I'm not going to kid myself; the majority of the people in at the world are going to scoff at the idea of a beverage flavored to taste like flowers. Joe and Jill Everyman are going to have no interest in such a drink, and if it were to show up in convenient store all over the country, there would be a lot of dusty bottles laying around just waiting to spoil. I guess that would be true until the stores decided to mark them down to close to nothing and I would go and buy them up, because they are delicious. If people were willing to give it a try, chances are they would also love it.

The contents of this bottle mostly taste like an agave sweetened, very light grapefruit juice (there's erythritol in there as well, but try as I might I can't taste it). The main flavor of the grapefruit is there, but the tartness is nowhere to be found. Slightly below that is the floral taste of the lilac. It's not floral in a perfume or soap sort of way. It's there in its most calming form. If I sit with the aftertaste I get the taste of the smell of lilacs on my mind. To some that may sound absolutely horrible, but to me it is perfect.

This drink has a flavor that I associate with not having a care in the world. It makes me think about relaxing outside under the shade of a tree, perhaps reading a book. It gives the hope of warmer weather on a day that is blustery and cold. If you see this, don't be a prude. Give it a try and hopefully you'll fall in love.

What's so funny `bout peace, love and Georgia Peach Tea? The answer is nothing, at least for the latter bit. I can't believe it has taken Peace Tea so long to come out with a peach flavored iced tea. I feel like lemon, raspberry and peach are the staple flavors of iced tea. I could see if they were trying to go against the grain, but lemon and Razzleberry have been on the shelves for years. I can assure you it was worth the wait though.

When you're getting 23oz of tea for 99 cents, it's easy to assume that you're not going to be getting quality tea. Can we all agree that Arizona is great for the price, but it's not a quality tea by any means? I love the stuff, but it doesn't compare to companies that flavor their tea before they brew it rather than adding flavoring to a uniform batch of black or green tea. Peace Tea falls into the same category as Arizona, but at least they sweeten their teas with real sugar (and a little sucralose to keep the sugar levels down).

This actually tastes like canned peaches, instead of some candy flavored syrup that a lot of the bigger companies use. It may not be the best peach tea I've ever tasted, but it's better than most, and for the cost how can you say no? Things are a little bit slower down in Georgia, so take your time sipping on this tall can.

I feel like limeade is lemonade's underachieving sibling. Lemonade gets all the good grades, does extra curricular activities like pep squad, fundraisers, and bake sales. Limeade just wants to be an artist and sits in their room with headphones on listening to Jesus and Mary Chain writing blog posts about society and how it's let them down. Thing is, the posts are well written and Jesus and Mary Chain are great. Limeade is just misunderstood.

This limeade should be taken seriously in the future because they're trying to do something different. Yeah, we need more pep rallies. Please. Come on. The only reason we liked pep rallies in high school is because we got out early. We need more meaningful art and people talking about the problems at a young age and less fake friends and more meaningful acquaintances. This drink is pretty great and is different than the cookie cutter lemonade. Look, I love lemonade, but sometimes I need something different. Something dangerous. This has a bit of a Stevia taste for reasons that are as simple and blatant as it is made with Stevia. As for the black cherry, it's right on target. I like this more than probably every black cherry pop I've ever had and the lime makes it just bitter enough that it calms the super sweetness down.

I think that's what limeade would have wanted; just to be recognized as a hard working individual who is doing something different, doing something different well, and doing it with a purpose. They just can't hear you because "Just Like Honey" is playing too loud in their headphones.

I am an adulterer today, friends. After so many people have recommended that I drink Panera's green tea, I decided to try it. "But this is not a review for green tea, you idiot." I know and there is a simple explanation for that. I thought it was one of the teas in the back that you fill yourself. I was incorrect and found out as soon as I walked down past it. Drats. I figured since I hadn't reviewed this, and I had already decided I wasn't going to get my loved Hibiscus tea, that I might as well as "get this out of the way."

I judged too harshly. This isn't bad. I am not on the bandwagon of acai but this isn't too bad. Not too bad at all. It's got a good berry taste with only a slightly and not offensive bitterness from that turd acai. I don't know how Panera makes such good tea all the time but they brew a strong iced tea that pulls all the flavors out of the thing they're tea-ing. They must have some sort of vacuum that is sucking out the flavor and essence. It must have been custom built because they are beating everyone out. Custom flavor vacuum. That's a niche market that needs to be exploited.

The weird things I think about when reviewing a drink at 5:30am:

-There's probably somebody in the world who is afraid of Ramune. Whether it's the sound of the marble popping or the marble inside the bottle or the weird shaped bottle, I'm sure this is true for someone.

