Welp. For us so far, that's zero for three. I feel like Jay Street did not sign off on this and might have just let this slide out of the door. It's boring and chalky. I am not a connoisseur of coffee, let it be known, but if I gave this to someone who more avidly drinks coffee, I think they would agree. I enjoyed the initial two sips and then it was just like drinking the equivalent of watching paint dry. I'll leave it at that.

Since I have not been presented with evidence to tell me otherwise I am forced to believe that bears are used to harvest the berries that are used to flavor this soda. From what I have seen, the animals are not harmed, or even caged. They roam free through the Rocky Mountains and just return to the bottling plant with their huge paws just full of blackberries. I have no idea how the folks at this company worked this deal out, but perhaps they have been in touch with the folks at Sprecher, who also employ several species of animals. Just imagine bears coming up to the back door of the factory, dropping their days gatherings and receiving a nice chin scratch in return…€¦adorable.

The bears gather only the ripest berries and the result is a soda that has a fantastic, light berry flavor that tastes nothing short of authentic. The use of beet sugar as a sweetener makes sure that it doesn't; taste overly sugary, but it also doesn't give it that generic soda flavor, since the berry taste isn't overpowering. It's one of the best berry sodas I have ever tasted, and that is a flavor that I am very particular about.

I will say that you folks are playing with fire though. Statistically there simply must be at least one mauling per year. I guess the math must just work out to make it cost effective. I guess I would also take my chances though because I totally want to just hang out with that bear, lounging around and eating excess berries.

Hey folks, I'm here to dismiss the myth that cowboys are all whiskey and sarsaparilla. They are not two dimensional beings; they have more depth than that. One top of those two classic beverages cowboys also love lemonade. Actually that's it. Cowboys only drink whiskey, sarsaparilla and lemonade. They just don't have a taste for anything else, well of course they do love beans cooked on an open fire, but we're talking beverages here folks. Does the banner at the top of this page read “Hungry Dudes?” I think not.

Jackson Hole makes some very special sodas and I can now report to you that they also make some kinda great lemonades. This beverage is very tart, but at the same time it's very sweet, like proper lemonade should be. There is 42g of sugar in this bottle, which I wish I didn't know, but I'll force myself to forget that fact. The lemon juice used to make this is from concentrate, but the huckleberry juice is not. That leads to a nice tartness, as lemon juice concentrate can be very strong, and for a great berry taste. One thing that is for certain is that this is not a beverage for gulping, but instead it was formulated for sipping on horseback out of the range. That is on the extremely rare occasions that cowboys had access to ice.

A real conversation that I had with Jay:


Mike: I bought a Jay Street Coffee from Big Lots and it's made by Ito En. That's strange.
Jason: I reviewed on of them awhile back and it was kinda grozzzz.
Me: Welp, let's see if caramel macchiato is any better.
Jason: Here's to hoping!
Me: Too late. It's kind of grozz.
Jason: Bummer. I've eaten 6 soft pretzels so far today. I think that makes me invincible
Me: I think that's the recipe.
Jason: I will continue to ingest a steady stream of them

Real talk between two grown adults.

Yeah, it's gross, though. It tastes dusty. It tastes like the powdered condensed milk is still partially powdered and chalky. The flavor is...fine...at best. It's just so overwhelmed with that faux milk that it doesn't really taste like coffee. It doesn't taste awful but it does stick with you too long like that girl you date in high school that just can't take the hint that you're trying to break up with her. She'll get it, but you're not getting out easy.

Enjoy your pretzels, Jay. Enjoy your pretzels, everyone.

Sure this expired almost two years ago. Sure I am the one to drink it. I don't want to say that my standards are higher than Jay's, but I will say that I throw caution to the wind a little sooner when it comes to expiration dates. Also, what can go bad, right? It's just concentrated fruit juice.

Since this had sugar in it, I knew that I didn't have anything to worry about. Rhubarb is a bitter thing, man. This was well sweetened because it had an adequate amount of sugar and a minimal amount of that bitterness. It's actually pretty darn good. A four to one, water to concentrate makes it and then you're done. I thought it was a regular drink and then I saw there were directions and was honestly a little disappointed. Not in the fact that it was "more work" but just that I wanted to drink it and call it a day. Now I've got an eighty percent full container of mix that will probably go to waste since no one else will touch it because it's so old. Such is the life of a drink mix in the presence of people who care about expiration dates.

I love Polar. I should say that I have learned to love Polar. My mom has drunk it for years and for all of those years I thought it was gross. Since then, I have learned to love it. With the excess of sugar on my plate at any given time, it's so nice to calm down for once and just drink something with unaltered, unadulterated flavor.

