Sugar - 840 Reviews

I want to see the sights, let's rent a scooter. We can travel to Hemmingway's house, maybe see some of his cats cats cats cats cats. Maybe we can see Harry Truman's house. Oh, we can see the US highway 1 start and end, depending on which side you are stranding on. Oh! We can go to see the southern most point of the United States. This island is pretty awesome.

$35 for this scooter seems awesome, but man, the speed limits are withholding to the power, or lack there of, in this lil' scooter. Wait, what? The cruise line said that we shouldn't rent these? Woops, we're cruising now and there's nothing than can stop us, except, of course, literally everything on the road. I'm thirsty. Let's stop at a corner store.

What's this? A juice box of jasmine tea? Well that sounds good so early in the day. Oh, wow. This tea is actually quite good. It's more of a perfume of Jasmine since it's so strong. It's refreshing and I feel like I'm spending time with an old Indian woman. Yes, she's nice.

Alright, let's take this baby out one more time and see what it can do. We can go buy some crap made out of seashells or made to look like seashells.

I've lived about an hour from the Pennsylvanian border for all my life. I can't even count the number of times I've down to the lady of the south (that's right, I just came up with a nickname for PA). In all the years that I've made that drive it wasn't until last fall that I realized that the thruway from about Fredonia, NY onward is basically all grape orchards. Is that what they are called? Do orchards imply trees, or can vines count? Either way it was a warm autumn afternoon and I was driving home from places south and the scent hit me like crazy. The strongest grape fragrance I have ever experienced was in the air for a good portion of the drive. It was so strong that I have no idea how I never noticed it before. I wish that stretch of road always smelled like that, because let's face it the I-90 is the most boring highway in the country and anything to spice it up is a blessing.

Upon opening this bottle I was greeted with a similar smell. I had expected this to be a standard grape pop, maybe with a little bit of fruit punch mixed in. In reality it's taste falls somewhere between actual red grape juice and the candy pop we're used to. It's not quite grape juice, but it's definitely closer than any other pop I've ever tasted that wasn't considered a sparkling grape juice that us non-drinkers down at celebrations. I can only hope that some if not all of that "natural flavor" listed on the ingredients is actually grapes harvested from that small stretch of the I-90.

Oh and the strange thing is I just noticed that the bottle says that it's non-carbonated, but I swear it fizzed when I opened it, and I really didn't even give it a thought of not being carbonated until I finished it and noticed that written on the label. Are they liars, or have I finally cracked?

I've been holding onto this little gem for quite awhile now. Since it's something so unusual I wanted to drink it with a group of people, so that everyone could check it out. That never panned out so today seemed like as good a time as any (it's Thanksgiving).

Let me start off by stating that I ate way more of my fair share of corn today. I devoured the stuff, so I'm very familiar with the taste of corn. When I opened up the bottle, it smelled completely disgusting for 2 seconds. Then I took another sniff and it smelled exactly like a can of corn. I couldn't help but giggle. I love corn so much. I would put it into almost everything I cook if it was around. The Eden Corn Fest is one of the things my friends and I look forward to the most east year. An entire carnival type scenario based around corn harvest? Yes please!

Back to the pop. At first I thought this tastes like someone carbonated (and lightly sweetened) the juice left at the bottle of a can of corn, then I took another sip and I realized that no, that was not it. It tastes way more like actual corn than just the leftover corn water. It tastes so much like corn that it is kind of disturbing. I shouldn't want to add salt and pepper to my soda. As much as I love corn, I really couldn't make it more than a couple of sips into this drink. I still don't want to speak ill of it though. As it's a novelty soda and it does taste exactly like it promises to I will still give this a four-bottle review. I certainly wouldn't go out an order a case, but it is something that I think every fan of corn should try at least once.

I've had pink guava juice in the past, and now I am presented with one that is off white. Which is the true color? Is there artificial color added to the pink? Are there two different types of guava one white, one pink? Guess what, I don't care. It's all delicious. Guava is very close to the top on my list of favorite fruits, and I've never met a juice of it that I did not like.

This is really nice because it's not just guava juice, but guava pulp. It's thick and has the teeniest, tiniest little chunks of fruit in it. The only thing that I could think of that might make this better would be if there wasn't any added extra sugar in it. Maybe that's just me being a fan of pure fruit juice though.