-I wonder if there are multiple people. I wonder if they have a support group on some rarely visited Yahoo group message board.

- I wonder if they would be more terrified of this "orange" flavor because it doesn't taste much like orange. It's probably the weakest orange flavored soda I've ever had.

- I wonder if there's someone writing a thesis on "nonsensical ramblings written on the internet with no logical reason behind them". If so, I think this website would be a goldmine for them.

If such a thing as a old timey pop shop existed in my town, would anyone actually visit it on the regular? I don't even know if I would and I am a Thirsty Dude. Sure I would go on grand opening and have a nice root beer or some such thing, but I think it would have to offer me something more. You know what I just had a great idea. “Barcades” are all the rage these days. What if we took that a step further? Why not have an arcade that is also a pop shop during the day and then at 9 or 10PM all the youngin's get ushered out and the alcohol can flow for the older crowd? Seems like you're doubling your market with little extra work. (Mike, if you're reading this, you're welcome.)

During the day I would hope that they would serve some nice high quality fountain drinks as well as a nice array of bottled fares. I would be remiss if Pop Shoppe was not served at my local pop shop. Their soda is always on the better side of normal/average. They aren't going out of their way to recreate the wheel, but they aren't cheaping out either. Well, I guess they are a little since they use high fructose corn syrup. This cola is fairly standard. I would say flavorwise it falls somewhere in between Coke and Pepsi, but it is light years better than generic brand. Also, the bottle would work well for a retro feel. If this idea doesn't come into fruition in Buffalo in the next two years…€¦well…€¦I'll be pretty bummed. I need somewhere to play Galaga and drink soda. It would also be the reason I need to go out to bars to hang out with friends.

It's been a while, old friend. What has happened to the days where we would sit together and spend time with each other? Me basking in the sun like some sort of fancy Frenchman and you sitting in your bottle like you liked to do? The last few months have been smooth sailing and I mean that in all aspects of the word. Smooth. There has been nothing substantial in my drinks and it just sort of happened. Have we grown apart? It's not that I have forgotten. It's more that you haven't shown up and I am fully aware that the phone works both ways but you know how things go. We've been busy living our lives.

It is good to see you back. Shall we get right down to business like old times? Yes, let's. Let me get you something a little more comfortable for you to wear like this nice glass. That bottle looks constricting and I know how you don't like it in plastic. It's been a long time for me, too. I'll go gentle at first.

I see you haven't lost a step since we last met. You're everything I remembered and you taste like pineapples. The bits of aloe act as if there are real bits of pineapple in there, like you crushed and poorly strained pineapples out of a can. No, you don't taste like you came out of a can. You taste wonderful. We should do this more often. What happened to us? We used to be so close. Let's promise to not spend this much time apart again. I feel at times that I need you. I don't normally open up like that but it's true.

Back when things on this planet were younger and simpler there was no such thing as money. Sure gold and jewels were precious and held value, but for normal transactions a barter system was used. If you're like me an image of Mad Max and Master Blaster just floated through the sea of your thoughts. While that may have been a utopian society in the making, it is nothing but fantasy. In the real world bartering did occur, and I'd like to think that the king of bartering was Joe, or the Trader fame.

Joe was the master trader. He was able to tell the way the winds of favor would blow, so he knew what to trade and when. It was like a predecessor of Wall Street. He would trade grapes for cherries in a town where cherries were prevalent. Then he would move on and trade those cherries in a pit free village for some animal furs. He was always trading up and eventually he trader for land and opened a store. Since he knew where he could get all of the highest quality products for the cheapest, his stores prices were low. It was the birth of an empire.

Nowadays things are run differently but Trader Joes remains. One actually just opened up in Buffalo. For those who don't know the company buys products from other companies in bulk and then slaps their own label on it. It's a lot cheaper than buying and running a factory to make each individual foodstuff. I'm not sure who originally made this spiced apple cider, but my hats off to them. It's just apples and spices to flavor. There is nothing artificial, and there is no added sugar. They have bottled the taste of autumn.

I'm from the area of the country where cider flows like water during these months. I am very picky about my cider and normally I do not like any that was not made at a local mill. This though, this is wonderful. The levels of the spices are at a perfect balance with the apple flavoring. It's a dangerous drink in that I could easily be a glutton and drink all 64oz in one sitting. I'm going to do my best not to do that, even though I just finished my second glass.

