Oh what a different world we live in when things are backwards. Lemon & lime soda is very boring and I don't know a single person whose first choice it would be. Switch those two around and you got something. The science behind this is that lemons are boring and don't actually taste very good, even though “big lemon” has been trying to convince the world otherwise for decades. Limes on the other hand aren't just unripe lemons; they are their own fruit with a wonderfully bold flavor. This energy drink is most definitely heavier on the green instead of the yellow, and the result is an energy drink that is quite enjoyable and the opposite of boring. It definitely has the candied chemical classic energy drink undertones, but the lime is right there in your face like a mojito, minus the mint. There is also some lemon in there, but it's finally taking the back seat it has always deserved, but whined so much that it got shotgun. Dive in folks, the water is fine.

We're a couple months out from "Apple Mania" but that doesn't mean that we can't still enjoy apples. I remember watching a video a couple months back where people were making "fizzy fruit" by soaking them in dry ice. Where do you get dry ice? Are only scientists and friends and family of scientists allowed to eat a fizzy apple? That's unfair.

Well, one scientist broke the silence and now we, the public, can enjoy (probably) what a sparkling apple tastes like. Sure, the only crispness is in the title, but that's cool. Don't worry about it. Drink an apple. Yeah, drink an apple. Eating apples is so two thousand and late. Yeah, I did it. What? It was fitting.

Apples are great. This, you know what? This isn't bad. It's no apple but it's more quenching. It doesn't taste diet. It doesn't taste like candy. It doesn't taste like a shoe, but then again, why would it? If you eat an apple that tastes like a shoe, I don't know the policy of your local grocer, but you should return that batch and maybe shop elsewhere. It's sweet like an apple. Tastes like an apple. Great work, guys. You captured apples and fizzed up that essence. Yeah, sure, sparkling apple juice exists, already. This is more like a real apple.

Just churning it out, just churning out garbage. Some companies use high quality ingredients handpicked from local gardens. Those people are not these people. These people...these people. These people are making carbonated poison as far as I'm concerned. Look, it's not that bad. I mean, it's bad, don't get me wrong.

This has that strange, sharpness that you don't want in anything you ingest. I mean, there aren't any great fruit punches around but this is worse than your average bear and fruit punch. Fruity? Yep. Not anything you should find yourself drinking.

You've finally gone and done it; you beat life. It was the hardest game you've ever played, but you did it. You went to school. You had a family. You bought a house. You became a grandparent. You retired. You took up hobbies. All of your kids had relatively good lies, as did their children. Then you found yourself slipping off this mortal coil in relative peace, happy with the way everything went. Sure there were a few things you would have liked to have tried differently to see how they would turn out, but you know like everyone says “you only live once.”

Friend do I have news for you. All of those people were lying to you. You can live forever in unlimited timelines. You can make every decision however you like, and if you're unhappy with it, go back and try again…€¦that is if you were smart enough to down at least one shot of God Mode while you still walked the mortal realm. Science has come a long way my friends. It's had its setbacks, but then everything fell into place once those who bear the white coats realized that god is a jerk and this is all just a game. After that it was a simple mixing of some ingredients and voila, infinite health and infinite life. You're in charge.

To make matters even better, the shot tastes delicious. They decided to mask all of the important stuff in a blueberry green tea. Sure it has some stevia in it that gives it a bit of a cool diet taste, but overall it tastes like tea. It's the kind of thing you would happily drink a full glass of, and that is not common in shot beverages.

So there you have it. You can essentially become a god amongst men and do whatever you want: your life, your rules. I would be a little careful though. There are some batches that got mixed up with another mixture they were working on, so you either can do whatever you want, consequences be damned, or it will just help with cognitive function, focus, visual perception, stamina, problem solving ability, reaction time and just give you some energy that helps while playing video games.

Hey buddy, even though you look completely worn out, why don't you pop on over to the fuse box and open it up and see if you can figure out why the lights are working? I'm just kidding you brother, I just have the switch turned off. I'm trying to toughen up my eyes by reading in the dark. With the appending apocalypse you gotta be ready and you can bet your sweet ass that within two years electricity won't exist. I don't want to be that fool that can't read anything in the dark when that comes to pass. Seriously though check out the fuse box and get yourself one. Oh I'm sorry, I call my fridge the fuse box, because m I don't want to be that fool that can't read anything in the dark when that comes to pass. Seriously though check out the fuse box and get yourself one. Oh I'm sorry, I call my fridge the fuse box, because my mom keeps it stocked with Fuze drinks. She's been raggin' me about how I need to lose weight so she buys me the low calorie “Slenderize” ones. I don't know what she's talking about. These three bills will help me to stay alive at the end of the world. While all you skinny folks are withering away I'll be eating my own fat and prospering.

