Sugar - 840 Reviews

I liked Atari Teenage Riot. It's probably still good but I haven't really listened to "60 Second Wipeout" in a long time. Either way, all I have in my head is "Sick To Death" in my head because this winter has gone on too long. I am just done. I now completely sympathize and understand why old people move from the Northeast to Florida. Florida sucks, but at some point, you just, and rightfully so, don't feel like having to deal with it any more. I just wear coats all the time and I'm sick of it. I was thinking last week that I want to go to a barbecue and I'm almost to the point where I will stand outside in eleven jackets just to make myself a couple of hot dogs on the grill.

Barbecue is where this pop comes in. It's orange pop. Plain and simple. It's not great but it's orange. It isn't gross and it isn't fantastic. Right, smack dab in the middle. I didn't expect anything more because it's orange pop. I don't think I've ever had an exceptional orange pop. I don't know if it exists. I would like to be proven wrong but I don't care if I'm not. It's orange pop. It's only drunk at kid's parties and, to a lesser extent, adult barbecues. Don't ever offer me an orange pop anywhere else. I will be mildly offended.

Sheryl, there isn't enough coffee to make two cups. I know how you get when you don't have your coffee but I too need the energy to make it through the morning. Perhaps we compromise with the following scenario. We take the coffee, we split it right down the middle. Then we take a little bit of creamer and a little bit of sugar to fill up the cup a bit more. Then, since we aren't going to make a coffee with fifty percent coffee and fifty percent milk, we are going to do about a fifty-fifty split milk and water to fill it. Yes, it will cut down on the coffee flavor and it will taste like watered down coffee but hey, we both need what we need, right Sheryl? You agree to this agreement? Let's have a marital shake on it. There we go. Let's take our "probably worst cup of coffee we will ever have" and go to our separate works. I love you, Sheryl. Sorry today's coffee sucks. Let's blame it on our twenty-four year old son who refuses to "conform to society" and instead, doesn't work and drinks all our coffee and sleeps in the basement. I swear, if I have to hear that Macklemore and Ryan Lewis song about the Salvation Army one more time, I'm going to take all his stuff and donate it there since he loves it so much. That'll show that kid. Well, then he'll just spend more time here to acquire more stuff to move out with. Sheryl, he's never leaving, is he? Can't we live our own lives? Why can't we live our own lives, Sheryl. Sheryl? When can we live our own lives?!?!?

Does anyone else out there think that iced mocha drinks are the adult equivalent to chocolate milk? Like most prepackaged versions I have tried this is a very milky drink that has a nice blend of chocolate and coffee added to it, oh and a healthy heap of sugar. If you are a hardcore black coffee drinker this certainly is not for you, but if you like fancier gateway coffee drinks, step right up my friend. Seriously, if this were labeled coffee flavored chocolate milk, I wouldn't even question it, and kids would be getting all sorts of hopped up on caffeine. Now that is something this world doesn't need. Lay off the caffeine kids, you have enough natural energy as it is.

I don't want this to sound negative or inappropriate, but I wanted this drink to make me choke. After drinking this I wanted it to do the same thing. I wanted each sip to be punishing but deserving of another go. Once again, it's not bad that it didn't but a man has his standards.

This was sweeter than it was asphyxiating. The trade-off left me with a little more syrupy, candy-esque cinnamon. It was good but everyone agreed that it was just too sweet. If you could make cinnamon apples and just ate the cinnamon candy shell, that's what this would be.

Look, I don't want this to seem like I'm into choking because I'm not. I'm fixated on the punishment that I wanted from a drink. That might be just as concerting.

I have never drunk apple nectar before. Since most beverages that are labeled nectars are basically a thicker version of the juice, I was expecting this to be somewhere between apple juice and applesauce. Excitement ran high. Let it be known that when I purchase a bottle of applesauce I do not eat it with a spoon like a normal civilized human being. Instead I drink it straight from the bottle, and it's glorious. Why dirty your silverware?

