Sparkling - 501 Reviews

Does anyone remember the incredible beverages known at Clearly Canadian? They ruled gas station coolers for years before they inexplicably went extinct. Seriously we're talking a Roanoke-esque type situation here. One day they were just all gone. Although nothing remains of them but a few empty dusty bottles scientists (the Thirsty Dudes) have recently discovered that their line of heritage did not completely die out. We have discovered that the Juice Squeeze line is a descendant of the carbonated drinks of old.

This has the scientific community in an uproar. They are screaming for more concrete proof. We here at Thirsty Dudes say the proof is in the flavor. It's a mixture of incredible naturally sweet berries and other fruit. That mixture has been slightly carbonated to make an exquisite drink. If this were available back home it would be a staple in my diet. Choke on that real scientists!

Up until a few minutes ago I though a "high ball" was the name of a specific alcoholic drink. It turns out it's a general term for and mixed drink. They are typically sold by middle aged women in their bras during mud wrestling matches held in living rooms.

Hi Ball is more specific. It is a very dry, borderline seltzer, sparkling energy drink. There is no sugar added at all. It's just water, bubbles, a small amount of lemon lime flavor, and some herbs for energy. It's the high-class energy drink. I understand how this could be attractive to some people, but it's not for me. I like my energy drinks to taste like juice, not.....nothing.

This was our thousandth review. We needed to do something fun/gross/different for you and we decided to incorporate some significant others, pets, and babies. Watch the video and learn what we thought about Rogers Fizzy Amla with Jeera Masala.

Thank you very much for following us along this partially disgusting, partially delicious, mostly mediocre trip. Now, for your viewing pleasure, have a video review.

Wooooo.....mistakes. Look. I am not responsible for myself. Here's the new deal. No, not Teddy Roosevelt's "New Deal", but my house's new deal. Monday and Tuesday I stay home and watch Max, my little dude. I have this thing where I work too hard and don't make time to eat. I did eat a yogurt at about 11 but that's it. Now it's 3:30 and my stomach is aching for nutrition, but who cares because Max is sleeping and I can finally lay down some code. So I'm working hard, got thirsty about a half hour ago and decided, yeah, Celsius.

I weigh 150 pounds. I don't eat terribly well, but I don't eat a lot so it all balances out. Celsius would aid me in losing more weight, even though all I'm doing is running Max up and down the stairs only to find out that he was going to wait until I have his diaper off to pee. Jerk. That tiny jerk. So I drink it and it's something. It's diet-y, and even though there is some element of a fruit flavor, there is this diet, burning undertone, and it kicks in fast. You see, they replaced the calories with caffeine is bugging me out, much like John Leguizamo in "House of Buggin'". My hands are shaking and my torso feel hot, like it is summertime and I'm wearing a vest like a stupid idiot.

All that being said, I guess it's doing what it's supposed to. I'm not working out, per-se, but I am typing a mile a minute and I've been doing stairs like it was that strange time in your high school gym class and you did step aerobics like a bunch of girls. Yeah, I said it. Girls do step aerobics. Men know that they have stairs at home that women, ironically, hate going up and down.

As far as I'm concerned as of today winter is finally over in Buffalo. It was 50 degrees and sunny. Not a cloud in the sky. To celebrate I went on my first decent bike ride of the year. I was planning on just doing a little ride, but every time I reached a destination I decided to keep going. By the time I had listened to Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane was coming to an end 14 miles had passed and I was at my front door. From here on out I will solely use David Bowie albums to measure distance. It's the new science. Can you feel it on the horizon?

Before I left on this little adventure I decided it was as good a time as any to try out a Celsius drink aka "Your ultimate fitness partner." It's a mostly natural drink that promises to burn calories, reduce body fat, build lean muscle and give you lasting energy. By the end of my ride I was toned and semi-ripped like Michelangelo's sculpture of David. I'm talking like busting out of my shirt muscular. I'm a scientist, so I cannot tell a lie. That's part of the scientific oath right? I know I had you all convinced that I now look like Mr. Universe era Arnold Schwarzenegger, but truth be told I still look like a semi-dumpy 30 year old from Buffalo. I did have a decent amount of energy on the ride, and I feel way better than I expected to after not really riding in the past 5-6 months (yes our stupid winter can really last that long). So the drink has that going for it.

