Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

Lemon Lime: The illegitimate child of sodas. Everyone pretends to love it, but in reality it's normally the only soda left over after the family get together. I've never met a single person in my life that had lemon lime as a go to pop. Sure it mixes well with other drinks, alcoholic for some and for others such as myself it works well with cranberry juice, when out at bars. On it's own it's just a bland soda by nature. I mean how can it not when one of its key ingredients is lemon, the most meaningless of all fruit. Lemonade is amazing, but in all other forms I could do without the golden citrus king. I wonder if lime will forever feel cheated in this arrangement. A straight up lime soda aka a Lime Rickey is a thing of beauty. It's just too bad that on most days it's held back by its cousin the lime.

Now that I've expressed in detail the mediocrity of lemon lime pop, I will say that Jones has made a version that is better than most. It's no surprise that the reason for it's spender is that it tastes more of lime than lemon. The use of cane sugar helps a lot as well, but it's the lime that makes this pop worthwhile. If this is what this flavor of soda always tasted like, I feel like there wouldn't be anything left in the coolers at the end of the party and that everyone would finally come to accept and truly love this soda made out of wedlock

Would you just look at that bottle? Is that the classiest looking bottle of iced tea you have ever seen, or what? It's just a normal plastic bottle, but the shape and the cleanness of the design make it look much greater than it is. Little kids would look at this and think to themselves, “That looks like it is for grownups. I bet it burns like grandpappy's juice.” I assure you the contents of this bottle are nothing like your grandfathers private stock, well unless your grandfather is a collector of fine teas. Those kids were right though. I bet if you gave this to 100 kids maybe 2 or 3 of them would enjoy it. It's an unsweetened jasmine green tea, so it's slightly bitter and tastes of flowers; two flavors kids tend to not like. It is what I like though. The jasmine flavor is just right. It's not overpowering like some of Oriental Leaves' competitors drinks are. This just hints at the floral and lets the green tea do most of the work. It's tastes like a dream, and it makes me feel like more of a grown up than I will ever actually be. Oh, did I mention that I'm 33 and I spent more than 60 hours over the past two weeks playing Final Fantasy X? That's right I spent more time playing a video game than most people work in a week. At least I get to pretend to be an adult sometimes.

Have we, The Thirsty Dudes, reached a level of respect and admiration in the beverage world that we can start demanding things? I don't mean demand people send us stuff, although it is nice when they do. I mean demand that drinks be named/labeled in certain ways. For example if a juice drink, such as this one has four or more different types of fruit juice listed in its ingredients that it must, under Thirsty Law, be labeled as a fruit punch. I will give the companies a little bit on leniency, in that they are allowed one fruit over those in the name of the flavor. I know certain fruits are expensive and using apple or grape juice to stretch out the juice is more cost effective. Anything more than that, will hereby be known as fruit punch.

The drink that I am currently sipping on will now be known as “Strawberry Kiwi Fruit Punch.” It's that easy. You see the top three fruits listed in the ingredients are apple, grape and pineapple, yet none of them are in the name. While I do enjoy this juice (especially since there is no added sugar) it by no means tastes like someone mashed a bunch of strawberries and kiwis together. That is a drink that would probably be costly, yet would totally be worth that cost. I'm drooling just thinking about it. This tastes like a fruit punch that has a slight kiwi aftertaste. I want to say that you can taste the strawberries in every sip, but the flavor I'm singling out doesn't taste like biting into a piece of red, juicy fruit. It is just a flavor that companies have programmed my brain to process as strawberry.

So there you have it. I have pounded my gavel and the first Thirsty Amendment has been passed. Make sure you spread the word to your friends in the business. I would hate for them to get fined for breaking my law.

The rocky coasts of Maine are a wonderful place. It's blustery and the air is salty. There is no other place on this Earth (that I have visited) that makes you feel more like a sailor. When I'm there I constantly feel like I should be wearing waders and smoking a pipe, telling tales of Old Gregg.

While it is a wonderful place that makes me feel connected to the vastness of the sea, there is one thing that could not possibly grow there: oranges. I believe that is why this soda lacks a little something. The ingredients in here are carbonated pure water, organic cane juice and spices. There is no mention of fruit of any kind. I suppose ground up orange rind could be considered a spice, but to me that is not orange flavored.