Oh man, you should have grabbed the blueberry raspberry one. It's actually got a bunch of juices in it. Okay it's mostly apple juice, but there are a bunch of other fruit and vegetable juices in it, even though they make up less than .5% of the ingredients. It tastes like a berry drink that is heavy on the blueberries, but the sucralose in it gives it a weird taste. It doesn't taste overly diet, but it's done something to the juice that makes it taste a bit off. Everything mixed together gives you a bunch of vitamins and minerals. It's pretty rad. I know my mom just thinks I'm fat, so she buys it because of the low sugar content ,but all that Super Citrimax and Chromium in my system is really going to come in handy when the world…€¦well you know where this is going. Prepare yourself brother!

Blueberry lemonade is something I have never had in real life. I was at a wedding in Massachusetts where some kid wore a kimono and no one said anything and made my own cherry lemonade which was great. I mulled it myself. I don't mess around. Blueberry lemonade seems easier since there are plenty of blueberries around and lemonade isn't hard to come by. Problem is, if I made it myself, it would be better than this. "Audacious!" you say? Well perhaps but it would be closer to the model of blueberry lemonade since there would be no mucking about with artificial sweeteners, preservatives and the like. Mash up some blueberries and put it into some water with lemon juice and sugar and you've got it. This is pulpless and not sour. It just "tastes like" blueberry lemonade like when markers "smell" like fruit but when you take a small nibble, you've discovered that you have discovered that it's a very one dimensional impression.

What this lacks is what makes lemonade great and that's pulp, bite, attitude and clean ingredients. The Reb A gives it a bit of an unwarranted bitterness that just tastes like lies. This isn't bad but it's like taking a girl home at the end of a long night that is wearing a lot of makeup and you know that when she inevitably stays the night and wakes up, your pillow is going to look like a towel behind the Chanel counter at your local department store and your face will be as red as her lips were the night before with regret and self-embarrassment.

Call me old fashioned but long days can only be cured by sitting on a porch stoop drinking root beer. Early mornings with not enough sleep followed by staying late at work and who knows what the rest of the day holds? Probably a handful of garbage. You deserve something nice. A treat. A root beer.

What's better than root beer? Root beer that has honey in it. What better with root beer with honey in it? Root beer with honey and licorice. Since this root beer doesn't have that, and beggars cannot be choosers, honey it is. It's probably a difficult task to keep the smooth taste of honey and the bite of root beer but they've done it. That's why they're in the root beer major league. They have hats. Nice, embroidered hats. As if there were any doubts. What? Did you think they were silk screened? Please. They embroider everything when you get to the pros. Everything.

This soda has put me to taste philosophically. Is it a great cola whose quality has been lessened by the use of stevia as a sweetener, or is it a mediocre soda and the only reason I think it's good is because it is better than most diet sodas. What came first the stevia or the egg?

After far too much pondering I am going to go with a little of both. I think that without the added stevia this could have been an exceptional cola. It has some complexities in the flavor that make it stand out from your Coke and Pepsis of the world. At the same time, the stevia brings it down a couple of pegs, but it still is my favorite diet cola I've ever had. To be fair it does combine cane sugar with stevia, and has 15g of sugar, but that's less than half of a normal can of pop.

Whatever science proclaims to be the true answer, I enjoyed whatever it was in this can and I had no guilt while doing so. That's gotta mean something in life.

What do you mean you are exhausted? It's only noon, and you are a 12-year-old on summer vacation; you're not allowed to be tired. I understand it's hot and humid, but back in my day we didn't let a second of this glorious freedom go to waste. Even when it was pouring rain we were out sliding in the mud. Now don't get any muddy ideas, I've already done the laundry and I don't want to have to do another load for your gunky summer clothes. You know what I blame TV and those video games you're always playing. I might just make a house rule that video games can only be played during the winter months in the house; maybe it will be when it's below a certain temperature. I know what you're thinking turning the air conditioner up all the way won't help your cause. We're going by the temperature on the news.

