to "Fifty Toppings Guy". It's a hot dog cartman on the corner of Queen and Spadina who has wonderful veggie and non-veggie dogs. I'm assuming that you've got a satchel or a fanny pack or something to carry your exotic fruits in, so I am not even going to address it. So once you get past the Eaton Centre, up on your left is a jungle. Ask James, the night watchman, if you can go in. You know the secret hand gesture, right? That's right. It's the same one as the Van Buren Boys hand signal that George Costanza used to save his life. Once James lets you in, get your shoving arms ready because it's a madhouse in there. The pushing and shoving, you would think you were in one of those Filene's "Running of the Brides" events.

Wait, did I tell you that all the exotic juices are in juice box format? Ooops. Sorry. Did you think that it was just fruit hanging off of trees? Are you kidding? Passionfruit, Guava, and all that other good stuff doesn't grow in Toronto. They have to package it up so that it doesn't get damaged when dropped, and since you're going to be fighting your way through said juice, you'd better have a nice, cardboard carrying case around it.

Whilt pushing fat men and skinny ladies, fight your way over to the Rubicon table to grab some of their guava, or as they like to say "goyave". It's pretty close to the bare essentials of what guava is all about. Water, guava pulp, and sugar and then some preservatives and stabilizers to keep it from surprising you with a straw full of brown juice. Oh man, the thought of that makes me want to puke. It's a little gritty like nectar and just the right amount of sweetness so you don't get cavities and probably get some sort of legitimate nutrition. Your mom would be proud, but don't show her that you got your school clothes dirty because some angry woman just pushed you in the dirt so she could get her grubby, rather large hands on the pineapple juice boxes.

My ladyfriend bought this a while ago and I have been patiently waiting for her to decide the time was right to drink it. Yesterday that time finally arrived during a BBQ at a friend's house (which I nearly helped burned down via a box of fireworks and a stray spark).

While the soda was very tasty it did not actually taste like guava. It has a very familiar deliciously fruity taste that I could not place, but it definitely wasn't guava. Tropical? Yes. That specific tropical flavor? No.

I really wish this had been made with cane sugar. I believe that would have been the little push this soda needed to make it spectacular.

Look, if Jay can review McDonald's Shamrock Shake I can review this, right? Right. I saw that they had it, it was something new, I thought it would accompany my standard "Number 6" spicy chicken nicely. Was I right? Well that all depends. Did I want tea? Yes. Did I get tea? Kind of. Did I enjoy what I got? I don't think what I asked for was what I got. Allow me to explain.

You know what tea is, right? Sure you do. You're not some sort of dummy. Tea is great. Sweetened or unsweetened, tea is great. I know for a fact that Wendy's knows what tea is, too, because I typically get an unsweetened tea from them. This didn't taste like a tea at all, but a watered down wild berry nectar. I didn't get any tea flavor. The berry was strong but it tasted like real berry. It wasn't too sweet, although initially it was because whatever they used as flavor lingered at the bottom like a leaves at the bottom of a pool. It created a sort of gradient where it just wasn't stirred enough so I made sure to stir it up a lot more. It was a titch syrupy, and that's why if they left it that thick, left some seeds in there, and sold it as a wild berry nectar, this would have gotten a higher review.

Taking this into consideration, if you want light nectar with a decent wild berry taste, get this. If you want a wild berry tea, you're going to be disappointed.

Ladies and Gentlemen, in an effort to gain superhuman sight I shall now consume no food other than carrots and drink nothing other than carrot juice. I am sick of this normal vision. I dream of a day when I can read at night and more importantly look through a closet refrigerator door so that I can realize there is nothing I want to eat inside without wasting the manual and electrical energy.

I will start this experiment in greatness with this carton of juice. 11.2 fl oz of freedom is what I hold in my hand. Hmm. This doesn't taste like actual carrots nearly as much as I imagined. Since the only ingredient is organic carrot juice I really expected this to taste like I chewed up a carrot for about 15 minutes. This is actually much sweeter than I anticipated. I would have sworn there was sugar added, but nope. It tastes like a juice of some sort that is vaguely carrot tasting and lightly sweetened. I'm kind of disappointed that it doesn't taste exactly like carrots, but I but if I drank a juice that did and this back to back, this would win out. Not bad.

What's what Sally? If I eat nothing but carrots my skin will start to turn orange? Well I want no part of that. I will leave the gift of super sight to rabbits and cats. He's to wasting fridge energy!