Unfortunately this was only slightly thicker than normal apple juice. I would estimate that there is maybe a spoonful of applesauce mixed in with the rest of the drink. It has a little texture, but nothing to write your congressman about. The real downfall of the drink is the added sugar. If there were ever a juice that did not need added sweetener it was that of the apple. Adding sugar to apple juice gives it a weird candy flavor, which is not what I want at all. If this would have been a thicker/slightly more textured apple juice I would have been pumped. Instead it's sweetened apple pulp concentrate that has way to much sugar in it for any self respecting lover of the fruit.

Someone get me a Delorian, this iced coffee has given me an idea. You see the chocolate in here that makes it a mocha rather than a normal iced coffee, actually tastes more like a malt. To be fair, my first couple of sips I was kind of put off by it, but the more I drank, the more I became accustomed to it and really enjoyed it. It's different from any other mocha that I have ever tried, and that makes it interesting. It also got me to thinking. IN the 50's there were malt shops where the teeny boppers would go to hang out and listen to the juke box, you know the whole one drink with two straws deal. Back them coffee shops were places that only dope fiends hung out at, so you know there was a bad stigma about them. I say I take said Delorian and go back and start introducing this at the malt shops. It will get the kids acclimated to the taste of coffee and I will slowly bring in more coffee drinks, until I have created a coffee shop that everyone hangs out at, kids and dopers alike. I will usher in the coffee shop culture of the early 90's four decades early and I will make a killing doing it. I will then leave all of my earnings in some sort account that I can then gain access to at this very moment in history. Think of the interest. I can then use the money to buy even more drinks for this dumb website, and die early of diabetes.

ps. I didn't finish this in time before it started to go bad. I took one sip post goodness and I can't get the taste of rot off of my tongue. ick.

Thirsty Dudes' friend Diana and her sister have a serious problem. It's to such an extent that I am looking into getting them on Intervention. No, they are not alcoholics, nor are they popping pills. They aren't even hysterically inhaling computer cleaner. Their addiction is something so much more sinister. The Vito sisters are addicted to the Dutch food, toast sprinkles.

“Like junkies waiting for their sweet, sweet fix” these two sisters will drive up to St Catharines, ON in order to fill up their tiny hatchback with box upon box of little chocolate sprinkles to put on their buttered toast. It is truly a sickness that needs professional attention, and perhaps a television spot.

I suppose we did benefit from their addiction as on a recent trip Diana brought me back this bottle of juice/lemonade concentrate. Let me rephrase that, “this enormous bottle of juice/lemonade concentrate.” Seriously it would take me years to get through this bottle as you add a tablespoon of concentrate to a glass of water. It is a mixture of apple, strawberry, elderberry and rosehip concentrate. It tastes like what I always hope fruit punch tastes like before I take a sip. This is 75% fruit, which is more than can be said about most fruit punch. It mostly just tastes like a mixture of strawberries and elderflower, which is a recipe for greatness. I mixed it with normal water, but I think if it were added to sparkling water, I would be in for a real treat.

Now back to pestering the folks at intervention, so I can make one of my friends day and embarrass the other a great amount.

I put a limit on myself at the beginning of the year. I was not allowed to buy any new drinks until I got through everything that I had at home. For those of you who have had the pleasure of visiting my palatial two bedroom apartment you probably noticed that I have (had) cupboards and shelves chock full of drinks (not to mention the fridge). I had drinks that I had acquired over a year ago, just sitting there waiting to be reviewed. Most of it was drinks that I didn't have a single iota of excitement about, but for the sake of science I had to push through them all. It took me about two months, but here I am with only two drinks left (I cheated a few times and bought some new juices, sue me…€¦seriously you can try, but I have no money, nor drinks to give up).

