Sugar - 840 Reviews

It's a steaming hot day. It's so hot that you can't even comprehend the idea of moving. You are soaked with sweat just from breathing. This fan isn't doing anything. There's only one thing that can save the day. A Slurpie? No that's kids stuff. You're an adult now and the only thing that will cool you down is a nice ice-cold bottle of soymilk. Crack one open and chug it. As you wipe some dribble off your chin you are the picture of refreshment. You've beaten that heat.

Obviously that is completely fabricated because of two important things.
1. Slurpies are for all ages. They cool down your body like nothing else. On top of that they are delicious. I don't think I could ever trust someone who tells me they don't like them.
2. Soymilk, or cow milk for that matter, is not refreshing at all. I love it on my cereal, but other than the chocolate variety, I can't see myself ever downing a glass of it for pleasure. It's very strange to me to have it in single serve glass bottles.

Also soymilk and tofu are both made out of soybeans, so why don't they taste similar? I think Vita Milk had the same thought and decided to do something about it. This tastes like they took bricks of tofu and put them in a blender with way more sugar than is ever needed. I think I'll stick to my vanilla soymilk on my cereal in the morning.

It takes a lot for a drink to gross me out. I didn't know what longan was before I bought this, but I assumed it was a fruit. When I picked up the bottle, I noticed that there were big chunks of something floating inside. Then, I noticed on the ingredients list the following: Longan Meat (2.0%). My vegan instinct kicked in at the sight of meat on the label and freaked me out a little. The floating stuff did have a meat look to it as well. Luckily I was right, and longan is a fruit grown on a tree of the same name in South and Southeast Asia.

Upon opening it, I couldn't help but to smell it first. After drinking some nasty stuff over the years, it's instinct. The smell was something I have encountered many times, but never in a drink. If you guessed really dirty socks, then you are correct. How they managed to bottle the smell of dirty socks I will never know. A couple of my housemates said it smelled like dates or prunes to them, but I didn't get that at all.

To prepare for potentially getting a mouthful of dirty socks, I took the first sip over a sink. Luckily (or unfortunately depending on how you feel about drinks making you puke) it tasted better than it smelled to me. The taste can be summed up in two words: liquid raisins. I don't hate raisins, but I don't particularly love them either. The idea of a raisin flavored drink is pretty disgusting to me. After this revelation, I tried taking another sip and it was too gross. I don't want liquid raisins.

Have you ever stopped at a small gas station down south? If the answer is yes you have probably seen the large pots of grossness that are known as boiled peanuts. Serious barf sauce. Soggy peanuts are no ones friend.

I was afraid this was going to taste like those sloppy nuggets. I lucked out today friends. This tastes like unshelled peanuts were ground into a fine power and then mixed that into rice milk. It almost tastes like peanut butter, but it's not quite there. It was very enjoyable. It's pretty thick.

I also found out while drinking this that Mike doesn't shell his peanuts. He pops the entire thing into his mouth and chomps down. Who does that? He said it like it's a normal thing that everyone does. The other four of us looked at him in disgust. He also doesn't believe in napkins.

Plums? Prunes? Who cares? This stuff is rough. Rough like the seas that took down so many of our Viking brethren. Brethren. Remember how awesome it was when Hey Mercedes used the phrase "uniformed brethren" and you thought to yourself, "Woah, what a good use of that term." Is that me patting myself on the back for using words? Possibly, it's not the point. I am neither a genius nor a scholar. I don't read books and I do not partake in even the finest of wines. Parts of me wish that I would after drinking this near abomination.

Where to start? Well, first sip seems like a good place. It was gross. I asked myself in ever stage, "What's this in the middle?" and favorites like, "What's happening at the end?" The more you drink, the better it gets, but that's not to say that it's ever good or even drinkable. Between three people and two additional "sippers" there is still easily half a can of this stuff left. If you take a couple sips your mouth masks the grossness a couple percentage points and you find the prune/plum but it's not how you want it to taste. It's a tiny bit fruity, wildly bitter, and mostly undrinkable.

Holland. There are a few places that I wish that I could go back in time to. One of them being Manchester in the early 80's to see The Smiths and Joy Division. The other would be the mid-to-late 80's to Holland to see Funeral Oration. While I would be there anticipating the next show, I would probably walk around and see what Holland has to offer. I would get some breads...what do they have in Holland? What does Holland have to offer? Where are Lego's from? Is that Holland? Let me Wiki this...no, that's Denmark. Well, regardless, Holland has Maaza to offer and that's something I can get behind. They do have a different definition of fruit punch, though, which I will go into right now.

