You know I'm feening for some blue ice. I've got to go to the gym and daddy needs a little extra juice. I'm working on my deltoids or "delts" as I like to call them, and can't do it without a little extra "help" if you know what I mean. You know...the blue stuff? Yeah, it tastes like really sweet blue raspberry Kool Ade but there is stuff in there, man. Whatever is in there gets me going and allows me to pump more iron than I could if I was going in on just regular energy.

Diet? No, man. I carboload. I eat three plates of spaghetti a day. Fat? No, man. This is all muscle. Four hundred and twenty three pounds of muscle. Oh, you are asking if it tastes diet. No. Not really. It's surprising because of the sucralose but no, it's not really diet tasting.

I'm a self described gym rat and they know me. They know me coming in, pounding protein shakes, and eating spaghetti out of a Tupperware container to keep my delicate shape in check. I'm sorry. I have to cut this interview short. I've got some ten pound free weights in my sights that I am going to lift to a light burn and then have some ravioli that I have stashed behind the spinning bikes.

It just so happens that in this world not everyone is perfect. Sometimes you have a vision, but the way you execute it falls short. As you can read below, that was the case with Sneakz. They had the great idea of creating a beverage for kids that contained a whole mess of vegetables that they need in their diet, but wouldn't eat. People said that kids would never drink that, and that is when Sneakz said, “They will if we disguise it with chocolate!” So they did, but the flavor of the vegetables crept through and no one was happy.

Cut to a couple of years and a second chance later and Sneakz has sent us their reformulated shakes. I very distinctly remembered my last visit with “Bandit” and was not looking forward to it. The reason for that is that I am dumb and forgot that things can change. This is so much better than the old version. The chocolate flavor holds out and completely disguises the veggies. This is like dumping cheese on broccoli and brussel sprouts, except it is delicious and not as horrible for you. Seriously all I can taste is chocolate milk. They have cracked the code and they are exactly where they want to be (well except maybe with more sugar).


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OLD REVIEW
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Oh Bandit, you rascally fox. You are always trying to deceive kids by sneaking vegetables into places they don't belong. Those dumb kids. They will never suspect that there are vegetables inside their chocolate milk. That is, unless they are dumber than you think because it is quite apparent that something wrong is going on inside this juice box. Bandit, you have lost your touch with this one. You might be saving kids elsewhere in things like food but with this drink it is as if you are robbing a bank with no gun, mask, or charisma.

This drink for a split second tastes like a chocolate milk. One split second is all you get. Quickly your temporarily pleased palate is washed over clearly by some sort of tomfoolery. I cannot pinpoint it but it's between vegetable lies and protein drinky. Both of the latter being enemies of children.

Bandit, I don't want you to get in trouble with your boss Sneakz but I've got to fill out "sucks" on the comment card they gave me for you ability to deceive children with hiding goods inside of the bads. Better luck next time little fox. Now come over here and let me pet your little head. I've always wanted to pet a fox.

I have one simple request for the humans who populate this planet: Can we please just give up on bananas? Leave them to the chimps. We evolved from them; so let's get away from their favorite food as well. I know people are going to think it's a phallic thing, or that I have a problem with the texture, but those people are wrong. I'll eat cucumbers like a hand fruit all day long, and I have no problem with mushy foods. The way I incompetently make oatmeal makes it about the same consistency as them. The sad truth that people just need to accept is that bananas just taste disgusting. I don't get even a millisecond of enjoyment out of them. They even smell gross, like they are always in a state of decomposition. I know the potassium they provide is essential, but let's be honest science has progressed enough that we can get that vitamin in pill form without the grozz taste.

Mix 1 has joined the bastard fruit with a delicious one as is common in our culture. Strawberries are delicious, so of course people will use them to try and disguise the grossness of the banana, it's just too bad it never works and the precious strawberries are just wasted. This drink really has two strikes against it before I even tried it. Number one: it's a protein drink, which generally don't fare to well for the palate. I've already spent too much time on issue number two.

Upon trying this it was confirmed that I am not a fan. There is a decent strawberry flavor, and it has a nice sweetness. If it were just that then I think this would have been a pretty good protein shake, but that banana, that damn banana ruins it all. If you are a savage who has no taste buds and eat this green to yellow to brown fruit you just might enjoy this. Me, I'll be avoiding it.

I finally decided to start reading the Walking Dead comics. I've watched the television show, and have enjoyed it for what it is, but I really enjoy the comics. I'm about halfway through the run so far, and without giving away too many spoilers they have a garden. It's garden season in real life as well, and tons of my friends are all excited about it. There is a certain greatness to growing your own food, and when the apocalypse is upon us I'm sure I'll be doing some myself, but at this moment of readily stocked grocery stores, I don't have the patience to keep up with a garden. We had a semi decent garden at our house last year (that I planted, but others took care of) and one thing I noticed was that the vegetables it produced didn't have all that long of a shelf life when not refrigerated. Now the folks in the comic have a gigantic garden to provide most of their sustenance, but what happens at the end of the season? They are going to be stuck with a whole mess of food that is going to rot away as there is only so much food that you can consume. What a bummer. Note to self: winter during the apocalypse is probably the worst thing ever. It's freezing, it's boring and there is no fresh food. I bet 95% of post apocalypse deaths occur during the winter; natural and suicide related.