For the second last drink of my back stock I have a lemonade that I was actually excited about, but I had wanted to wait until the weather was fittingly nice to drink it. Who wants to drink lemonade in the winter, unless you have the heat cranked, some freshly cut grass candles lit and Summer Breeze blasting on the hi-fi to fool yourself into a different season? I pressed on though and drank this little guy down faster than you would believe. It's great. Some would say that it is close to perfection. It has the good side of lemon flavor, just enough sugar to not pinch your cheeks all the way, and an authentic mango flavor that just cannot be messed with. The mango flavor is ever so slightly lower than that of the lemon, and that is how flavored lemonade should be. It makes me wish it was summer more than ever.

Now I just have one more drink to get through and I can go scour the Earth looking for more drinks again. It feels good to be so close to leveling out.

Alova,
This is so unlike me. I never do things like this, but I feel a grand gesture needs to be made. You see, I love you Alova, and I don't care who knows it. I am stupid head over heals in love with you and your wonderful drinks. That is why I am going all out and proclaiming you my favorite drink of 2013, even though we are only two months in.

This is my second beverage I have had form you (okay it's really been a lot more if you count the number of cucumber mint sodas I have imbibed over the past few weeks), and I already know deep down inside that you will have my heart and I will be singing your praises for months to come. It's rare to find a soda that tastes exactly like the fruit it is representing, but you have grapefruit spot on. The best part is that the aloe juice neutralizes the intensely sourness that it usually entails. It's the flavor, without the sour. It's every child's dream (or maybe three children in the world would really care). The moderate amount of sweetener that you used is really what makes this a perfect beverage.

I'm kind of like smitten,
Jason

This is going to be half review, half reminiscence, and half celebrators since this is our 3000th review. Since all of them have to happen at the same time, let's just start with the Thirsty Dudes ode to new drinks. Jay and I went to Toronto and stopped periodically at multiple shops. Our love for Thirsty Dudes is international. We travel beyond both state and country lines just in order to get drinks. This is a juice. I had to present my passport to get juice. Come on. Would you do that? You might? We do. When we are on vacation, we do it big. I went to Brooklyn this past weekend on an impromptu "vacation" and number one thing on my list was to get local root beer. Come on. What a waste of time but we love it. We're in Canada and there is a Whole Foods. We bought a ton of stuff, like forty drinks each, and yes, like this one, some of them were "house brand" but things need to get done. Drinks need to get drank. Sure, it took me well over two months to drink it but hey, we've got a cache of drinks. This, finally, was pretty good. It's about time that I get a nice, high quality juice. It's got a good blueberry taste but is dense. It's flavorful and bold. It's not cut with anything. I could have stretched this out probably 25% just by watering it down and it still would have been good.

In hindsight, this is not my favorite juice. It never was, but I'm summing it all up. Wrapping it up in a little package. It's good, I mean look, I gave it a four out of five. That's good, but this is the 3000th review. This should have been reserved for something epic like a cherry flavored slime with sparkles in it. I would have loved to reserve that for ol' Bernie Mac but we can't wait too long or we're not going to have reviews.

You know us. We don't only review good stuff. We review good stuff poorly and bad stuff well. We make up stories, tall tales, fish tales, and reflect on our past. We bring our family, friends, past relationships, and dreams into our reviews. You get to see inside our deranged minds with a lot of reviews and it gives you an insight into our lives and the people we are. We're three dudes that are friends that are creative idiots that like to drink stuff because it gives us something to talk about.

We talked about what we were going to do and the only thing we could think about was having a pizza party at a place that has been closed for probably twenty years that we each went to when we were eight and playing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game and then talking about the advantages of each specific turtle. We're immature kids. We're dumb idiots. We love what we do. Thanks for letting us get to 3000. Tell your friends.

Good things come in small cans. That sounds like some tagline for drink company X that ended up on the editing floor. I imagine Bob thought of the tagline on the way to work after days of emails that yielded no good ideas. He was probably so excited and couldn't wait to get to work for the first time in 20 years. He gave hints to his co-workers before the 9:30 meeting that he had a great idea.

The problem was he built it up so much that when they heard the mediocre tagline, they passed on it. He was devastated and always told the story over drinks with friends.

