Other/Weird - 154 Reviews

I know that to everyone out there it sounds like being a part of Thirsty Dudes is a nonstop party. I mean sure, Mike and I have abandoned our families and live in a giant penthouse in the fanciest of buildings downtown. Sure, we race motorcycles everywhere we go, including both the public and private elevators to our penthouse. You know how some nicer fridges have a filtered water tap built into the door? Ours dispenses ice cold sarsaparilla. We have an entire freezer that is filled with nothing but green tea ice cream mochi. That doesn't make us any different than you our mild mannered readers. We still ride our prototype hoverboards one push at a time just like you. We are still humbled when companies send us advance flavors before they hit the market. Actually, that makes us feel pretty special. It's not the millions of dollars we have made from reviewing these drinks that fill us with a sense of pride, it's the little things like this.

When a package arrived the other day of the three flavors of the new Steaz cactus water line, I was pumped. You know pumped like when I ride the zip line down from our penthouse to the hot dog cart a few blocks away. I couldn't wait to review it and help get the word out on a product I was sure was going to be fantastic. The problem was that I was completely incapacitated from the flu. I didn't leave the couch, except to crawl to the rest room for about 72 hours. I thought it was the end of my life of luxury and leisure. As it does, time passed and my health returned and here I am enjoying a can of starfruit and green tea cactus water, even if it is a few days later that I would have liked it to be.

It was worth the wait folks. This is delicious. Cactus water is basically nature's version of Gatorade and it is far superior to what has been dumped on coach's heads for decades. It is high in antioxidants, reduces inflammation and is just chock full of electrolytes. This is sweet, smooth, and fruity. The green tea tastes is only vaguely there in the aftertaste, but the starfruit is right up front with the sweetness of the cactus water. There is some stevia in the mix as well, but I wouldn't really have guessed that from the taste, which is a sign of proper use of any zero calorie sweetener. Steaz has not disappointed.

I wonder how many cans of this it would take to fill one of those Gatorade coolers. I'll need to use the power of science to figure that out so I can be prepared for our next air hockey tournament up in the loft. I'm going to destroy Mike and then have the butler dump this on me when I win. Just like the champ I am.

If you are like Mike and I, then you probably resemble a child more than an adult and you also probably don't have a taste for coffee, but you have an affinity for mocha drinks. Just think about how we, and yes I'm including you in this mix up, would love to put that delicious chocolate-ness in a better base. The sky is the limit my friends and that is just what REBBL is reaching for.

For this mocha elixir coffee has been thrown to the curb. In it's place we have a mixture of coconut milk, chicory root, carob, maca extract, vanilla extract, pink salt, quillaja extract and stevia. I'm not ashamed to admit that I am a big dumb-dumb head and I assumed that maca was the same thing as macha, which it definitely is not. I thought this was going to be a chocolate green tea of sorts, but that it is not. Maca is actually a root vegetable that is known to enhance vitality, stamina and energy. I don't think that I can even taste the maca, but it's doing its job. Actually, besides from the ridiculously great chocolate flavor most of what I get is the coconut. It tastes a bit like toasted coconut but it's not too overpowering, which is great because I can't stand toasted coconut, and I can still love this beverage. I also get a bit of chicory, which I can only distinguish because I was forced to drink coffee in New Orleans where this root is mixed in with the beans. It, and I'm assuming the maca, give this elixir a nice earthy rooty undertone without distracting from the chocolate. Oh the chocolate, how we love you. How perfect you are.

Gazpacho, right? Never eaten the stuff. You know what I have done, though? I've drank it. You know what else I've done? I really liked it. I would eat this and I would drink it. I would use this as a meal replacement. This is more of a bisque than a tomato soup which I like because tomato soup is a vile, revolting putrid food. This, though, this is good. It's got a good texture and you can taste everything. Tomato, onions, cucumbers and everything.

I half expected this to be gross. It's soup in a bottle. Who drinks soup? Crazy people. That's who. Whom? Who cares? Whom cares?