I cannot express my excitement when I came across this in a gas station in Richmond, VA. Actually that is a lie, I can very much express it by saying that I was slightly more than mildly interested. You see, I saw Canada Dry and my mind instantly went to thoughts of ginger ale. When I read pineapple, I assumed this was a pineapple ginger ale. As you can probably guess, this was no such thing. It is simply a pineapple soda. How great would pineapple ginger ale be though? I think I might just dump some pineapple juice in a bottle of regular Canada Dry and see how it turns out.

If there ever was a standard for pineapple pop, I assume this would be it. It has a general sparkling sugar water flavor with a mild taste of candied pineapple to it. I've had other sodas this flavor that the pineapple flavor is much stronger, and I have to admit, I prefer them. This is perfectly fine though, although while I was drinking it I proclaimed that I always feel trashy drinking pop from a plastic bottle. That's on me though.

Orange, eh? Sir, you are under oath. Do not lie to me. You call this orange? Yes, it is the color orange, but to call this orange is pushing the extent of my patience. If you want to walk out of this courtroom a free man, you have to tell me the truth. Did you doctor this drink in any way? There, now. Was it that hard? What did you put in it? Sucralose? That's one of those artificial sweeteners isn't it? Yeah, that's what I thought. You think I got into the judge's chair by being some sort of idiot?

What else have we got here? It tastes like a watered down Gatorade if I can be so blunt. Is that what you want? A diet tasting, watered down Gatorade? You're fine with that? Sir, please. Let me leave you with these words of wisdom: Don't be average. Be great. Average never did anything noteworthy. You may leave and please pay the bursar the small fee of three hundred and seventy dollars and have a nice day. I hope I left you with something to think about.

There is a place called Turkey Hill. This is a magical place where iced tea flows like water. I'm not making that up, it literally does. On the hill are spouts hidden in the woods with different flavors of iced tea. They are natural springs of iced tea, the only place in the world where this exists.

The only known side affect from Turkey Hill's iced tea springs is cavities. In fact, 93% of the population has dentures due to this. This figure was from 1962, and luckily that number has dropped to 91%. Why the 2% drop over 52 years? In 1972 some kids were wandering behind the train tracks that border the hill. Not many people have gone back there over the years due to the train yard workers being jerks. Anyways, these kids were in the woods and stumbled upon an iced tea spout that wasn't on the official city map. They tasted and it wasn't as sweet as the iced tea they grew up with.

The reason was this had aspartame in it instead of sugar. It didn't taste as good to them, but they had heard about how aspartame doesn't cause as many cavities so they told the whole town about it. Of course, as you can see by the statistics, only 2% of the population decided to start drinking the "diet iced tea" as they called it. Studies have shown that people who can't consume sugar like it, but otherwise it leaves a lot to be desired.

Once again, let me read the ingredient list to you: Apple pieces, cocoa kernels, chocolate chips (sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa powder), strawberry pieces, natural & artificial flavoring, chili, marigold petals. How many pounds can I sign you up for? Time for a little back story.

I went to a place called the "Chocolate Bar" where they have very good food, great desserts, and, from what I've been told, good chocolate martinis. There, they had a special Aztec hot chocolate that I felt the need to try and it was a wonderful decision. It was a wonderful mix of thick hot chocolate with actual chocolate in it with that nice, dusty, gritty Latin chocolate, spicy cinnamon and maybe nutmeg and chili heat in it. It was awesome. I loved it. I assumed, quite blindly, that this would be similar. I was wrong.

Yes, many of the ingredients are shared between the two and the extra ingredients; strawberry pieces; sound fantastic. Was it? Not particularly. It just didn't have any oomph. With all the ingredients and even in the name "Aztec Fire" you would assume there was some heat in this thing, right? Look, I don't want to sweat when I'm drinking a cup of tea, but I would like to get something that tastes more like a light scratch in my throat. I bought something spicy so make it spicy. If people don't want spicy things, they won't order them. That's something I never understood. People understand that things are spicy and if they are labeled as such, then they should not be accessible to all. People who enjoy spicy food do not want to taste mild food when they order spicy food. This is not spicy but it is a bit fruity and you do get a bit of chocolate, too. I was afraid that the chocolate was going to melt and ruin my infuser. It did not. That was a pro. Silver lining.

I've got a lot more of this to drink and I'm actually happy that the employee didn't reel me in with her line of "This is the last day we're going to have this. At eight tonight we are discontinuing it." Whether or not this is true, don't threaten me. That's not how to push product.

Now I'm not a religious man. I'm quite the opposite, but when I saw this bottle of tea staring me back in the face, I thought to myself, "My prayers have been answered." Now that's obviously just a turn of phrase and it's a whole lot more likely that Danny Wegman bugged my phone and heard me talking constantly about how much I, a Thirsty Dude, loves hibiscus tea.

