Sugar - 840 Reviews

I can near guarantee, with no need for research, that there have been unsuccessful mobs. Mobs and gangs are a tough racket. Unless you're one of those motorcycle gangs that look like the toughest dudes ever that secretly raise money for kids with cancer, you're always on the lamb. Especially when you're well known and people know not to mess with you, everyone waiting until you slip and leave a print somewhere. You're always looking behind you thinking people are watching you. Maybe Rockwell was in a gang and he felt like people were watching him, something to think about.

If a mob spent, nay, wasted their time making pop, I would say that they would be better off just boosting cars because that's a waste of time. You're probably not making that much money and your overhead is way too high. You've got machines, staff, social security, tax and not just smooth dudes working their way into purses and pockets stealing keys and hitting the road with a fresh "slightly used" Lincoln MKZ to sell one town over.

This pop especially is nothing to "go straight" for. It's not as strong as some more cheap, run of the mill black cherry pops, which is a good thing but nothing special by any means. It tastes like black cherry and is carbonated, so if you really like black cherry pop, this could be on the board of "go to's" but it doesn't really stand out.

If you are going to be in the gang or the mob, do it right and be that guy that finds things that fall off a truck, not the guy that has the hook up on otherwise generic pop. You're above the law and below the radar. Make the most of it. You don't need to kill anyone but you could be a modern day Robin Hood. Just think of it that way when you're driving some day trader's Porsche Panamera down the street without his knowledge.

Do you remember when you were a kid and Strawberry Quik was one of the best things ever? Well, this is the soy version of that. Okay, you caught me. I am a liar. This wishes that it was the soy version of that. Actually I believe that at some point in its creation that is exactly what it might have been but then things went wonky. It tastes like they had two vats, one filled with soymilk and another filled with sweetened strawberry flavoring. I can only imagine that they meant to water down the soy vat to make it slightly less soy-y, but someone at the factory messed up and watered down the flavoring instead. The result was a beverage that tasted very strongly of soy and not as boldly of strawberry.

Instead of this tasting like nice strong strawberry milk it ended up tasting like the soymilk left over after a bowl of Frankenberry. I don't think anyone wants this.

No longer a one trick pony, Cheribundi has turned the world of cherries on its head yet again. Yes, they started with cherry only drinks. Then they had that little chocolate number that was pretty good. Now they've crossed the lines into the world of "regular" juices.

Drinking this makes me wonder why more companies don't use cherries. Cheribundi claim that each bottle of this stuff has twenty cherries in it. That's a lot of cherries. I don't think that I would eat twenty cherries in one sitting if I had a bushel of cherries at my disposal. This spoils me with its cherry intake.

How does it taste? It tastes like tart cherries but is "cut" with apple juice and sugar so it's not too tart. The raspberry is still in the mix even with the often overpowering cherry juice. If you are at all wondering, no, this doesn't taste like cough syrup so don't even think about that entry level cherry drink nonsense. Cheribundi has been consistently "Luden free" since I drank my first drink. They prove that it is possible to tame that wild beast and add a little raspberry pizzazz while they're at it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it has been far too long since I have been in Wawa country. It's only been about six months, but that is half a year that I was denied the glory of soft pretzels and their delicious teas. You might find yourself saying something along the line of, “It's just gas station tea, how could you possibly miss it that much?” I will tell you why I do, it's because they sweeten it with real sugar and actually use fruit juice to flavor it. Show me another gas station that does that, and I will plan a road trip.

Since my last visit Wawa has released this new flavor. It's like they are taunting me. I mean every employee of every Wawa location must have heard me go off a dozen times about how blackberries are my favorite and how a blackberry tea would be a gift. It seems like they took note and then decided to release it whilst I was back home…€¦jerks.

Lucky for me Editor Dan took a vacation and stopped at a Wawa, or eight, and brought me home a bottle. It's almost exactly what I wanted. With 40g of sugar per bottle its more than a tad sweeter than I would have preferred, but I'll take what I can get and what I got was a nice sweetened tea that actually tastes like blackberries.

Take note Wawa, I will be visiting your various locations around Jersey and Philly come September, so stock up for me.