Today Mike and I went on the Buffalo Eats podcast (Eat it Up) for the third time. As per usual we laughed a lot and talked very little about actual drinks. We decided to drink this “on the air” because we thought it would be disgusting and our reactions would make for good fake radio. This is a switchel, which for those of you not in the know is a drink made with vinegar. Yeah that's right, that disgusting alleged foodstuff, vinegar. It also has maple syrup, ginger and blueberry juice in it, but how could those ingredients possibly compete again the vileness that is vinegar, a product of rotting?

We popped the top right into the mic and the air was instantly filled with the scent of coloring Easter eggs. Ugh. We poured a glass for each of us and down the hatch it was. Shockingly it wasn't nearly as bad as I had anticipated. It tasted like someone made blueberry maple water in a glass that had previously held vinegar, but hadn't been washed properly. I can't believe I wasn't punched in the face by the grossness. There was a bit of a ginger taste in the tail end, but the vinegar was there more in scent and thought instead of actual taste. If the smell wasn't there I might not had noticed it at all.

I'm aware that vinegar is very healthy for you, but it's not enough for me to drink it, and I won't be revisiting this again. If your taste buds happen to be broken and you like things such as vinegar, cilantro and various other disgusting things, well then chug away my friend.

"They can't all be winners" is a perfect phrase for this drink. Based off the other ones that I reviewed, this is at the bottom of the totem pole. Also, I mean no offence to anyone who may find fault in my zero knowledge of totem poles. Are the best guys on top? I mean, I guess he's the most protected but he's also the guy who has to fall the furthest and would receive the most damage from falling. I guess no one wants to be the guy on the bottom because he's kind of an open target. Everyone else is on his shoulders and can't go very fast to defend the weapons that are slicing his innards up. But I digress.

Mixed fruits? Eh, it kind of tastes like a spicy candle. It's slightly plasticy tasting. Sure, it might be good for me but I don't get a lot of cheerful fruitiness out of it. According to the all-knowing label, it's got pineapple, grape and apple juice in it. That is a mixed variety of fruit but the turmeric is strong in this one. It does not taste like a spicy fruit punch but now that I think about it, I don't know if I would have wanted it.

I would be fine skipping this one for the other ones and I do not want to be anywhere near this guy's position wherever it may be on the proverbial totem pole. I feel like there are better roles than that in war.

Remember in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when the Nazi lets the woman choose the grail and she chooses poorly and when he drinks it he instantly ages, rots, and turns to dust? That was pretty sweet wasn't it? I mean not as sweet as when they open the Ark of the Covenant, but still really sweet. What they didn't show in the movie was that if Indy had filled the proper wooden grail up with the water it would have turned into turmeric golden milk aka the elixir of life. That is actually the backstory of this company. The movie is actually a documentary that was shot in real time. What they didn't catch on film was that the grail was eventually stolen by an unknown person. What is known is that this company got their hands on it and now everyone has the key to eternal life in the form of hemp milk.

Eternal life has a nice thickness to it. It also tastes like it has a very close familial relationship with chai latte. It's not like a brother or sister, but more of the cool cousin that lives out of state and who only makes it home one a year for Xmas or Thanksgiving. At that time they marvel the rest of the family with their tales of an exotic bohemian life. You would think that they were being a jerk, but that have such charisma that everyone loves them. That's exactly what this drink is. The combination of hemp milk, coconut cream, honey, turmeric, ginger, cardamom, chia, sea salt, vanilla bean, and cassia leaves you with an overall sense of well being. Not only that, but it taste delicious. That is hard to achieve, but I guess the Holy Grail helps.

I was legitimately frightened to drink this. We got a new intern at work and I thought it would be great to let him "blind taste test" this. The joke was on me because it's actually good. I've had other turmeric drinks but this is different. The lemon and ginger give it a slight burn that I couldn't get enough of. There is no "Indian food" feel at all. It's somehow smooth yet "hot." It's as if you had a ginger beer and calmed that son of a gun down with some honey.

This intern is going to have to pay double time next time because if someone gave this to me, they'd never get it back. I was wrong to judge it and will buy it again and again. Thanks for existing.