This drink was bold and flavorful, but one thing that threw me off was the viscosity. Yes, viscosity made it strange. We've drunk things with chunks, bubbles, and other junk in it but this one set me back. It was right in between a melted smoothie and a juice. It was think. Viscous. It was not a bad flavor at all. Being so thick, it stayed with you for a while. If you love juice, try it out. If you know what you're getting into beforehand, you'll like it more. Promise.

Years ago on a trip to Toronto I was introduced to the wonderful beverage bubble tea. My first experience wasn't the greatest. I got plum flavored (I love plums, but I've learned that things plum flavored generally are pretty gross) and I didn't realize you were supposed to chew the tapioca balls. About halfway through I started to get a stomachache, and like any self-respecting person in their early 20's I started to use the tapioca as spitballs. What can I say? I'll always have childish tendencies. The amount of fun I had spitting the tapioca was enough for me to give bubble tea another try on my next trip up north. This time I tried the passion fruit (a flavor I wasn't familiar with) and I've never looked back. To this day it is one of my favorite fruit flavors. I've had the fruit itself a couple of times, but the effort never seemed worth the result. I never pass up the chance to try something passion fruit flavored though.

This juice is great. It's not as thick as nectar, but it's also not super watered down. There's no real way to describe it's flavor other than saying it's tropical. The amazing sweet yet tart taste of the passion fruit it right up in your face.

I was expecting/hoping this would be really chunky and resemble something like rice pudding in drink form. Sadly, this was not the case. Surprisingly, this drink is clear! It's actually pretty delicious. The rice flavor is sweetened just the right amount. It's really light like rice milk is, but it's slightly refreshing. There's ginger on the ingredient list, but unfortunately it's not noticeable. I may be reflecting on the sweet cinnamon punch drink I had (which is also made by Paldo), but I think there is a slight cinnamon taste in the drink.

I may have found my new favorite ginger beer. While this may not be the spiciest out there, it has a great flavor. The ginger flavor coupled with the carbonation tickles my throat in a great way. This is definitely a sipping ginger beer, but I like that. I'm also a big fan of the bottle art. I don't know what else to really say about this, other than it's really good.

I've gotten in the habit of smelling drinks before I drink them, as if it's going to prepare me for what it tastes like. This smells like cough syrup, which half surprised me since this is supposed to be cola flavored. But on the other hand, I should expect it since most energy shots taste pretty bad. While this isn't the worst tasting energy shot ever, it's definitely not the best. I don't really see how this is cola flavored. There is a VERY slight cola aftertaste, but it's overshadowed by the gross energy drink taste.

I've been hearing a lot about relaxation drinks lately. I haven't had the opportunity to try one until now. It's made up of a lot of juices, as well as Valerian root, L-Theanine, Lemon Balm, and Chamomile. While I can't say if the drink is relaxing, or it's the music I'm listening to (or maybe both?), I can say that it tastes really good. The blueberry/blackberry combo is really nice. The carbonation and sweetness is right on as well. This reminds me a lot of Izze sparkling juice, which makes sense since that's what this is essentially. Completely random, but I also really like how the can feels. It has a matte finish to it. OK, maybe this is relaxing me because I'm starting to ramble about how much I enjoy the feel of this can. It might be time to lie in bed and watch Arrested Development.

I grew up in Tonawanda, NY, which is a suburb of Buffalo. Within Tonawanda, there was a section of it call Millstream. I had several friends who lived there and would hang out in that area a lot. One of my fondest memories about Millstream is when we started backyard wrestling under the name MWA, or Millstream Wrestling Association. I used to borrow my grandfather's video camera to tape all the matches. Good times!

This root beer would have been perfect for those summer days. We would have been really stoked on the name, and probably unofficially named it the official root beer of MWA. It has a perfect mixture of sweet and root beer taste to it. And then, there is a slight vanilla aftertaste that lingers on your lips. While this isn't the most complex tasting root beer, it really earns its "old time" name. This is a classic tasting root beer.

When I saw this can, my immediate thought was "sugar water?" The ingredients confirmed this suspicion: sugar cane juice, water, sugar. Upon opening the can, the smell was really pungent and kind of gross. It smelled like what I imagine rancid sugar to smell like. Luckily, it didn't taste as bad as it smelled.

But at the end of the day, it's just sugar water. It's really hard not to let the gross smell waft into your nose while drinking this. Am I glad I tried this drink? Yes. Will I ever drink this again/finish this can? No way.

