I really don't understand why Faygo hasn't embraced Insane Clown Posse yet. Sure clowns can be scary and they don't know how magnets work and want to live on a place called "Juggalo Island". Despite all those (and may more) negative traits, they have bought millions of dollars of Faygo over the past 10 years. One would presume that Faygo doesn't want to associate with them because they have an image to uphold. I wouldn't want to associate myself with a music group that promotes sketchy stuff either.

But what image does Faygo have to uphold? It is a ghetto pop! The only place i've ever seen it for sale is those corner stores that have expired Spaghetti-O's, socks, and Rap Snacks. It's the pop you buy because it's cheaper than Pepsi. If Faygo started putting ICP on bottles tomorrow, I highly doubt some middle age mom is going to stop buying it from the corner store for her snot-nosed kids. It's still going to be the cheapest pop you can buy. This cola is still going to be a 3rd rate cola. It tastes really syrupy and bland. If anything, it will probably increase their sales because even more juggalos will buy it. It would be one of the best decisions they ever made to embrace the MCL (much clown love) and make a line of ICP flavors.

Alo what have you done! Your mother and I leave you home alone for two hours, entrusting you with keeping the house safe and this is how you repay us? It looks like you filmed a Beastie Boys video in here! All we can say is how deeply disappointed we are in you. You've always been such a well-behaved beverage. Sure you hung out with the weird flavored nerdy kids every once and awhile, but overall you got good marks. Lately you've been getting mixed up with an unsavory crowd like that Johnny Coconut kid. I don't like the cut of his jib. Don't argue with me! I don't care if it's the only jib he's got! That kid is bad news. Just look what he's done to our home and more importantly our precious aloe juice! He's tainted it! It no longer tastes wonderful and sweet. It doesn't even taste like chalky coconut water. How on Earth did you two get all mixed together and end up tasting like some sort of cereal milk? Have you been drinking? Please tell me you're not on the pot! The fun has even been taken out of the chunks. I don't believe this. We're you supposed to be babysitting the neighbor's kids, Peach and Kiwi? Where have they gotten off to, because I sure don't taste them in here!

Arizona has run the inexpensive iced tea game for years. You can pretty much walk into any gas station/corner store and they will have a cooler filled with Arizona tall boys. It's hard to go wrong with paying so little for so much of a more than decent beverage. Now, like the Romans before them, Arizona is expanding their empire. They dabbled with energy drinks and now they have moved on to sports drinks and they are taking that scene by storm.

On first look I had such low expectations for this drink. It comes in the traditional 34oz Gatorade-esque bottle, and the label design is fairly terrible. I understand it's the company's logo but nothing about the southwest screams hydration to me. Someone should probably get fired for this. Davis, we understand you've been with the company for 10 years now, and we appreciate all the hard work you're put into the job. The think is the label you did for the sports drink looks a bit childish. On top of that it makes people think about the desert. Davis, as we all know there is no hope in the desert. People are going to think that it's a crapshoot when they open their bottle. Will it be a thirst quenching electrolyte replenishing tasty beverage, or will they get a mouthful of sand and armadillo poop. Do you really want our customers concerned with …€˜dilla poop Davis? I certainly do not! We're knocking you back down to taste tester. Due to current laws we can't lower your rate of pay, so you'll be making the same. Why do you look so happy Davis? You just got demoted. I don't care if you are my wife's brother I can't believe I let her talk me into hiring you. Imagine a world where people are happy to be demoted. Sure you're doing basically no work and getting paid an obscene amount of money to drink our products day in and out, but what about your lost status? Okay so now that you're officially a taste tester what do you think about the drink you did the inappropriate artwork for? It tastes crisp and clean? Well of course it does! We've already covered the fact that there is no armadillo excrement in it! You say it's way superior to Gatorade and it's counterparts because it's all natural and not all syrupy? Now you better not be saying that to get your old job back. We don't let just anyone work 65 hours a week on salary around here!