Seriously though, go outside, have adventures, maybe get into a little trouble (a very little trouble). You should be living for these 2.5 months every year. Fine you're tired I get it. You know what, if you mention this to your mother you're grounded for a month, and by that I mean you will be doing all the gardening this summer with no TV, no video games and no cell phone. I know you kids play games on your phones. Okay here it is. I picked a couple of these up at 711. They are a limited edition summer version of Red Bull. I know kids shouldn't be drinking these, but you know what, the memories of an exciting childhood summer are more important than any negative effects this could have.

You know how normal Red Bull tastes like liquid Wonka candy? Well this is a grapefruit version of that. It's like someone took a bottle of Squirt and added that candy element to it. I know that as an adult I'm not supposed to like super sweet things like this, but I absolutely love it. To be honest I have a case of the stuff hidden in the fridge in the garage behind that beer your uncle brought over for the Christmas party that I will never drink, but you probably will sneak when you get a little older. The joke will be on you though, because by then they will be old and gross. Seriously though, son this stuff is great. After you drink this one, ignore everything I said, and never drink another one until you're away at college. For now chug-a-lug apple of my eye and get out there and explore the woods a couple streets over. I heard some kids found an ear over there last week. Think how cool the kids at school would think you were if you found an ear over summer vacation! If they only found one that means there's it's pair just waiting to be found.

Oh that summer heat. James just couldn't deal with it. His 1988 Honda Accord was once nice but now is held together with hope and rust. He is a traveling salesman whose sales of motor homes on an island aren't what they used to be. He was once the best salesman on the west of the island but it seems that everyone had already bought one and there was no one left. He looked back fondly of the days where he bought that Accord in cash and had enough for a steak dinner that night. Now it's nothing but pasta and rice. Why was he still there? There were plenty of other jobs he could do and make enough to at least get him out of the rut that he was in.

One hot and humid summer day he had to take a stop from going in between towns. He stopped at a gas station to get something to drink and they were stocked with ice cold pop. He saw the orange and his hand just grabbed it. It was like the kid in him made him reach out and take it. To be a child on the island was a simpler time. All you had to do was go to school and then come home and the rest of the day was yours. No responsibility. No tasks. Nothing. You could just hang out with your friends and drink pop on the way to go to the movies and then get ice cream. As an adult, though, James was plagued with things like payments for his child's braces, water bills, and lawn mowing. He needed to mentally get back to what it was like to be a kid. One sip and he remembered it all. He sat down on a bench outside the station and drank almost the whole bottle. It tasted like simple, basic, everyday orange pop. It's what he would drink on hot summer days while sitting around with his friends not doing much of anything.

Just then his phone rang and it was Doctor Clemens asking him to sell him a new motor home. Today would be James' day at last. His day in the blistering sun.

Yeah yeah yeah, raspberry tea I get it. The stuff is everywhere. It's possibly more prevalent than unflavored tea in most gas stations/convenient stores. Why should we care about yet another raspberry tea that's available? Oh, maybe because Joe Tea is a hell of a company who not only uses cane sugar to sweeten their beverages, but who also uses real tea and actual fruit? I think that is more than enough reason in this age of garbage drinks in which we life.

This is great. Period. End of story. Everything that you liked about raspberry tea just got better. It's like someone took a tall boy of Arizona and switched out the ingredients with superior ones. First of all it actually tastes like raspberries and not a proximity that is just flavored syrup. Secondly you can still taste the tea underneath the fruit. That is something that doesn't happen often these days. I do wish the tea taste was a bit stronger here, but I don't have a huge problem with it. This is nothing like the sugar water you have been told was tea your whole life. This is real, or at least a lot closer to reality.

If us here at Thirsty Dudes are anything we are men of the sea. The crashing waves and the salty air are all we know of life. With the ocean breeze in our hair we point our bow towards whatever fancy we have at the time. Wait no, that's not us at all. The ocean is a terrifying place that holds many creatures that mankind will probably never know of. I'm actually shocked that I even knew what a bow was. Mike and I are content to sit on the shoreline, stare out at the ships on the horizon and sip on some root beer. I mean I do have an anchor tattoo, but I never claimed that I wasn't a hypocrite. I also never complained about double negatives.

While we may be full of lies, one thing that is a truth is that we have dreams of creating (more like having someone make for us) a hybrid of root beer and ginger beer. We've proposed it to several companies, but they didn't seem very interested. They are all fools. How perfect would a nice dark, woody root beer be with the kick of some hot ginger beer? I'm sure ratios would have to be very specific to keep the flavors in line, but that is what folks in lab coats are for.

