I had really high hopes for this, I really did. Small soda companies usually make normal soda flavors a little more interesting. This was not the case this time. I don't know if this was the worst orange soda I've ever had, but it was far from the best. It tastes like someone started filling your cup with lemon-lime soda and then realized you asked for orange soda. Instead of dumping it out, they just mixed the orange soda with the lemon-lime. It gives it almost a bitter orange flavor. This might be delicious to some people, but I didn't like it at all.

The name doesn't lie. This truly is "Awesome Root Beer." It's nice and creamy. Smooth like. It's also not crazily carbonated, which is a nice change of pace.

My only real question is, why does it say "Cane Sugar or High Fructose Corn Sweetener"? Do they really vary their recipe from batch to batch? I'm 99% certain I have a cane sugar version here.

I also love the label. It looks like it was drawn with colored pencils, which holds a certain charm for me. It also brings about the conversations of all time top five desert islands (fill in the blank). You know, these conversations that nerds like myself have all the time. Typically they are about records or books. I'm going to compile my desert island list of root beers in no particular order: Virgil's Special Edition Bavarian Nutmeg, Weeping Radish, Gale's, Margo's Bark, and Sparky's. I know I will probably change this eventually, but as of now that's it right there.

Half and half, huh? Half and half of what, I ask you? White? What's white? Mountain Dew White Out, albinos, white chalk? What is this? It tastes like a lemon, lime, grapefruit mixture, but with "natural and artificial" flavors as the ingredient. What's a boy to think? It's sweet and so sour. Like eating a lemon and a lime in hopes that the combination will just magically/stupidly create 7Up. If you haven't done it already, don't bother. It doesn't work. What is this?! It's good, but it is strange. There are little, sour tweaks that make it feel like you're taking a drill bit to your jawbone. No, not your pompous bluetooth headset. I'm talking about your actual, physical jawbone. It's like someone took 7Up, Squirt, and a handful of Smartie powder and called it a drink.

If you're in New Hampshire, find it. It's a strange guy and a stranger named company.

Growing up in Buffalo, going to Canada was no big deal at all. It was closer than most suburbs and all you needed was a photo ID to get in the country. On one of my first trips there, I came across a bottle of pink cream soda. I love cream soda, so it really intrigued me. After the first sip, I fell in love immediately. It became a staple for every trip to Canada after that (as well as 'all dressed' flavored chips and Coffee Crisp (before I was vegan)).

It had been far too long since I had a bottle of soda mousse. It is impossible to find in the states, and Portland is not conveniently located 20 minutes from the border. Two weeks ago as I was planning to come to the Chicago Zine Fest, my friend Amy Leigh from Toronto asked if I wanted her to bring me anything from the Great White North. I took her up on the offer and requested a bag of all dressed chips and a bottle of soda mousse. Not only did she deliver on her offer, she brought two of each! I couldn't dream up a better friend.

The taste is just as I remembered it, truly amazing. It's not the creamiest cream soda, but it's really smooth and delicious. My mind is trying to play tricks on me and think that it has a hint of strawberry flavor, but I think it's just due to the pink color. Maybe it's a good thing that I can't buy this at any store, because it's a wonderful treat every few years.

Today a bunch of us met up at a friend's house to get some plans made for a trip to Hawaii we're taking next month. We were surprisingly productive and got a nice little outline of an itinerary put together. We are insanely cheesy, so we ordered Hawaiian pizza and had some of this soda. It's actually made right on the island of Hawaii that we're going to be visiting. Now that's pretty rad. I was wondering if I would be able to find any new drinks for Thirsty Dudes on that trip. I didn't realize this was from Kauai until I read the bottle today. I'm sure I'm going to be able to grab some other rad flavors there.

Let's start with the scent of this. It smells like a melted freezie pop. I feel like I use that analogy a lot on here, but it's something I can't escape. The flavor is similar to the smell, but it's not harsh at all. I can't say that for freezie pops. When those things warm up they are like sulfuric acid on your throat. This has a general sweet tropical flavor to it. There's a little mango in there, but I had expected more from it. I still enjoyed it and it went well with my pizza. What doesn't go well with pizza though?

100% juice is just the way I like it. There is some peach in this mix, but it really doesn't stand a chance with such an overbearing partner like apricot. If this were the DC universe, apricot would represent Batman and peach would be filling the role of Robin. I take that back. Everyone loves Batman, but who really cares about Robin? Peach is far too delicious of a fruit to be Robin. I need to come up with a better superhero team where the sidekick is better than the hero, but where the hero is the center of attention. (I know Batman is not a superhero. In fact, that's what makes him so much better than other heroes). How about Kato and the Green Hornet? I guess that works.