Do you want some tea or something? You're not sure? That's a strange answer. What kinds are there? Really? Have you ever left your apartment? Green, white, black, oolong, Earl Gray, and tons more. You've never heard of green tea? You're joking. You're not joking. They've been drinking it for centuries and it's been a common drink here for years and years. I...dude...really. You've got me if you are joking. You're being ridiculous. Honor brite. Honor brite you've never had green tea. Really. Man. Well look, here's the deal with it. It's a nice earthy flavor with a bite. Depending on what green tea you get, it can have a pretty gnarly bitterness to it, but it's a good bitter. Since you're starting out, you might want to try this Gold Peak green tea. It's pretty good. It's sweetened and still has a really small bite. It's nice because you get everything you want in a sweetened green tea just toned down. It's naturally sweetened and flavored, too, so you aren't left with any strange aftertaste lingering in your mouth like that giant slice of Sbarro's that you decided to get for lunch. Not very worldly are you? There are a lot of different green teas but this one has a nice flavor to it that is like a green tea 101. If you don't like it, we can candy it up or go more natural. It's a nice launch pad into the depths of green tea. I can't believe you've never had the stuff. It's literally in shampoo, body wash, Starbucks, ice cream, Chap Stick, and like everything else. You really need to get out more.

Sioux City has had stellar marks thus far on Thirsty Dudes. Okay, Mike gave the ginger beer only 3 bottles, but I think he was having an off day. Everything else has been great thus far. They even made a good weird blue berry soda that was great. I didn't know what to expect with the prickly pear. I assumed it was cactus flavored, due to the label, but I had worries that it might be pear and let's face it pear drinks tend to be pretty gross. Lucky for us it was cactus flavored and Sioux City keeps up their batting average.

This has an incredibly familiar scent to it, but for the life of me I can't place it. It seriously has been driving me crazy. I think it might remind me of the smell of some of the Skeleteens' sodas, but I'm not positive. It also tastes exactly like it smells and that drives me even crazier that I can't place it. I'm supposed to be a professional here, and my memory is putting me back in the bush league.

It's sweet and almost candy like. Derek says that it almost reminds him of some sort of Jolly Rancher. I disagree because that is one candy that is totally gross sauce. There are two distinct waves of flavor. The first I can only assume is what cactus is supposed to taste like, and then the weird candy taste hits you afterwards. I really enjoy both of them. Now if only I could remember what this tastes like I'll actually be able to sleep tonight.

I just finished off a container of hands down the best salsa I have ever tasted in my life. Christine Mackie's mom made it, and I will love her forever for her salsa skills. The mass amounts of basil in it made it absolutely incredible. I am going to have dreams for months about this salsa. It will haunt me that it is not readily available in my life.

Now that it's gone I just want a nice crisp tasting beverage. Cucumber drinks have never failed me in the past. They are always refreshing and tasty. Now you mix cucumber with aloe and you should have an award winning drink, right? Wrong! If I were a dirty child at some crazy strict olde timey Catholic school a nun would have smacked me over the knuckles with a ruler for that incorrect answer. Yes in theory it should have been amazing. In the world of functionAloe it was down right terrible. It tastes like neither aloe nor cucumber. It does taste like it should be some sort of cleaner. I really couldn't get more than a few sips down before I started contemplating if I needed to call poison control. If I downed this entire bottle I think I might have to get my stomach pumped. I guess they weren't kidding when they named this “Cleanse.”

Some people may blame the taste on the fact that it's sweetened with stevia, but I can vouch for that little guy. I've had plenty of drinks that he has sweetened and he is my favorite “diet” sweetener. Also, there are no chunks in this. What is a point of an aloe drink without fun chunks?

For something that had the potential to be one of my favorite drinks ever this went in completely the wrong direction. It would have been hard for them to make it any worse. I really wish I had more of that incredible salsa to kill the poison on my tongue.

I am not one of those dudes who wake up and has a coffee before anything nor am I the guy that has a coffee at any point in the day. "Dude, sometimes you just need that jolt." you might say, but you know what I say? No, dude, I don't. If I'm tired, I'm tired. My body is exhausted from doing stuff all day and needs to relax, not take an adrenaline shot to keep going at the pace I was going at. Sometimes I get down and sure, coffee might make sense, but I push through it and get to the end of the day and sleep like a baby.

