Sugar - 840 Reviews

Arizona has run the inexpensive iced tea game for years. You can pretty much walk into any gas station/corner store and they will have a cooler filled with Arizona tall boys. It's hard to go wrong with paying so little for so much of a more than decent beverage. Now, like the Romans before them, Arizona is expanding their empire. They dabbled with energy drinks and now they have moved on to sports drinks and they are taking that scene by storm.

On first look I had such low expectations for this drink. It comes in the traditional 34oz Gatorade-esque bottle, and the label design is fairly terrible. I understand it's the company's logo but nothing about the southwest screams hydration to me. Someone should probably get fired for this. Davis, we understand you've been with the company for 10 years now, and we appreciate all the hard work you're put into the job. The think is the label you did for the sports drink looks a bit childish. On top of that it makes people think about the desert. Davis, as we all know there is no hope in the desert. People are going to think that it's a crapshoot when they open their bottle. Will it be a thirst quenching electrolyte replenishing tasty beverage, or will they get a mouthful of sand and armadillo poop. Do you really want our customers concerned with …€˜dilla poop Davis? I certainly do not! We're knocking you back down to taste tester. Due to current laws we can't lower your rate of pay, so you'll be making the same. Why do you look so happy Davis? You just got demoted. I don't care if you are my wife's brother I can't believe I let her talk me into hiring you. Imagine a world where people are happy to be demoted. Sure you're doing basically no work and getting paid an obscene amount of money to drink our products day in and out, but what about your lost status? Okay so now that you're officially a taste tester what do you think about the drink you did the inappropriate artwork for? It tastes crisp and clean? Well of course it does! We've already covered the fact that there is no armadillo excrement in it! You say it's way superior to Gatorade and it's counterparts because it's all natural and not all syrupy? Now you better not be saying that to get your old job back. We don't let just anyone work 65 hours a week on salary around here!

Do you want some tea or something? You're not sure? That's a strange answer. What kinds are there? Really? Have you ever left your apartment? Green, white, black, oolong, Earl Gray, and tons more. You've never heard of green tea? You're joking. You're not joking. They've been drinking it for centuries and it's been a common drink here for years and years. I...dude...really. You've got me if you are joking. You're being ridiculous. Honor brite. Honor brite you've never had green tea. Really. Man. Well look, here's the deal with it. It's a nice earthy flavor with a bite. Depending on what green tea you get, it can have a pretty gnarly bitterness to it, but it's a good bitter. Since you're starting out, you might want to try this Gold Peak green tea. It's pretty good. It's sweetened and still has a really small bite. It's nice because you get everything you want in a sweetened green tea just toned down. It's naturally sweetened and flavored, too, so you aren't left with any strange aftertaste lingering in your mouth like that giant slice of Sbarro's that you decided to get for lunch. Not very worldly are you? There are a lot of different green teas but this one has a nice flavor to it that is like a green tea 101. If you don't like it, we can candy it up or go more natural. It's a nice launch pad into the depths of green tea. I can't believe you've never had the stuff. It's literally in shampoo, body wash, Starbucks, ice cream, Chap Stick, and like everything else. You really need to get out more.

I am not one of those dudes who wake up and has a coffee before anything nor am I the guy that has a coffee at any point in the day. "Dude, sometimes you just need that jolt." you might say, but you know what I say? No, dude, I don't. If I'm tired, I'm tired. My body is exhausted from doing stuff all day and needs to relax, not take an adrenaline shot to keep going at the pace I was going at. Sometimes I get down and sure, coffee might make sense, but I push through it and get to the end of the day and sleep like a baby.

Ignoring that entire entry paragraph, today I thought it might be a nice change to give it a whirl. Now I'm not going to drink a drink and then sit around like a turd and wait for the effects to kick in. I'm sure it's there, but I don't care and I'm not looking for it. It's all about taste and not function with this guy. If this were supposed to do something, I would let you know. It's a coffee drink. You know what it does.

Taste. It's, once again, just coffee enough that anyone in the range of "kind of likes the taste of coffee" to "loves coffee" will enjoy. There is enough milk and sugar to smooth it out and leave it with its inherent coffee bitterness. This wasn't bad. It's more "adult" than a Starbuck's Frappuccino because it's not as sweet and still tastes like coffee in its base rather than a melted iced coffee drink.

I got this at a steal from a local discount store so you might be able to do the same. Fifty cents doesn't buy you a lot these days but if it buys you a nice, refreshing coffee drink, wicked.