To me this just has a general sweet soda taste with some flavoring in it that tastes more of orange holiday spice than and actual mandarin orange. It's also not consistent from sip to sip either. The bottle says settling is normal, and to roll it to help mix it up, but there is only so much rolling you can do with a carbonated drink, and I believe I reached that point without achieving consistency

In it's own way it's a decent drink. Just be advised to not go into it expecting a standard cheap orange soda, nor a carbonated orange juice. It is neither of these things, nor does it fall anywhere between them. It is its own entity, forged in the caverns of Maine. After you try it, tell me one thing: “What did it mean to you to drink that?”

What we have here is a better tasting than most diet energy drinks. I would say that it is actually borderline diet. It still has regular sugar in it, but it's not as much as the regular version. Replacing it is some sucralose, but the mixture of the sweeteners doesn't give it the diet death taste. It's still sweet and candy like, as your typical energy drinks are, with just a hint of a diet flavor to it. There is nothing particularly surprising about this. It tastes like an energy drink, but just a little bit better than other diet ones I have had.

ps. The pink can is a little bit too obvious for a diet drink. Come on Hype, you have to have a better marketing team than that.

Wait so did Somona leave the partnership with Williams, or is this beverage just an example of what you can make with the fancy appliances they sell in their stores? Oh neither, it's just the name of a city in California that is located close to where this fancy sparkling beverage is made? Well that's less exciting that knowing that I could pay way too much money to buy kitchen doodads that would allow me to make this drink in the privacy of my own home, but I'll let it slide due to the delectable nature of this juice. It is juice; don't be mistaken. It is simply a mixture of apple and blood orange juices that have had carbon dioxide added to it. There are no sweeteners in here mucking things up. It's pure and it is wonderful. I was hoping it would be pure blood orange juice, so the addition of apples is the only reason this didn't get top marks. It tastes better than 99% of the beverages you have ever drunk, but to be honest it is more apple than orange. The apple flavoring is like a roller coaster car slowly climbing the hill, and the blood orange hits you suddenly and quickly like rushing down that self same hill. Don't worry, there are no loopy loops on this ride to make you lose your lunch.

Up before dawn; that is the life of a surfer. Sure getting up that early blows, but that is when the waves are the best and more importantly when the beach is free and clear of tourists. Itâ…‚¬…„¢s bad enough having all of those people gawking at you, but the true hell is when one of them thinks that they know what they are doing on a board and comes out, gets in your way and inevitably needs to be escorted back to the shore before they drown. So yeah, the result is that I have to wake up far to early for one who lives a partying life as I do. Surviving on 4 hours of sleep a night, you would think that my immune system would be shot. It would be if it werenâ…‚¬…„¢t for my secret weapon: Kona Red.

My buddies go out to the coffee plantations and gather up the discarded coffee fruit. You see when you make coffee you cut the beans from the center of these little red berries. You didnâ…‚¬…„¢t know that? Well that is because you are more than likely a touring staring at me from the shore while Iâ…‚¬…„¢m carving those waves. Anyways, that leftover fruit is chock full of the antioxidants that help keep me healthy. My friends take the fruit, juice it and add some pineapple and apple juice. The result is akin to a smoothed out acai juice. It has a very dark taste, but the pineapple and apple juices liven it up a bit. Itâ…‚¬…„¢s a fairly strange taste that grows on you the more you drink. It tastes absolutely nothing like the coffee that you brew, and has no caffeine (but oh how that would help me).

Okay itâ…‚¬…„¢s 4am. I should wax up my board and meet the guys down at the beach. The pipeline waits for no man.

Honey, I'll be home a bit later, but I made some soup for you that is in the fridge. Just warm it up and you'll be good to go. Actually maybe toast a little bread and break it up in the soup, who doesn't love that?