Ignoring that entire entry paragraph, today I thought it might be a nice change to give it a whirl. Now I'm not going to drink a drink and then sit around like a turd and wait for the effects to kick in. I'm sure it's there, but I don't care and I'm not looking for it. It's all about taste and not function with this guy. If this were supposed to do something, I would let you know. It's a coffee drink. You know what it does.

Taste. It's, once again, just coffee enough that anyone in the range of "kind of likes the taste of coffee" to "loves coffee" will enjoy. There is enough milk and sugar to smooth it out and leave it with its inherent coffee bitterness. This wasn't bad. It's more "adult" than a Starbuck's Frappuccino because it's not as sweet and still tastes like coffee in its base rather than a melted iced coffee drink.

I got this at a steal from a local discount store so you might be able to do the same. Fifty cents doesn't buy you a lot these days but if it buys you a nice, refreshing coffee drink, wicked.

I never understood why people think camo is "cool". In high school, so many people wore camo pants but I never understood it. They just looked like more generic Zubaz pants. Camo was invented to stay hidden. Urban camo pants aren't going to help you sneak out of your 3rd period science class. I also always associate camo with hunting and military, both of which I don't like.

The camo on this can is a modern "digital" camo. I'm sure there's a real name for it, but I'm calling it "digital camo" because it looks like an 8 bit video game. If I worked for Monster's art department, I would have hidden a couple classic NES characters in the design. If Nintendo tried to sue them, they could just point out that there's one pixel different.

Oh yeah, the drink. It's red, and it tastes like cherries. Pretty original huh? Like most Monster drinks, it's really tart which I like. It still has that energy drink after taste. On top of that, I'm drinking this on an empty stomach so it doesn't feel awesome. I didn't intend to drink it before I ate, my vegan potpie is just taking way too long to bake and I was thirsty. Lesson learned: thaw vegan pot pies beforehand so they cook faster.

It's a well-known fact that all of us at Thirsty Dudes love aloe drinks. Personally, whenever I get a new aloe drink to review it usually gets bumped to the front of the queue. Is that wrong of me? Honestly, with all the soda and energy drinks I consume, it's nice to get a refreshing drink from time to time. Do you blame me?

As you can guess by the name, Aloe Water, this is a “thinner” aloe drink. It basically tastes like cherry flavored vitamin water with little aloe chunks in it. I usually prefer more chunks in an aloe drink, but it makes sense they might want to keep the chunk count down on this line. It's kind of weird to drink because I want to take big gulps due to the water-like consistency. After the first swallow my body gets scared because of the little aloe chunks rushing down my throat. I know it's next to impossible to choke on an aloe chunk, but my body doesn't know that. So I end up sipping it slower than I'd like to.

This would probably be good for someone who wants to try an aloe drink but doesn't want too many chunks. It's a beginner level aloe drink if you will. Just because I'm in the expert levels now, doesn't mean I can't enjoy this though.

This little guy almost killed me. I opened the bottle, took a swig and I somehow swallowed it wrong and started to choke. It felt like bubbly sugary soda felt like it was dripping down into my lung sacks. For a split second I thought I was going to die. Every breath was filled with gurgling liquid. Luckily I persevered, and I am able to write you a review.

Is there such a thing as bad birch beer? If so I've never come across it. There are three categories of it, micro-brewed, county fair and candy-esque. All of them have their merits, with very little drawbacks. This falls under the candy category. It's doesn't have a gross candy flavor, but it's just way sweeter than other birch beers. It really feels like it should just be a root beer, but then the unmistakable aftertaste sets in and it's birch beer city. It's not spectacular, but it's better than most sodas. I can't complain about that.

What is it with energy drinks tasting like melted sugary candy? Red Bull tastes exactly like liquid Smarties. I challenge you to debate that. And this one? This tastes like liquid Sweet Tarts. I can just picture the energy drink scientists at Monster with their white lab coats developing the next delicious energy drink. Runts? Nah, not many people like the bananas. Nerds? Way too many flavors, it would be a cornucopia of flavors and confuse people's taste buds. How about Sweet Tarts? Hmmm, tangy, sweet, and delicious! It's a winner!

Well, maybe not a winner overall. It's good, but not great. There are much worse diet energy drinks out there. This tastes more sweet than acidic for a diet drink, which is very nice. But at the end of the day, I'd rather have a non-diet energy drink.

