It is always a treat in my travels when I come across small local breweries that make their own soda. I had never heard of Schmohz Brewery until I came across this root beer in a small coffee shop in downtown Flint, MI. The home of the brewery is actually Grand Rapids, but it found it's way a short distance to Flint, which might I say has come quite a ways since I last visited there a decade ago. Back then the city was a ghost town, and everything seemed to be falling into ruins. This time there were some businesses that seemed to be thriving and things looked like they were on the up and up. Good job Rust Belt, let's keep reviving these cities.

Okay, enough about economic downfall and rejuvenation. We're here to talk about root beer so let's get down to brass tax. This root beer starts off fairly light in your mouth. It seemed like the ratios of the other ingredients to water were a bit off. Once I took a couple of sips I realized that while it's in your mouth it tastes a bit weak, but once you swallow it has a nice dark aftertaste. This doesn't taste like your run of the mill “classic” root beer. It's a but darker and you can tell it's microbrewed. There is nothing overly strong about the flavor. It's certainly there, but it's something you have to kind of sit and ponder over as it's not on the nose like most root beers.

Sugar and “More Sugar” are both listed in the ingredients, so I was expecting this to be overly sweet, but it's not at all. It has an average, and possibly even a little low level sweetness going on.

Finally, I'd like to acknowledge that a portion of the proceeds of this soda are donated to Sammi Rae of Hope, which is an organization that helps families who are suffering with the possible loss of a family member that can result in high medical bills. Sammi Rae helps those families to not lose their homes. Sounds like a great organization to me, and it's more than enough reason to take a chance on this pop if you ever find yourself in Michigan.

You have no idea how much I wish I liked bananas. They are cheap, healthy and portable. Unfortunately they also taste absolutely disgusting to me. We're talking top 5 grossest foods to my mouth. The thing is that here at Thirsty Dudes we have an obligation to our readers (or accidental perusers if you will) to drink and review any and all non-alcoholic beverages that cross our paths. I don't remember exactly where I found this drink, because it's been sitting on my shelf for a few months, but I can assure you that it caused an audible “ugh' when I saw it.

Lucky for me I had some friends over last night and one of them loves bananas. I offered him this soda and he happily accepted. I took two quick sips to confirm that this tasted exactly like it did in my head and I was satisfied with my presumptions. This, my readers, tastes like a sweet soda water that has had banana Runts melted into it. Of course it does not resemble anything close to the actual fruit. It's sweet. It's strong. It's liquid candy. I want nothing to do with it, but others seemed to enjoy it. A middle of the road three bottles it is.

Jeff had a filthy mouth. He didn't swear but he also didn't brush his teeth regularly. His dentist asked him how he was going to meet new people with a mouth that looked like old cheese. He said that he just didn't have time for it and he didn't care. He said that when his teeth fell out, he was just going to get fake ones and not need to brush them. His dentist told him that is not how it worked and that he still had to brush fake teeth. He assured her that he read online that someone was trying to invent antibacterial fake teeth and the dentist was wrong.

His dentist thanked him for finally coming in and attempted to sway him out of his bad habits. Jeff had won a trip to the dentist in the world's worst bachelor party prize and decided he should not waste it. His dentist was sweating trying to clean the trash dump that his mouth had become. An hour and a half of cleaning, drilling, filling, patching, and bridging later, it was time for fluoride. The dentist asked if he wanted to drink some new Hint drink that the office was trying to push as an alternative to pop. Jeff thought he would try it. He liked it but it had a bit of a familiar taste that he couldn't place. It tasted a little like a floral honeydew. He thought that it was a good alternative to water, which he felt was disgusting. His dentist gave him a fluoride rinse and he spit it right out in the sink. He said, "That was it!" at the top of his lungs. The dentist didn't know what he was talking about. Jeff exclaimed that the hint tasted like fluoride and the dentist took a sip and sadly agreed. Jeff did a proper rinse and had had as clean a bill of health as you can for not being to a dentist in over a decade.

Pears are a weird fruit. I have nothing against them per say, but I also never go out of my way in even the most miniscule way to consume them. To me they seem like some low grade relative to the apple, which is a mighty fruit. Why choose a pear when you can have an apple? I mean have you ever been in a situation where there was a pear but not an apple? I don't think I ever have. To choose a pear over an apple would be akin to eating a Mama Celeste microwave pizza instead of grabbing a pie from the local shop down the street, even though both would be free to you. No one, save a lunatic would ever do it. At the same time, if that fresh baked pizza weren't an option, I would still happily eat the microwaveable one.