This just may be the oddest drink we've ever reviewed, at least the oddest “functional” beverage. This is a 3.38oz bottle of a beverage whose sole purpose is to promote hair health care. According to their website this beverage is supposed to help with the reduction of greying and thinning hair. They tell of the science behind this through the use of broken English on their page. I personally do not suffer from thinning hair nor am I going grey, so I can't attest to whether it works or not, but who am I to argue with science.

What I can report is on taste and I am happy to tell you that it is not nearly as bad as I had anticipated. Like with most shot beverages I expected it to taste like runoff from a nuclear plant, luckily it just tastes like some weird cranberry juice. It definitely has a cranberry base, but it's not overly tart and there is something else that that I can't pin down. It reminds me of something I had in my childhood, but I can't remember what, which is vaguely infuriating. It could just be the sucralose making it weird, but not completely diet tasting. I want to say it tastes like something I won at a pizza place/arcade like Major Magics or Chuck E Cheese, because those sorts of places keep popping in my mind. Perhaps Charles Cheese used to down these things. He always did have a nice coat of fur on him.

As a side note there is a weird notation on the bottle that says, “Hair King Drink does not prevent intoxication.” I would really like to know the circumstances that led them to including that little message.

Can someone check with Dante for me and find out exactly what circle of hell drinking bananas (the most hated of all fruits) falls in? I think it's either in the hoarders or the wrathful, but I'm not exactly sure. As you may have guessed, this is simply not for me. I don't know if I can stress that enough. For those of you out there that have mutated taste buds who are confused and think that bananas taste great, you're going to more than likely love this. Imagine blending up some ripe bananas and then thinning out the muck with some soy milk. There you go, you now know what this tastes like and do what you will with that knowledge. I personally will run away in fear.

There's no other way to put this, Organic Gemini's strawberry horchata tastes like I through some strawberries in a blender with a bit of non-dairy milk to make it more of a liquid consistency. It's even got some seeds in it, just like when I juice at home. I expected it to taste like a variation of Strawberry Quik, but it really just tastes like juiced fruit, which is the key to my heart. . It's by far my favorite of their line, and I'm glad they sent us some advance samples to try. I have nothing bad to say about something that tastes so natural.

I feel like "bee pollen" is something you could be wildly allergic to. I'm no doctor but just the thought of people being deadly allergic to bees and annoyingly allergic pollen doesn't sound like something that is going to push a lot of product.

Since I am not allergic to either of the aforementioned allergens I dove headfirst into the world of bee pollen. Now I love honey. I love it. Horchata, namely this brand of horchata has been a bit iffy because of its watery nature. All the same, I took a small, beginners sip and it wasn't half bad. You can taste the honey first followed by the strange, bland taste of the horchata. Now before you hit "Send" on the angry email you are writing to me, listen. This is what it is. If you're going to have a dairy-free, gluten free drink primarily based on something that, I'm pretty sure, is supposed to be gluten-full, you're going to have to make some changes. The change they made was adding a pretty fantastic, albeit short lived, honey flavor. Fine. I get it. It's healthy and there are no additional sugars or anything fake in. Credit where credit is due, this is a honey flavored, strangely viscous drink. I know Jay and I sound like broken records when we're reviewing these products but when you base product leaves a bit to be desired, you're going to have similar results in the end. You can also chalk this up to any of the following:

• Different Strokes for different folks
• It's not for everyone
• Every rose has it's thorn
• A rabbi and a nun walk into a bar
• I want to say "Mason"

Why am I drinking this? I have fine hair? How do I have such wonderful hair? Well for one, I hardly ever wash it. Call it gross but look at my hair. It's just fine. It's never thirsty and doesn't have any product in it ever. I am drinking this to review and if it gives me even better hair I shall pass the benefits off to you so that we all may have glorious locks day in and day out.

What do I think of how it tastes, though? Well let's see. With every sip I feel like I'm drinking something I shouldn't be. Sure, it's lemon lime but you can get lemon lime Pledge and that's not edible at all. This is right on the cusp of being called "syrupy" so to have it have a strange viscosity and taste a bit like a mix between a kids lemon lime Huggy and a floor cleaner, that's a dangerous place. A dangerous place much like lying in bed with me with the fear of getting your hands caught in my impending more glorious “do”.