Honey jasmine, you say? No English on the bottle, you say? Hmm. Well...I'll take it! I'll take that and I'll take a delicious bahn mi. Now I will sit here and insult fourteen year old boys for not knowing about sriracha. I will talk about bands he hasn't heard of while listening to bands he hasn't heard of. I will take him through some rough streets whilst making jokes about adultery.

How do I feel about you? Well, I have mixed emotions about you. You are a good tea but you have your issues. You have a good, floral taste and you actually have that lovely bite from the green tea. You taste of jasmine and green tea and for that I applaud you. You are penalized for adding far too much sugar. It tastes like good sugar, but it is too much sugar. For that I do that thing where I rub my fingers in that "shame on you" or "tisk tisk."

All in all, we have insulted a kid for things you had no idea existed until you were well over his age and drank a decent tea. I'm not a betting man but I would have to say that you will have better days than this.

Coffee, frappe, cappuccino, mocha, Frappuccino, Mochaccino...there is a lot going on these days in the world of coffee. Is it all good? Eh, it depends on who you ask and what you drink. Me personally, I don't like straight coffee but canned, usually of Far East descent I enjoy. When a Denmark makes a coffee, for some reason, I feel you should listen. This comes from no sort of knowledge of the country as a whole so if you know something about Denmark, and more specifically something that would validate/invalidate me, I'm all ears.

As I lead in with an intro like that, I quickly wonder why I spent the time to write it because this isn't particularly great by any stretch. Why? Well I'll tell you, why. Numero uno is that there is not enough coffee taste. With a "coffee" drink, I expect, nay, demand a coffee taste. This tastes mostly like a coffee flavored low fat milk. Milk first, coffee second. It's a little sweet but that's to be expected. If they could work out the ratio of coffee to milk that would make this great but it's a pretty wide miss as far as canned coffee drinks are concerned.

Mr. Brown, I once again would like to shake your hand for nailing this category and it's different blends and types of coffees out of the park. Illy, I have praised you in the past and although I am not looking down on you, I cannot in conscience mind recommend this product to my faithful followers. My apologies to you and yours.

Brian, Dad is going to be so excited when he gets home. He works long hours at the insurance company and he's always telling mom how he needs a drink so we're going to make him something. Let's look around the house and see if we can't find some stuff to make for dad.

Well first things first, all drinks need some water so here is a little water. Oh, grab those green apples over there and we'll mush those and put the juice into the drink. What else do we have? Bananas? No, we don't have any bananas. Red apples? Nope. Man, mom needs to go grocery shopping. Kiwi? well we don't have many of them but we do have some. Smash them and put the juice in this cup. What else do we have? A pineapple? Brian, that's going to be hard to juice. Yes, they're juicy but we're going to need to cut this thing up and get to smashing. Hand me that knife. I know mom says not to play with knives but I'm cutting a pineapple. What part of that is considered playing? That's right. None of it. Alright. It's cut. Quick, it's five o'clock and dad is going to be home. Hand me that pear and those lemons. We've got to get to juicing.

Alright. We are all juiced by hand and we've got a nice cup of green juice. I don't know why it's green. Sure, green apples are green and pears are green but the juice isn't green. Maybe this is what happens when you combine all these fruits. Let's taste it. We've got a tall glass and dad would want us to share, right? What do you think? Yeah, Brian. You are right. It tastes like a less sour, green Freezepop. How did that happen? We put fresh fruit in there and it tastes slightly better than a cheap popsicle.

Do you think Dad is going to like it? What do you mean he's home? When did that happen? We didn't have time to clean. Oh, man. Dad is going to be ticked. Well we will give him this glass and we will clean up in the...oh...hey dad. We made this for you. Yeah, I know we made a bit of a mess but we wanted you to have something to drink when you get home. We'll clean up before mom gets home so you don't get in trouble. What? Mom is home now, too? When did you guys stop using the garage door and start acting so stealth? She's going to be angry at...oh...hey mom. Yeah, well we were making juice for dad and we thought that we would have more time. Yes. We'll clean it up. Yeah. No dessert. We get it. We're sorry.