Okay pear bashing time is over; onto this juice. The carton says that at a minimum there is 50% juice content in here. I'm going to guess that the rest of that content is sugar, because it dominates most of the flavor. The added sweetener in here mostly covers the taste of the pear. As I said I'm not a huge pear guy, but if that is what I am promised that is what I want delivered. I'm sure there are people out there who love pears, and they would be sorely disappointed in this nectar. There is a bit of a pear taste to it, but it could be much, much stronger without offending any living soul on this planet, or any deceased soul for that matter.

Steaz has their heart in the right place, and for years they have been working at creating perfect harmony between soda and green tea. Unfortunately they are not quite there. I would never say any of their creations have been gross, and I had no problem drinking them, it's just that they never reach their potential. Tea pop should be the greatest thing ever, but they always see to fall short. The soda flavor is always far too light. I'd like to say that was because they were more concerned with the flavor of the tea, but that also gets lost most of the time. Take this drink for example; cola is one of the strongest flavors a soda pop can have, and there is no excuse for its weakness in this beverage. I want crisp, dark cola flavors. This tastes lighter than the most diet of diet bogus colas. The taste of the green tea is there, but it's muddied by the erythritol, which they used to sweeten this.

My final verdict is that while this is a completely acceptable beverage, it could be made much better if they either used cane sugar (it's a zero calorie beverage, so that won't happen) or make the cola flavoring stronger. I bet they could make it could even mask the sweetener. The tea flavor would probably be lost even more though. Let's get a team of scientists on this. I want this to be so good, and I know it can be.

Were Amy and Brian extras in the show Lost? By extras I of course mean they were lesser-known characters in the documentary that was filmed in real time. Did they somehow find a way off the island early on, and just forget to mention it to the others because they were all arguing like a bunch of jerks instead of listening to their would be saviors? In their brief time on the island did they fall in love with coconut water? I mean it was that or salty seawater that would eventually dehydrate you, so they had to drink it, and it probably grew on them quite a bit.

I'm going to just assume that everything written above is 100% accurate and that the couple moved back to the states where they started a company that imported coconut water from Thailand and packaged it in their own cans. They did a good job of it too. It tastes fresher than other brands that I have tasted, and of course it's very refreshing. It's not quite the same as cracking open a coconut that just fell from a tree, but it's not that far off.

While everyone else is dead that ever stepped foot on the island, these two entrepreneurs swimming in their money Scrooge McDuck style form their settlement from the airlines and their profits from their juice.

Rumors have been circulating about where I have been. People have said that I was in China selling cows. I have heard that I had left Thirsty Dudes in order to work full time to fulfill my dream of becoming a professional competitive pie eater. I have also heard that I was being groomed to become the newest host of the late night television show "Mike Night with Mike." I can say, for sure, that these are all false.

Regardless of what I was doing, which you don't care about anyway, let's be honest, I'm back in full effect with this, a thrilling review of a drink that is supposed to get my metabolism boosted. Look, I'm thirty-one years old and don't have the metabolism that I had when I was a terribly haired, equally terribly dressed high school student. That being said, I do not believe that this is going to give me the endurance that would allow me to do things like get three hours of sleep and just rage all day. As a terribly, immature adult, this does quench my thirst because it is good. It doesn't have a strong tea taste. Light tea taste. Not strong. Strong berry taste. According to the pictures on the bottle, there are cherries (which I can taste), blueberries (which I cannot taste), strawberries (which I might be able to taste) and raspberries (which I also might be able to taste). That's a good fifty percent tasty fruit to tasteless fruit. I suppose it's a fair ratio.

Hey, regardless of what seedy or otherwise not terribly entertaining things I've been up to these past five days, I'm back and this review proves it. I'm off to continue my new career of playing as a rodeo clown but you don't care about that.

What's that you got there? Black tea? Nice. You didn't put any sugar in it, did you? No? Good. Yup this tastes exactly like I would want an unsweetened black tea to taste. It wasn't steeped too long, so it's not very bitter. It just has a nice tea flavor to it. It's a bit on the watery side, but I think that helps to make it better. I mean it doesn't taste watered down, just not terribly strong. Yea, I'm 100% on board with this.