Shirley Temples: The saviors of the non-drinking world at bars at bowling alleys across the world. Even though it has a cutesy name that makes it seem like a kid's drink, it is a tasty beverage that I have drank quite a lot in my life. The ingredients in this glorious drink are either ginger ale or lemon lime soda and grenadine syrup. Grenadine syrup is a thick, well syrup, which tastes like cherries.

As one would expect this tastes like a Shirley Temple, with the proportions reversed. It's more cherry syrup than it is lemon lime. It leaves something to be desired though. It tastes more like sugar and syrup than it does cherries. If you want something like this I suggest going into a bar and having one of your friends order you a Shirley Temple with their beer, as to not get a stupid look from the bartender when you ask for it yourself. Judgmental pricks.

Today on Sick Sad World we will venture into the depths of the Canadian forests in search of the ever-elusive elderflower. Not much is known about this strange and fascinating creature/plant other than it lives off of human flesh, and that I have only been able to find drinks made of it in the "great white north." What's that Barry? You tangled with a bear and not an elderflower? Why didn't you tell me that earlier before he hauled all of this camera equipment out into the woods? I don't care that you didn't want to hurt my feelings. Do you know how much money we wasted? On top of that now we have to worry about bears that might rip our arms off like they did yours. Geeze. I bet elderflower doesn't even grow in Canada. I bet they aren't even sentient beings. Someone get out their phone and Wiki that for me. Okay Jim hand that Droid over here. Looks like it's just a plant that grows all over Europe and South America. Good job guys. Why didn't someone bring up doing a little research before we came up here? Okay I'll take part of the burden, but can you blame me? Those drinks have such a unique flowery yet fruity taste. It's like nothing I've ever had before and I have absolutely nothing to compare it to. Perhaps a flowery white grape juice. That's not exactly it, but it's as close as I can think of. Great now I'm craving some. Pack it up guys. We're heading home. On the way we're stopping by Ikea so I can pick up a case of those little elderflower juice boxes they have. I know you guys make fun of my when I pack them in my lunch and call me a baby, but you are the ones losing out by not drinking the delicious nectar. As long as I have that I'll take all the mockery you can shovel out. No Barry we're not going to help you carry a shelving unit for your records. You lost that privilege when you lost your arm and didn't tell us truthfully how.

One of my two bosses drinks at least one of these a day. It didn't occur to me that we hadn't reviewed one yet so I borrowed some which if he asks for it back; it will be in a disgustingly different form.

Starbucks has some good "on the shelf" stuff. This is good. You know why it's good? Because it doesn't taste anything like an energy drink. Strange how that works, eh? I love this drink because of it's false advertising. I would expect this to taste like coffee spilled into some brat kids plastic pumpkin head of nothing but plain chocolate and Pixie Stix. Scene:

"Trick or Treat!" says the little girl. "It's November, kid. Get out of here," your grandpa says. "I know, but I want candy and my mom said that I can't have any and I know that when I go to other people's houses and ask with a ghost costume on, they give me candy. See? Look. I've got some chocolate and someone had Pixie Stix left over. They said they were to old for Pixie Stix and gave me a handful of them." "Oh yeah?" said grandpappy. "Well here's what I think of your out of the box thinking." he said as he pours an entire carafe of old coffee into the boys plastic jack-o-lantern, but before the boys leaves, the old man dips his cup into the pail now filled with floating candy bars, Pixie Stix wrappers, old coffee, and the little boys tears, and takes it to his lips. He enjoys it, because he's a terrible old man.

End scene.

Thing is, it doesn't taste like that. It's a smooth coffee drink. If I didn't know better, I would just say that it's a mocha Frappuccino. You even get a periodic taste of real coffee, which is a nice touch, I must say. Who knows how much actual caffeine is in there, between the coffee and whatever other energy supplements they have in there.

I hope that story that was completely fabricated never comes true. I would hate to see a sad ghost kid walking down the street with damp, coffee stained candy.

For years I've trudged across this planet in search of a holy grail of sorts. No not Ecto Cooler (well I have been looking for it, but I can buy expired stuff on eBay), what I speak of is the elusive cantaloupe juice. Why can't I find it? I'm beginning to thin that it just doesn't exist which is ridiculous because cantaloupes are super juicy and messy to eat. Someone needs to harness that power so I can enjoy a nice tall glass of it.