Here we are with the last one. Four cans, four flavors, four ridiculous pictures of Shaq's face and four drinks left ¾ unfinished. As has been said about the other flavors, these should be great. They are all natural, and Arizona is a company with a pretty good track record. These just fall short though. The first couple of sips are decent enough, but then it all just goes downhill and the good aspects of the flavor get lost. Seriously, this is an orange cream soda that is made with actual orange juice; it should be amazing and not this fizzy can of sub-mediocrity that site before me.

I've narrowed it down and the problem with these is that the taste of the vanilla and whatever fruit is flavoring it (in this case it's orange) doesn't stick around long enough. They remain on your tongue for but a brief moment and then you're just left with a sweet fizzyness that has hints of honey. It needs a stronger, long lasting flavor to pull you through such a large can.

I know a lot of people who were excited when these came out, but not a single one of them have enjoyed the soda. I'm sure once the summer ends these will fade into obscurity and never resurface again.

Mr. Brown, I've come to your house not to sell you vacuums, not to sell encyclopedias, and not to sell knives that cut pennies but not tomatoes. I have come here to shake your hand and thank you for your consistently great coffee drinks. Whether it be a Blue Mountain blend, a latte, or a simple cappuccino, you hit it out of the park. You are the Babe Ruth of coffee drinks. You see what I did there? Are you a baseball fan, because I just likened you to one of the greats? Why no, I do not know anything about baseball. It's been about fifteen years since I've cared about baseball when I stopped collecting baseball cards.

Specifics? You've got it. This drink is smooth but somehow not too sweet. It's got a great cappuccino taste that isn't as bitey as some of the other cappuccino drinks. I shared some and the consensus was that you do good work. I will further that sentiment by adding that you should be proud of yourself for once again nailing it.

I'm sorry that I don't have much more to offer you in terms of gratitude. Here is...let's see what I've got here. I've got two dollars and...twenty two cents you can have and the knowledge that this review will be up on Thirsty Dudes dot com illustrating our love and appreciation for your drinks. Thanks again and don't worry about where I got your address. Let's just say it was in a little thing called the map to celebrities' homes that I bought from a man around the corner from here.

Somewhere in some universe teenager me is watching modern day me and shaking his head. He's thinking what has my life come to that not only am I drinking nutritional shakes that are high in protein, but that I am doing so with it's intended purpose in mind. The idea of working out at a gym is laughable to the kid who talked his phys ed teacher into letting kids play hacky sack instead of working out. He's a kid who believed that all the exercise one needed in life could be had by skateboarding and wandering around in the woods with your friends. It is also the same kid who thought he could subside forever on tacos, Pop Tarts and Quaker granola bars.

Here are some words of wisdom for me of two decades past; when you get older life gets in the way, and you won't be in the woods nearly as much as you used to, or want to, and when there's no one else to skate with anymore, and you realize that you can in fact hurt yourself, you only get on a board a couple times a year. As far as the food goes, keep eating those tacos, but Pop Tarts are just gross and you know it. The only reason you eat them is because your mom keeps buying them. As for the granola bars, you'll upgrade to higher quality ones and still eat them on the regular. The point of all of this is that when you're in your mid thirties things will start to catch up with your body, and you'll realize that you're not a scrawny little kid anymore, and you really need to get some exercise, which also actually makes you feel good and helps with that stupid depression that lingered around for most of your life because of the dumb music you listened to. Okay, you'll still be listening to that same dumb music, and loving it just as much, but the physical activity helps counteract it, so you're not up until dawn every night doing absolutely nothing, and rarely seeing the sun.

Oh and while you're exercising to help make life more bearable (while listening to songs written in a minor key like a maniac) you might as well help your body recover by drinking some of these shakes. They do help, and nowadays they don't all taste like dust. This actually just tastes like something between a nice smoothie and a melting milkshake. You probably have no idea what pomegranate and acai are since it's the early/mid 90's where you are and they haven't invaded every facet of eating yet, but trust me…€¦you enjoy them. Well, maybe not acai too much, but when it's mixed with other stuff it's not bad at all. This doesn't taste overly like a protein drink at all, and it's nice that companies such as Mix 1 are expanding their lines into things other than chocolate, vanilla and strawberry banana. It's mellow. It's fruity. It's enjoyable.