Gene you've done a great job here with this white grape juice. It has a great flavor and nice carbonation. Wait…€¦what? It's not carbonated? I guess it's just that good that my mind somehow imagined the bubbles. Let me take another sip. You're right it's not. Why on Earth did I think it was?

Now Gene this is great but as you know us here at Sangaria are trying to take the company in a “green” direction. You know, reduce our waste and all. We've been getting in a lot of trouble with the government as of late. Is there anything you can think of to help us out? Wait you want us to put the remainders of the grapes in the drink? That's just plain weird Gene. Who would want to drink that? Okay find I'll try it. This actually isn't too bad. My only complaint is that the grapes could be peeled. You have a machine that will do that? Where do you get those wonderful toys? This is going to be perfect. It's a wonderful tasting white grape juice with whole peeled grapes thrown in to make drinking fun again. Kids are going to have a hay day and you Gene are going to have an awesome compost pile with all of those grape peels. I told you we had to get rid of waste, so now you have to take them home. Enjoy.

Jay has a certain love for ginger that not many have. Sure, many of us enjoy ginger ale, but if you've ever had real ginger, you know that it doesn't taste much like ginger at all. Ginger ale has a taste all it's own and unless you get a certain kind, they all just taste...well like "ginger ale".

So Jay has recently started putting ginger that you would get on sushi on his tacos, and although you might be saying "Eww, gross. Jay, that's gross." you might want to try it because it adds a pretty nice flavor, and I'm not a huge fan of pickled ginger. I love a good ginger beer and I love a good ginger ale, but ginger in itself, eh.

So Kiri. This is some pretty remarkable stuff. They really do things differently up North, in America's Hat. This tastes just like real ginger and if you are a fan of that idea, travel on up there, or somewhere online, and get yourself a bottle of this stuff because it's good. No burn, but a consistent, clean ginger taste. It took my by surprise and I thought it was going to be just another ginger ale. I like when I'm wrong.

I'm sorry Sport. I hate to be the one to tell you this but you can't win all the time. I know, I know. You won so many games to get to this one; the "big game". It's alright that you lost. Sure, you lost to a bunch of twelve years old chumps, but who cares. You got a free pizza, medium pop, and a great summer. I know it's not fair, but there's nothing to be sad about when you've got a fifteen and one record. Maybe next summer you can take it all.

You still don't understand? Well you can't win all the time. I can't say it any better. How about this; I love Calypso drinks and one day, when I saved one up for months I decided today was going to be the day to drink it. I was tired, my feet hurt, I had spent an hour in a half in the car in heat that the air conditioner that couldn't beat the humidity and then I came home and knew it was time. It was the mint tea and lemonade one. Man, as soon as I saw that I knew that I was going to save it for a special occasion. So I poured it into a glass with some crushed ice to cool it down and took a sip. It was too minty, the lemonade wasn't all there, and it just wasn't what I wanted it to be.

Remember when the pitcher threw you that absurd curve ball and you hit it and right before it got to the stands, that kid that looks like he's seventeen caught it? That's not fair because you are a good kid, but being a good kid doesn't get you everything. The way that you felt when that ogre caught that ball is like how I felt when I drank that tea. We both wanted a home run, but instead some senior caught your ball and my tea was too much and too little.

You've got a great baseball career ahead of you and I will be there next year when you knock that ball out of the park. You want some soft serve? I've got a craving for something that will never let me down; chocolate vanilla twist with jimmies on it. Come on, my treat.

Sheriff: Son, I'm going to have to ask you to not dump all of that chemical waste into our fair Snake River.

Jimmy the Dumper: Screw you cop! My daddy is paying me five American dollars to do this for him.

Sheriff: Son, if you keep talking that way I'm going to have to place you under arrest for violating some sort of environmental law, and well for hurting my feelings.

Jimmy the Dumper: Wait a minute! You're in cut off shorts, crocs, and an FBI (Female Body Inspector) shirt. You're not a real cop!

Sheriff: Son, I have a bottle cap from a Jackson Hole soda that looks like a badge of some sort that proves otherwise. Now if you'll please come quietly we'll get this all sorted out back at the station.

Jimmy the Dumper: You mean that creepy shed behind your house? Screw this I'm out of here. *He then pushes over the sheriff and dumps the rest of the waste on him, ensuring that his daddy will give him the five dollars he so deserves to go buy some chew down at Art's Dairy Bar.*


The moral of this story is don't be a chump. Drinking Jackson Hole does not make you a law official, but it does mean that you have great taste. All of their sodas have gotten outstanding marks here at Thirsty Dudes. Their sarsaparilla is no different. It tastes like the darkest, heaviest root beer I have ever tried. When it's in your mouth it taste more like a root beer than other sarsaparilla's I've had, but as I said in a unique way. After you swallow, the aftertaste is pure sarsaparilla. That's the way things should be.