On my last trip to Toronto I found this in an Asian market and I briefly thought my arduous trip had come to an end. That full melon sure looks like cantaloupe, but on closer inspection the slice is green and very obviously honeydew. Drats. I have nothing against honeydew, but you have to admit it's doesn't come close to touching cantaloupe. That being said this is one heck of a drink. Even though the ingredients list it as "melon flavor" I sure thought it was actual honeydew juice. It taste exactly like biting into an extremely ripe melon that has been soaking in sugar water. The aloe chunks in it are great. It's easy to forget that they are aloe and not melon pulp. Oh man cantaloupe juice with pulp in it would be a dream come true. Until someone gets up the guts to make the worlds best juice looks like I'll have to settle for these little cans of awesome.

Strawberries are good but for some reason I don't like eating the fruit. Bananas are bad and I don't eat them and do whatever I can to not ingest them. This is a cross between two fighting flavors that I don't ingest in solid form.

Now I've got this drink that has put good versus bad in one brightly colored can. I knew it had both things in it and I was fully prepared to ingest both at the same time. Down the hatch...and...delicious. I can't give you a percentage, ratio, bar graph, pie chart, or whatever other type of graph that you might want, but it was good. Everything disguised each other so it was like a different fruit all together. Stranana. It was nicely thick, like one would want and desire. It was very fruity and I would get it again.

I have a love/hate relationship with good common beverages. I hate it because it makes people complacent with what they can get at everyday grocery stores. They won't look elsewhere for new, high quality beverages. It's a jerk move on my part, hence the love/hate part of this review. I love that this drink is out, and that it's good, and that it isn't horrid for you, and that the flavors are actually good. Back to hate. I don't like that this drink is so good that people will potentially run "the small guy" out of business. This drink has the subtle bitterness of green tea mixed with really good lemon and lime flavors. It's exactly what you want it to taste like. Also, the Reb A in there is indistinguishable so haters cannot complain about that. It's used for what it's supposed to be for, cutting calories while simultaneously sweetening the drink.

Lipton, you've done a spectacular job on this. Everything is just as it should be, like when you go to a fancy dinner and all the silverware is in the right place and you actually can't complain about anything. You love to complain about stuff and when you can't, you feel back trying to find things to complain about because for a limited time, everything is alright.

If all coffee drinks tastes like this, I would be thrilled. I had a busy day. I did my girlfriend's brakes, took the dogs for a long walk in the park, went grocery shopping, and when I got home, I knew what I had to do.

Now, when you get home from a day like that, everything's got to be right. In order to set the mood, I put on Pet Shop Boys Yes, which finally arrived from the UK. It's good. Not over the top at all. I am a huge Pet Shop Boys fan so I was excited when I liked everything I heard from a newer album. I mean, come on, they can't all be Please, am I right? That album is in my top five pop albums of all time list.

So with Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe doing what they do best, serenading me, I decided it was time to get my coffee drink on. I have liked iced mocha drinks in the past, and this was no different. It has a lot more chocolate than previous mocha drinks had, and that's a good thing. I liked it a lot, to the point where I would buy this again. You should buy this more than once because you don't have a cache of three shelves of drinks to go through, so for me to say I would buy it again has weight.

Neil and Chris, don't ever break up. I don't see any album nowadays pushing you out of that top five spot. I also don't see anyone pushing Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt's Temperamental out of there, either. Serious gems people.

A lot going on. But there always is, isn't there -- a lot going on?

A classic line from the classic...er movie "Made" with Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau. That line defines this drink to a T. Tee? Tea? Who cares, am I right?

In one corner of the royal rumble, you've got the Monster name. With that, you expect that "trillion Smarties" taste. You don't get it in this drink, but you expect it.

In another corner, you've got a coffee taste. It's not too bad. It's definitely more than a basic, poor person coffee taste. It's compressed, like Monster has hired ex-baristas and are just having them compress coffee in an underground shack for this drink.

In the third corner of the world's strangest wrastlin' ring, the sweetness. It's regular first, and then it gets a little diet-y. There is sucralose in there, but it is tolerable. It's pretty masked by a lot of the other flavors that are going on, hitting each other in the heads with folding chairs from your aunt's dumb basement party. Why does she have parties and gatherings in the basement when she has a perfectly clean and functioning upstairs?

