Did mango make some back door deal in order to blend so well with erythritol? While it is one of the least offensive zero calorie sweeteners on the market, it normally has a very distinct taste. When it's hanging around mango, it's not as apparent. Did they meet to exchange documents for cold hard cash in some dirty, dark parking garage? Did they use fake gruff voices until one of them inevitably coughed? Were Nixon masks worn? Was it all done to finance a surfing expedition? Find out the answers to all of this and more next week on the Adventures of Sneaky Pete (and Pete).

I have surprisingly been a fan of this line of beverages. The concept of oats, fruit juice and zero calorie sweeteners being mixed together didn't exactly produce a Pavlovian response from me. I guess that is because I haven't had the proper conditioning, which as it turns out simply means trying the drinks.

This tastes like a decent mango juice with a slight hint of erythritol, but as I said it's not all that bad. There is a very light oat taste to it as well. I originally expected some sort of texture, but it's as smooth as can be. The amount you taste the oats is similar to how any drink would taste if you drank it while hanging out in a horse barn. The association of the smell of that dwelling would impact your taste buds as much as the oats in this juice do.

Oh and the spoiler is that Pete is sneaky because he added oats to his drinks and you wouldn't know unless you were told. You should still watch the show though, from what I hear there will be “sexy results!!!”

Shakes the clown did not get his name for good reasons. He was known for shaking very badly while making balloon animals. He never knew why he shook and didn't ask a doctor until a group of kids were picking on him for being at a birthday party and it took him a long time to tie a knot.

He went to the doctor and the doctor asked him what was on his mind. Shakes, or to the doctor, Gerald, said that he didn't know what happened. The doctor asked him about a normal day and Gerald said that he would wake up, drink a bottle of mango iced tea, and go to work. The doctor asked him what brand of drink it was and he said it was called "Zum XR" and the doctor gave him a look, took off his glasses, and gave him a little chuckle. He said, "Gerald, do you feel fine for about a half hour and then start to shake?" Gerald said that he did. He said that he really likes the flavor of it. He said it tasted great and you could taste both mango and a decent, smooth not bitter green tea. It was well sweetened and he liked the little balls in the bottom. The doctor asked Gerald if he knew what the balls were. Gerald said that he didn't know. The doctor told him that it was time released energy beads that was just giving him too much energy and his body couldn't handle it. Gerald was happy that he knew what it was but sad that he might have to stop drinking his favorite drink.

The next week, Gerald went back to work for kids birthday parties and felt like he was doing the best because he wasn't shaking. He could tie balloons no problem. He had no problem squirting water from his lapel flower. He never missed another pie in the face. At the end of the shows, though, at least one person would ask him why he was called "Shakes" and he said that he used to shake all the time. The kids actually missed the shaking and he missed his favorite drink. He made the tough decision to be worse at his job but to enjoy his drink and live up to his namesake again. Shakes the clown was back!

Oh Country Time. Many people are city folk but some enjoy slower, more rustic times. Times like not having to wear shoes, constantly eating assorted pies, chewing stalks of straw, tractor pulls, and the soft, soothing sounds of alternative rocker Chris Gaines. Did you know that if you live in an official, federally accepted "country" town, you could get any Country Time products for free, within reason? It's not anything they advertise because they would lose money. Think of it like the "secret menu" that some restaurants have that serve you things like the bacon wrapped bacon burger or the Cobb salad.

In the country, miraculously, everything is powdered. I think it's to conserve space. Do you know how when people from the country complain that buildings in the city are too close together? It's because in the city, things are stored in their natural state and they stack them up and take up a lot of space. In the country, everything is wet because in order to get everything to their intended state, you have to add water to it. Add water to a can of chairs, go make a sandwich, and you will come back to a nice, assembled set of wet wooden chairs. Add water to a tin of boots and in no time, you will have a nice, wet pair of steel toed boots ready for use on the farm.

When you add water to this powdered strawberry lemonade, you are promptly provided with rather good lemonade. Sure, there is no pulp, but there is plenty of sour and tartness. It is made from real sugar, powdered of course, so it tastes like a classic lemonade with quite a bit of very good strawberry flavor.