Something inside of me needed to buy this. I was at the store, shopping for deck chairs and I walked by and all of a sudden there were two in my cart. Blink of an eye. Two of 'em. No discussion. No thought. Is that what my life has become? Oh, there's something I haven't drank, better get that before someone else comes in underneath me and buys one hundred flavored waters. What, am I crazy? Probably. Jay actually told me the other day that he misses buying new drinks. I mean, come on. What person misses buying drinks? Shoes, clothes, video games, and cars are all things that you can miss buying. Drinks? There's a big difference between spending $50 on a game, $50,000 on a car, and $300 on a pair of shoes and buying $1.29 worth of a tea you've never had. We have all become quite accustomed to having no money since, well; none of us have any money so it is the little things that make us happy.

So Sobe. It's been a while. Look, I used to drink that green tea that came out a decade ago all the time before I realized that it's like the worst drink on the shelves for you. I've snuck on in here and there since that doesn't mean they're any less delicious. They're released a million different flavors and sub-brands since then and this one, I've got to say is delicious. This drink is easy to review, too. It tastes like a non-syrupy, adequately sweetened, flat black cherry pop. Done. It's good. The flavor was there, too. It was crisp and clean and right out of the fridge this cat was tops. It's not a civilized beverage by any means. I bought it for one American dollar. How good can it be? Answer? Pretty darn good.

Man, I'm tired. All I've been doing all day is sitting around in my boxers, refreshing the same 3 web pages. I have no direction in my life am bored all the time.

*ominous voice of a 3rd rate pro-wrestler* HEY MAN! I KNOW WHAT YOU NEED, ENERGY 2000!!!!

Energy 2000? My mom told me to avoid energy drinks because she says they are a gateway to harder drinks like coffee.

DON'T BE A WIMP! THIS LITTLE DRINK WILL GIVE YOU THE ENERGY YOU NEED TO SUCCEED IN LIFE!

Ok! It says it's orange flavor, but it tastes like a diet version of the worst cough medicine ever.

STOP SIPPING IT AND CHUG IT! IT'S CALLED AN ENERGY SHOT FOR A REASON!

Ugh! That was vile! At least it's over now. I already feel energized, thanks ominous voice of 3rd rate wrestler.

YOU'RE WELCOME! NO ONE GIVES YOU ENERGY BETTER THAN ENERGY 2000!

Ok, I got the point. Can you stop yelling at me now?

NO I CAN'T! THIS IS THE ONLY WAY I CAN TALK!!

Ugh, then just leave and bring your gross energy shots with you.

ENERGY 2000! MORE ENERGY THAN YOU CAN HANDLE!

Alright, wise guys. Who did this? I went to the store. I bought one green apple. I got a flat tire thirteen feet from leaving the store so I had to walk home like thirty minutes. I went to take a shower and I got back and this happened. Who did this? Oh, what? What am I talking about? Well I'll tell you. Who cored out my apple, poured carbonated water in it, and then capped it with the original top of the apple. Look, albeit very clever and quite well done, I really wanted this apple. I rode my bike all the way to the store for one apple. Hindsight is telling me that I'm crazy.

Since I went and did all of this, I need to eat it. You understand don't you? Hard work has to come to fruition and now I have to pay the price because you're a jerk. Well this is something now, isn't it. The carbonation seemed to seem into all of the pored of the apple and has somehow managed to carbonate the entire apple. It's got the inherent tart, sweetness of a green apple with the nice sparkle of a sparkling drink.

Who did this? Was it you, Carl? Who's lighting off those bottle rockets? It's freaking my dog out. Stop it. What's happening today? I'm going to eat this whole apple myself because it tastes exactly like those Picabi sparkling apple drink. I love those because they taste like this and I love this because it tastes like that. I don't love you because you ruined my precious apple for the better and who ever is lighting off those bottle rockets, my dog hates you.

When I was asked by Derek to do a guest review for Thirsty Dudes, I was totally excited, but incredibly overwhelmed. All of my favorite drinks had already been reviewed, and trying to find a new drink that hadn't been done before was next to impossible. So finally my thoughts turned to drinks I absolutely LOATHE; one shining beacon of disgust stood out among the rest, and when I searched for it on this site, I found that it had yet to be reviewed, and so I give you BIG RED.