This one falls a little flat for me, though. Normally the flavors are a bit bolder and cherry and lime is a wonderful combination but this was a bit too subtle for me. Subtle might be a secret way of saying "I wish the flavors were stronger" but I can't be sure. Since it's sugarless, flavor and carbonation is really all it has going for it and it was plenty carbonated. I don't want to say it was flavorless because it did taste like both lime and cherry but...more. I just want more. Now I sound like my girlfriend. More more more. Greed has become of me. I have become greed. Together we are one and our name is "more." Alas, it is my destiny. I must accumulate.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I miss a time when soda brands all had their own individual nuances. Every cola had its own little quirk and that is what made them special. For the most part these days there is just a general cola flavor that a majority of the companies have adopted. Perhaps corn syrup is to blame. I'm not really sure, but it's a total bummer. With the resurgence of cane sugar and “throwback” Coke and Pepsi the differences seem to be more noticeable, but it's treated like a novelty. Foxon Park treats their sodas differently. They want them to be special and classic, which is exactly how this bottle of Kola tastes. Don't be thrown off by the switching of letters this most definitely is a cola, but it tastes the way sodas would back in the day. It has its own specifics even though it is part of a crowd. It doesn't taste like a Coke, a Pepsi, or even an RC. It tastes like Foxon and I am a fan. I hope to come across their other flavors in the near future.

Did you know that there is a war going on in Australia? It's not the type of thing you would imagine, but it gets pretty rough. The native animals of the continent flat out hate each other and they will just tear into each other if presented the chance. It's a hatred as old as time, but in recent years they have somehow directed their pride into the soda flavors that are created by their national treasure Bundaberg. The koalas hold the rights to the burgundee creaming soda, wallabies run for the passion fruit, wombats fight for peachee, dingoes fight for root beer, and of course kangaroos are running the show with the most sought after soda of all; ginger beer. They are straight up like soccer hooligans out there in the outback. They just gang up on each other, fighting to prove that their soda is the best.

An underdog in this fight is the platypus. They tend to not get involved. Most people say it's because they would be destroyed by the bigger animals in the fight, but their venomous spike on their back heels can do quite a bit of damage. The truth is that the platypus knows that their soda, blood orange, may not be the best as it has a few flaws, but they love it all the same and they don't need anyone else knowing how great it is. They want it all for themselves. Their soda is made with actual blood orange juice from concentrate and not some weird chemical equivalent. You can taste that level of commitment in the soda. Sure it has a yeast brewed quasi alcoholic taste to it, but once you become acclimated to that it's a wonderful ride. Other animals on the island have been trying to draw out the platypus by making unfounded claims that their soda is no different than any store brand orange soda. The weird creatures that are filled with venom just sit back and laugh at this. They know their blood orange soda is so much more; It's much darker and flavorful. They just stay out of it all sipping on their soda while the rest of the animal population of Australia destroys itself. They may indeed someday inherit the nation.

I have never had a diet beverage that was passion fruit flavored before. The entire concept seems like an oxymoron since it's such a sweet fruit. It feels like the amount of sugar naturally contained in a single passionfruit would be more than the allotted amount in a drink labeled as diet, or low calorie. I guess this has no real juice in it, so that makes sense. I don't know what dastardly lab tech created an artificial passionfruit flavoring. It seems like something science should not tamper with. It's a perfect fruit and if life were a movie tampering in it would bring upon the end times. I think we are probably safe though as it doesn't have a very strong passionfruit taste. It is also not very diet tasting. I will accept the one if it keeps the other at bay. It's not the best. It's also not the worst. It's just sort of there and it gives you a decent energy burst. A portion of each sale goes to the breast cancer research, so I feel perfectly fine about purchasing this.

I have experienced very few things that were more miserable than being extremely sick while being on tour. Once it hits you're done for. The chances of getting a good night's sleep are few and far between, you're stuck in a germ cave of a van for a good portion of the day, and a good deal of the time finding/having time for healthy food is a dream. When I was out recently I felt a little worn down and that familiar tickle was in my throat, so I did my best (and succeeded) in keeping that sickness at bay. I doubled up on vitamins (including far too many Emergen C packets), I took it easy and slept whenever it was an option, and I drank a whole mess of juice. We had a six hour drive to Phoenix from El Paso so when we stopped for gas I ran into the grocery store across of the street and picked this little guy up.