Country life can be thought of as difficult but for some it is the only life they know. They know the importance of keeping your tins of powdered product dry because in the case of a flood, there will be destruction because everything will expand to its natural size. You could leave for your honeymoon and the town could have a flood, come back, and your roof will be of the house because all the furniture, flatware, coat racks, televisions have expanded to full size and filled up the small closet where they were being kept. Be careful in the country. It's very dangerous while wet.

There is so much flavor in each withered ball of produce that we call passion fruit. Such a hefty price for something so tiny seems ridiculous and unworthy, until you break that skin open and taste the flesh of the fruit within. The juice it contains is so strong that it is likened to a concentrate. While I don't recommend drinking a glass of Hawaiian Punch concentrate I do endorse eating as many of these little guys as you can get your hands on.

The intensity of the juice is where the “problem” exists. You see, it is great for flavoring other drinks. A passion fruit bubble tea is a beverage that is surely fit for royalty, but when you drink it in juice form it is almost too much. This may be the only juice that I would prefer to have slightly watered down, than in it's natural state. Compal doesn't dilute it quite enough to get it to where I would ideally want it, but they still make one heck of a juice. It's quite strong, and very sweet (I question the added sugar)

If you've never tasted a passion fruit before you are doing yourself a great disservice. Try it in any form. I have never had anything that was flavored with it that I have disliked.

Finally. My last bottle of Chubby. I bought this in the early stages of Thirsty Dudes and it has just been sitting on different shelves awaiting my acceptance. After that cream soda...ugh...I've been dreading this day. Was it as bad as I thought? No but not by much. It tastes more like carbonated bubble gum cake or ice cream than actual gum.

It's not too sweet which is a godsend otherwise I would have thrown this little number into the street with complete disregard to things like decency, etiquette, manners, and other people. It sucks, but it sucks a lot less that I was worried about.

Can we all agree that the beverage world has taken pomegranates and blueberries too far? It seems that nearly every company out there has that flavor in their line. Sure some of them add acai into the mix, but that's not really helping much. I understand the allure of antioxidants, but I'm just getting so tired of this flavor (orange mango is not that far behind). The thing is that these are flavors that I loved, and I was excited when they were more accessible in drink form, but enough is enough.

At least with this beverage V8 uses real juice, so it tastes like the fruit. They also mix in some other fruits (apples and white grapes) as well as some vegetables (sweet potatoes, purple carrots, tomatoes, and carrots), which give the drink a little something extra that makes it ticker and darker tasting. It's still primarily pomegranate and blueberry but you can certainly tell that there are some other flavors floating around in the mix.

If this were 5-10 years ago I probably been all over this drink, but it's too late in my beverage life to fully enjoy it the way that perhaps an eight year old would. Man, I wish I could enjoy this drink like he would. I also wish I could enjoy new music as much as he does. Looks like I'll be listening to R.E.M. for the millionth time and complain about how bands don't sound like this anymore. I'm old, it's my right.

You've had a watermelon, right? They're great. Seedless you get to eat and not worry about seeds. Seed-full and you get to spit seeds all across town like it is the twenties and you are some sort of fruit crazed mobster just spraying out your friend's car window. Sometimes you get a watermelon that is a bit too soft for your comfort but I think that the flavor is always pretty decent. It's just the texture that goes with old age in a watermelon. The people at Day's have never had a real watermelon a day in their life and this drink is the proof. This tastes like watered down candy watermelon. It's almost flavorless. It just tastes like carbonated sugar water and before you get all "all pop is is carbonated sugar water" this time you would be right. There's a real lack of flavor going on in this too-big bottle.

For all of the children of yore, this is not the watermelon you remember. This is some new, space watermelon that lacks everything that made the classic watermelon great. Flavor, seeds, and the ability to see how long it would take you to spit a mouthful of seeds.

I know I've complained about this before with the peach version of this drink, but “half and halfs” are supposed to be tea and lemonade, not tea and juice. In my book that is just a flavored tea. This tea doesn't make me think of professional golfers at all and it should with a name such as this.

All complaints aside this is a pretty decent tea. Tea's Tea (when did they drop the Ito En?) always uses high quality teas in its beverages. In fact if I were ever trying to explain the way a certain tea tastes I would give the person that version of Tea's Tea. They are the company that taught me that what Arizona calls green tea, is nothing more that a delicious bastardization of a perfect beverage.