In less than a month, Jason and I are going to be judges at the 2011 Clear Choice Awards. Ever since I learned about the awards, I've been observing bottles and labels a lot more. For instance, I like the metallic green they used on this label on a standard 12 oz glass bottle. It really goes along with their leprechaun mascot. My only complaint is that it was glued to the bottle a little sloppy. There are wrinkles all over it.

The root beer itself is pretty good. It doesn't have much of a bite but it's really sweet and smooth. This is definitely in the top 20% of root beers. More drink companies need mascots.

When I was in my fourth college I took a class called Media Analysis. Let me give you a heads up about my education for a second here. This was my fourth college. I hated school. It didn't help me, it just made me hate school and parking and people and jaded me more than I was already. There was a point where I called my mom after driving around the parking lot for 45 minutes to tell her that I was going to drop out because I hated every day of school and it all stemmed from me not able to find a parking spot. The only thing that school was good for was when Jay and I went to go see Morrissey a couple of years ago. So anyhow, Media Analysis was some garbage class that was talking about "what does it all mean" which is not a class that can be taught and for that reason, it sucked. We talked about theory and stuff, which was fine, but most of the class was so "meta" that it was like we weren't doing anything.

One thing that I did take away was the phrase "model". No, not model like those bitchin' Lamborghini Countach models you bought when you were ten and you stupidly took all the pieces off the plastic holder and when it came time to put all the pieces together, you, being ten, had no idea what the difference between a head gasket and a gas tank cover was so you could only put the shell together and that was utterly unsatisfying. "Model" being the base. The root. The core. The basis in which all others are related to. The median object. Make sense?

This root beer is the model root beer. It has a little bit of bite, a little dark, a pretty good overall flavor, moderately priced. Not "too" anything. Safe. It's good. That's all it is, but it's good. This is the root beer you would give someone who has never had root beer before but decides that after 37 years it's time.

I wouldn't buy it again because I know that there are better things out there, but for Walgreens to put out such an overall decent product says a lot. Kudos Walgreens, for caring enough to put something like this out.

Sherman, could you please get my Sorels? It's cold and I need to go outside to scour for food and supplies. They're in the back room. What are you doing? Why is it taking so long? What do you have there? Juice? Seriously? Well since I have it, I'll drink it. Whoa. Sherman. Where did you get this? You traveled all the way to town? I asked you to get my Sorel boots and you brought me...Sorrel drink. I guess I can see the problem here. Thanks, but why didn't you get some food when you were out? I mean you bought Ramen for yourself and this Sorrel drink, which I am quickly falling in love with. What are we going to eat later? We can only eat snow shaped like hot dogs for so long. I guess one more day won't hurt. Man, so good. Did you try this? Sherman, try it. It tastes like a spicy cranberry hibiscus juice. It's got that good ginger beer taste with a nice big fruit flavor. You like it, don't you buddy? Alright, I should have just gotten them myself. I'll get my boots and we'll go to town together and get stuff. I owe you one of these drinks because they are worth every penny. Maybe if you're good, I'll get you some chocolate. You love your chocolate.

I wrote a long drawn out review for this, and then I hit the wrong button and lost it all. It was pure, complete annoyance. To be honest I don't even remember what I wrote and I don't want to write it all again. Here's the gist of it:

A) Tallboys are awesome. When you're younger it's rad to get so much beverage for so cheap. When you're older and don't want so much sugar, they are great for sharing.

B) I thought this was an iced tea until I opened it. I was wrong. I didn't even know Tradewinds made juice.

C) I drank this at work today. I work in a tiny room with a conveyor dryer that gets up to 400 degrees. I was dripping sweat and parched. This gave me instant refreshment.

D) Even thought this only has 5% juice in it, it tastes exactly like a blend of mango and apple juices. Normally a higher percentage of juice is what I look for, but it really tasted great, so I didn't mind.

E) You can almost feel the grittiness of the sugar in this. Normally that would be a turn off, but it really worked in this drink.

I hope I don't mess this up again.

I purchased this little gem as part of a mean sixer at a local Asian supermarket. I have been looking at it but have been too cheap to drop the necessary $4 to buy it. If it were in singles or an assorted pack, dude, I would have reviewed all of them, but when it comes to spending $4 on a juice box that I am going to drink one of and give the rest away, it's hard. I know my girlfriend has drunk two, Derek has one, I just drank one and that leaves a few more. I think I promised Jay one. Anyhow, the review...

I was impressed. I have had some strange, imported soy chocolate milk and they are gross. This rivals YooHoo, but probably not Nesquik because that is pretty darn fantastic in my opinion. This, to me, I think would be kid friendly, too. It's still a crap-load of calories (160) but if your son is lactose intolerant and needs chocolate milk, this won't make him get sick.