I almost forgot that I hadn't reviewed this drink yet. It's delicious is what I was trying to get at. It's really light and crisp and full of mango flavor. If it weren't so full of sugar I would drink these all the time.

Initially when I saw this I assumed that we had done it. There was no indication of a new product coming up in any of our emails or blogs so when I saw it for the first time, I thought it was something like Frappuccino in a new bottle or something else we had already done. Let it be known, I am wrong enough to never say something as ignorant as "I'm never wrong." I'm right a lot, but I'm also wrong as much as any normal human being. That being said, I'm better than a lot of people you've met. I can be conceited where it counts.

Caramel is great. I enjoy those old people candies that are just caramel squares. I don't know why people say that they are old people candy, as I don't think that sticky things are good for their faux teeth. This drink is just about where I wanted it to be. Starbucks is kind of notorious for being too dark for me. This, though, is a nice medium roast that tastes great. It's perfectly sweetened but has a strong caramel flavor that I was glad to see. Not because I didn't want to taste the coffee but because I wanted to taste the caramel.

There are a few other flavors, vanilla is one and the other is coffee and milk. I will eventually get to them but this isn't too far from an iced coffee that you might get from Starbucks itself. I don't particularly go there just because I don't drink raw coffee so I almost don't have any business going there. It's good for them that they have captured me outside of their store. Congrats.

To put the capstone on my trip to New York, I wanted to do it right. I wanted to give a big "thank you" to Brooklyn for its hospitality so I found the highly regarded Manhattan Special. After that Arizona that was the same thing, on paper, this didn't have a high bar to jump over.

There was a bit of time before we went to dinner and I knew I had to catch a flight early in the morning so I needed to drink it now or never. I popped the top on it, took a sip, and loved Brooklyn all over again.

The sweetened, canned coffee drinks that I love have now been carbonated. It's got a great coffee taste and is justly sweetened. It never at any point made me feel like I was going to lose a tooth. The carbonation was just a nice touch. I feel like carbonating it was just a nice touch, something to push it over the edge of greatness.

Brooklyn, I will miss you as I sit in this terminal awaiting my flight that is miraculously on time. Manhattan Special was a nice way to go out.

Walk into a 7-11. Go towards the back where the Slurpee machine is. Now here is the hard part. Grab a cup and put some soda water in it. Like when you press the small white button next to the Coke or Mug root beer. Then shimmy over to the coffee machine and fill that bad boy up with the oldest, most burnt coffee, right to the brim. Shift back over to the fountain center and put some ice in there to cool it down. Then take a handful of sugar, all of them, artificial or real, who cares? Pay your $0.99 and go to your car. Give it a swirl and take a sip. Promptly make a face that looks like you just ate out of a momma bird's mouth.

I looked far and wide for this drink and now I found it and it unfortunately sucks. It tastes like how I described the scenario above. Gross. Joe DiMaggio, you should arise from the grave and White-Out Your name from this contract.

Back story time. There is a little beverage center here in Buffalo that sells little glass bottles of soda for like $.30 each. It's not mind blowing, but it's better than most “normal” pop. They usually came in Pop Shoppe bottles, so we thought that was what it was, until we discovered that it was actually made by a company called College Club from Rochester, NY. They just bought up reusable bottles from old companies who no longer used them. Later on we were on a trip to Canada and I came across some soda that was made by the real Pop Shoppe. In reality it wasn't much different than the Pop Shoppe stuff, but that means that it was still good. It came in glass bottles so that was a plus, even if it was about 5x more expensive (still only $1.50).

Now you're caught up to the time when my band was doing a Canadian weekend a little while back and I came across Pop Shoppe skinny cans in a grocery store. I bought a couple of four packs because they were on sale for $1.50 each. Sadly this Groovin' Grape did not measure up to their bottled sodas. It tastes like they were trying to go for a more actual grape taste than grape soda normally does. The problem is that they didn't get it quite right. There is no grape juice in this, and while I can taste where they were trying to go, they missed their mark. It's not horrible, but it's not great. I don't know if I would even call it good. It's just kind of there. I could drink it if it were served to me, but never would I purchase it again myself.