On a final note:
Dear Jackson Hole,
Please start distributing your sodas to Buffalo, NY as soon as possible. You're from Wyoming. There is a Buffalo in Wyoming. Pretend that's where you're sending it and send it to New York instead. We really need you in our lives on a more constant basis.
Sincerely,
The City of Buffalo

It's been months now since the Robbins family got stranded on the desert island (yes there is only one on the face of this planet). Margie, the mother of the group, has created an ingenious system where she boils the seawater with a plastic tarp over it so that the water evaporated away from the salt and the steam traveled down the tarp into a separate container to make it drinkable. While she insured their survival with her scientific skills, all they had to drink was bland, slightly salty water. Their thoughts constantly floated to the idea of fancy sodas, even a jug of ghetto tea would be a dream come true. Alas, all they have is mom's water.

Then one day the kids were out on my beach. Sally, the daughter, was leaning against a tree reading the autobiography of Steve Guttenberg, because it's the only book they have on the island. Bobby was bored, as young boys on desert islands tend to be so he decided to torment Sally. He started off with a rousing game of repeating everything Sally said, but as she was reading that didn't really work. Then he switched over to "I'm not touching you." Unfortunately Sally was so engrossed in a chapter about Three Men and a Little Lady that she didn't even notice. Finally as an act of desperation he started shaking the tree violently to get some sort of reaction out of her. She glanced up annoyed, and just as Bobby was about to celebrate a coconut fell from the tree and cracked him right in the skull. That of course set Sally into a fit of giggles until she noticed that the coconut had cracked open and a liquid was dribbling out. She put some on her finger and tasted it. It was kind of sweet, and very tasty. She pried the coconut open a little more and drank the juice that was inside. It wasn't the best thing she ever had, but it sure beat mom's water. Once Bobby woke up they fashioned him a helmet and had him shake trees all the livelong day so they could have fresh coconut water.

I'm no longer going to talk about my past feelings on coconut water. I have been converted and this is one of the best bottles I've had yet. If you're hot and parched, crack open an ice cold bottle and enjoy the summer.

There is a scientist somewhere whose sole purpose in life is to create flavoring that tastes like various fruits. He's just sitting in a lab working things out with a white coat on and everything. It's a hard line of work that he's in. Sure companies could actually use the fruit they say their flavors taste like, but they are just too cheap for the money involved with that. So this sole scientist slaves over various extracts and syrups serving his master companies. The higher ups applaud his work and tell him that he is spot on with the taste. He knows better though. He knows his work taste vaguely chemical and at best is only halfway to the actual taste he's looking for. He cries himself to sleep in his tiny studio apartment. He spends so much time at the lab that he doesn't have time for relationships.

Don't worry soldier, we know that someday you'll get the flavors right. You were almost there with this blueberry. Every other sip actually tastes like the fruit. The others taste like sweet "fruity" sugar water. It's an uphill battle you're fighting, but don't give up. Someday you will revolutionize the flavor business.

So the world knows that lemonade is simply a squeezed lemon with some sugar added to it. It's not a secret. It really is just common knowledge. The real question is why did I not realize that orangeade was the same thing except with the fruits switched? Really I always just thought it was just some garbage “orange drink.” I guess I was right in the case of the Arizona version.

I have to say, is it necessary for it to exist? It doesn't taste bad in any sense, but it's orange juice we're messing with here. It's a classic and is amazing on it's own. I feel that by adding sugar it's cheapening the juice. It's making it into something that would be fit to be put in a juice box for kids. This is nothing against the Rob's version of orangeade. It's the best I've ever had, but like I said it just leaves me wanted some good old-fashioned orange juice with lots of pulp.

Look, even though I live in Buffalo and Niagara Falls is twenty minutes, that doesn't mean that I don't go. Today, I went in Maid of the Mist which takes you inside the center of the horseshoe falls and gets mist all up ons. I also went to the Niagara Falls aquarium, which I can also accurately dub "the worst aquarium I've ever been to" unfortunately. Niagara Falls smells like Indian food because on almost any given street in the touristy part is five Indian restaurants per block. It's a bit excessive, but if you go up a couple blocks you'll find yourself in "Little Italy" and there are twice as many Italian restaurants. I don't know how it's possible to have some many Italian restaurants selling the same thing all in the same mile strip and not go out of business. I mean, how many people can you honestly spread to twenty-seven different of the same restaurant? Seems dumb.