Oh tropical fruit how I love you. I just can't get enough of passionfruit, guava and…€¦pears? Wait…€¦what? Since when are pears a tropical fruit? I grew up in Western New York and my next-door neighbor had a pear tree in her backyard. I can assure you without a shadow of a doubt that I do not live in a tropical location. The snowstorm we are currently in can attest for that. So why is there a picture of a pear on this label? I guess it could be some special kind of tropical pear, but the ingredients just say pear, so I imagine it's just a run of the mill pear. I know that not all of the fruit in here is tropical, there are also apples, but maybe they should have switched out that pear image for an orange. At least they are quasi tropical.

Whatever the deal is with the pear, it's unimportant when it comes to the taste of this juice. It does in fact taste tropical with an underlying vegetable flavor of the carrots. It's not very strong, and this tastes way more like a fruit juice than anything, but you can definitely taste a little something extra going on.12.5 carrots were murdered in the making of this drink, yet the ¾ of a passionfruit that was also brutally slain is far more present in the flavor. The tropics win again root vegetables, like they always will, like they always should.

Many a sailor has been known to warm his belly on dark stormy nights with a large bottle of whiskey. What is there out there for those teetotalers of the high seas who have lost their families and their former lives, not to the harshness of the sea, but to that of the bottle? The answer is simple, get each and every non-drinking sailor on your holiday shopping list a bottle of this Trader Joe's Triple Ginger Brew. It may not numb the pain in their lives, but it will give their throat and guts a similar warmness as their former love once had.

An employee has told me that all Trader Joes private label products are really other company's products that they have worked out a deal that they can slap their own name and label on. I really wish I knew the original producer of this soda, because I would sincerely thank them for creating such a treat.

The label announces to the world that this is “Ginger ale with a kick!” Don't be fooled, this is most definitely a ginger beer, and if you go into this expecting a nice pale dry ginger ale you're certainly going to get that aforementioned kick to the throat with the burn on this thing. It's simply wonderful. The thing is not only does this have a nice little kick to it that is better than most ginger beers, it also has an incredible flavor. Most companies just use ginger and maybe a little lemon in their ginger brews and while that is fine and good, it's a pretty straight forward flavor, albeit with a lot of kick. The mix in the bottle not only contains the usual suspects, but it also have honey, lime juice, spices and most importantly pineapple juice. Even though it's barely noticeable that little bit of pineapple makes all the difference and puts this ginger beer at the top of the game flavorwise. This is sweet, bubbly, throat burning and slightly fruity. I couldn't think of anything more to ask for in a soda. Oh wait, they did think of something else. They put it in a classic looking green glass bottle with a swivel top. Now that's class.

Big Jak was a gambling man. He loved to play the ponies, roll the dice, and more importantly bet on the outcome of cards. Black Jack was his game. He loved it so much that he thought about starting to call himself “Big Black Jak,” but that just didn't sound right to him, cause…€¦well you know.

In his off time Big Jak spent his time developing beverages. He would spend hours and hours slaving away to get the balance of everything just right. The problem was that just like with the cards he always bet big. You see Big Jak may have loved black jack, but that does not mean he was any good at the game. He always bet everything he had, and had the dealer hit him, no matter what. He was so enamored with getting exactly 21 that he lost nearly every hand. This spilled over into his beverage making. The quantities of his flavorings were so high that it made them nearly undrinkable. Take this energy drink he worked on. It would have been nice to have a tasty non-carbonated energy drink that tasted like iced tea, but of course he had to go overboard. Even though he used sucralose, he used too much and it tasted so overly sweetened that you couldn't even make out the tea flavor. In addition to that he decided to add some artificial peach flavor to it that made it just plain awful. Never before has a fruit flavoring existed that tasted so fake.

Sadly, shortly after the release of this beverage Big Jak's bookies came looking for him and things did not bode well for him. That is why we talk about Big Jak in the past tense.

Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Professor. Wait…€¦what? I thought we were a group of esteemed physicians here giving each other nice salutations. Now there's this professor in the mix. He doesn't even have a doctorate, just a measly masters degree. Like someone with an inferior education to us could ever show us a thing or two about a thing or two. Fine, I'll try your stupid soda that you created with your lower level education. Hmm, this is actually…€¦kind…€¦of…€¦good. I didn't expect that. I saw the cherry on the can and I didn't even process the implications of the name you gave it, since you know I have a doctorate and I need not pay attention to lowly professors. This isn't cherry at all, not even black cherry. Okay, I lied there's cherry in there, but it's the way that my college over there Dr. Pepper has cherry in it. It's a close facsimile to his product, but why would the market need this? Wait you're telling me there is no sugar and zero calories in this beverage? How can that be so, it doesn't taste like diet poison?!?! It's sweetened with erythritol and stevia? Well then, I really wish you possessed that sheet of paper that would allow me to be friends with you because you have created one heck of a beverage there. I normally detest all things diet, but this really tastes wonderful. I don't know how you've done it. Perhaps we can get Pepper's degree transferred over to you for your scientific breakthrough in the world of soda. He's been working on cracking this code for decades and has never even come close to your products.

I don't know about you, my fine readers, but I am a big fan on bahn mi sandwiches. They are a staple lunch for me. I mix up some tofu, carrots, cucumber and sriracha and put them on a roll. I know that I should put daikon on it, but I haven't been making it to the Asian markets as much as I used to. My whole point of this is that when I make the sandwiches, I peel the skin off of the cucumbers. I find it to be a bit distracting from the overall taste. It's not a bad flavor at all, but it's not what I want in this particular sandwich.
Now what should be done with those leftover skins? I could compost them for my garden in the spring. Instead perhaps I will let them soak in water so that their flavor is transferred to the liquid. That my friends is exactly what this water tastes like. I've had other cucumber drinks that taste like the soft innards of the vegetable, but this tastes unmistakably like the skin. It's not bad, but it's not what I expected. I would also say that the flavor is much stronger than a “hint” as well. It certainly is refreshing and I like it. If you are iffy about cucumbers I would stay away though. This thing is pure cuc.

I bought it, tried it and thought it tasted familiar. A quick visit to the Guayaki website told me that it's just a rebranding of their Pure Empower Mint tea. So yeah, go there and read that to see what it's like.

It seems that more and more people are turning their backs on modern medicine. While I do believe that it has its merits and most definitely can help people, the bottom line is that it is a money making empire. Things are prescribed that can have strange side effects, when there are natural options out there that would help you without making you suffer from things like aches and pains, dry mouth, bowel control problems, heart stoppage, compulsive gambling and what not. I for one am glad that holistic medicine is on the rise once again. I didn't have health insurance for ten years, so I relied on it a lot when I got fell ill. The amount of garlic cloves I consumed was astronomical.

Mission Root believes in the holistic side of life. They follow a Ayurvedic lifestyle, which involves meditation, yoga, deep breathing and a special healthy diet. To help spread the word of this to others they have created these “teas.”

First off, you're probably wondering, as I was, what tulsi is. Well, it's an herb that is used to cleanse the respiratory system and to relieve digestive pressure. It is often used as a treatment for colds and coughs. You mix that in with the magical properties of ginger, and you have yourself this nice healthy drink that is fairly sweet (due to the agave) and has a vague floral taste. I had expected this to have a much stronger ginger taste, but it's mostly tulsi and agave with some hints of ginger in the background. It's a fairly unusual tasting tea, but it's in an interesting way that makes you keep drinking it instead of a gross, “this needs to go in the filth bin instantly” way.

Also, note that 5% of their profits are donated to Akshaya Patra, the world's largest NGO school meal program.

Hey dude, mom bought you some water. Yeah, water. Well it's called "Halo" because she knew that you spent so much time playing Halo. No, I don't think Bungie makes it. Just go get it. Mom is putting the groceries away now. If you don't get it, she might let dad drink it and you know he doesn't stop when it comes to drinking bottles of stuff.

Did you get it? Do you want to play Halo while drinking it? I think it's only fitting. You can be Master Chief because I know you have a cow when you aren't. I'll be, I don't know, Master Chief 2? We play as the same dude, don't we? Alright, open that bottle up. I'm getting thirsty.

This is good. It's just like a watered down juice or something. I think mom would like this because it tastes like one of her types of drinks. What do you mean you don't know what I'm talking about? Have you ever drunk mom's juice? It's like one part juice to four parts water. This is good though. It's got a better raspberry taste than strawberry taste. I feel like I can taste that tartness from the raspberries more than the flavor of the strawberry. I don't care though. Do you know why? It's because I have a Warthog. Oh crud. You have a Wraith. Great. Welp, looks like I'm drinking tea tonight.