I really think that this could stand the kid taste test, too. If you had your kid drink 15 non-market chocolate milk boxes and then snuck one of these buddies in there, two things would happen.
1. I would call CPS on you because you just gave your kid 16 chocolate milks in one sitting and are a terrible parent.
2. Before you got carted away by the authorities, your kid wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

If you're vegan or lactose intolerant, get this. If you still don't want chocolate milk, enjoy your menial desk job, your boring car, your turkey sandwiches with the crust cut off, and your "Hang In There" cat poster, turd.

Recently my girlfriend has been obsessed with "Extreme Couponing", the show on A&E where mostly fat people buy processed food with coupons and get astounding deals. We watch it and I get frustrated because I used to work in a grocery store and it drives me crazy when cashiers scan the same item multiple times when they can just select a quantity, scan once, and be done with that entire idiot's cart full of 254 boxes of Yakisoba noodles. So she spends a little bit of time scouring websites and newspapers for coupons to save us some money.

Yesterday she bought like 10 items and had to split her order into like 3 or 4 transactions or the deals wouldn't come through. I purchased this drink and threw it in with her order. Without exaggeration, between her being considerate and letting other people go through in between transactions, some drug laden kids touching our kids feet, and the world's most apathetic cashier it took about a half hour from beginning to end to cash out. So was this drink worth it?

Short answer? Eh. Long answer. It was a good pop. Nice flavor. Not super, tooth decaying sweet. The "cream" wasn't all there, and I kind of wanted it to be, you know, the drink that I wanted it to be. It had a good, clean flavor; though, and if you're in the search for non-corn syrup, fruity pop, look no further than your local Walgreens. They have an array of flavors that I'll try in the future, but this is the first one that I did and I just hope that it goes up from here.

Like everyone else in this ghost town, I like to go to the saloon everyday. The usual characters are always there: One-Eyed Jack and the blacksmith playing poker, the owners son 'lil Johnny playing with his dog in the corner, and Davey playing the piano while two women danced on the balcony. The only problem is I always get made fun of for my drink of choice. While I'm told Smitty's Saloon has the best whiskey this side of the Mississippi, I don't like the hard stuff. My father was a drinker and I didn't like what it did to him so I swore I'd never try it.

I prefer Outlaw Orange Cream. No, it's not because I'm a criminal. I only had that one run in with 'the law' once when I was playing a prank on my best friend and took his horse around back. The sheriff and I straightened that all out years ago. I like this soda pop because it has a classic orange cream flavor. I've heard some fancy hot shots in New York City are trying to make orange cream soda that will appeal to everyone, but what do they know? This is great the way it is. It has a great orange flavor, with a really nice smooth aftertaste. Sure I wouldn't mind if it was a tad bit smoother, but it's a damn fine orange cream if I do say so myself. In fact, when this one is gone, I just might order another one if Smitty ever comes back to this side of the bar.

My boss' dad, Jake, asked me sarcastically if what I was drinking had chunks in it. At the time, I was drinking a tea and it did not. He then sarcastically said that he'd only drink drinks with chunks in it. Challenge accepted. Easy challenge, but accepted nonetheless.

So yesterday, I went through my back stock and found this little guy that Jay and I picked up at an Asian supermarket. "Blueberry Aloe?" I said, "I'll take it." After tasting it, I had to look at the ingredients. It has a really tart flavor to it and the ingredients explained everything. Grape juice. I would not be offended if they re-dubbed this "Blueberry Grape" because that's what this tastes like. It's good. I like it, but if you're going to put so much grape flavor in it, give poor grape some credit.

So I poured Jake some chunky, purple drink, handed it to him and he swirled it around a bit, like a fine glass of wine...with chunks in it, and he drank it. He had a few ounces, defiantly enough to build a valid opinion and his opinion? "I like it." Enough said? The man is an accomplished architect. I think that his opinion might count more than mine.

I'm tagging along with my friends, Night Birds, playing the role of "merch dude." Our first stop was Cleveland, OH. We went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which was surprisingly rad. I got to see Ian Curtis' lyric sheets, a bill The Replacements got for damaging a hotel room, the original Riot Grrrl zine, some rad Nirvana stuff and a bunch more. I nerded out a bit. I also worked up one heck of a thirst. Only juice could save the day.

Cleveland is hardly a coastal town, but how can you say no to Nantucket Nectars with its all-natural juice goodness? It's pretty readily available everywhere, so I don't know why I don't drink it more. This is a perfect blend of pomegranate and pear. Both are obviously present, but the strength of their flavors keep each other in check and subdued. It's incredibly refreshing. Just the way I needed it to be.