Oh, and teenage self. Why don't you spend some of that time that you are awake all night and actually pick up that bass that's next to your bed? I know you think you're good, but I can tell you twenty years later you really should be much better than you are. As it is now, you're just faking your way through it, but hey at least we're still making music.

Part of an essence water is that it doesn't really taste like much. This, on the other hand, not at all following directions, tastes like a Stevia laced hard candy. There is natural sugar in it but it's almost to the "what's the point" line where it tastes primarily of said artificial sweetener. It's not bad but it is very, very sweet and tastes entirely of a juice and nothing like flavored or essence water.

As far as strawberries and watermelons are concerned, yes, they are in there. If you keep it in your mouth and swish it around you can taste those two rumbling around like a couple of unbuckled children in the way back of an early ninety's station wagon. As soon as you swallow, you get a rush of everything that Stevia has to offer which you can take at however you feel about her and her doings.

I don't know the rules of naming a beverage but I like to think that I've been around the block enough to know that this was mislabeled.

Summer time drinks are as follows: water, iced coffee (or cold brew), lemonade, and iced tea. Any other drink is not recommended to drink during this time. Naturally, if you can combine any of these they will make a super drink. I've never tried iced lemonade coffee, but I'm sure it's amazing.

Today we will be talking about half and half, a beverage near and dear to our hearts. Half and half (also known as an Arnold Palmer) is half lemonade, half iced tea. This particular jug is Turkey Hill's new "sun brew" line. Can I taste the difference in the brewing? Not really but I appreciate there is real sugar in this instead of HFCS. Personal taste I would prefer a stronger lemonade, but this is good for your average half and half fan.

Espresso. It's life super caffeinated coffee. Also, so that I may be the voice of all baristas, there is no "X" in "Espresso." Although it will allow you to go faster as in "express mode," it does not get its name from that. As a matter of fact, no one really knows the origin or definition of the word "Espresso." It was made up as soon as someone tasted the stuff. It was born from an accident, you know, like Silly Putty. Someone improperly trained worker at a coffee shop in the 1700's went to go make a coffee, put the ground up beans in, poured someone else a cup of coffee, forgot he had already put beans in, crammed more beans in, idiotically couldn't figure out why it was so hard to close the machine with the normal amount of ease, and made a double batch of coffee.

That drink, an incorrectly brewed cup of coffee, birthed the espresso and also birthed Master Cafe. You see, the worked, having sold a couple dozen cups of his new, super strong blend, declared himself "Master Cafe" because people wanted his drink. Eventually that worker moved on to leave the company and just make this coffee. He handed it down from generation to generation until today where it is the same blend just with more sugar. When you put coffee in cans, you put sugar on it. It's a rule. It is a stronger than coffee, coffee drink with enough sugar to make it so people that don't completely love the bitterness of coffee enjoy it.

I enjoyed this and I think it is a fine homage to that faithful although misinformed employee that simply forgot what he was doing and turned that mistake into an empire. Here's to another three centuries, Master Cafe.

I don't get it. I just don't get it. Arizona is a company that makes decent beverages. Sure, most of the time they taste a little cheap, but you know what you're getting into, and for the size to price ratio, it's great. They decided to move into the soda world, and did a nice job with their Lime Rickey line. Then they decided to make a variety of cream sodas that are endorsed by Shaq. They even used real sugar to sweeten them, which is rare for the company. Actually it's an all natural soda. All of these things pointed towards a truly enjoyable drinking experience. So, what went wrong?

I've tasted a plethora of cream sodas in my day, and I think this may be the first one I've ever met that I just couldn't finish. Of course this is a much larger quantity, but I couldn't even make it through a third of the can. That's less than 8oz. Like the blueberry variety I thought it tasted nice enough of the first few sips, but then I just couldn't handle any more. Also like the blueberry I blame the honey, which is strange because I love honey in pop. The problem with it is the aftertaste of the honey is almost as strong as the initial vanilla flavor. Maybe it's just that the vanilla flavor is too weak. If they increased the vanilla, the honey wouldn't stand out so much. It's also doesn't taste as sweet as cream soda normally does, which is strange because there is a decent amount of sugar in here (way more than one should ingest in one sitting).