In this bottle we have their perfect unsweetened green tea, with some acerola cherry juice mixed into it. It's more tea than cherry and I am okay with that. I do wish they had used a different type of cherry though. Acerolas are not what I'm used to and they have a slightly different flavor. The real disappointment in this drink (to me at least) is that they chose to sweeten it. Even though they didn't add too much sugar, I feel like it detracts from the taste of the green tea, and muddies all of the flavors a little. I am just nitpicking though. This is a beverage that I would happily drink again and again. I dream of the day that I see this companies products in every gas station across the country. As I get older the tall boy tea loses its allure. Sometimes you just want real tea that isn't made by Lipton.

I am currently on tour in California and found this at a cafe in Goleta. I love grapefruit soda so I jump at the opportunity to try new kinds anytime I can. The more sour the better. If a soda can make my mouth pucker, it's an almost guaranteed 4-bottle rating.

Is this a mouth puckering soda? Sadly no. It's moderately sour, but nothing too special. It's a decent grapefruit soda, definitely better than most.

You know that I drink a lot of stuff, right people? A lot. I would say that we drink more drinks that 99% of the rest of the world which, finally, puts us into that equal parts idolized and hated 1%. Ahh, the one percent. The air up here is just nicer to breathe. Filled with the scents of the most exotic of woods and scented oils. The people are all very easy to look at and their clothes are made from materials so soft that if the rest of you heathens as much as touched them, you would never be able to touch anything else because your fingertips would quite literally revolt from your hands. You will have to wait for eye scanning because your fingertips will be blank and you will never be able to use a biometric scanner ever again. Our hair is styled from both the greatest living hairstylists for free as our shoes are shined by perfect robotic representations of the world's finest dead shoe shiners.

We are also provided, at gratis, the finest drinks. We receive soda pop with all natural flavors and just the right amount of fizz. What do you get? You get drinks like this that could be personified as boring, tired, and characterless. While I am drinking something that was made from fresh fruit, you are drinking something that in every sense of the word is artificial. I am drinking something carbonated to my liking and you are drinking this drink that might as well be a juice due to the lack of fizz.

In order to get where we have gotten you will have to work very hard, know the right people, and do some schmoozing. It's all part of a days work and since none of us have to work any more, it does leave time to clean up at the back nine, polish off a case or two of the finest cigars, once again, for free, and shop for things we don't need like chrome shoes, personal elephant groomers, diamond Montblanc pencils, and heated cat hats. Which reminds me, I've got to pay my tie repairman and personal closet organizer before the end of the week or my life will just be the pits.

Cheribundi continuously walks the line between being great and being amazing. They use real cherry juice that is not from a concentrate in all of their beverages, which is great because that means there are cherry drinks out there that don't taste like cough medicine. Who decided to call that flavor cherry anyway? The fruit tastes nothing like that sugary monstrosity that has usurped its name.

This is very similar to the Jasmine Tea version I had a little ways back, minus all traces of anything floral. It has a classic sweetened green tea base that is amplified by the cherry juice. That juice is just great. Anytime a drink has a taste to it that makes me think about eating fruit, I know I have a winner on my hands.

My only complaint is that I could do with a little less sugar, but I prefer unsweetened teas, so this will probably be just right for those of you who drink the sweetened stuff on the regular.

Diet fruit punch should not exist in any form.

Carl was a pretty cool dude. He always wore a jean jacket no matter what the weather was. He always wore jeans and a white shirt. Now that I think about it, it sounds a lot like someone else we know about. He would always go around slamming jukeboxes in fifty's style restaurants even though it never worked and more than likely would get him yelled at by the staff. They knew what he was up to and they weren't buying it. It was one thing when he was in his twenties but in his forties and into his fifties, it seemed as if he was holding on to something for too long.

One day while riding his motorcycle down a highway, he stopped at a gas station to get something to drink and fuel up. He filled up the tank and went into the shop and grabbed a pre-made turkey sandwich and a bottle of the shops own cherry pomegranate iced tea. He sat down outside under an umbrella to eat before hitting the road again. He took a bit of the sandwich and it was not very good but when he took a sip of the iced tea, he was relieved. It was a good iced tea that somehow tasted like cherries, pomegranate and still left room for some iced tea taste. It wasn't too sweet and he knew that he was going to have no problem choking down that awful sandwich after this rather good drink.