Now, Danny in his excited and impatient ways did hear me correctly but didn't hear me entirely because as much as I love hibiscus tea, I love it with an asterisk.

The way that I like my hibiscus is with a little bit of flair. A little bit of spice. Just a hint of it. I've mentioned this many times but the Tazo Passion and the Panera hibiscus are the epitome of perfect, unsweetened teas. There is something else in there and I think that one of those things is cinnamon. Just a hint of it.

Oh look, another Moxie energy drink that tastes absolutely nothing like their classic soda. At least the citrus one had a decent taste. This just tastes like overly, overly diet carbonated fruit punch. This taste like what I imagine diet Tahitian Treat would taste like. It doesn't even have an energy drink taste to it. That would normally be a nice change up, but all I get is the diet taste of sucralose. I don't know what demographic this energy drink is for, but I am certainly not it.

You know the park down the street from where you live? You know how occasionally you'll see a deer on the side of the road near there at dusk, and it will quickly run away? Well, that is because it just remembered that it's going to be late for the nightly deer meeting. That's right after everyone heads home from the part, and before the local trouble makers show up, the deer gather in the clearing in the little patch of trees that the little kids call the forest and discuss the news of the day. You know, things like which houses have gardens that aren't fenced off and where the best areas to sleep during the day are. Seriously where do they go? I have been in the woods, and in suburban fields that are the only areas where deer could go to sleep, and I have never come across them. Are they like Einstein and only sleep 15 minutes at a time?

Recently a point of contention at these meetings has been about where they should get their antioxidants. You see one of them came across a health magazine that had been left in the park by some turd and read the benefits of antioxidants. The deer realized they had been missing out on a crucial part of their diet, but none of the fruits mentioned in the article could be found in their area.

Ultimately they decided to ransack a convenience store after it had closed. One of the elders with larger antlers smashed the window and they all stepped right in. They tried a bunch of different beverages, but the majority of them preferred the acai grape flavored one. They thought it was fairly similar to another company called Vitamin Water (yes deer can read when they are from space, oh didn't I mention that part?) The drink was sweet, but light. It mostly tasted like the grapes they found on vines in the fall, but it had a little extra (light) kick to it. The best part was that this beverage wasn't nearly as sweet as the others. It was like fruit and water mixed.

Content, they headed back to the “forest” to get ready for the day of secret, hidden sleep ahead of them. Maybe they just slept in a spaceship since they were space deer.

Children of the 80's rejoice! We have discovered the source of the Glo Worm glow. It was not batteries and light bulbs like we always suspected. In reality the glow from those weird toys was mass quantities of aloe juice concentrated down. Seriously though, what was with those toys? They were stuffed animals that had hard bulky insides, so they weren't cuddly at all. In addition to that they were dolls based on creepy insects that glow. I would water that 95% of all of the children who owned a Glow Worm would have been super grossed out had they come in contact with the real thing.

Aloe Gloe is an organic aloe vera based beverage that aims to help with digestion, the immune system and skin health. It is unlike most other aloe drinks I've tried before because it is not overly sweet (a mixture of cane sugar and stevia leaves it at 4g of sugar), and it does not have any chunks in it. It's a whole different world from the sugary treats I normally associate with the plant. Since it's going for a healthier approach that makes a lot of sense. The white grape flavor that I have come to associate with aloe is barely there, and everything tastes a bit watered down. It is a called “Organic Aloe Water” so that makes perfect sense.

This is an aloe drink for the grown ups who actually take their health into consideration when they eat and drink. I with that either the aloe flavor was a bit stronger, or that the stevia flavor was a bit weaker. Either would improve this beverage in my eyes.

We're getting there. I feel like with this, a larger company in the world of diet and concentrates, using Stevia actively as their sweetener, we are getting off the sucralose, corn syrup, and aspartame train and onto the future Hyperloop. Yeah, I skipped bullet train and went right to Elon Musk's vision of a better, faster, cleaner tomorrow. Is this that much of a jump? No, not really. Other companies have been using Stevia for years but it's just nice to see that it's trickling up into the bigger dudes.

Not only does it have a natural sweetener, but also the taste in itself is pretty good. It's got great lemonade taste and a good, fruity raspberry taste. All together it's not too sweet and not really too much of anything which mixes can tend to be. This is right on mark.

With the proceeds from the sales of this, maybe they'll help build that dream train. I'll ride that thing and take a transcontinental trip at over five hundred miles per hour all day long.