In the fourth and final corner, there is milk. Milk is kind of like the ref in this game. While the drama is going on with the other wrestlers, the ref literally smoothes everything out. He's a nice guy. He smoothes everything out in the ring and before that, he refs his kid's T-Ball game.

I didn't hate this as much as I thought that I would. That says a lot.

I've been drinking a lot of pop and my mouth has gotten tired of it. I needed something to break the monotony. It happens when you drink so much stuff. It all starts to blend together and you need a break. Since we don't take actual "breaks" here at Thirsty Dudes, our breaks are us drinking something different.

For the trillionth time, I can't believe that we haven't done this yet. Strawberry Kiwi Lifewater? Get out. It's been out forever and we're just now getting to it. This should give you the incentive to go out and try something new if we have just now gotten around to something that you can get anywhere.

This is probably a standby classic for you because it's so good. It's light, sweet, and has a great fruit flavor. Great. Did you hear me? I don't use that word a lot. Good, alright, OK, whatever. I don't use "great" a lot. I do and I don't care. I'll say it again. It isn't too sweet and has no bad aftertaste. It's not to bad in the calorie department which is good as I just Gregory House M.D.'d this entire bottle.

This new season of House is pretty good and all over the place, too, if you haven't gotten around to it. You're only three episodes deep. You could catch up on one rainy day. Hugh Laurie. You're a great man. Come do a guest review. Someone get Hugh Laurie to do a guest review.

Starbucks. There's one not too far from my house and I try as hard as I can to not go in there. Only reason I do is when my girlfriend needs to get a coffee and she yells at me when I want to stay outside. I never want to go in anywhere. My epitaph might say, "Do you want to run in while I stay in the car?" I was in Starbucks last week and she forced me to get a hot cocoa. It was great, but I didn't want it. I don't drink coffee so for the sake of me (and the sake of an establishment that doesn't want people it can't sell to) I don't go there. No offense.

Something happened inside of coffee shops and I don't think that it's a wanted or desired thing. Fifty percent of the seats have been taken over by people on laptops. I don't believe they were just checking email, either. I feel they were doing some sort of work that takes an adequate amount of time. Every food place I've ever worked has basically tried to get you in and out as quickly as they can because quick turnover means more money. You on your laptop write a thesis on how the Cosby show portrayed Black America in a good light at a coffee shoppe means that while you're there taking up space, no one else can come in, sit down, drink a cup of coffee, and scoot. You who are reading a book about how the harvesting of the ivory tusks of elephants to make chopsticks is a thriving but illegal business is not allowing a tired mother who has schlepped her crying kid around all day and just wants to sit down and enjoy a chai latte a place to sit, as she is entitled to do.

I hold a grudge towards those people who do this sort of action and it is not something that happened a little. I have completely written off coffee shops that sell decent food because jerk college kids think that a coffee shop is actually the common room in the dorm where they can stretch out and work on English 101 homework with their study group.

I believe for this reason, Starbucks has created this drink. For the inconsiderate person on the go. It's got that coffee name you can trust, plus coffee, plus some cocoa, plus mint, in case you decided that you would rather drink a drink that is horrible for you, albeit delicious, instead of brushing your teeth. Now, I know that last part isn't true, but if Starbucks brick and mortar stores have just given up and are alright with housing people on computers all day, then they needed to create an outside revenue resource. The Frappuccino was born. Now, the baristas can make seventeen drinks in one eight hour shift for eight people while no one can get in and out because the middle of the establishment is so full of power cables running to and from people's computers, that it looks like a rubber and plastic spider has been created as some sort of garbage "art as an installation" piece in the center of all and every Starbucks.

Starbucks. You don't need me to come in. Do not be sore at me for I do not hate your establishment. Your mint mocha Frappuccino is delicious and I've got three more to keep my mouth pleased. You do need to start charging for Wi-Fi and/or electricity to start getting some people out of your shops.

This review should go something like; Oops someone dropped an open CO2 tank into the vat of Vitamin Water blah blah blah. I'm tired, I'm sick and I don't have it in me right now.

When I first tried this it tasted exactly like a carbonated Vitamin Water. The more I drank the less sure I was. I did still enjoy it though. It's really light tasting, and that is something that is fairly rare in a sparkling beverage. It also didn't have a distinct melon or pineapple so much as it has a general tropical taste. I'm very interested in trying the other flavors. Now I will pass out in the van and wake up in another city, in another state.