As soon as he finished lunch, a group of three teenage kids started walking towards Carl. He thought they were going to make fun of him for being "too old to be cool" or something. They walked up and said, "Hey, that's a really nice bike." and Carl lit up. He thanked them and let them sit on it. It was time for everyone to leave and he gave everyone high fives and as the last one left, the youngest one told Carl, "You're a pretty cool dude." and that's all that he needed to feel like a million bucks again.

Weight loss / muscle building drinks are all the rage these days. There are new products flooding the market all the time. The newest one to grab my attention is “bod-e” by Vemma. There are a lot of mixed feelings about the way the Vemma company is ran, but I'm not going to get into it. I'm not a businessman, I'm just some “dumb dummy” who like to try all sorts of beverages and then write poorly about them.

Bod-e doesn't really taste like any other “weight solution” beverage I have ever had before. It's fruity, lightly carbonated and it doesn't taste all that diet, even though it has sucralose in it accompanying the cane sugar. The first thing I noticed when I opened that can was that it has a milky orange color. I wasn't expecting that at all since it's carbonated and the coloring makes it look thicker than it actually is.

There is a whole mess of ingredients in here to help with weight loss (and to keep it off), There are a lot of the familiar vitamin faces that you know from energy drinks as well as protein, aloe vera and green tea. I'm not that kind of scientist, so I can't claim to know which ones works and which does not. I can tell you about tastes though, and this has a decent citrus taste thanks to the mangosteen. By the time you get towards the last quarter of the can you are able to taste the sucralose a bit more, but it wasn't enough to turn me off.

After a single can I have no idea how well this product actually works, but I can tell you that it tastes decent enough, and flavorwise it is much better than most of it's competitors.

I'm melting. I swear it was so hot in the print shop today that my skin felt like it was just going to melt off. I drank a half-gallon of unsweetened iced tea, and it still wasn't cutting it. I needed refreshment and I needed it instantly. My drink bin is running dangerously low, but luckily I had a single bottle of Gatorade in there. Not only was it meant to refresh and rehydrate, it also cam in a large quantity (32oz). I cracked open this cap and chugged about half the bottle. It's not how I generally drink a beverage for review, but I knew I had a lot left, and I felt I ha sweat out a dangerous amount of life sustaining fluids.

The enigma of this beverage is that even though the flavor is very light, it has a stronger flavor than other varieties of Gatorade. It's a grape flavor, but the “Gatorade-ness” of it isn't as prominent as with other flavors. I personally think it's one of the best in the companies arsenal.

After I drank this the room was still scalding hot, and I was still sweating like a maniac, but I felt much better. As an added bonus it also has a great taste. I win all the way around.

Jay says to me he says, "We've got this briefcase of drinks and they're like protein drinks but they don't taste like protein drinks." Then he hands me a cardboard briefcase of these drinks. How can I turn down a proposal like that? I could be a high power, yet ecologically concerned, sales person in the time when kids used to have those clear, acrylic backpacks so teachers could see what they are carrying in case they are carrying bombs and/or guns. Ahh, this post-911 world is something, isn't it? We've got to carry around briefcases made of cardboard with little see-through holes so you can see, "No, ma'am. That's not a gun. That's a protein drink. No need to phone the police on me. Have a nice day, now. That's for assuming that because I have a beard and tattoos that I carry around weapons."

So I've got this briefcase of drinks and Jay blows through the other ones and says, "You do the watermelon." Don't have to ask me twice. I drink it and it's good. It's like a Vitamin Water but maybe a little thicker. Not "protein drink" thick, but thick enough for me to feel the need to mention. There wasn't any gross, artificial sweetener taste to it regardless of it actually having an artificial sweetener in it. Then again, actual Vitamin Water doesn't use real sugar and it doesn't taste gross so they might be on to something.

The watermelon flavor is a bit "candied" but isn't so sweet that it is like liquid watermelon candy; a though that makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about. It's not too strong of a watermelon flavor either so it's not offensive even of itself.

Look; yes. I had a briefcase of drinks and although I knew a kid in high school that had a bit of an issue with a pipe bomb, there is no need for me to carry that thing around with me. I can carry opaque stuff just like anyone else and if a cop wants to ask to see what's in my bag, please do. Enjoy my assortment of drinks, inevitably varied metal, pop, and indie rock records, and whatever else I've got in that thing. You sir, you wasted your time because that guy across the street probably has a pound of weed in his hemp, drawstring backpack. I mean, come on, officer. He's wearing a tie dye Grateful Dead dancing bear shirt in the year 2013. No way he'd pee clean.