Justice has been served. I feed people aloe drinks all of the time and never tell them there are chunks in it. It's fun to watch the concern in their faces. To be fair the bottles are always clear, so if they took a second to look at what they were about to drink they would see the chunks of aloe. This can in a can. A solid, opaque, aluminum can. There were also no indications of the can that it had chunks in it. The concern I loved watching on the faces of other quickly sprung onto mine after the first sip. I even went so far to pour it into a glass, so I could make sure they were supposed to be there. They were. The weirdest part of the chunks is that they are mushy. It is just chunks of the fruit, not aloe if I misled you. Sitting in the juice must have started to break them down. It's a strange sensation. It's nothing like aloe or nada de coco. There are also tiny seeds in it.

Dragon Fruit is sweet and tropical, thus so is this drink. It's really good. This may be the only time I've ever thought that chunks in a drink have taken away from the quality of it. Believe me there were tons of chunk to distract me from the sweet flavor of the juice.

This has been sitting in my fridge for nearly two months. The reason being that the Ice Cream Soda flavor of Pakola was one of the worst fluids I have ever ingested. I thought someone had switched out my soda with the contents of their grandmothers perfume sprayer. Luckily this is not just passable, but it's actually decent. It reminds me a lot of the Canadian soda C-Plus. It's comparable to a less harsh Orange Crush. It doesn't have that weird thickness of an aftertaste. One thing that does concern me is that sugar is the first thing listed under ingredients. I can only assume in Pakistan that the ingredients aren't listed in the order of quantity, as it's not a semisolid.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Foco...come on. This is gross. It's so thick and syrupy. Dude, it's gross. It tastes diet but it most certainly isn't. It's somehow clear, regardless of how many colorful berries are on the can. It tastes like someone made aloe in cans that had a ton of soap residue on them. This might be the worst aloe I've ever had. I don't know what else to say. Thumbs down, Foco. There is no reason why a "regular" drink should get a one out of five review. I guess in those regards, you won. Congratulations?

Unfortunately this does not contain yogurt at all. It's basically tastes like the Aloevine Pineapple drink with milk added to it. I've had a bunch of drinks with milk in them lately, and I haven't been a huge fan. The chunks of aloe in this are no larger than pulp in orange juice. That's disappointment city. The chunks are what makes aloe drinks fun. In conclusion with is like a pulpy pineapple juice with milk. Who wants that?

When I first sipped this, it tasted exactly like Red Bull. As most people know, Red Bull is an acquired taste and I happen to enjoy it. But I was hoping this drink would be different. I was really disappointed.

But then the aftertaste kicked in. It burned my throat, but not in the usual acidic energy drink way. This burn was similar to ginger beer, but not as intense. It was really surprising in a good way.

One thing I miss about living in Buffalo, NY is the abundance of birch beer. I even had a keg of birch beer at my high school graduation party. I cannot find a bottle of birch beer anywhere here in Portland. There's plenty of root beer, but no birch beer. Which is why I was excited when I got this bottle in the mail as it's been quite some time since I've tasted the sweetness of a bottle of birch beer.

This bottle goes down real smooth. It has a really nice vanilla taste to it. I really like how Wild Bill's uses real sugar, because I don't get that heavy taste that some birch beers give you. I'm excited to try all the other soda's Wild Bill's has to offer.

This was another bottle I got from Anthony of Rootbeerbarrel.com, hence the green stuff on the bottle.

Thirsty Dude comrade Dan has been pulling on my pant leg ever since I told him I bought this drink. I've had it in my fridge for weeks. Months even. It's just been sitting there. Every time I open the door to get another drink, there's that moose, staring me in the face, asking me "Hey Mike. When is it time for you and me to spend some one-on-one time. You love Hall and Oates, right? I know, who doesn't? You know that song mano-a-mano? You and me, dude. Mano-a-mano. Let's do this thing, already." Literally every time I opened the fridge, he would say that to me. Since no one likes a broken record, or a skipping needle, or even a skipping CD, today had to be the day. I shook it up thoroughly. Got out to glasses. Split that drink right in half; half of it for me, half of it for Dan and none for corgis. You know what happened after that? I took one sip and didn't like it, plain as that. I don't know why they called it Cookies & Cream since it didn't taste anything like cookies and cream. It didn't taste anything like cookies or cream, but it did taste like cruddy chocolate milk. I would not recommend this and I would not buy this again. I do not regret my purchase, but I have considered it a learning experience as to what not to do again.

North American Beverage Co? Number one, change your name. You sound like a government subsidy or a company that only makes drinks for elementary school cafeterias. Number two? Drop this item from your line.