The three main flavors in here are all antioxidant heavy, so I thought it would be a good choice. These are juices that are normally on the harsher side of things, but in this beverage that were shockingly smooth. Maybe it's because the cranberry and blueberry juice came from reconstituted concentrate, or maybe it was the base of apple juice that did it. Either way, it wasn't rough on my throat, which was a little sore and it tasted just fine. Overall it tastes like a nice amalgamation of all three of the juices mentioned in the flavor, without any of them particularly sticking out.

My only qualm is that it boasts to have no sugar added, but there is stevia extract in it (in my book a sweetener) and to be fair it was pretty sweet from the apple juice. Sure there was no “actual” sugar added, but there were definitely some sweeteners involved in its creation. Oh well I still enjoyed it, and thank the company for their participation in keeping me healthy.

A kid I work with doesn't really know what lemonade really tastes like. I don't know how. If you have made it to your twenties, you should know what lemonade tastes like. I asked if he wanted this. He declined. I don't know why. Maybe it was because I told him not to judge all lemonades by this "functional" lemonade. I'm not judging this based off lemonade but just saying that since this is not trying to be "just lemonade," it should not be reviewed as such.

So how is it? It's surprisingly good. Smooth. There is no bite. It's clearly lemonade but is smoother and doesn't have any of that natural sour bite that something derived from lemons would have. It splits sweet duty with Stevia so there is a little bit of that but way down in the mix like when you said your girlfriend could sing backups in your bands recording and you potted her way down in the mix where it's almost negligible whether she is there or not. Sure, she can tell her friends she's on the record and sure she'll get credits in the linear notes but she gave an "old fashioned" to the drummer so she can do whatever she wants because she sucks.

I think I've reached the point where I am more often disappointed by hibiscus drinks than I am stoked about them. To clarify, I still think they are more than tasty, but the first couple that I ever tried blew my socks off and that is the barometer that I go by. It's not really fair because those original drink had other spices added to them and this like most other beverages of this specific flavor tend to be just straight hibiscus added to tea or in this case lemonade. These just can't compete to the spiced goodness of say a True Brew tea.

What we have here is mostly lemonade with a light hibiscus taste. The level of hibiscus is rivaled by the weird plastic taste from the bottle. I don't know what makes some drinks taste like that. The bottle says it's BPA free. Oh well this is still decent enough. I want more, but what I want was never really on the menu, so I can't really be upset.

Starbucks. Woah. You really nailed it with this thing. It's sparkling makes a huge difference. The pineapple kicks it up another notch because it gives it a little sting. Then, as if that wasn't enough, I love the Passion tea. It's got that licorice that makes me feel kind of funny. Like when we used to climb the ropes in gym class.

This drink rules and if I get back into "the States" and they don't have it, I'm going to be very disappointed. Please be waiting for me when I get home. Wear something sassy or sultry. Not both. One or the other.

I'm pretty sure this is the same as the Frozen Hot Chocolate but I will pretend that drink doesn't exist so I can review this limited time, Toronto based drink that I found.

This is basically a totally chocolate Iced Capp. Where there is some vague and minimal amount of coffee included in those, this is straight chocolate, son. Chocolate whipped cream and chocolate drizzlin's make this one Chocolageddon of a drink.

This drink isn't smooth, really. Not until you do all the work and blend the whippin's with the base and get something that is pretty smooth. Take note, Tim. That should be how this is done.

While I spend time with my dumb family in Toronto, I will be sure not to look back at this decision I made. Was it bad? No. It was guiltily delicious. It's like that time you were sixteen and J.O.'d like nine times. It was great but not really something you're proud of.

Although I have never watched it I will just assume that this soda was created as a companion piece for the television show Becker. All I know about it is that it starred Ted Danson and he was a doctor. For all I know it could have been a spin off from Cheers where Ted went into witness protection, changed his name and got a PhD. Let's pretend that's the case. Let's also pretend that Dr Becker also always has a hankering for off-brand Dr. Pepper. He loves the real thing, but no longer feels he can support them because they never sent him his “I'm a Pepper” shirt he ordered when he was a teenager. As a result there is a continuing sub-plot of the show where every episode he tries another brand, but they are never as good. In the series finale he finally finds a brand called Dr Becker and it's everything he dreamed of. It tastes like a classic Dr Pepper made with cane sugar, but with a splash of black cherry in it. It's not syrupy at all. It's the soda of Becker's dreams and as he takes his final sip, he looks at the can and gives a little smile as the credits roll. Now that's good TV.