I can assure you my dear readers that lemonade does not have the same effect in winter as it does in summer. There is a reason that it is a beverage that is celebrated in the warmer months. It's refreshing qualities help to fend off the oppressive heat. Now when you're standing in a freezing basement watching bands play an a December eve, you may want to rethink your choice if you grabbed a lemonade to keep you hydrated. I simply do not know what I was thinking.

The Chill line is Veryfine's attempt at the inexpensive tallboy game. 23oz at only $1 is a deal…€¦or is it? I mean sure it's inexpensive, but wouldn't you have been content with a nice 12 or 16oz drink instead? Do you really need that much liquid, sugar and calories? Lucky for us Veryfine took that into consideration when formulating this beverage and used a mixture of corn syrup and sucralose to sweeten this lemonade. I must admit that they are two of my least favorite sweeteners, but at least the combined three servings in this can only contain 24g of sugar. A tallboy of Arizona's lemon iced tea contains 72g.

Perhaps some of you, and it's more likely most of you don't particularly care about the healthiness of your beverages. All you want to know if what does it taste like. If you ever hung out at my house whilst I was in high school, you are probably well aware of the ever present jug of blue juice that was in my fridge. What it really contained was an overly sweetened Berry Blue Kool Aid. This drink tastes exactly like how I made my Kool Aid as a disillusioned teenager. The thing is that while I used to dump insane amounts of sugar into my concoction, this will not give you the diabetes. Even though it has sucralose in it, it taste in no way diet. It also doesn't taste overly like lemonade either. It mainly just tastes “blue.” You know you know what I mean by that too, so do with it what you will.

I will tell you for those who do not already know, that one of the worst things ever is packing for a big move. I live in a small house and am moving to a slightly larger house but I have been packing non-stop for days. It feels like an eternity but I am slowly seeing everything I own broken down and crammed into boxes and put into a corner of my house. It still feels like there is so much more stuff to pack but I am finally, after today, in a place where I think that I see an end.

In doing so, I had three boxes of things that I had to donate. After I was done and they gave me a "receipt" which is a piece of paper that says, "The IRS uses the honor system when you claim donations." which I thought was very strange and lazy, I decided to go right down the street and get something warm. It was very cold today, as I am sure you all know since I believe the entire country is going through a cold front right now. I believe it was twenty degrees outside and at the time of writing this, it was snowing. I wanted a mocha, but then I saw a sign that promoted the salted caramel hot chocolate. Since I think it was seasonal, I had to get it.

After waiting for it to decrease from the temperature of the sun, it was time to drink. I leaned in my house, in my kitchen, surrounded by both full and empty boxes, and took sip after sip and just cleared my head. This was a good, well-balanced drink. The caramel smoothed it out, the base hot cocoa was there and the salt was not overpowering and gave it a nice sweet and salty taste. It's a nice change of pace for the lovers of hot cocoa in times like these. Cold times. Winter times.

Does anyone else out there get to a point where they just need to drink something carbonated? As in you feel like you're just going to explode if you don't get some bubbles in your throat. I am certainly in that camp. It's not often, but every couple of weeks or so I get a tickle in my throat, and no matter how much I cough, clear my throat or drink water, it simply will not go away. The only cure for what ails me is to drink some pop or other carbonated beverage. Now I don't always want all the sugar that comes along with soda, but I generally can't stand tonic water. Lucky for me Hint exists and they have created a line of sparkling water drinks that don't have the bitter seltzer taste. It tastes like someone took normal everyday water and added bubbles to it and it didn't change the flavor at all. They then added just a hint (well duh) of strawberry kiwi flavoring that gives it just a light flavor. It's perfect for what I need, and it has zero nutritional value, as well as zero negative connotations. It's a win for everyone, especially my scratchy throat.

I notice that your shopping cart is full of cases of bottles of water. Were you aware that you are in fact a savage? Well, I mean you must be if you're drinking all of your water from tiny little bottles of water. Yes, I understand that you feel like you're more civilized because you don't drink water from the tap. Apparently you don't care about waste created by the containers you use. If you must drink water in a portable container that you can buy, get one of these little guys. Water in a carton; it's the wave of the future. They are made from a renewable resource that can be easily recycled. It's crisp. It's clean. It's refreshing.

I still believe that water is water for the most part, and with a decent filter in your home, you can drink your tap water and it will taste just as good as it would if it were bottled/cartoned. If you absolutely need to be a snob about it, please grab a carton instead of a bottle. The world will thank you. Okay, hardly anyone will notice, but it's really for the best…€¦I swear.