When I came across this Anchor Ginger Root Beer, I thought that perhaps my prayers had been answered. The sea is an unknown place (for the most part) and so is this beverage. It could hold wonderful secrets or disastrous monsters. You have no idea how many creatures I find in bottles of sodas; at least most of them are vaguely indifferent to me.

While this was not the soda of my dreams, it is almost there. Really the only thing that is missing is the heat. There is no burn at all in this bottle. It's more of a ginger ale root beer instead of the ginger beer root beer that I so desperately wanted. I will happily take what I am given though. This really tastes like someone made a batch of ginger ale the correct way, with real ginger, and mixed it with a creamy root beer. It has a nice classic root beer taste that is on the darker side of the spectrum that ends with a strong vanilla after taste. The ginger is the majority shareholder in the beginning of each sip, but the vanilla in the root beer is all you are left with seconds after you swallow.

I am a big fan of this, and I hope to come across it again in my travels. I can use it to help me get by until I can talk a company into perfecting my vision. Maybe I should just try combining sodas myself to see how it turns out. I mean that has to end well…€¦right?

Children, as lovable as they are, can be some of the most annoying creatures to ever crawl across this planet. To begin with, as soon as you pop one out you have given up most of your personal freedoms for at least 15 or so years. The nights out that you took for granted when you were younger are a thing of the past, unless you want to shell out some cash for a babysitter, which in my social circle is rare. On top of that are the messes and constant fear that they will do something dumb and badly hurt themselves. Even beyond all of that is the never ending curiosity. I'm all for learning and growth, but when kids get to the age where they respond to every explanation with, “Why?” I was to punt them off of a bridge. If you were to feed those same curious little ones a bunch of coffee and their questioning became somehow even more frequent, I can assure you that would start asking you, “Whynatte?” Then even the most loving parent would be drop kicking their children into ravines all over the US.

The thing is that if children were to like coffee, this would probably be what they would enjoy the most. It's milky and even though there are only 9g of sugar in it, it's pretty sweet (without being a cavity factory) due to the combination of sugar and sucralose. It still has a coffee flavor in it, but in the way that coffee iced cream does. It's become a treat instead of just a way to kick start your morning. To be honest I'm right there with the kids. If I were to drink coffee this is the kind of thing I would want. The unsweetened, black stuff is just not for me. This transforms that flavor into something that I find enjoyable, but it doesn't taste cheap like a lot of canned coffee.

I still don't advise giving into the constant Whynattes. Those rug rats really don't need this coffee, and neither does your sanity.

Just look at the face of any father when his son or daughter says he is getting married to someone who truly sucks and you will see the face of someone who just took a sip of this iced tea. "Dad, I'm marrying Tabitha." you say to your daddy who takes a moment to remember the totally and unfortunately forgettable Tabitha. This is the same Tabitha who has shirts with wildlife on it and loves to read fantasy novels. This is the same Tabitha who works "really hard" at her father's hot dog restaurant but, regardless of being a blood relative, just doesn't have what it takes to be "management material."

A sweet tea from New Orleans shouldn't have the same bite as a Lipton Brisk from God knows where. These people from Louisiana must picket day and night trying to get Luzianne to shut down production on this disgusting line of "sweet tea" that can only be described as "sweet tea" when in quotes both in print and in person by way of air quotes. Saying "It's like Brisk but a little better." is like saying you have "the good cancer."

The poet Rick Ross once said, "Everyday I'm hustlin'." These past few weeks I have been doing just that. Straight hustlin'. Work all day, come home and work all night. Late into the night. Too late. It's catching up with me. I can feel it in my throat. It's my body's way of saying, "Calm down, bro. Get some sleep. You can work tomorrow." Well, I didn't listen to that guy last night and went deep into the night and now my body is in shambles. What better way to fix it than with a diet energy drink? Now I can not only be energized but svelte as well.

This didn't taste like a trillion Skittles, which is my initial litmus test for energy drinks. It didn't taste bad at all, as a matter of fact. It was citric but I couldn't really place it: Pineapple, some other stuff that may or may not be fruit, and of course their cornerstone mangosteen. It didn't taste like a clichè energy drink, which was a relief and it also did not taste "diet" so that's a double win. If you're keeping track, that's a veritable handful of wins. It's a small handful of wins but a handful nonetheless.