At our show in Atlanta I went on an adventure with fellow soda enthusiast/bassist Dakota Floyd to find the elusive Brood Soda. We walked about a mile through somewhat rain to get to the store only to find that they no longer carry it. Luckily it wasn't a complete bust and I stumbled upon this beverage. I was bummed that they didn't have Brood, and I wasn't even looking forward to this, but was it ever a treat. It ended up being the best thing I have drank in quite some time.

This is a watermelon agua fresca that actually tastes like watermelon and not a gross fake candy. It's really smooth, but the flavor is so perfect and specific that it tricks my mouth into thinking that I can make out the texture of perfectly wipe watermelon (aka the only time that this specific fruit it truly great). The ginger and lime are there, but not as strong and merely serve to make the watermelon shine more brightly. The lime gets stronger in the aftertaste, but it never overpowers the melon. This is the perfect beverage for hot humid weather. Califia Farms has transitioned from coffee drinks into wonderful juice.

Dear World, Can we please put a memoritorium on adding banana juice/puree that are not specifically banana flavored things? I understand that they are fairly healthy and work as a nice thickening agent, but it's normally such an overwhelming flavor, and I for one am not a fan of it. So many juices in my life have been ruined by the inclusion of this dumb mushy fruit. Luckily Purity Organic used it sparingly, and while I could still detect it, it did not overpower the rest of the flavors. If this were a lesser drink I would have had a sip or two and left the rest to someone else, but Purity does not mess around and minus the folly of banana I really enjoyed it.

The other ingredients are apple, chia, blackberry, red beet, ginger and blueberry. That is quite the team they have assembled and some weird early 90's cartoon could have been based around them fighting evil. Saturdays mornings were strange during that time in our nations history. The chia has been ground up, and instead of juice there is puree used. The result is that this is fairly thick in an interesting way. All of the flavors are present, but the apple and blackberry are the leaders of this crime-fighting gang, hence they got top billing. I think in season two we are going to find out that banana is really a double agent and things are going to get interesting.

Tommy, you have been drinking far too many energy drinks. I can assure you that they are not improving your gaming skills. Sure, they might help you stay up until the early hours of the morning, but you're a teenage you should have no problem staying up that late anyway. I mean you don't wake up until noon. Fine, I can't handle your whining, you can have some sort of energy drink, but it has to be one of these natural ones and not that chemical swill you and your friends like to down. Also, you have to agree to go outside and have fun with your friends. Go and cause a little trouble, you're young that's what you're supposed to do, not sit in front of the TV all summer. Good, then it's a deal. Here have this can of V8. Don't look at me like that it isn't that gross tomato juice stuff, V8 has expanded their line. This is sweet potato and carrot juice with fruit juice and green tea extract mixed in. Trust me, it tastes fantastic. You don't even notice the juices except for the orange and pineapple. It has some underlying flavor that I can't really place, but it just makes it taste more interesting.

Tommy, the thing about this energy drink is that it won't give you the jitters and will make you actually play your games better with steady hands. See I'm looking out for you. It's just caffiene and B vitamins. It's also on the healthier side because it's 34% juice and it's low in calories. I know you don't care about these things, but I'm your parent and it's my duty to look out for you when it comes to these things. Okay now live up to your end of the deal and go outside. I'm calling Johnny house and if you're there you're grounded mister!

This is an entry-level tea for everyone. There is a light green tea, light melon, light lemon and light peppermint. It's subtle everything which makes for a pretty good tea. If some of these flavors were too intense, it would make it too definitive or too much of one particular type but since everything is one the same, low level, you're left with an even, well put together drink.

Sometimes I ice my tea. In this case, this is what I did. It makes for a great iced tea. I think that iced green tea allows the bitterness of green tea to shine through a little bit and that's what green tea should taste like. I think that if I drank it hot, the lemon might have shined through but I would have missed the melon a bit. I think I made the right decision and I think I found a tea that, if I had more of, would be a "go to" in these warm, end-of summer, days.

This smells terrible. It doesn't make sense because it tastes totally different. I hate to describe it to V8 but it's essentially a slightly sweeter V8. So why didn't I finish the carton? It got old. I don't know what makes V8 different. It could be the viscosity. This is thin. Almost like a more traditional juice. I have no idea short of them super juicing everything that comes through the front door about how they get it so thin. What's the advantage of that? Leave a little oomph in there, why don't you? The thinner the juice, the more waste you probably have. What are you doing with the waste, huh? Hopefully feeding it to turtles. Turtles love juice waste. I know this for a fact. I know that this an average drink that tastes better than it smells and that turtles love to eat the waste of juicing.