When I was a child I had a fixation on the Loch Ness Monster. I thought it was one of the coolest things ever. I blame that Time Life "Mysteries of the Unknown" series that was all the rage at that period in our nation's history. Seriously, as an impressionable youth those books were incredible. I then found out about the local "legend" of the Lake Erie Monster. I may not ever get to Scotland (I did), but to have a lesser legend in your backyard is pretty great. Later on in life I found out about "Champ" the monster in Lake Champlain, but it wasn't until I got this soda that I heard about the monster in Flathead Lake in Montana. This definitely got me interested. The fact that I have been re-watching X-Files helps as well. I'm sure I'm going to spend a good deal of time reading about it this evening.

My girlfriend says this soda tastes like medicine. She says that about way too many things. I rarely agree. This is no exception. To me it tastes like an overly sweet carbonated white grape juice. Okay, maybe not white grape juice, since this is pretty syrupy. But it has that specific white grape flavor to it. Quite an accomplishment seeing as there is no actual grape juice in this.

My soda is done. This review is done. Let the sea monster research begin!

In a world where corporate America tries to take over a poor girls lemonade stand, stands one girl, the owner of the lemonade stand, against corporate America. It's the age-old tale of the big guy versus the small fish. It all started out on a suburban street on a sunny afternoon. Alex is making lemonade to help her family pay for her cancer treatments when along comes a masked man wearing all black in a black limousine. He buys a cup of the sweet little girl's lemonade, listens to her story, and raises his brow. "Jackpot" he thinks to himself. He quickly drafts a contract for the girl that says they will handle all distribution and she will get a portion of the profits and they wouldn't touch the recipe at all. Alex, who put everyone else in front of herself, happily signed the contract. With that signature went her patented lemonade recipe. The man in black took the ingredients and made a crude and cheap knockoff version of the original recipe leaving America with sugary, mediocre lemonade. As soon as Alex found out that her original recipe had been altered and the breach of contract had been made, Alex fought to get her fair and decent drink out of the greedy hands of corporate America.

Watch as a frail, little girl fights the unbeatable fight in this tearjerker of a blockbuster film. Coming this summer probably straight to VHS.

Let's have a brief dialog about kombucha. It's absolutely putrid. The first time someone offered me some I thought they were trying to pull a prank on me. Imagine that you threw a raging party at your house. There were tons of people there and come dawn, people were still hanging out. Of course there's the obligatory guy who somehow passed out of the roof, and others passed out (you hope they aren't dead) all over the place. You're beat. You had a great time, but you just want to sleep forever. Unfortunately you're leaving for a family trip to the Grand Canyon at 5pm, so you really should start cleaning up. Okay, you can allow yourself a brief nap, but then you really need to get this place cleaned up before your family picks you up. Next thing you know there's knocking at the door. It scares the crap out of you. You've been dead to the world for hours. It's your great aunt Matilda. You're whole family is in the driveway waiting in the Deluxe Family Truckster. You quickly throw some clothes in a bag and jump in the car. Two weeks later you're getting dropped off in that same driveway. No one in your family is talking to each other. Things got a little hairy on the way home. You open your door and you suddenly remember you never cleaned up from the party. Half filled cups of randomness and bottles of beer are everywhere. You force yourself to clean up. You dump all of the remaining fluids into a giant mayonnaise jar (you really don't know where it came from). When it's all cleaned up, you go to take the jar out to the trash. As you're about to screw the cap on, you accidentally take a whiff. A rotting, fermenting, slightly fruity garbage smell is what graces your nasal cavities. It doesn't taste much better either.

Okay, so that was a monologue, sue me. As you can see I have some opinions of that drink. When I saw this had it as a prime ingredient I really did not want to try it. Last night some friends were visiting from out of town, and we were staying up late. I had gotten up early and was getting sleepy, but I wanted to hang out, so I bit the bullet and downed this can. It's not even remotely as bad as kombucha I've tried in the past. It didn't taste like rotting at all. There was a faint hint of a kombucha flavor underneath it all, but it wasn't bad. It was pretty sweet in a weird way, since it contains natural beat sugar. It's all-natural, so it wasn't like other energy drinks. You know, like runoff from a nuclear plant. I would definitely try this again over most of the other energy drinks on the market. It also kept me up until 3:30am when I was yawn city around 10, so it seems to do its job as well.

First things first Dr. Tima. Do you in fact actually have a PHD? If so, what field is it in? Are you like our hero, Dr. Peter Venkman, and hold a degree in Parapsychology? I have other suspicions. I believe that you, Dr. Tima, are actually a giant bee sent by your queen to overthrow humankind. Don't think I didn't notice that little picture of that man-bee on the bottle. I know that is actually you with a fake smile. Those eyes are plotting I tell you!

After a quick internet search, I have learned that if my intuition is correct and you are a bee hell-bent on destroying the human race, your lifespan is only 40-50 days. I will assume that this bottle is older than two months, which means that you my insect friend are now dead. How does it feel to be rotting? That's what you get for trying to start a revolution!