So it was a nice day, real nice. Eighty with no clouds. All sun, not too muggy. Nice, you know? After I got out of my tourist day, I came home and worked in my yard like a good neighbor should. I worked up quite a thirst and now I'm sitting here listening to The Urge's 1995 "Receiving the Gift of Flavor" and drinking this well deserved tea and I've got to say two things:

1. I like it. It's a great, bitter tea with a little sure. So little sugar that if you ordered a non-sweetened tea in a restaurant and they brought you this, you wouldn't care. Responsibly sweet.

2. I could make this. It's green tea, which you can get anywhere and yeah, I bet there is a patented process that they do to make it they way that they do but I've made tea like this before using hot water and probably pretty low quality tea bags and one pack of "Sugar in the Raw".

This is not meant to diss Honest because they make some gems and if you like or love or have any sort of good relationship with green tea, you will love this because it's like your Asian mom or best friend's Asian mom made you. White moms don't make their kids green tea. I had one. I know.

Steve Ewing, this drink is for you. I wish you had released another record after "Too Much Stereo."

For the longest time I stayed away from Tazo teas because when I first saw them I tried two different flavors and they both tasted heavily of mint. I don't remember what flavors they were exactly, but I remember thinking that there was absolutely no need for mint to be in the mix. When Mike and I were in the grocery store the other day staring at the same drinks that have been there for what now seems like forever I decided we needed to up the number of Tazo reviews. Good or bad it was our duty to write something up.

When I opened this bottle at work today I was expecting the minty worst. I took a cautionary sniff, and it was all tea and berry. Things were looking up. A tiny sip and I was relieved to find this was mint free. I did check the ingredients for mint beforehand (it wasn't there), but I swear I did that in the past and was fooled. This bottle just contains black tea, and fruit juice. It's just the way I like things. This is actually one of the better raspberry teas I've ever had. It still has a dry bitterness from the tea, but it's still sweet and tastes like actual fruit.

I have cast you aside for years Tazo and for that I apologize. This is the fourth tea of yours we have reviewed and all have gotten four bottles. I will be visiting you again shortly.

As a child I spent a lot of time out at my grandparents house out in the country. They lived in this awesome old house with a barn and a chicken coop (minus the chickens, which had been replaced by old bikes and lawnmowers). Whenever I was out there I always felt like a character from an old coming of age book. I'd spend my time on a tire swing, shooting my bow and arrows and making lead soldiers out in the barn workshop. . It was a nice break from video games and television. It's what I would have always wanted early childhood to be like

In the back room of their house there was a secondary refrigerator that was always stocked with beer and pop. Keep in mid this was the mid-eighties so the soda that was contained in the fridge generally came in those tall glass bottles. There was always Pepsi, 7Up and a wide variety of Faygo purchased from Pixley's market. The Pixley's lived in front of the market and they had a pet monkey for a short time. I never saw it though because when my grandfather went to visit it once it grappled onto his face and bit his ear. I have to admit that in hindsight that is hysterical, but at the time I wanted nothing to do with that monkey.

I've gotten off tangent. Back to the Fridge-O-Soda. My favorite was the Faygo Frosh. I don't even remember what it tasted like, but I loved it at the time. It may have been grapefruit flavored. That would make sense. When I ran out of Frosh I would turn to my old standby, Red Pop. Since this is the cane sugar version of this drink I am assuming that it is the same formula at from my childhood. I mean why would they change it? I used to love this stuff, but now it's just kind of ehhh. It's supposed to be strawberry flavored, but it just tastes like some sort of red candy. There's no distinguishable fruit flavor involved. I was hoping that I would still love this, but you can't win them all. Even though it's not spectacular in flavor it does have an awesome design on the bottle. So classy.

What is the deal with sucralose? Why is it the worst sweetener this world has ever seen? Less that 1% of this beverage is sucralose, yet it has overthrown the rest of the flavors in the bottle. I hate hate hate hate HATE IT!

This started off strange enough. It's called "Pomegranate Berry" so that is what I thought I was getting into. As soon as I took a sip I knew something was amiss. A quick check of the ingredients informed me that there are actually more vegetables than fruit in this juice. I'm all for vegetables, but when you're not expecting them it's a bit off putting. It's really just the tomato paste that threw me for a loop. So here you have a blend of fruits and vegetables, that really tastes heavy on the vegetable side, and then sucralose shows it's ugly face and completely ruins everything. I know this is a diet drink, and I'm not saying they should have added cane sugar or anything like that. What I am saying is that I think this juice could have stood by itself without any added sweetener, but American's are dumb and need everything overly sweet.