As for the flavor of it, when I took my first sip I was shocked at how good of a ginger ale taste it had. Within half a second I changed my mind as the diet hell of sucralose set in. Bear in mind that I have no tongue for diet drinks. I know there is a whole world of people out there that don't mind them. If you are one of those people and you're trying to lose weight, or put on some muscle, give this a chance. I think you will be pleasantly pleased with this ginger ale.

I didn't know, but did you know that in Europe, their lemonade is carbonated? Here is the good ol' U.S. of A, we don't carbonate it, nor do we offer the ability to get it. Here, we have it on lockdown. No bubbles or sparkles. Restrictive? I don't know. I think a little variation might be good. For this variation, I need to look no further. This San P is wonderful. I don't like the "original" flavor of San P. It's bitter. This is a little bitter, but a natural fruit bitter, not seltzer water bitter. My mom used to drink that stuff and it used to be gross. This, I feel like I could drink all of the day. It's a great lemon taste with just enough sugar that you don't feel guilty for slaying the whole can, but why should you? You're your own person and you dictate your life and if you want to drink a "whole can" of this in one sitting, hey, that's your nightmare, Jack.

I can't pick a favorite between this and the Aranciata. I do like them both better than the Chinotto, though.

Last week was my girlfriend's birthday, so a bunch of us went out to a Greek restaurant. At the restaurant they had two different sodas made by the Ivi company. We picked up the carbonated lemonade variety. It has fairly obnoxious packaging. The label was obviously designed with Illustrator, which I am not a big fan of. Any art that looks like that is going to be so dated in ten years. Unfortunately it is everywhere nowadays. This specifically looks like it was designed to attract the interest of teenagers.

When I spent sometime in Europe I discovered that the people there have a love for carbonated lemonade. It's not something that you see very often in the U.S. Mostly it was pretty much just lemonade with sparkling water, a nice light beverage. This on the other hand is more of a soda. It tastes like a 7Up with way more lemon in it than there normally is. I enjoy it, but it's way thicker than I would have expected.


When I spent sometime in Europe I discovered that the people there have a love for carbonated lemonade. It's not something that you see very often in the U.S. Mostly it was pretty much just lemonade with sparkling water. A nice light beverage. This on the other hand is more of a soda. It tastes like a 7Up with way more lemon in it than there normally is. I enjoy it, but it's way thicker than I would have expected.

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.

It's 1991. City of Compton. Rough, rough streets. Kids killing kids over things you and I would laugh at. They don't laugh, they kill, as I mentioned before. Not a day goes by where you don't hear a gun shot or at very least, a domestic dispute. These are hard times. Hard times turn people to drink. Alcohol. 40's. Big alcohol. 40's are like the party sub of malt liquor.

Here's my proposal. Let's go back in time and instead of having overpriced bodegas sell 40's of St. Ides, carry the 40(ish)'s of Archer Farms Wild Berry. People could have been in a bad mood because of financial times and street warfare, but they also could have been upset at the fact that they were drinking a clearly low quality beverage. Archer Farms Wild Berry Italian soda is a bright, clean, and crisp drink. So many flavors roll across your tongue with every sip, like elderberry and blackcurrant to name a few...and it's more than affordable.

Cleaning up the streets is a rough job and since it clearly can't be left in the under-capable hands of O'Shea Jackson, leave it up to the Archer Farms Italian soda lineup.

Sparkling Water and grape/orange/passion-fruit juices are the only ingredients in this drink. It's the way things should be sometimes. Although this tastes more like a tropical punch than the individual flavors that compose it, it still tastes completely natural. It's very obvious from the first sip that there is nothing fancy or chemically added to this for any reason. It's made for those that enjoy sodas, but for health reasons they don't drink them. I want fountains of the different flavors of this line flowing in my house at all times.

What did I just say? What did I just say? Remember when your dad said that to you when you "deliberately" disobeyed him for a second time? You didn't mean to, but sometimes it just happened, like you were half way into a killer swing and had to follow through and you didn't mean for that baseball to go through the neighbor's window.

Anyhow. What did I just say? Didn't I say that I wanted a watermelon pop? I did. What did I find on a quest for new and foreign drinks? You guessed it. Watermelon pop. One step better, though, it was cane sugar and not far from my house and it had other flavored friends to accompany it.