*Cut to several hours later*

Darling, I appreciate that you took the time to make me soup for dinner, but I have to tell you that was the worst soup I've ever tasted in my life. It was so sweet and tasted vaguely dairy like. I don't know where you got that recipe, but please never make it for me again. I would rather go hungry than eat that again. What does it matter what container I took it out of? Of lord, please don't tell me you made mass quantities of it! Anyways I took it from the blue container. I thought it was weird that you put soup in a pitcher, but with a color like that what else could it be? What, the soup was in the Tupperware on the bottom shelf? Well then what exactly did I eat? Please tell me it wasn't one of the kids science experiments. Oh it was a smoothie that you made, that makes way more sense as to how sweet it was. I know I wasted a large chunk of your smoothie, but can I please try it cold instead of piping hot? Well this is much better this way. It's a nice thick mango and orange juice that is not insanely sweet, which I really enjoy. It's a bit chalky though, especially towards the bottom of the glass. That little bit was almost undrinkable. Oh, you added some whey and soy protein so it will help you out after your workout. You really are a smart one, and I am truly an idiot for thinking this was soup.

Things got real weird in my brain last night. I'm not one to subscribe to the preaching of the apocalypse, but for some reason as I lay in bed, trying to fall asleep I started to wonder if all this jazz about the Mayan calendar was correct, and that the world was going to end in a couple of weeks. It started off with me thinking that everything was going to end in one big shebang, like the sun was going to collide with the Earth and everyone and everything would die instantaneously. At this point I just tried to get everything in order in my mind of where I wanted to be, and with who (aka the woods with my close family and friends). I thought I was okay with that, but then my pre-sleep mind started to think about what would happen if there was disaster everyone, but I still lived. I instantly wrote off zombies, and thought more of a The Road type scenario. I was trying to figure out everything I would have to get together and where I'd go when I decided that I was an idiot and I really needed to get to sleep, so I reached into my nightstand and pulled out this bad boy. It certainly helped calm my brain down, and made it do normal brain things like sleep when it's 3am and you have to be up in six hours. Thank goodness for melatonin, valerian root and rose hips.

Oh you want to know what it tastes like? Well it starts with a berry flavor, that is heavy on the blueberry side of things, and then it takes a quick turn that reminds me of iced teas that I have gotten at Asian markets that have licorice root in them. It doesn't taste like black jellybeans, but it tastes like a natural tea, or chewing on a switch from a licorice tree. So we have a decent flavor and no worries about the end of the world…€¦I feel fine.

I went into this expecting it to be a standard grape soda. You know the kind that in reality tastes nothing like s fruit that grows on vines, but more like a weird unnatural flavor that has been pounded into our taste buds under the guise of grape. I was certain that this was a soda pop that I have had before, but after one sip I had to second guess myself. This is not your ordinary generic brand grape soda. I didn't have to look at the ingredients list to know that there was actually grape juice in this. It's not totally just sparkling grape juice (oh how I wish it were). It's more of as hybrid of grape juice and the previously mentioned fake grape flavoring. It may not be the ideal, but it's a lot better than Johnny No-Name soda. From jelly to soda, Welch's you've come a long way.

It is important to note that this is firstly cider and secondly cherry flavored. That is the way these types of drinks should be. A lot of flavored ciders use too much of the flavoring and it completely takes over the taste, and ruins a perfectly wonderful fall drink. Did I say this was a seasonal drink? Not anymore my friends. I've had cider "out of season" before and it has always left me disappointed. McCutcheon's has broken the mold as this has the most authentic apple cider flavor that I have ever tasted for mass consumption single serving bottles.

Also important is that the cherry flavoring actually tastes like cherries and not cold medicine. It's shocking what you can accomplish just by using actual fruit. This is of such a high quality that I would not have been surprised if I had discovered that it was made by Cherry Republic, and that means a lot in my world.

About five years ago Snapple released their "All Natural" line. I for one was ecstatic. It was around the time that I realized that if I drank beverages that were sweetened with corn syrup it would destroy my stomach (yes I am dumb and I still drink them sometimes). It was just before the big anti-HFCS boom, so having a new beverage I could enjoy without having to deal with some pain was greatly appreciated. Now that some time has passed they are expanding that line to include a few flavors that are "Lightly Sweetened."