You may not have succeeded in your plans, but you did leave the world with one delicious root beer. Sure Thomas Kemper uses honey to sweeten their sodas, but it's mostly for sweetness and there isn't a huge honey taste. The now deceased doctor took it way further. The honey flavor is right up front in your face. For a little bee, he also took a lot of time to actually brew his root beer with wintergreen, vanilla, sweet birch, anise, cloves, and yucca plant extract. This is a serious root beer with an added sweet bonus. After drinking this I can only say that Tima surely was truly a scientist. He left this world with a little bit of golden heaven for our tongues to enjoy.

Sometimes times are hard. Money is tight. Your kid keeps crying. Your car gets a flat tire. You break your arm and don't have health insurance. The list goes on. Times like these make people turn to drinking. Hey, no need to reach for the hard stuff. Sometimes you just need a killer root beer. Everyone can agree, except for the Japanese, that root beer is pretty great. It accompanies most meals and is perfect for warm and cold weather. BBQ? Root beer. Carnival? Root beer. Funeral. Root beer? Sure. You can drink root beer at my funeral.

This root beer has enough bite that it's approachable for everyone and it's got a nice, cane sugar taste. All of Sioux City's "root" drinks are great and I would recommend them for everyone, including the Japanese, because they're people, too.

I'm proud to say that we are the first people outside of the production team to try the new recipe for Main St. Cafe smoothies. I have never tried the old formula, but I can only assume this is a step up, because it's pretty great.

For the first 29 years of my life I detested yogurt. I thought it was so completely foul. I tried it again and again, but the consistency and the weird nondescript yogurt aftertaste were things I just could not get down with. By repeatedly trying it, I somehow acclimated myself to the issues I had with it. Now I eat it all the time. As it turns out, mixed berry yogurt is my favorite. Look here, this is basically a drink version of that.

I was warned that if I drank this when it was too cold that it would be insanely thick. I took that advice, I'm drinking it chilled, and let me tell you, it's still pretty darn thick. I like it. It's about half the viscosity of a cup of yogurt. The fruit is completely pureed into the drink, so there are no chunks in this. This is not the type of smoothie you would get in the mall, but it's not something to be overlooked. If you don't abhor yogurt, give this a try.

One Christmas, my Mom bought me a case of Kool-Aid. I'm talking recently, like within the last 3 years recently. It had grape, cherry, and fruit punch. They're all great. Who didn't drink it growing up? It's a staple as a kid. Like those Hug barrels that are now like drinking poison. Honestly, if you still drink those, you might have the worst taste in drinks of all time. If someone is having a get together and you drink one for classic times, awesome. Way to have a good time. If you fetch them out and drink one on a Tuesday night because you've had a long day and you don't have kids, you're a dork and need to seriously treat yourself to something better.

I don't know why my Mom got me this stuff. It's in a cabinet at work. There were like 40 powder packets in there and it's taking me an awful long time to finish it. I don't drink one every day and since I've been doing Thirsty Dudes, I haven't had the time. I think it's ever since my mom found this dude called Anthony who sells old dry goods at a fraction of the price. My mom found this dude in some parking lot by my grandma's house and swears by him. I think between April and August, she only buys things like cereal, fruit snacks, granola bars, and all those types of things from him. "Oh, I got it from Anthony!" she exclaims more times than you can imagine. Dude's cheap and she's a lunch lady. It makes perfect sense to me.

So this drink doesn't give me a lot of pomegranate, but it does give me a nice, under-flavored grape Kool-Aid flavor and that I can get behind. I don't need the sugar. Sure, it makes the real thing taste like magic as it makes its way down your gullet, but I'm smart enough to know that drinking Kool-Aid can easily be supplemented with something else. This is a good "something else."

Often times, nay, most times, I am surly. I've always got something to say about everything. I am not awful to be around, but I can get tiring. I know people worse than myself, but I'm man enough to admit it. I enjoy the company of others who complain, but to a certain point. I like to think that I complain in a humorous, reflective way, where others just don't know how to have a good time. This drink had good intentions, but as far as I'm concerned, it's just a good orange pop. Like the great Paul F. Tompkins once said, "The best barbecue is only good barbecue." Orange pop is alright if you're at a party or if you're nine. I guess it's also alright if you're going to have blood orange so you can call yourself "worldly" or some garbage, but this to me just tasted very medium. I've had an excellent blood orange Frizzante before, but this doesn't do it. Orange pop is just orange pop to me.