Can we all agree that your everyday energy drinks make you feel like garbage in the aftermath? There is too much sugar and too many weird chemicals in them, and as a result you crash and you either need to drink another one like a junky, or you deal with the “shakes,” or should I call them anti-shakes? For me at least they are a “break glass in case of emergency” type item, or at least they were until we started up Thirsty Dudes. Now I have a civic duty to feel like moose trampled me.

The main, and classic alternative to energy drinks is to drink coffee. That is also not for me. I can enjoy it if there are tons of chocolate and sugar in the mix, but I just do not like regular coffee. Again, I really don't need all that sugar into my life either.

Runa is giving people another option. It is a sparkling juice beverage that uses the Amazon guayusa as a delivery method for natural caffeine and polyphenols. Each 8.4oz can contains 120mg of caffeine, which is more than in a regular cup of coffee. We're talking more energy per square inch here people. On top of that it actually tastes great. It has a never rainforest berry flavor going on. You know if acai actually tasted the way you wanted it too, and wasn't so intense.

Sure these cans cost more than a gas station coffee, but they are cheaper than you would pay for a coffee shop coffee, so why not go for the switch and drink healthier.

Neil Armstrong went to the moon but what he brought back was not only stories of golf on the moon and moon dust on his cool authentic moon boots. The other thing he brought back was kept secret until after he died. When he was up on the moon with his space cadet friends, he wandered off by himself to find a nice, quiet place to write poetry. When he was out on his own, he heard something whisper to him. He looked around and didn't see anything. Then he felt a tap on his shoulder and noticed that there was a deer wearing a Montreal Expos baseball hat. Neil fell back and the nice deer offered him a hoof to help him up and then invited him back to his house.

They opened up a crater and went down a flight of stairs into the deer's home. Inside he had seen things that he never seen before. The deer had a CD player playing Pet Shop Boys' "Please," and was cooking filet mignon for dinner. He offered some to Neil and he, who had nothing to eat but Tang and dehydrated ice cream had almost no choice but to accept his generous offer. Neil asked the deer where he got all this stuff. The deer said that it was a simple solution. There was a parallel universe "Earth" that was fifty years in the future and he made friends with the astronauts and told them to bring stuff up when they came back to the moon so they brought him food, music, and electronics. Neil was so excited to get a glimpse into the future.

The deer told him he had one more thing that he might be interested in and brought out two bottles of a black liquid and poured it into a glass. Neil asked what it was and the deer just said that it was water. Neil drank it and was speechless. It tasted like really sweet blueberries. He asked why it was black and if all water in the future was going to be black and the deer assured that it wasn't. He said that there was fulvic minerals that turn the water black and then said it was sweet because there was some new sweetener they were trying out and wanted to know that he thought. Both the deer and Neil liked it.

Neil told the nice deer that he had to leave and meet back up with his friends. Neil shook the deer's hoof and thanked him very much and went back to the ship. When he got there, Michael had a giant kiss mark on his face and Buzz was wearing an extra large Matchbox 20 shirt over his spacesuit. They all looked at each other and in unison said, "space deer."

I like that Arizona has been associating their new products with various “celebrities.” I have to be honest, I'm not a big art guy by any means, and I had no idea who Richard Prince was. The can (and Wikipedia) inform me that he was a photographer and painter who created pop culture-inspired art for decades. Apparently he is mostly known for “rephotographing.” If you want to know what that is; you're on a computer and Google is but a click away.

Prince also did a series of nurse paintings, which used the covers of pulp romance novels. This is where I tie in with the artist. Sonic Youth used one of these paintings for the cover of their Sonic Nurse album. It's ridiculous that learning that fact made me feel like I had a connection with the artist. It's not even a record that I like terribly much, but it is from a band that I once held very dearly.

Whatever. This isn't about an artist this is about a beverage. Apparently Prince approached Arizona with a soda he wanted to collaborate with them on, and ended up being apart of the Lemon Fizz release. The artist designed the can himself, so you're essentially buying a Richard Prince print for only 99 cents. What a steal.

Back to the beverage: This is carbonated lemonade, and it is great. I had such low expectations for this, as I expected a lemon lime soda (the most boring of all the pops) minus the lime (making it infinitely more boring). Arizona succeeded in creating a soda that actually tastes like lemonade with bubbles, and what harsh bubbles they are. It's very strong, so unlike most Arizona drinks it's a sipping drink and not a gulper. I don't think it really needs to be in such a large can, but hey that's Arizona's thing, so I'll let them have it.