I've got a headache. I wish I could pour this drink on my brain. I've watched enough doctor shows on television to know that when you do things to the brain, it makes you do funny things. Poke here and you pick your nose. Poke there and you'll recite the alphabet in Spanish. If I poured a caramel milk on my brain, I think that it would be bad, number one, but before I went into an inevitable, caramel induced coma, I would hope to do some all encompassing spastic dance and spit out some unintelligible gibberish. I guess that I would be making a big mistake and it would not be funny or worthwhile.

If I were to miss my giant open head cavity and make some in my mouth, or have some drip out of the crevices of my brain and into my mouth, I would say that it was delicious and calming and perfect for a headache. It's just a very smooth, very caramel drink. You know those little, plastic wrapped caramels that both your grandma and myself love? They taste like that if you ate one and chased it with milk, or, better yet, drank milk, held it in your mouth, and chewed one of those caramels.

It should be known that I didn't remember that it was Halloween when I was talking about brains and stuff. That came to me naturally.

When I saw this Wawa half and half/Arnold Palmer, I couldn't say no. Two things I love in one little bottle. Plus I knew Wawa would do it right, and they sure did. I always complain about lemonade's not being tart enough, but this needs none of that. This was so lip puckering, it make the back of my throat hurt (in a good way). This is exactly what I look for in a lemonade iced tea hybrid, the deliciousness of iced tea with the sour taste of lemonade.

What we have here is a miracle of science. No it's not a cure all or some sort of tonic or elixir. What we have here is a watermelon flavored drink that doesn't taste like candy. Specifically it does not taste like watermelon Jolly Ranchers, which has been the standard for watermelon flavor for the past two decades, even though it tastes absolutely nothing like a fruit.

Somewhere in an underground laboratory a group of rouge scientists gathered to tackle this problem for once and for all. They did so in fear of losing their scientific titles, as the Grand Science Authority has strictly prohibited research in this field (Jolly Rancher donates obscene amounts of money to their organization in return for them not working on the "watermelon problem." These brave men and women worked against the grain and achieved something great. It turns out that all they needed to do was use watermelon juice concentrate.

Martinelli's used this new technology to create this sparkling lemonade. It tastes pretty much as is to be expected. A carbonated lemonade with a hint of watermelon to it. I'm personally not a huge fan of carbonated lemonades. Something about the bubbles and the bitterness doesn't quite sit well with me. If it's something you are into you should stand up and salute the brave scientists who risked it all to bring this new and exciting drink to your lips.

Yesterday I embarked on a 6-week tour with the band Lemuria. We left DC this morning and just made it to The Fest in Gainesville, Florida. This is the longest tour I've ever been on but I'm excited to see a lot of the US and Canada that I've never seen before. I'm also obviously excited to find and try new drinks along the way.

Our first rest stop after leaving DC was a Wawa near Richmond, VA. If you've never been to Wawa, it's a chain of gas stations that have tons of great flavors of iced tea. They have soft pretzels too which are delicious. But back to the iced tea, it's really good. It's made with real sugar and is just really refreshing. Sometimes iced tea can taste way too much like the flavor it has in it with barely any tea. Wawa knows how to balance it out and it's more like an iced tea with an orange aftertaste.

I'm kind of glad there isn't a Wawa in Buffalo. If there was, I'd drink their iced tea so much I'd probably eventually get sick of it. It's a great treat when you're on a trip.

Derek's daddy went back to Taiwan and brought back more goodies. This is, apparently, a hot ticket item. Does "hot ticket" mean that it's hard to come by or that it sells like hotcakes? Let's assume that it means the latter and continue.

I didn't know what to expect, you know, because most of the can is not in English. I knew it was carbonated and that's about it. When translating the site from Chinese to English, the product title actually came through as "Victoria vigorously soda". I can only assume that it's a bit of Engrish but it could also mean that it's an energy drink. "vigorously", and adjective which seems like a strange word to use in that context, would, to me at least, mean energy.

It tastes a bit energy and a bit cola and a bit citrus and a way bit sweet. It's not bad, just very candied. If you could carbonate a sugar stick, this is what it would taste like.