This country sure loves its sugar. Even though this has less sugar than their normal version it is right to the limit of how sweet I think drinks should be allowed to be in an ideal world. It is by no means unsweetened, or even "Just a Tad Sweetened," like Honest Tea. It's pretty sweet, but I appreciate the effort in trying to wean the public off so much sweetness.

As far as the actual flavor goes, they certainly got this one right. The peach and passionfruit blend together perfectly, as if to make one new ultimate fruit. It also does not have an overly bitter flavor like white tea tends to have. It all just blends together very nicely.

Snapple, I like what you've done here and I'm excited to try the rest of this line.

Walking through a truck stop I spotted this bottle, which looks more like an engine cleaner than a beverage. Even though it was in the cooler I had to double check to make sure I would not be poisoning myself by consuming it. It looks like too cheap of a grade of plastic to contain something edible.

To me the drink had a vague cough syrup scent to it, but my friends all said that the only thing they smelled was Pixie Stix. The taste was more in line with their diagnoses than mine. It essentially tastes like berry flavored sugar candy that was made with fake sugar. It's not wonderful, but it's not a deal breaker either. I just don't understand how drinks that have the polar opposite results (giving you tweeker energy and mellowing you out) can both have such a similar taste.

This had a weird effect on me. I drank it and within 15 minutes I passed out. 20 minutes of slumber passed and then my consciousness returned and I was completely awake for about 5 annoying minutes before I fell back asleep without warning. Luckily that time it lasted until morning.

I don't know what is happening to me, but lately I have found myself craving mocha. Either iced or hot will do, I just want to taste that flavor on my palate. As a non-coffee drinker I find this odd. I still find the idea of regular coffee uninviting.

The urge hit me today and I was lucky enough to be able to visit a Sheetz on my travels. Next to QT and Wawa, Sheetz is the third best gas station mini mart I have ever visited, and I've been to way more than any human ever really should. Even though we don't often review store brand beverages, I felt I owed it to them for being such a great little establishment.

The drink wasn't as great as I had expected it to me. I tasted things in this order: milk, sugar, chocolate and then coffee. It was more like sweetened chocolate milk than a coffee drink. Had some of the milk been replaced by a bit more coffee this would have been infinitely better. I also found myself wishing there was a little bit of salt in it. Seeing as I also have been finding myself craving salty chocolate that is not surprising. Someone should really get on making an iced mocha with sea salt. It would be a game changer.

Every once and then Turkey Hill iced teas used to pop up in Buffalo and I always found them to be a treat. Then Tops Markets started always carrying a few of the flavors and I found that once they were readily available, I hardly ever purchased them. I guess that is always the case with me. It's more about the game than the prize itself. Whoa, things just got a bit deep there...anyways since this stuff is based out of PA there are a bunch of Turkey Hill gas stations where their entire line is available. In the past I would have stocked up on all of them, but I only bought this single, smaller, bottle. The game has officially ended.

This is a heavily sweetened black tea (48g of sugar in 16oz) with some real orange juice mixed in. It tastes like a fairly even ratio. While I appreciate the use of real juice, and it does effect the flavor in a positive way, it seems like if they're going to make that effort, they should have used real sugar instead of corn syrup. The sweetener they chose gives the tea a cheap taste that is just unfortunate.

You may find yourself wondering what my new game is, and I can safely say that it is soft pretzels from Philly/Wawa. The amount of them I eat while there is enough to choke a baboon.

Let it be known that I am not a huge fan of NYC. It's dirty, a good majority of the people are rude, and I hate the idea of being a faceless identity in a sea of people. Two things the city does have going for it are a nice variety of veggie food and great drink selections sat all the corner stores. It's been awhile since I have been overwhelmed by what beverages store carry, but the bodega in which I found this chia tea did just that. I spent way too long making my selections, and this came out one of the victors.

If I had come across this s year ago my mind would have been blown, but since then a couple other companies have emerged that have used chia seeds in their beverages. I'm not talking down on this drink, because it is something I really enjoyed. It has a good semi sweetened peach green tea flavor. That alone would make it a drink that I would keep my eyes open before, but on top of that the chia seeds give it a nice unusual texture. They also make it more beneficial health wise as they boost omega 3 and 6, fiber and calcium.