Dad, I don't want to go camping. I love spending time with you, I really do, but the thought of getting all muddy does not thrill me. Oh, I won't get muddy? Dude...sorry, Dad, it's been raining for like 3 days. They don't make boots waterproof enough to keep that much out of my feet. Not to mention, when you have a bonfire, you smell like it for days irregardless of how many showers you take. Sure "irregardless" is a word. I just used it in a sentence. It's always cold and there are so many mosquitoes that, as an adult, I feel that I am rightfully scared of contracting malaria. Can't we just stay home and drink that case of Kiri Spruce Beer? It tastes like spicy trees. Seriously, it tastes like if you bottled a forest and spiced it up a bit. I'm not trying to cop out here, but it really sounds like a miserable time. Look, I'll go, but I want to listen to my tapes in the car. I just got this fresh new Tony! Toni! Tonè! album from The Wall that I really want to listen to. If we can listen to that, drink a refreshing, conifer flavored drink in the truck, and stop at a Denny's on the way home, I'll go. Sweet, see you in the truck!

This is another member of the Skeleteen's line. I only vaguely remember this one from my high school days. It has the "classic" Skeleteen's tag lines on it. "Third time available in 399 years," "From Black's last raid," and "Drink up you scurry dog!"

Blood Red Cola = Cherry Cola with a pirates twist. The twist is really just the image and not much to do with the flavor (although it does have Brazilian guarana in it). It's a decent cherry cola. There's really nothing that stands out in it, but it's still very enjoyable.

With the popularity of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies a few years ago, I'm kind of shocked these didn't become more popular. I think people would have eaten it up during the whole pirate craze. You know, all of the terrible "dad jokes" that were going around about the sea dogs. Remember kids, dressing like a pirate never looks cool. Don't ever do it, even on Halloween. Don't disrespect the pirates in that way. Just drink the soda. Celebrate their life and times that way.

Up until recently I had no idea that there was a world of protein based fitness drinks out there. You would think I would be aware of such a thing being a professional drinkologist and all, yet it eluded me.

XAPP says to drink this beverage to "Refresh, Refuel, Repair and Recover." Basically the ingredients will do wonders for helping you with muscle growth for working out. You know it's something that Arnold would have drunk all the time before he became a governor, and even before he was an actor. Man, after a brief Wiki check I found out that was back in 1967. He is way older than I ever thought. Regardless, I can see him as a teenager at the gym talking to a higher power, "XAPP, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad. Why we fought, or why we died. All that matters is that two stood against many. That's what's important! Valor pleases you, XAPP... so grant me one request. Grant me PROTEIN! And if you do not listen, then to HELL with you!" It may have been 50 years later, but the gods listened.

This is a carbonated light fruit punch that is sweetened with sucralose. It tastes like a better version of diet energy drinks. I had expected it to be grainy and thicker being a protein drink, but I was happy to find out I was wrong.

You drink it and at first it's just a nice, light raspberry water, but then...something happens. I started to taste like maple syrup flavored raspberry water. That is not an ingredient, but I thought that it would make for a good drink. I've had things that are flavored with maple syrup and they're not that bad. Then it got me to thinking, what if there was a pancake flavored drink? You could do maple syrup sweetened, raspberry flavored juice. There would have to be some other magic in there to make it more "pancake" and less "I think this is kind of like a pancake". Am I on to something? Should I have just reviewed this drink as saying:

"This is a nice drink. It's very refreshing and not too sweet. Full of vitamins or not, it's got a nice taste that goes down smooth."

Or should I let my fat kid imagination run away with me and start inventing drinks that don't exist? I'll do what I want, thank you very much.

I'm pretty sure there was a secret conference somewhere in the past year or two where it was voted that acai would be the new hip fruit. For a couple of years before that pomegranate ruled the school. It was obviously time for it to pass on the torch, and it seems that acai was voted into office. It's all over the place lately. Antioxidants are all the rage and acai is at the top of the charts.

Acai Roots decided to step up the game. Unlike most, if not all other companies, Acai Roots does not mix other fruit juices in with their acai juice. It's water, acai puree, and cane sugar. I can get behind that. If you were spotlighting a certain fruit, why would you want to muddy up the flavor with other ingredients?

It's a strong juice. It has that specific acidic taste that let's you know "This is a juice that is exceptionally good for me." It's not something the average person could drink a big 16oz glass of, but a nice smaller glass a day is not out of the question. The bottle also recommends putting the juice into a smoothie or a shake. Both of those sound pretty incredible.

I can safely say that this is the first review for Thirsty Dudes to be written on the Amtrak Empire Builder train. I am currently in the middle of Montana on my way to Chicago for the Chicago Zine Fest. The drink selection on the train is really sparse, but I expected that to be the case. When I saw this lone bottle of Gatorade in the cooler, I decided to buy it because I wasn't in the mood for pop, and I knew we hadn't reviewed it yet.

That pretty much sums up my opinion of all Gatorade flavors. It's nothing I'm ever excited for, but will drink it when there's nothing else. Every time I drink the lemon-lime flavor, I wish it were more tart. It doesn't really quench my thirst (I'd rather drink water), and definitely does not make me want to go play sports.