This is a soda that had me excited, but in the end it just left me wanting more. Well, not wanting more of it, but wanting a better version of it. Shaq retired from basketball, and not perhaps it's time for him to retire from soda as well, after a very short time in the limelight.

Nothing says "America" like green tea. Wait...that's not right. That's China. That's not America. What am I doing drinking this? I should be drinking something like an apple pie pop or a Coke. I'm outside with a handful of people wearing red, white, and blue and I just ate hot dogs and hamburgers. What's more patriotic than that? Not too much.

This tea is pretty good but that doesn't come without any caveats. It's listed as a green tea but tastes more like a white tea. I don't care and am not at all disappointed. The hibiscus, for the first time in a long time, tastes like what I wanted. It's "mostly" sweetened with sugar but there is some Reb-A in there that leaves you with a little bit of a bitter taste. Combined with the bitterness of the "green" tea, you get a good amount of bite.

If you don't like Reb-A, you might still not like this drink. If you are still cool with that guy, you should like it. It's got a nice flavor all around and is forty calories for the whole bottle. I wish I had another iced cold one right now. That would be America. Ice cold green tea with herbal essence in it; the flower, not the shampoo. That would be absolutely gross. That is not America.

I somehow remember this being better. I don't know what it was. Is there a non-nonfat version of this? This taste like that and less chocolaty than I remember. It's not bad, but the entire time I was drinking this I was thinking that I could do it better at home. Look, that's the way it is with a lot of things. Let's be honest ourselves. Half the time we say that it's not true. You cannot cook intricate meals that you get out and you know it. You say it because it's either a rip-off or it tastes like something your mom made. You don't make stuff that good. Just be honest with yourself.

This is fine. It's chocolate milk. Chocolate milk is fantastic. Oh I know it's terrible for you and this is no different but it's still good. I just tasted like they were a little stingy on the quantity of syrup they put into this batch. I drank it with no qualms but I just want them to know that I hope that it was an honest mistake and someone behind the scenes isn't peering through Venetian blinds thinking to themselves, "I put in half as much syrup and I'm taking the rest of the money and I'm buying myself a boat." because if they are, I am already on to them.

If you are like us here at Thirsty Dudes you have probably drunk some pink lemonade, looked at the ingredients and said to yourself, “Wait, there is no berry juice in here, why is it pink? What makes pink lemonade pink?” Fear not, we have done the 30 seconds of research for you and here are our results.

First off, a lot of companies do use strawberries or raspberries to tint, and flavor their lemonade. That makes perfect sense. It's what I always expected to be the construct of pink lemonade. Over at the Huffington Post website they had an article about the origins of this delicious summer treat. Instead of paraphrasing, here is the exact text:

According to Josh Chetwynd, author of the book, "How the Hot Dog Found Its Bun," there are two main claims to the title of pink-lemonade inventor -- and neither of them sound very thirst-quenching. The first attributes this beverage to a salesman, by the name of Pete Conklin, who sold concessions at the circus. When working a shift in 1857, he ran out of water to make his lemonade (with no access to a nearby well or spring).
Rather than lose out on business, "Pete sprinted into the dressing tent and came across Fannie Jamieson, one of the show's bareback riders. She had just cleaned her pink tights in a vat of water, leaving the liquid looking a deep pink hue." He used the water without a second thought, and sold it as "fine strawberry lemonade." It's reported that he "did double the business of ordinary refreshment and, allegedly, ushered in a new style of the drink."
The second claim to pink-lemonade fame is also a result of a lemonade mishap. According to a 1912 New York Times article, Henry E. Allott -- a circus promoter, saloon-keeper and gambler -- was the originator of this drink. "One day while mixing a tub full of the orthodox yellow kind he dropped some red cinnamon candies in by mistake,” the newspaper wrote. “The resulting rose-tinted mixture sold so surprisingly well that he continued to dispense his chance discovery.” This article, written after Allott had passed away, claims that he invented this drink as a teenager, which would date it to roughly 1872-1873 -- 20 years after Conklin's story.

