Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

Hansen's you've done it again! You consistently put out some of my favorite sodas. Their products always go down smooth. Well, unless you drink it after it's been sitting in a car on a boiling summer day. Then it gets crazy harsh and it becomes an interesting adventure. It happened to us once and we couldn't stop drinking it, even though it felt like acid was melting our throats.
This is made with extracts of actual mandarin oranges and limes. That instantly gives it an advantage over most sodas.

Honey, thanks for going to the grocery store and picking up the stuff for taco night. Did you get the iced tea mix while you were there? You did? You're the best. Now I will continue talking to you while I reach into the bag without looking and grab the iced tea mix to make myself a glass. I am still paying no attention to what I am doing while I pour myself a glass of water open the package and mix it in. Say, this iced tea tastes weird. Oh well, bottoms up! *chug.spit.gag* How the hell did I not realize that I used taco seasoning instead of iced tea mix!
Mix a packet of taco seasoning into a glass of sparkling water and you have the worst drink ever. I think that's what they did here. I should have been tipped off that it has both salt and black salt in it. I couldn't even swallow my first sip.
My condolences to India, I just do not understand the allure of this beverage at all. Gaaaaaaarrrooooooooosssss!

These teas have some of the best-looking bottles I've ever seen. The tea that it contains is right up there as well in the world of unsweetened teas. It tastes like a high quality black tea. The dragon fruit gives it a slightly soapy flavor, but somehow (don't ask me how they did it) it's in a good way. This would be great after a meal to cleanse your pallet. It would be incredible if this were also available in a sweetened version. It would be nice to have that option, but I still love what is available to me.

I had never seen this flavor of Sioux City before. I can understand why it's a less common variety. The blue color makes it look like a bottle of windshield wiper fluid. Also, berry/fruity sodas (with the exception of orange, grape and grapefruit) for the most part aren't very good. Sioux City in their tradition of greatness has broken through with one that is actually pretty good. It's a hodgepodge of berries, with a general sweetness to it. Don't let the fact that it looks like an automobile fluid dissuade you from trying it if you ever see it.

You gotta love when small breweries make their own root beer. I feel like more care is just put into the brewing of the soda. You know that little bit of love that makes you feel good about drinking it. Weeping Radish knows what I'm talking about. They have slightly irregular sized bottles, and the labels look like they were put on by hand. I appreciate those little things.
This is definitely a stand out root beer in my book. It's not overly sweet and it has a slight dry soda taste at first. It also has a slight anise aftertaste. In normal everyday life anise is like poison to me, but put just a little bit into a root beer and it can be extraordinary.
I feel like I should be slowly sipping this while hanging out at a campfire with some friends. In honor of that I'm drinking it out of a boot shaped glass. I don't know how they fit together, but they do in my head.

I really liked the Cranberry Pomraz Snow, so I had high expectations for this. It's not great, but it's not terrible. What it is is 100% middle of the road cola. It is average in every way. Nothing sticks out about it, good or bad. If you like cola, give it a shot. I enjoyed it. So will you.

Fruit mixed with coffee sounds like one of the strangest things ever. It seems like two things that really should just not be mixed. Somehow Pom has done it successfully. They managed to create an extract of the antioxidant properties of pomegranate juice and mix it with coffee in a way that it's barely noticeable.
This really just tastes like nice rich chocolate milk with only the slightest coffee aftertaste. When you really think about it, you can detect a hint of fruit, but I am convinced that if you poured this into a glass and served it to someone they would never notice it.

Sarsaparilla: the drink of cowboys (or so I choose to believe). It makes me want to put some spurs on. Can you imagine that? Seriously imagine if every time I drank I sarsaparilla I put on cowboy boots, spurs, chaps, a 10-gallon hat, and some cap guns in some holsters. I would be all ready to work the old west show at the local amusement park.
For those of you who don't know sarsaparilla is a close relative to root beer and birch beer. It just has different herbs used in its creation. I for one am a big fan. It tastes like a more woodsy root beer.
This version of it is a sugary mixture that has a similar flavor, but it's not the same as those that are brewed. It's still great though. It's not the inoffensive candy version of the classic beverage. My only real complain is I wish it had a harsher carbonation, but that's just me being picky.

Am I alone in thinking that when things are described as being nectar that it means the drink will have a thicker consistency? Juice is thinner and watery, as if the juice has been squeezed from the fruit. Nectar is thicker, as if the fruit was pureed. That is the way my mind works. Jumex apparently does not agree with my train of thought. To me this is a juice, plain and simple. There is nothing wrong with that. I enjoy it quite a bit. It's a nice sugary guava treat. Can you really ever go wrong with guava? I certainly don't think so.

Okay, I've had lassi before. It's an Indian smoothie with some yogurt in it. They went a little overboard with the yogurt in this product. It has the consistency of a slightly watered down yogurt with the tiniest bits of fruit in it. It certainly does not taste watered down though. It has a very strong fruit flavor with a yogurty aftertaste.
This is so thick that I can't imagine drinking it with a meal. It would be nice for a light snack though.