Viva Aloe! That is a statement I can get behind. I don't know how a plant that tastes so much like poison when found in nature can be transformed into such a tantalizing beverage, but some things you are just not meant to know. Other things that I didn't need to know include that there are more chickens on the planet than humans (the great poultry revolt will soon be upon us) and that the guy from Drew Carey did the voice of Batman in one of the cartoons (way to talk about taking you out of the awesomeness that is Batman).

This may be the first aloe drink that I have tasted that tasted fresh and not like it came from some mix. The bottle boasts, “no gelatin, no powder, no artificial color or flavors,” so it looks like I was somewhat correct. It's also make from real fruit juice, which is a nice change from the fake flavors these drinks normally have. This also has mammoth size aloe chunks in it, amongst the smaller ones. It's mostly smaller chunks that are the size they are in most aloe drinks, but every once in awhile you get a huge hunking one and it's wonderful.

On top of all of that this is the only watermelon flavored beverage…€¦actually any watermelon product that I have had that doesn't taste like a Jolly Rancher candy. This actually tastes like the fruit. It's subtle, but it's there and it doesn't taste overly watered down like I imagine straight watermelon juice would. I think this is a miracle of nature.

I also see that this company makes a honeydew variety and I must now hunt that down before I can die happy.

There is both something about Mary and something about peaches. Mary had a certain "cuteness" and liked the "underachiever" a bit. That made her approachable but still frightening because there was no telling why she didn't like "normal" guys. Peaches are a bit more complex. It might be due to my hatred of using napkins and my simultaneous hatred towards leaky fruit but I don't like 'em. This, though, I wish it had some sort of nutritional value because it's good.

Yeah, I know. Us drink elitists should have higher standards when it comes to what we like but this, HFCS and all, is pretty good and at the top of the charts when it comes to peach pop, not that there is a lot of competition. What do I like about it? It's adequate sweetness and the fact that it doesn't linger like that friend from high school that wants to catch up with you when you're carrying two gallons of milk and a handful of groceries and are on the phone with your mom.

Even with that glowing recommendation, I cannot finish a simple coffee cup full of it, let alone the generous portion inside of the bottle itself. Fruit pop does that to me.

I like sparkling beverages and I love green tea. I also prefer lower calorie beverages when it's due to less sugar instead of zero calorie sweeteners. That is where Steaz went wrong. This would have been great with just a pinch of sugar, or better off no sweeteners at all. A sparkling unsweetened tea would be wonderful. Instead they used Erythritol, which is normally an okay choice for zero calorie sweeteners, but they seemed to have used ten times the recommended amount. The fluid in this can tastes more like sweetener than it does blood orange or tea for that matter. It would be bad enough, but still somehow acceptable if the diet taste was only there when you sipped it, but it leaves a long lasting diet aftertaste that lingers for minutes after each sip.

Steaz took a swing for the stars, and they unfortunately struck out. Actually the more I think about it I can hardly taste the blood orange at all. It's truly a shame.

Gerald, you just won a big race but I didn't tell you that I have a flat tire and we actually have to run to return this copy of "Bridemaids" to the video store and it closes in fifteen minutes. I have for you a small bottle of energy water. It's like water but it's got some extra goodies in it. What goodies? I don't know; what am I, a scientist? Did I make the drink? No, Gerald. I did not make the drink. Every minute that we're stuck talking about the drink is time that you could be running to the video store. Yeah, I'm surprised that they made the movie on VHS, too but they did. What do I look like, Gerald? A rich person? Only rich people use DVDs. Blu-Ray? What's that?

What does it taste like? Jesus Christ, Gerald. It tastes a little like Tang but a little bit thicker and a little bit more diet. It's good. I had one and I'm wasting my energy talking to you about the where's'it's and who's'it's of this drink. Just get out of here. You don't have to worry about your precious figure because there are no calories in the entire bottle.

Thank you, Gerald, for finally returning my video. Now when you get there, see if they have a VHS copy of "Bachlorette." I'm on a real "bad girl wedding" tear right now.