Without hesitation, I grabbed it and ran out the door, after paying the cashier/proprietor/cook/stock boy/floor manager. I went home, threw it in my crisper drawer and let it sit and think about what it had done. A week, maybe two later, I thought that today would be the day and it certainly was. This drink was sweet. I don't know how I drank the whole thing but I did. It's labeled as a sparkling fruit drink, but that just means "pop", right? It does to me. It did taste like a watermelon Jolly Rancher, which if that's what you're looking for, is right up your alley.

We found these in a local halal market if you want to know where to get them.

Darn bus. I take the bus to and from work. Sometimes I even take a subway if I can catch the 26, but it's a rarity. Oh, why don't I like the bus? I drank this at about 4 and jumped on the bus at 5 and I was exhausted. I wanted to sleep on that bus so badly in had to fight staying awake.

Taste-wise this drink was alright. Pretty diet but flavorful enough that I could finish a can.

Had I drank this an hour before I went to sleep, I would have been like Rip Van Winkle up in this piece. This stuff works.

I think it's safe to say that all of our readers are familiar with classic orange soda. It doesn't really taste like an orange at all, but it's still pretty good under certain circumstances. You know, like picnics and barbecues. It's a kid's soda that is acceptable to drink in instances where you want to pretend you're still a child. Who am I kidding? I enjoy it and I drink it whenever the fancy strikes me. Does that mean I'm a child? Probably.

In a shift from those sodas there are a handful of companies out there who are making a soda that is actually made with orange juice. It's a true orange soda. I for one love them. It's the adult version of the barbecue favorite. It's not as thick and has a better flavor in my opinion.

It's well known that most energy drinks have a fairly similar chemical taste to them. I'm now realizing that most relaxation drinks taste alike. Luckily that taste isn't like something you'd find in a beaker in a mad scientist's lab. It's almost a diet taste. I blame the Valerian Root and Melatonin. They are in all of these drinks, and they are what gives them their magical powers. Imagine if relaxation drinks came out in the olden times. The creators would be burned as witches. "You brewed a potion that put others to sleep. Now you burn!" Logs are ignited and the town reeks of scorched flesh for the next few days. It's bad news all around. Luckily we live in a modern world where the machines will rise up and we'll all be burned for being human instead of witches. That's a better alternative, right?

Oh yeah, this tastes like a diet orange pop. I probably should have said that earlier.

I can't even begin to tell you how refreshing it can be to come across a good carbonated beverage that doesn't have any sugar added to it. We drink a lot of beverages here at Thirsty Dudes, and most of them are full to the brim with sugar. Most of the time it's not a problem, but sometimes it just gets to be too much (I do brush my teeth all the time for fear of them falling out of my head). These are the times I love to visit my friends the unsweetened teas and spritzers such as this.

Fruit is sweet. That is one of the reasons it is so good. You normally don't need to add sugar to it. The R. W. Knudsen family knows all about that. Nothing that I've ever had by them has any sugar added. I may not have been a huge fan of their Sparkling Essence line, but their Spritzer's have been great. This is just sparkling water added to fruit juice. Boysenberries are a hybrid of raspberries and blackberries, and it's definitely shown in it's taste. Mix in a little grape and you have a refreshing drink that I think everyone would enjoy.

If the soda industry took note and followed this process there would be a lot less overweight people in this country. Well if the soda companies also found a way to make American's less lazy too.

I'm going to a friend's wedding this weekend. As a result I felt the need to step up my wardrobe a bit, so I took a trip to the mall. It was a rare case of shopping instead of people watching. It's a strange, strange place to be, believe you me. While going from store to store quickly growing more annoyed by the second, I suddenly noticed a fellow angered shopper drinking one of these. When I passed by the convenient store a few shops down I popped in and picked this up.

Like always I was quick to purchase before realizing it was a diet drink. I was okay with it because it didn't have an overly diet taste to it. The black raspberry taste is pretty strong and it overpowered the sucralose flavor. If I ever went on a diet I would definitely drink these on the regular. My mom drinks zero calorie flavored sparkling waters all of the time. I bet she would love these. I should probably be a good son and pick her up a couple the next time I'm at the mall watching people, drinking iced tea and eating terrible burritos.