Made really makes some great drinks. This may be my favorite one yet, a nice fruity tea. In this one the tea flavor isn't lost in the fruit, which is an improvement in my book. It still has some of the bitterness of green tea. This would be extremely refreshing on a hot summer day. Unfortunately it's snowing in Buffalo. I'll have to revisit it in six months.

I've expressed my disinterest in coffee beverages, specifically canned coffee beverages, in the past. So why did I buy this? Was it because it's mentioned in an R.E.M. song? You bet your butt that's why. I'm glad I did, because this is way tasty. It's super sweet. It tastes like a nice hot chocolate with a coffee after taste. You know but ignoring the part where the chocolate is hot.
I'd drink one of these on those days when I want a nice chocolaty drink but I need something more sub-sub-sub-substantial.
Now I will stop being a nerd.

We stumbled upon an Indian market today and scored a butt-load of drinks. Yes, butt-load is a scientific unit of measurement.
This is a cola made by the Hindustan Coca-Cola company. Why yes it does taste like I'm drinking Coca-Cola while I'm eating curry. Thank you for asking. Seriously though, it tastes like a regular cola, but there is this strange mystery flavor. I certainly don't mind it.

What is up with Cawy and their bizarre flavors? With a name like Champs Cola wouldn't everyone expect it to be a straight up cola? Well you like me would be mistaken. This is a fruity cola. It is a less intense version of Fruiti Cola. It really only has the faintest tinge of cola. It's more of a fruit pop. I don't like being tricked and I don't like this drink. Even the rad picture of champion George Prince couldn't save this drink.

Nehi made a great grape soda. They have unfortunately missed the mark with their orange. It's more general sweet flavor than orange. I was expecting it to be super flavorful like the grape. Nope. I would seriously choose a run of the mill Orange Crush over this. I don't even know if veggie dogs* would make it better.

*For those not in the know orange pop and veggie dogs compliment each other perfectly.

A handful of our readers have been raving about Hank's root beer, so when I got home yesterday and there was a box of their sodas waiting for me I felt like a kid on my birthday.
I have yet to try the root beer, but this cream soda lives up to the hype. In fact I think it surpasses the hype. It is perfectly vanilla flavored, without being overly creamy. I may have felt like a child when I opened the box, but this is most definitely an adult soda. It's the kind of soda they should be serving at bars. There are people like the Thirsty Dudes out there who like to go hang out with friends, but don't drink alcohol. Pop out of the gun just doesn't cut it most of the time. So proprietors of bars take note!

Jarritos, where have you gone? Why can I no longer find you around Buffalo? Your tasty sodas were everywhere down in FL. I understand you're made in Mexico, but c'mon. C'mon!
Every other guava drink I've ever had has been super thick. Most would even be classified as nectar. This has a thinner consistency, but not in a way that it seems watered down. Normal guava juice is always ridiculously sweet, but this has a very specific cane sugar sweetness to it. It's always awesome to find a nontraditional fruit flavor in soda, especially one that I don't want to pour in the toilet.

I have to be honest. I never would have bought this. It probably would have been one of the last drinks to ever get reviewed on Thirsty Dudes. I was going back to my car from the grocery store and there was a cart next to my car with a six-pack of Propel in it. Keep in mind there were no other carts, or cars for that matter, around my car at all. Since no one was around to claim it, that 101.4 fluid OZ became mine.
I pawned most of them off on friends, as I figured it was going to be pretty gross. Today I decided it was time for me to drink the last remaining bottle. It wasn't nearly as bad as I had anticipated. The black cherry flavoring is very strong. A little too strong for my liking, but I could still get through a bottle of it. It's a little thicker than water as well. I might actually like this more if I watered it down.
When I'm looking a drink that is full of vitamins and antioxidants I'm going to go with a juice, but for people who like other options this really isn't a bad one.

While visiting Richmond recently I wandered into a bodega across the street from a friends house. Their beverage selection was poor at best. Oh but what's this. You've got to be kidding me. Stamina Rx? I laughed for quite awhile. I was about to leave the store when my band mate expressed his disbelief that I wasn't going to pick it up for Thirsty Dudes. I gave in, turned around and purchased this can of "Extreme Sexual Experience."
This has since been sitting in my fridge for weeks. Last night I decided it was time. Cracked this baby open and took a big swig. What hit my lips was the cheapest tasting strawberry/fruit punch flavored pop that has ever visited my taste buds. Even though it says it's sugar free and naturally sweet, it still tastes like aspartame or some other artificial sweetener. Not good at all.
Oh, and for the record (and all you perverts out there) the only physical reaction I got from this drink was a pretty terrible headache. Old men everywhere will be disappointed when they run out of little blue pills and they run to their local corner stores for a quick fix.

Dear soda makers of the world,
Unless your peach pop actually tastes the wonderful fruit, please do not waste our time. We have no need for your drinks
Love,
The Thirsty Dudes.