So after the spoiled disaster that was the last time I tried this beverage (you can read it below), Organic Gemini was nice enough to send me another bottle. I am happy to say that this one no longer tastes like dumpster juice smells. I have to say, it's not quite what I expected though.

When I was a kid I loved the way coffee grounds smelled. I would always open the can and take a big whiff. At some point, for no explainable reason, I started to eat the smallest pinch of coffee grounds when I would smell it. I chalk it up to the strangeness of youth. It was by no means enjoyable, yet I continued. The coffee flavor in here tastes like those coffee grounds, if they had actually brought me some pleasure. That sounds like a put down, but I'm actually okay with it. It just tastes more like grounds than actual brewed coffee. I let my ladyfriend try it, who is a coffee addict (mostly fancy brews) and she thought this was terrible. She said she couldn't tell if it was the coffee, the horchata or the dates, but after one sip she couldn't stomach another. I personally think she's just being picky. This by no means tastes like any of her fancy coffee, but it's not atrocious. It kind of reminds me of the Folgers my mom used to drink, you know with more of a grounds flavor. The dates do add a weird semi sweetness that I don't think it necessary, but I'm okay with this Spanish horchata latte.


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Here is the spoiled review:
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After drinking, and reviewing, the other organic Gemini flavors we knew what we were getting into. This Spanish horchata is more like a milk substitute than anything else. Knowing that I fully expected this to taste like a normal latte with tigernut as the milk. I cracked open the bottle took a big sip, and…€¦Choose either option A or B.
A:
was shocked to notice that it had a little bit of a fruit flavor to it. That would be due to the fact that it contains Medjool dates, weird right? They aren't overly strong though. It basically just tastes like a shot of coffee in a glass of milk, but the lack of sugar made it stand out from a lot of prepackaged coffee drinks.

B:
pretty much spit it everywhere. This was not what I expected. It tastes like the dumpsters in the back of the grocery store I used to work at smelled on a hot summer day when someone would throw the expired milk in it. That's right IL said it tastes like dumpster juice. It also has a weird fruity taste to it from the Medjool dates. To be honest it also smelled like gross, gross feet. I must have not breathed in when I took that sip, or I doubt it would have crossed my lips. There is hardly any coffee taste to this at all, it just tastes wrong.

Every part of me wants to give the company the benefit of the doubt and say that this bottle has gone bad. The thing is that when it was shipped to us, it was in ice packs, and I instantly put it in the fridge. It also has about a week before the expiration date. I hope something went wrong in transit, because the other flavors were actually decent. Option A is based on other people's reviews of the product and since everyone else seemed to really enjoy it, I'm going to pretend that was how my drinking experience went.

Chili oil. Natures gag gift. Oh, is this regular oil? Uh, no. It's chili oil and you just got pranked. Now your mouth is on fire and I'm sitting back laughing. Now, so that everything is out in the open, here I give to you chili oil Ramune. Now you can know what you're getting into. Is it hot like that prank chili oil? Hardly, bro. Hardly. It is a light tickling and, if anything, kind of a refreshing burn similar to one you would get from a light ginger beer but with a fruity pop instead of a...well...ginger. This is a mix between a kids party pop and "I'm an adult and I'm too old for fun and I like to feel pain when I drink" drink. Where are you on the teeter-totter of life. Whatever spectrum you identify with, this has your bases covered. I just wish there was more pain. I guess I know what side I'm on.

Now, listen. You will be happy to know that this is not only a review for a strange and odd drink but it is a milestone. No it's not a sweet sixteen or a sweet sixty. That stuff is for the birds. This review that you are reading right now is, get ready for it. This review is Thirsty Dudes' 4,000th review. That's right. Four thousand. This is not Europe or whatever where they use commas for decimals points and we have reviewed four and no thousandths drinks. This is America and we idiotically use the standard system of measurement and that comma denotes that we have reviewed four thousands drinks. To celebrate we have provided you with a video that we blew our entire marketing budget on. Our marketing budget is, but should not be, zero dollars.