On a side note you have to love that the seeds are the first item on the ingredients list. There are literally more seeds in here than beverage. Ridiculous.

I have to admit that my knowledge of Rio is solely that there is a giant statue of what I believe is Jesus and little tidbits that I picked up from reading Carioca Fletch. That's right, I so cultured that I've read a bunch of the books that spawned two of the funniest movies ever, and yes I did hear Chevy Chase in my head as I read them. Oh yeah, I also have some friends who have a cat named Rio. Does that count for anything? No? I didn't think so.

Okay, so I'm going into this with limited knowledge, but that knowledge has expanded now that I know that yerba mate is grown there. That alone gives the city a thumbs up from me. I love yerba mate. It has such a distinctive unique taste in the world of teas.

As Mike likes to point out in every review he does of a lemon flavored beverage, I am not a huge fan of the fruit. Sure I love lemonade, but just adding it to another beverage that is not solely lemon just doesn't do much for me. I'd have to say the same goes for this drink. I would have preferred it to be straight up tea, but I cannot deny that it tastes pleasant. I also know that there is a world of people out there who love the lemon flavor, so I won't hold it against this drink. It tastes exactly as it's advertised; just like you brewed a pot of yerba mate, mixed in some lemon juice (not too much) and put it in the fridge to cool down for an hour. If you are a fan of lemon iced teas, and are looking for something a bit different, look no further. The future awaits you.

When my ladyfriend was down in NC visiting her sister a few weeks ago, she sent me a message raving about the iced tea that she got at Bojangles (a fast food chicken place down in the bottom states). She also told me that had it bottled and she was going to bring me home some. When I saw it I was relived to find there was no cartoon chicken on the label trying to sell the product. There is something intermittently creepy about a chicken selling out his/her own kind in order to make a few bucks. I just want to grab their little feathers and shake the hell out of them and scream, “THEY ARE KILLING YOUR PEOPLE!” So yeah, good job on that guys.

Unfortunately they did not as good of a job making this tea. After taking a sip, my ladyfriend announced that this was completely different from what she drank in the restaurant. What she described as authentic southern sweet tea had now become a step above sweetened liquid plastic. There are no ingredients or anything listed on the bottle, so I can only assume they melted down some plastic, added some tea powder and a whole mess of sugar and bottled it. This is probably the single worst iced tea I have ever tasted.

If this line of beverages is any indication, I believe I am long overdue for a trip to the Philippines. So far we have reviewed mango, calamansi and guava juices, and now we're on to pineapple. That's one hell of a foursome of juices to have readily available in your country. Do you like how I assume that all of those fruits grow rampant everywhere? Oh of course you can walk down any block in the Philippines and pick each of these fruits from trees you will pass. It's just like in America where you can't look more than 50 feet without finding apples, pears and grapes.

The other juices from this brand that we have done have had sugar added to them. It was unnecessary, but I could live with it and enjoy the juice. With this pineapple juice, they decided to throw caution to the wind and leave out the sugar. It was a wise choice. All that is in this can is pineapple juice, it's not sweetened and it's not watered down. It's wonderful, and not too acidic. It tastes like you're biting into a fresh pineapple that you cut from the bush you just passed on vacation, except you don't have to fear about your tongue bleeding from the amount of acid in it. Life is good in the Philippines.

I don't know what these fruits are furious about. Perhaps it's because they are being referred to as tropical, and they are all everyday heart of America fruits, except for the pineapple. Have the rest of the fruits worked themselves up into a tizzy because the pineapple is getting a higher billing than them? Well if it's the apples and grapes that we're talking about, that would be understandable. They are doing all the grunt work (they are the only two fruits mentioned by name on the ingredients list, the rest falls under natural flavors) and they get very little of the credit. Isn't that how it always is, the work of many is exploited by the few?

I really hope that our friend cherry isn't putting up much of a fuss. He may not be at the top of the marquee, but he certainly is the star of the show. Everything else melds together into a generic fruit punch flavor, but it's that small billed cherry whose performance shines through. Isn't that what is most important, to be the name on everyone's lips once the curtain falls?