What do I crave? I crave chocolate milk that is thick. I want chocolate milk that is on the cusp of a milkshake. Why? Why would you ask me? Do you like thin, runny chocolate milk? That's for kids...well chocolate milk is for kids. I mean, chocolate milk is for everyone. Greg, a dude I work with who beat me in go-carts over the weekend, cannot stop drinking these once he starts and he's in his thirties. This is nice, thick chocolate milk. It's got a rich flavor that you don't care about slamming. Plus, due to the fact that it's in that rad aluminum can, you can shake it up all you want and create perfect, frothy chocolate milk. What more could you ask for? You want one now, don't you? I'm a salesman. I'm hired.

This is pretty bad. There's no beating around the bush. If you like it, awesome, but if you're looking for good limeade, you're not going to find it here. There is a sweet sting that almost feels carbonated followed by a decent lime taste. It's hard to get past the sting and it took me by surprise the first time I drank it. I don't know why it's there.

I don't have a great review and you know what, they don't have to be gems, but I'm not going to waste my time writing some poetic tale of a girl riding her bike crashing into a lime tree and spilling the seltzer water all over all the limes that spilled on the ground. I just won't do it. Sure she decided that she would gather up the limes and take them home so that the townspeople won't get mad that she knocked some of their lime supply off the tree, but you don't need to know that because I'm not going to make up another story.

Dear Readers,
I am afraid that Thirsty Dudes has ruined me. I used to drink cheap syrupy iced teas all the darn time, and I loved it. Now that I've been drinking so much quality teas and the unsweetened variety has become such a part of me these teas are a little hard to get down. They don't taste like real tea in any way. I feel like I'm drinking sugar water with heavy flavoring in it. It has that fake peach flavoring, which I can no longer get down with. This claims to be 100% natural yet it contains no juice and is sweetened with corn syrup. I think JB's is taking a loose interpretation of the word natural.

All of those complaints aside, I drank this while I was dripping with sweat, printing shirts in a million degree room, and I will admit it quenched my thirst. Then again a tall cool glass of horse urine may have refreshed me at that moment.

Sometimes when I'm in the presence of a certain and very specific smell of wood, I can only think of one thing. When I was a kid, for no reason or for hide-and-seek, I used to hide in this cabinet/shelf we had in the basement. I could go there now, 25 years later and it would smell the same. It reminds me of that. I don't know if it's pine or what, but I catch a smell of it and I'm right back there, in that cubby. I don't think there is any way that I could fit in there now, but I could put my head in there and relive my past over and over again.

This drink did not make me think of wood, but it has a smell that is reminiscent of something. You know when you're like "Oh, what does that smell like?" It drives you crazy, right? You can't place it but you've got such a familiar association with it, that it's like looking into your past. I want to say this tastes like a watermelon Jolly Rancher, but that's a cop out. If they ever made watermelon Freeze-e-pops, this is what it tastes like, but less syrupy and sweeter because of the Stevia.

This pales in comparison to the black cherry because it's a bit too candy. Watermelon seems to be a tough flavor to get to not be like candy, that's what it's so awesome to find something "grape" flavored that doesn't taste like what the world has accepted as "grape", you know what I mean? Grape PEZ doesn't taste anything like any grapes I've ever had, and neither has anything watermelon flavored. Get on that, world; you've got the skills.

Roller coaster, the song by Everything But The Girl off the smash hit record "Amplified Heart" tells the tale of a unbalanced relationship where one person has moved on and the other person is still emotionally involved. Although this drink does not leave you crying in the dark listening to folk rock and eating iced cream, it does take you on a roller coaster of taste. It's got a very strong smell but when you taste it, it's light and very floral. If you really stick your nose in the bottle, like I did because I'm a scientist, it smells strong like barley, but if you just whiff it from the top, it's strong, but completely different. The taste is an incremental flavor where it tastes a little like a peach, but is not peach? Strange? It's infused with all sorts of stuff, none being peach, all being good.

This was a wonderful unsweetened tea that I could see myself coming back to time and time again. If you are bored with your jasmine green like I am, take a trip to flavor country, grab a bottle of this, put on "Amplified Heart" and just relax because both are great, great things.