Thank you to all the fans and if you see us, shake our hands. We have done a lot of drinking and it wasn't all for us. It was for you, the people. The fans. The groupies. The dedicated followers of us, the Thirsty Dudes.

About ten years ago soy milk became a common place thing in grocery stores. Sure it wasn't everywhere, but more than likely at least one store in your town would have it. It was a blessing for those who were lactose intolerant and those of us who just think that animal milk is absolutely disgusting by nature. Would you feed your cats breast milk? I'm assuming the thought of it completely disgusts you, so why are you drinking cow's breast milk?

Slowly it became more popular, and then almond milk hit the scene and made waves. It tasted better and was healthier. I drink unsweetened almond milk on my cereal every morning, and I love it. So do a lot of people because I keep seeing more and more of it.

My question now is will tigernut horchata be the next stage in the evolution of popular milk type beverages? This bottle is nothing but water and tigernuts and it tastes somewhere between soy and almond milk. I keep expecting there to be a banana aftertaste, but thank goodness that there is not. I've never been one to drink a glass of any sort of milk beverage, so drinking this seems a little strange. I can only say that it tastes like it would go great with my cereal though. I just wonder if it is cost effective.

Does this deserve to be in the "other/weird" category? No but it's not milk, it's not an energy drink. It's not a juice. It's not sparkling or gelatinous or really much of anything. It tastes like a watered down soy milk. Maybe an almond milk because I do get a bit of "nut" to it much like you would with an almond milk. In that case, take a ten ounce glass of almond milk and use water to stretch it out to fill a sixteen ounce glass because it's what the customer wants and the customer is always right. Well in this case, they're both "right" and "getting wronged" since they aren't getting 100% of what they asked for. Where is said customer going and asking for a horchata, by the way?

First sip and this is strange. I thought it was going to be a bit thicker but it's quite, well, thin. Second is that there is a trace amount of fruit brought to you by your good friend, the date. This is not terrible but I've had different horchata and had certain expectations. Perhaps the stuff I drank was garbage and this is closer to the real thing? I also thought there was cinnamon in there for some reason. If there was, this may have gotten a better review. For now, I guess the original is a bit beige. Perhaps a good base in which to add things to. Tofu by itself is kind of boring but add some spices and seasoning and it's a totally different animal. Ahh the elusive tofu bird. A delicious creature.

Well, consider me schooled. I first encountered horchata about ten years ago in a Mexican restaurant in Chicago. A friend heavily recommended that I get a glass, and I fell in love. It was a wonderfully sweet cinnamon rice drink. Since then I have always gotten a glass of it when it was available in restaurants. When I heard about Tigernut I was very pleased with the possibility of purchasing ready to drink versions of it outside of restaurants. The company was nice enough to send us some samples for review, and I couldn't help but go for the chai flavored one first. Horchata and chai are two flavors that I absolutely love, and I knew they would complement each other in the best possible way.

When I took my first sip I was a bit confused. You see there is no rice in this drink at all. The ingredient list says it contains water, tigernuts (actually a tuber and not a nut at all), dates, spices, and well…€¦love. It's nut, dairy and gluten free, but it also being void of rice had me questioning the company. I then did some research and discovered that what I am used to is the Latin American version of the drink. This is the version from Spain. Learning that helped to quell my disappointment. Now that I knew this was a completely different beverage I could enjoy it more, since I wasn't expecting ingredients that did not exist.

There is no dairy in here, but it's very milky. It really tastes like an ices chai latte. The spices taste real and not just a bunch of stuff jammed together. Essentially this tastes like a nice high end chai beverage. I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish it had some rice in it, but knowing what it is supposed to be, it has achieved exactly that in a tasty manner.

Does this bottle contain the secret to Mariah Carey's reported five octave vocal range? Is this a recreation of the potion she got from an old witch near a lake house while she was riding a tire swing? If it is the concoction doesn't work without some properly placed spell words, because I still can't sing correctly in on octave, let alone five.