Dear Rubicon, I wanted to tell you that you've come a long way, but then I remembered that I actually loved the juices you sold in juice box form. I had expected them to be overly sweetened and watered down versions of the pure fruit, and while they did have extra sugar added to them, they were fairly spectacular. Any slight reservations I had about your juices have been thrown out the window by the addition of a few tiny bubbles. This actually tastes less sweet than the juice version, and I am fine with that. It's guava puree spiced up with a little sugar and some carbonated water. It tastes like real guavas, which makes it automatically better than 90% of the drinks in the world. Rubicon, you have proved yourself yet again and I can't wait to see what you have planned next.

This is made from brewed black tea, peach juice and real sugar. It should be great, but unfortunately something has gone wrong. I'm going to guess that it's too much sugar. Even though it's flavored with real juice, the peach tastes fake. It tastes like a slightly better version of something you would buy in a gallon jug at the corner store. That's not good news for anyone.

There may come a time in your life when you get a call that says the plan in on, and to be ready by 2am. Since you know this is going to be an all night drive, with a full day following you decide you should get some sleep. It's too early for you to naturally fall asleep, so you grab a can of Purp Lean and let it do its work. I drank the can that tasted exactly like your average grape soda around 10pm. It had expected a little bit of a different flavor to it, like most relaxation drink have, but the fake grape flavor covered it up nicely. About 20 minutes later I went to bed, and was out in less than 10minutes, which is unheard of for my sleep schedule. I was doing fine getting a couple of hours of sleep in before it was time to hit the road, suddenly I was disturbed by a confusing sensation. It took me several moments to realize that my cat had nestled in to go to sleep on my head. She's never done anything like this before, so I can only assume the folks at Lean set this up to prove to me how well their product works because I didn't even get annoyed. I didn't even get her to move. I just calmly went back to sleep.

At 1:45 my alarm went off, and I got dressed and jumped in my car to head off to Punxutawney, PA to see Groundhog Phil emerge to predict the end of winter. Unfortunately after an hour and a half into the drive we realized that with the bad weather would not permit us to get to our destination in time to see Phil emerge. Total bummer. Home we went, and I got the rest of the sleep I didn't expect, so it wasn't all a loss.

Fitness Edge knows that when it comes to protein drinks it is important to have flavors that pair well with cream. When choosing a flavored protein drink first ask yourself could I see myself eating this fruit or whatever with whipped cream on top. If the answer is no, quickly run away. There are very few things worse then dairy where it should not belong.

Well that is not really a good rule, because dairy and orange juice sounds like hell, but creamsicles are magical. The flavors just work together in soda form and they work together in this drink. It's still heavy on the whey protein, so it's a bit more dairy flavored than I would like, but it's easy enough to drink. It's thick, which is to be expected, but it's not as chalky as some protein drinks are. It's not bad, and who couldn't use a little bit of help with muscle recovery after working down at the docks all day? I have no idea why I am assuming you work on the docks. Oh wait, it's because you're wearing that little winter hat, that just barely covers the top of your head and comes nowhere near covering your ears.

Before I knew there was a “proper” way to cut up a mango I would just go into them like a savage. By the end of my feasting I would have sticky juice dripping from my face and hands, and I would have strings of mango pulp stuck in my teeth. I looked like a wolf that had just torn apart its prey, except instead of blood and gore I had juice and pulp. The fruit turns me into a wild thing. Now that I know there is a way to cut it to make it easier and cleaner, I feel like I have finally been domesticated and in turn sophisticated. I am now a grown ass man.

This juice starts off very similar to what my savagery tasted like. Then it suddenly takes a weird direction. You can differentiate the added sugar from the natural kind. It also has a weird aftertaste that I can't place. It certainly doesn't taste like it should be a part of any sort of fruit. I don't get it and I don't appreciate its presence. I just want pure mango juice, and I knew this wasn't that, but I hoped it would be closer than it turned out to be.