You've got a great son, Mr. Ziegler. Roy Jr. is a bit high strung at times and often likes to plot other children's demise, but all in all, he's not a bad kid. He's good at math, but not so good at history. He's good at science, but not so good at English.

Reason I called you down here is because of two things. He brought this Lipton 100% Natural iced tea in and passed it around to the rest of the class. Although his sharing is great, it felt almost as if he coerced the other kids into doing it. Like they were doing his bidding. Have you ever noticed that type of behavior before? Like he had taken control of their minds through some sort of magic and was making them take sips from this one bottle. I took the bottle from him and made him finish his work but I've got to be honest with you. The drink, although good, was not the best. I found it lackluster and a bit...forgettable. It was a bit too sweet because of the Stevia. The flavor was alright, but I took a couple sips and never really craved going back to it. I drank it because it was there. That's not really that great? So, why did Roy Jr. tell everyone it was the greatest? You might just want to work on getting him to wash his hands and inform him about the danger of germs.

Second thing is that he brought in this magazine...I can't stop thinking about that magazine. I mean, where did he get it? I can't get those images out of my head.

Hmmmm....it's half things that I like and half gross. Yes, it is a fact that I like chrysanthemum tea and licorice. Whatever else is in this can makes it taste downright dirty. I can't place what it is that I don't like. Honestly, it might be the licorice that overpowers the rest of the tea. You know when you just bought a bag full of black licorice Twizzlers and you eat a few too many and you get that strange, numbing flavor in your mouth? This is like that but there is no slow roll up on that flavor, it's just there when you sip it.

I wanted this to be good. The rest of it is a little tea and then disturbed by a slurry of, to me, unnecessary flavors. I give them credit for having an all-natural tea with some different flavor, but to my palate, it is not something that I desire.

Sorry, Taiwan. Not this time.

This is a drink that would have a cameo role in my dreams. I can just imagine it now. I'm trekking across the prairies on a mission to get who knows where, but it's somewhere important. I suddenly come to a gate. Why is there a gate in the middle of the prairie with no fence? I surely don't know, but if you think I'm going to try and bypass it you my friend are the crazy one. I approach the gate and suddenly dozens of screaming undead souls come out of the ground in front of it. I am informed that if I do not dance with them they will tear into my flesh and eat every last morsel, even my pancreas. Who likes to eat pancreas? The undead I suppose. Before I know it someone has cranked "Jungle Boogie" and we're all getting down. There's even a dance line and everyone is trying to outdo each other. I make mention that I'm getting thirsty and one of the zombies pulls this bottle from his chest cavity. I blow off the dust, twist off the cap and take a big gulp. The pineapple is refreshing without being overly acidic. Then the ginger kicks in. At first it's just the flavor, but after I swallow the burn sets in. It's a good burn. The kind of burn that will give you the little push you need to out-dance the undead. Just as I'm about to pull out some big moves I wake up. My first thought would be "Where can I score me some of that juice in the waking world?"

I just ate five pounds of lentils. Okay so maybe it was about two pounds, but it was so many lentils, and they were covered in so much hot sauce. It was wonderful. When I got home from the diner I was stuffed, but I wanted a nice sweet sparkling drink. I'm borderline food coma here, and I still crave a pop. What's wrong with me? How do I not weigh 500 pounds?
Muscatel it is. It's a wine grape, but this doesn't taste like wine at all. At first I thought it tasted like some weird freezie pop, but then I realize it tastes kind of gross. Wait maybe it does taste like a wine of some sort, because wine is also gross. Way to ruin perfectly good grapes by making your crappy beverage wine makers of the world.

I want this to be good, but it's just not. It tastes old. Jerid said it tastes like it's been sitting open on a shelf for years and is long expired. Maybe he's right. He tastes right. I mean it tastes like what he said, not that his flesh tastes right. Maybe it does. I've never actually tried it. Hey Jerid come here....

Dudes, this tour has been great. We've been to 26 states and we're on our way home. I can't believe we got up and out of the hotel so early after last night. Dude, you threw a chair out the window of a 28 story hotel into a swimming pool, and that...is neat. Let me stop on to this Arby's and get a jamocha shake.

Oh, crap. Now I've got this shake and I've got to pump gas. I don't know why we would get an RV and not get a driver. Seems dumb. So now I've got to put down my milkshake and pump 80 gallons of gas.

Great, done. I smell like gas, but who cares because I've got this...oh, come on. My milkshake melted. Why didn't you turds move it from the dashboard? I'll still drink it, but if I wanted cappuccino, I would have bought cappuccino. I wanted a milkshake. Drats.