One thing I can certainly say is that this tastes just like hone…€¦wait no that's night right. It does taste exactly like how I would imagine magical butterflies to taste though, and that is like some sort of berry Wonka candy. I mean that in the best possible way. I absolutely love this drink. It tastes like a tropical berry energy drink without the garbage that keeps me up all night with the shakes. There is even sucralose in here, which is normally the kiss of death for any drink, and it doesn't bother me at all, probably because there's so little of it. There's still 42g of sugar in this bottle. That's two servings of 21g of sweet, sweet gold.

Normally things that are overly sweet just aren't my bag these days. This really gets me though. It's got me feeling emotions. In fact they are deeper than I've ever dreamed of. Get me a convertible, a case of these drinks and let's celebrate the summer.

I would like to propose to all of the collegiate institutions out there that you offer a class about beverages. I don't know if every college is like this, but where I attended every student, no matter what their major needed to take at least three science classes. For most of the student body science had nothing to do with their major, so they (I) would take the easiest classes I could. I think a course named something like The Discipline of Beverages would attract a decent amount of students and be a nice break for everyone involved. The class could be all about how different beverages/sweeteners/flavors are created and the like.

A sample class would go something like this:
Hello class today we will be talking about the science behind maple drinks. You see there are a handful of companies out there nowadays that have maple flavored beverages. Perhaps it's to go along side of the bacon craze our country currently finds itself in. Most of these companies waste a lot of time and energy with their process. They take maple syrup and add water to it in order to put it into a liquid form. I know that sounds simple enough, but that is more steps than need to be taken. You see, in order to create maple syrup, one would put a tap into a maple tree, in order to procure the maple sap that is inside. Due to the improper nomenclature many people believe that this sap is actually pure maple syrup, those people are wrong. You see the “sap” is actually pretty thin, and not the sticky mess one would believe. That liquid that is removed is boiled down to create maple syrup. Now why would someone take the time to remove the water from something just to add it back again? The answer is because those people don't understand science. Work smarter, not harder my friends.

Now Better Sweet is a company that uses their brain. The only ingredient they have in their product is organic maple sap. They tap trees, and what comes out is what you get; pure organic maple water straight from the trees of Vermont. Due to their process they are also the only company of this type that is certified organic at this time.

I don't mean to turn my lecture into an advert, but if you love breakfast foods and all things maple, this is a drink you should try. It tastes like watered down pure maple syrup, because that is exactly what it is. If you don't have a taste for that sticky topping then why on earth would you ever want to try this? You know you're not going to like it.

Now I know that would need to be flushed out a bit more, but you get what I'm going for. It's science. It's learning. It's lazy. It's what college is all about to kids these days. Oh and I would fact check everything I said above before you teach it to students. I'm just passing along information that was fed to me.

I find it baffling that in the 4+ years that we have been doing Thirsty Dudes we have yet to review Yoo-Hoo. It's an American classic for cripes sake. When this was brought to our attention I started looking all over for a bottle or can of it, with zero luck. I feel like I would always come across it when I was out looking for other beverages to review, but when I'm finally in the market for it; zilch. I ended up settling for a pack of juice boxes. They aren't what I really wanted, because they aren't what I remember from my childhood, but I'll take what I can get.

As a child I would have been perfectly happy being in the Shining if when those elevator doors opened an ocean of Yoo-Hoo came pouring out instead of blood. I would have sucked up as much of it as I could until I puked. Then, I would have moved to a pukeless area of floor Yoo-Hoo and then licked that up. Sure attempted murder would be just around the corner, but who can care about a thing like that when you're covered in such a deliciously sweet chocolatey treat?

If you've never had Yoo-Hoo before I'm going to guess that you are under a certain age. When I was growing up this chocolate drink was all the rage. It's essentially a version of chocolate milk, even though the dairy in it comes from whey and caseinate (from milk) and nonfat dry milk. You know what they are right to call it a chocolate drink, but it is very similar to chocolate milk, without being as gross.

I really thought this would be fairly disgusting now that I am an adult, and I don't need cheap chocolate drinks in my life, but I have to admit, I still love it. There are way more ingredients in here than make me comfortable, but taste wise this is pretty darn good.