Last night I had one of the worst nights of sleep of my life. I went to bed around 1:30. Then from then until about 5am I woke up every half hour on the nose. Sometimes I was freezing. Sometimes I had to pee and others there seemed to be no good reason. I finally got fed up, and went and grabbed an Unwind. This allowed me to sleep for two straight hours, then the half hour bouts of sleep started anew. This has all of the usual sleep suspects listed on the ingredients; Valerian root, melatonin, passion flower and others. I'm not blaming the drink for not doing its job. I think on any other night it would have worked wonderfully. I think there was just something wrong with me last night. My roommate blamed it on me eating too much pizza flavored hummus. He might be onto something.

It tasted like a flavored sparkling water. It's a flavor I always initially confuse with a diet flavor, but it's not. It's something all of it's own. Pomegranate flavored sparkling water. I bet my mom would love this stuff.

Two pushes of websites on one day equals stress. Pushing websites on a Friday? Stress. Knowing that the next phone call you get could be your girlfriend telling you to rush home because you're having a baby? Stress. I thought what better time than now to drink one of my relaxation drinks. I finished it about ten minutes ago but have been milking it for a good half hour. The taste isn't so bad. It's a bit diety because even though the primary sweetener is sugar, there is sucralose in there as well. Why? I don't know. I didn't make the drink. The flavor isn't bad. It's a crisp, carbonated pop with more of a berry taste than a pomegranate plus berry taste, but I'm not finicky about that.

But what's it doing to me? I wouldn't say sleepy as much as I would say...spacey. Not that sick, floaty feeling, but that feeling you get when you drive to the mall and then it hits you that you don't remember driving to the mall. You know you drove, but it was so second nature that in retrospect it feels downright dangerous.

Since I'm taking the train and the bus home, I can feel confident that I don't have to drive and I can relax while people look at me as I have plugs, a giant beard hidden in my hood that I wear up constantly and probably look intimidating but really I'm just a white kid that plans on listening to the Thompson Twins "Into The Gap" album. There's nothing tougher than that.

What we have here is a proper drink. Here's how it goes.

Step 1: Birth
When an orange is born, it is just an orange. No one touches it. They don't rub other stuff on it, nothing. Not ignored, just not messed with. This is a fruit in its purest sense.

Step 2: Adolescence
When an orange starts to grow up, it turns into orange drink. Too sweet for normal consumption, good once a year, kids love it. Kids are kids, and kids love kids. Adults don't like kids, so adults don't deal with kids. This isn't a great time for orange.

Step 3: Rebellious Stage
This is an interesting time for an orange. At this stage in the game, he doesn't know if he will go to college, or become an artist, or just be a vagabond and wander the country getting dirt in his pores. He will fraternize with other fruits and end up in punches and mixes like orange mango juice, orange lemon pop, and banana orange smoothies. It is a wonderful time because at this stage, an orange can be whatever it wants to be.

Step 4: Adulthood
Oranges exclusively make up orange juice. Different brands. Different qualities. It all depends on how you were brought up, but at the end of the day, every orange's carton says the same thing; "Orange Juice"

Step 5: Seniority
Oranges in this stage are refined. They know who they are and stick to what they know best. What they know best is water and themselves. The things they know to survive. San Pellegrino Aranciata is seniority aged orange. It's a tad bitter, but with a real orange taste with just enough sweetness to make it drinkable by most everyone. This wonderful drink tastes like a high quality sparkling orange juice. Aged to perfection, this stage is what all oranges strive for.

Once in a while, it's fun to eat extreme things. Oh, what do I mean by extreme things? I mean things that are so flavorful that it actually hurts. Super sweet cranberry juice that tarts up your cheeks, overly hot-sauced chicken wings that clear your sinuses, and sour apple Jolly Ranchers. All three of these are like an exclamation point to your taste buds. Problem is, you only want a little bit at a time before the novelty wears off and you are wondering why you're torturing yourself.

This sour apple pop tastes like a seemingly endless sour apple Jolly Rancher. It's good at first but then, quite promptly, it overstays its welcome and leaves you with the decision of what to do with a perfectly fine 3/4 full bottle of pop. I shared mine with friends and the best they could do was bring my percentage to 50%. This was simply too much for me.