My history with BIG RED is not particularly noteworthy: my friends and I saw it in a supermarket in Albuquerque, NM when we were in high school, and bought a six pack because we thought it would be awesome. We all took turns doing spit-takes in the parking lot of the Albertson's we bought it from, declaring that the only way this soda could possibly make any money is from people buying it to see if it's really as bad as they remembered it being (the answer in this scenario would always be an emphatic YES). And then it was written off forever, and if there was ever a discussion about disgusting beverages I would relate my story about BIG RED and get a laugh or two, but since I've moved to the east coast, there are less and less people who have heard of or tried this soda, because it's mostly a southern "delicacy". As such, this bottle I hold in my hands was shipped to me by my dear friend Claire Van, from Austin Texas.

I was totally prepared to trash this soda. I was sure that my memory served me well, and this would be a 1 star review, but as I fearfully opened the bottle and took my first sip, I was surprised to find that I didn't actually HATE the taste, which is exactly like Bazooka Joe bubblegum (the soda itself is supposed to be a red cream soda). It's too sweet for me, but as novelty, what the hell, it's not the worst thing out there, and certainly not as bad as I remembered it being. That is, until you get to the aftertaste, which is overpoweringly chemical, and brings back the distinct memory of getting fluoride treatment in elementary school. I took the bottle outside and let some of my neighbors take a sip: my neighbor Evan was super excited because he had grown up in Texas, and thus BIG RED is a huge source of nostalgia for him, Peter thought it was pretty good, Kate seemed unimpressed, and Maris flat out hated it. I finished the rest of the bottle in their company on the front stoop, and about halfway through began to feel like the taste was starting to overstay its welcome. Indeed, a whole bottle of BIG RED is far too much for me, and I started to remember what it was that I initially disliked about the soda so many years ago: it's just not enjoyable to drink. It's taste, while not being outright offensive, is certainly too overbearing to be a regular addition to my liquid diet, and luckily, since I had to have it imported, I won't see it in the soda aisle and be tempted to buy it just to see if it really is as bad as I remember it being.

My first time I ever had coconut water was in Toronto. Me and a bunch of friends drove up there for a hardcore show and were walking down Spadina toward 50 Toppings Guy (a 24 hour hot dog vendor that serves veggie dogs and has over 50 toppings to put on them). A big area of Spadina is Asian markets and one of them was selling young coconuts with straws on the street. A bunch of my friends bought one, but I had my mind set on having an orange pop with my two veggie dogs. Being the curious person I am, I tried some and thought it was so gross. I avoided coconut water like the plague after that.

Jump to today, where I just got home from a show. I've had this bottle chilling in the fridge all day, waiting for me to come home. I will admit, the first couple sips brought back unpleasant memories. Once I pushed past those, I began to really enjoy this drink. It's a really smooth coconut taste. I was expecting it to have a strong lime taste, but it is subtler than I expected. I would have never thought lime and coconut would go together. On second thought, I do remember hearing the Harry Nilsson song "Coconut" growing up which has the lyrics "She put the lime in the coconut, she drank them both up". Music teaches us so much.

In less than a month, Jason and I are going to be judges at the 2011 Clear Choice Awards. Ever since I learned about the awards, I've been observing bottles and labels a lot more. For instance, I like the metallic green they used on this label on a standard 12 oz glass bottle. It really goes along with their leprechaun mascot. My only complaint is that it was glued to the bottle a little sloppy. There are wrinkles all over it.

The root beer itself is pretty good. It doesn't have much of a bite but it's really sweet and smooth. This is definitely in the top 20% of root beers. More drink companies need mascots.