Seriously, if this is gross...it's not bad. It basically tastes like a melted jamocha shake. You guys are lucky that it's still drinkable. If it weren't, I would have quit like I almost did in Nebraska. Why you threw your drumsticks at me still doesn't make sense. So I stole your snare drum and ran around with it. Who cares? Don't get so upset. You took all the strings off my bass before we went on set and then the roadie, who didn't pump the gas because he's thoughtless, brought it on stage and didn't check. Idiot. Next stop, Kansas City!

Thad, could you come here for a minute? Thad...wait your name is Tom? Alright, Thad. Well the guys here at the office have gotten together and decided that your employment here is no longer needed. You want a reason? Thad, you've left the coffee pot on overnight at least two dozen times and you've only been here two months. That's like every other day. Now, Thad, we aren't a large company, but we aren't a small company, but do you know what I don't like doing? Sending poor Sheila Larson to the store to buy a new coffee pot every other day. Sure, she's lost a lot a of weight because I always ask her to get it during her lunch break and she claims that she doesn't have time to eat, but a little weight loss never hurt anyone.

So, as you can see, this is a troubling offense and we can't sit around while this happens day after day. Every day when I come in and unlock the office, I'm greeted by the smell of burnt coffee. Now, I've worked here for 42 years and I've drank burnt coffee before, but once a month is about par for the course. Every other day, well, I didn't work my buns off for 42 years to still be drinking burnt coffee.

Did I tell you that I was in the Korean War, son? Well I was. It was very difficult times. We didn't want to be over there as much as they didn't want us over there. The few days we weren't fighting for your freedom, the boys and I would sneak into town and grab some ice cold pops and relax until our sergeant found out and made us run laps and clean socks in the rain. Well one day the boys and I bought this drink called McCol or McCool or something and, I'll tell you what, if I didn't know better, I would think that you weren't burning the coffee at all, but pouring this stuff into the pot every night. I'll tell you something that stuff tasted like fizzy, burnt coffee.

Now, Thad, I'm sorry, but because of my bad memories of Korea and you inability to remember to shut the coffee pot off before you lock up leaves me no choice but to terminate your employment here at Consolidated Cardboard.

"The thing about huckleberries is, once you've had fresh, you'll never go back to canned..." Well Nelson, I can't say if that's true or not, as this marks my first experience with huckleberries at all. That is a lie I suppose. I do have some history with Huckleberry Hound and Huckleberry Finn, but I've never tasted either of them and I will make a pledge this self same day to never do so. There, are you happy now?

As far as I knew, until today, huckleberries were some archaic fruit that had long since gone extinct. The olde-timey picture on the label does nothing but support that idea. As it turns out the fruit still flourishes, but has gone out of vogue. The fine folks at Jackson Hole understand that this is nothing more than a hate crime against the fruit world. As a result they are taking it back.

Every Jackson Hole soda we've had so far has been spectacular and they just stepped up their game with this one. This and the Thomas Kemper Bumble Berry sodas stand as the two best fruit sodas that have ever graced my taste buds. High Mountain Huckleberry is reminiscent of a Shirley Temple made with high quality berries instead of grenadine. It's sweet and fruity in all of the right ways. I had assumed that huckleberries were a specific subset of raspberries, but a quick internet search informed me that they were closer to the blueberry. Whatever they are they are completely incredible and I now must search out the actual fruit. Even if it requires I complete the time machine I've been building in my attic.

I was drawn to this drink because of the color. This pink colored drink really stood out in the Asian markets cooler. After I picked it up and noticed that it was a chunky drink, I was sold.

At first I thought the chunks were aloe, but then I looked a little closer. I saw 'nata de coco' in the ingredients. I had no idea what this was, but a quick Google search found the answer for me. Taken from Wikipedia: "Nata de coco is a chewy, translucent, jelly-like food product produced by the fermentation of coconut water, which gels through the production of microbial cellulose by Acetobacter xylinus. Nata de coco is most commonly sweetened as a candy or dessert, and can accompany many things including pickles, drinks, ice cream, puddings and fruit mixes."

Now I can see these chunks with drinks and fruit mixes. Ice cream and pudding are ones I wouldn't have thought of, but I'm sure it's delicious. The one that throws me off is pickles. So are there jars of pickles with these chunks floating in it? If so, I really want to find one of these because I love pickles.

The drink itself is good. It's really refreshing and taste like something between juice and vitamin water. It's not too sweet which actually works in this case. I feared it was going to be very syrupy. The strawberry flavor is good, but I wish it had more of a tart flavor to it. This is quite possibly the chunkiest drink I have ever had. It is impossible to take a sip and not get any chunks. It's pretty awesome.