It's been many moons since I've seen this. I bought it and stored it. I didn't store it for a special moment like a taco party, hot dog extravaganza or anything like that. I just put it away and forgot about it. Sorry, guys. I'm nothing if I'm not honest. So let's carry on with the honesty, shall we?

How is this? It's pretty lemony. Lemonesque. Lemonique. It's a good, sweetened green tea but something about it gets a bit old. It's pretty strong in the lemon and it has real lemon so it's both bitter and sour. The more I drink it and analyzed it, the more appreciative I got but it didn't make the drink any better. The fact that it's sweetened with honey first and cane sugar second gets much respect, though. Credit where credit is due. This is fine. If you like your green tea strong and homemade, you might have found it.

There are many shades in the energy drink spectrum, but no matter how much you nitpick, 90% of them can simply be described as, “Tastes like Red Bull.” This drink specifically tastes like sugar free Red Bull. They even went against the trends and used aspartame as their sweetener, just as the original did.

XL is not in the game to revolutionize anything with their flagship drinks. They seem to be happy to give you what you know at a lower price. That's not a bad place to be. Undercut the competition and watch the sales pour in. I hope it works out for them.

I wouldn't quite say that people live most of their lives in the “off” position, but if they aren't “on” until they drink this beverage then they must be in some sort of stasis. Perhaps normal life for humans is like when a computer goes into sleep mode, it's ready to jump into action at any moment, but it needs motivating to do so aka moving the mouse, tapping the space bar, downing a lightly sweetened, low calorie energy beverage. That doesn't sound quite right, but it's been a long day and my comparisons are not hitting their mark in my current state.

This is a lighter sweetened beverage, but I wouldn't exactly call it lightly sweetened. It's not a full mouth full of peach mango flavor, but it's stronger than stuff like Hint or Ayala Herbal Water. It's a lighter Vitamin Water or Gatorade with a small amount of stevia in the mix. It's not enough to fully distract from the light flavor, but it's enough that it's noticeable.

This obviously doesn't have the same impact as “classic” energy drinks, but it's enough to give you a little boost. It has caffeine from tea leaf extract, the amino acid ornithine and B vitamins to increase stamina, boost brainpower and enhance focus (or so the label tells me). It may not keep you up all night, but it's not supposed to. It's meant to keep you on and focused and not just in a blind rage of energy.

Many times in my life I have forgotten how much I love grapes. It's a well-known fact that most things that are grape flavored resemble the fruit about as much as infants love chewing tobacco. Is that the most random comparison of all time? I think it just might be. The thing is that the trouble with grape doesn't end there. On top of being defamed by impersonators, there is a decent chance that when you eat a grape you're going to get a crappy soggy one; such a disappointing treat. When you get a good one though, life is good. A nice firm, juicy grape can go a long way with one's taste buds.

This here drink is a good middle ground between juice and drink. It's what all grape flavored things should aspire to be. Sure it would be much better if it was just grape juice with chunks of grape “meat” in it, but we all know that would be expensive, and also probably too tart for most consumers. To solve this conundrum Wei Chuan watered it down a bit, and then added a healthy dose of sugar. The result is a candied grape flavor, which isn't nearly as bad as it sounds. If were carbonated it would be the best grape soda I've ever tasted. Instead it winds up being a better than average grape drink. To be fair if it didn't have the chunks of grape in it, I probably would have only awarded it a three out of five bottle rating, but the meat is great. It's very similar in texture, size and flavor to aloe drinks. Everyone knows I can't get enough of those.

Between Filberts and Green River one would be led to believe that Chicago has it rough when it comes to sodas. Those are two companies that are as bland as bland can be. Don't feel bad for the windy city though, as it is a large place and there is more than enough room for a plethora of different soda companies. For every Filbert there is a Berghoff. For every Green River there is a Capone Family Secret. For every…€¦actually I only know of two bad soda companies from Chicago, so I'm stuck with nothing to counter the greatness of Cicero with.

Let's start by saying that this is not your typical cherry cola. I know you've all had a Cherry Coke or Pepsi before, and they are a nice change of pace. This is a different beast though. It has a nice classic cola flavor to it, but the cherry is something out of the ordinary. It must be a Midwest thing because it reminds me a lot of the Sprecher Cherry Cola. The cherry is very strong and leaves you with a slightly weird aftertaste that I always associated with the Sprecher being fire roasted. I have no idea if Cicero prepares their sodas the same way, but they taste great, and you'll hear no complaints from this side of the table.