Oh dude. Good game. I can't believe that you dunked on that one kid. He was easily a foot and a half taller than you. You and I should get Joey and start a team and play in the Gus Macker tournament next week. We just have to find a way to raise $160. Why do you need to pay to play a game? It's not like they don't have giant sponsors for every city. They're making the world a better place to live by charging kids $160 to play a game. What a ripoff. Whatever. We'll sell some candy bars for a month or something so we can play basketball. You thirsty? Alright, let me see what my mom bought when she was at the grocery store. Want to have some tropical passion? Yeah I bet you do. What? What do you mean it's weird? What's weird about passionfruit? It doesn't taste like passion fruit? Let me see that. Oh, that is weird. What's in this it tastes like...there are carrots in this. It's a little diety...and that's because there is sucralose in it. I'll take this, you can look for something else. I'll try to work my way down it. It gets a little better but it tastes more like diet carrots now that I know what's in this. Next time you can make the drink decisions. I'm going shopping with my mom next time for times just like this. What do you mean you don't want to be on my team anymore? Because of this? Dude, seriously? We've been friends for like eight years. Over juice? Really? Whatever, you can't shoot threes.

Imagine for a second. You have a five-month-old kid who won't sleep. He's up every three hours including that awesome "ten minutes after you fall asleep" move which makes you contemplate, if only for a second, that you'll just let them starve and sit in pee for another hour so that you can get some sleep. Due to this constant up and down your sleep schedule is crunched down to a scatterbrained four or five hours night after night. You are up at six in the morning and you get some stuff done around the house and decide you're going to go to one of your favorite restaurants to get something for breakfast.

Your kid is sleeping soundly and for a minute, you actually and stupidly think that you're going to get time to enjoy a meal out without...woop...there it is. You eat like you have been stuck at sea for months and haven't had a good meal since you left shore and don't even get a chance to finish one single glass of iced tea, which you wanted…€¦a lot.

Since you're up so early, you decide to errands, all the while craving the tea that you had no chance to drink. Two hours later you're home and have no chance to sit and drink something because now you've got to do stuff around the house. You mow the lawn, plant a new hibiscus tree that you hope does well in your crappy soil, and try a new weed killer on the lawn which is fifty percent weeds.

Finally you're done. You're tired. You're accomplished. Your kid is asleep. You are all alone with silence in your house. You go into the fridge and there it is. Green tea, just green tea. No sugar. No preservatives. No fuss. You can't open it fast enough. You can taste the cool bite of the tea on your tongue. You wish it would never end. Had that can been bottomless, you would have somehow gotten to the end and asked for seconds. It's perfect. In this moment you are happy. And then your kid wakes back up and starts crying...

Here at Thirsty Dudes we search far and wide, from bodega to grocery store looking for the perfect ginger drink. The general populace has been fooled into believing that main stream ginger ale's are in fact what ginger is all about, when in reality most of those sodas don't have even a smidgen of actual ginger in them.

When our journey first began we believed that the stronger the burn from the ginger, the better the soda. We found some that really knocked us on our butts and they were great. Now that we are a bit older and arguably wiser we've come to accept that a blend of flavor and burn is what we truly want from our ginger soda. A soda can burn so bad that you won't be able to taste anything for a while, and that might be fun, but really how often are you going to sip on a bottle of something like that.

Today Bruce Cost stepped up to the plate. He didn't point to the stands to signify he was going to knock us into next Tuesday. He just stood there, shrugged and said "If you like this that's cool. If not, that's cool too." Well Bruce we did more than like it. We loved it!

The bottle states that "Separation is natural" so I gently shook the bottle. As I did a cloud of sediment with little pieces of actual ginger lifted from the bottle and swirled around the amber tinted fluid contained within. That is always a good sign. Drinks that need to be shook due to settling are almost always superior to those that are consistent all the way through. Finally it was time to twist off the cap. As soon as I did a nice fruity ginger aroma greeted my nostrils. When I took a bigger whiff it kind of burned, which is another good sign. After a single sip, I knew it was love and that it was the real thing. I knew wedding bells were in my future. Hey I live in New York State. Same sex marriages are now legal. I can only assume that means that the next bill to pass will let me marry an inanimate object. (For the record I am so stoked and proud of NYS for passing the same sex marriage law. How it took people so long is beyond me.) It's slightly fruity and flowery, but ginger will always be the main player here. It's the only flavor I've ever known that can overpower pomegranate and believe me that fruit needed to be put in its place. Oh, the burn? It's there. It's not a crazy burn like the Goya Ginger Beer has, but it's decent enough that I can say that I have no complaints. This may in fact be the greatest ginger ale that I have ever consumed. Bruce Cost if you are an actual human and we ever meet be prepared for a hearty handshake and a big wet kiss on the lips.