The first of those sounds absolutely terrible. The second has me intrigued. Those cinnamon candies have a very specific taste that isn't exactly like the spice, but it would go amazing with lemonade. Someone please point me in the direction of a company that makes their lemonade like that, or I'm going to have to try and make some myself.

I'm guessing that modern day companies, don't really use either way, and simply settle for food coloring, if they aren't adding fruit juice. That lemonade is a cop out if you ask me. All flash, no substance. Luckily, Snapple went with fruit juice, mostly for color, but it has a bit of flavor to it. A blind taste test proved this. The testy (get your mind out of your pants) could tell that this was not normal yellow lemonade. It's has a nice sweet, refreshing berry flavor that compliments the tartness of the lemon. For a prepackaged lemonade, that you can find in any city across the US, you could do a whole lot worse than this.

Holy crap this tastes like apple pie. I couldn't believe it. I thought it was going to be partially gross but it was actually pretty good. You could taste cinnamon and apples and other pie related goodness. It tasted like a "pie filling" more than an actual pie with crust and all, but hey, it's darn close. It also, miraculously, didn't taste too sweet and was not just a sparkling apple juice. There was magic in that bottle.

Hey Melba!! I want to try some of your delicious pies in both liquid and solid form! Melba? Melba!!!!

You know, when people put their names on things, it can go one of two ways. In this case, I'm assuming against everyone's assumptions, it went swimmingly.

Look, Shaq seems like a well-rounded guy, a kid at heart. You know the man loves Superman, right, like an immense amount? Of course he would have a giant can of strawberry cream soda. Only a kid or a seven and a half foot tall man would think that a tallboy of pop is a great idea. Oh, look. It is a great idea because it tastes great but it's a great idea in a standard issue can. This is three people's worth of pop. I'm probably drinking two people's worth but it is really good. It's smooth and strawberry. I think those guys at Arizona are really up to something. Jay said that the blueberry was good for four sips and then he needed a break. I might be in the same boat but the cycle of four sips, break, repeat is quite reinviting. I kept coming back time and time again. There is honey in there but it was only there if you really thought about it.

After drinking this I just want to have sex with basketball players or Greeks.

It was recently pointed out to me that the time from the release of Dazed and Confused until now it longer than the time when the movie is supposed to take place until it was released. That seems crazy and it makes me feel so damn old. I remember when that movie came out. It was so long ago that it was pre straight edge me, and I hung out with a bunch of stoners all the time, who always wanted to watch The Wall high. You can all breath a sigh of relief that I didn't participate in that, but I did remember agreeing with everyone that we all needed to be stoned to watch Dazed and Confused. I don't think anyone had any weed, so it never happened and we just watched it sober…€¦I think.

This is all way too much information that only seems relevant due to the fact that both the movie and this drink's names contain some form of the word “daze.” I'll tell you where it comes in, I love that movie now even more than I did when I was a teenage dirtbag. The story of teenagers starting kicking off the opening night of summer break is wonderful and heartwarming. What way to celebrate summer than with a nice cold lemonade? Snapple thought the same thing and released its new line just as summer was coming around. Some people, the characters in the movie included, would probably prefer to down a frosty beer, but I'll stick with my lemonade…€¦especially one like this.

As soon as you twist off the cap the most pleasant fruity scent enters your nostrils and you know you're in for a good time. The mango flavoring is perfect. Even though mango juice isn't listed on the ingredients list, they do a good job of making it taste just like the fruit. The lemonade base is nothing to scoff at either, although I could have done with a little less sugar in order to up the tartness just a little. I just looked and there are 45g of sugar in here, maybe “a little less sugar” should have been “cut the sugar in half.” Even with it's cavity creating powers this is a drink to be reckoned with and I will be enjoying a quite a few on the hot days and long nights to come. On those nights don't be worried about how many you drink when you climb the water tower. The only way they could make you fall is if you have terrible balance when you obviously pee off the top like any red blooded American would.