So here I am drinking this juice thinking about food wasting away at the end of the world. I'm having a real upbeat day. I did figure that juicing some of your leftover vegetables would probably be a good option. It would still go bad, but probably not as fast, and for those who want to forget the woes of Armageddon it would probably turn alcoholic.

When that time comes for me I shall use this bottle of Bolthouse Farms as a beginning blueprint for how to make my juice. Actually I will use it more for reference on what not to add to it. Number one on the “no fly” list would be celery. Sure it has a couple of benefits, but I don't think they will be necessary in the environment I'll be in and the flavor of this particular vegetable is just too overpowering. There is only 1/3 of a cup of celery in this bottle and it's all I can smell/a good deal of what I can taste. Secondly I wouldn't add much fruit to it. I would leave the fruit for it's own juice, leave it out of my vegetables. Sugary vegetables are not for me, especially the green variety; I want to be able to taste their leafiness.

So what Bolthouse has is a juice that is a bit too sweet for a vegetable juice and a little heavy on the celery side. Remove those problems and what you would have is the base of this, which is a delicious leafy mixture of kale, spinach, romaine and cucumber with a hint of lemon to add a little something-something. It has a bunch of vitamins in it and it's pretty healthy for you. That celery though, man that just kind of ruins it all for me. Now back to reading about people, because that is what the Walking Dead really boils down to: a story about how people interact that just happens to be in a zombie ridden world.

Detroit is one hell of a town, and by that I mean it's kind of hell. It's a burnt out city (not unlike Buffalo), but it doesn't have the nature side to it that my hometown does. It's just endless neighborhoods that look like they should appear at the end of some apocalypse movie. I'm not one to generally feel unsafe in my surroundings, but I'm always looking for an escape route in any given situation in that city. On top of that it has the most torn up highway that I have ever experienced, but I guess that's most of Michigan and not just Detroit-centric.

A shining light through the dreariness that is the Motor City is that it is the home to Faygo. Now I know this company gets a lot of bad press outside of Michigan, because of the culture that has co-opted it, but let me tell you there are certainly some gems in their lineup ad Faygo Gold is one of them.

The company has a long running ginger ale in their repertoire, and it is not that bad. It's a general ginger ale like you would find in any generic brand. This though, this is something different. They don't even call it ginger ale. Instead it is “bubbly sweet ginger soda,” and I can think of no better description. It's not exactly a ginger ale, it has more of an actually ginger taste to it. It's also not a ginger beer because it's not intense. It has a subtle burn that it greatly appreciated, but it also has a very specific sweetness, that just does it for me. This is way sweeter than I normally like my soda, but something about the little bit of burn and the amount of sugar works perfectly. Faygo has done well in giving hope to the citizens of Detroit. Now we just need Robocop to clean up the city so civilization can begin anew.

In honor of the name of this company I am going to make my ladyfriend drag out her old cheerleading outfit to celebrate. No you fools, she will not be donning the clothes. It will be this full-grown bearded man. I'll even get a wig with pigtails if it pleases the folks at Pom. You see, this juice is that good. I derived so much pleasure from drinking this that I will put on an ill fitting skirt and tank top type thing, grab some pom-poms and do a little chant dance to announce that it's glory has arrived on the beverage scene.

Pom is no stranger to having mango in their juice. A couple of years ago I reviewed their pomegranate mango. While that was a nice treat, they have done nothing but improve the recipe for this newer version. The old flavor was more pomegranate than mango and it was fairly harsh on the throat. In this bottle it's perfect splitsville. 40% pomegranate juice, 40% mango juice/puree, and the extra little bits are spread out between pear juice and natural flavoring. The flavors blend together in such a harmony that it's like an Oak Ridge Boys tune. They are singular and complementary at the same time.

I really couldn't ask for more from this. All I can do it give, and I shall do so in the form of a cheer. A cheer that you will never hear.

Amidst all of the Apple, Xbox One, and Playstation 4 announcements today (I think I just outed how much of a nerd I am), I almost forgot today was Iced Tea Day. I also forgot to eat anything in the last 10 hours so this comes at a good time.

I think I was given this flavor because I am the only one of us who doesn't hate pears. While I don't hate pears, I don't necessarily love them either. I've always thought of them as the last picked fruit in school. Bananas would be picked first because they're tall so they could easily dunk. Then the Grapes would be picked next because they can roll around the defenders easily. Oranges would be picked third because they roll really well and have a tough skin so they are good defense.

Then it would come to the Apples and Pears. Both have a shape that isn't usual, but the Apple would win out because it is semi-popular and would probably always wear sunglasses inside and listen to Phil Collins b-sides. So the Pears would be picked last and probably play third string. Their biggest moment in the game would be late in the 3rd when someone finally passes the ball to them because no one is bothering to guard them and they sink their only 2 point shot of the game. It's sad because they will replay that moment in their head for the remainder of Junior and Senior year.

Luckily this drink isn't that bad and doesn't have low self-esteem. It is exactly how it's labeled: A really nice smooth green tea with the compliments of a crisp pear juice. The weird thing is that pears don't appear specifically in the ingredients list. There is lemon juice concentrate and "natural flavors" two spots underneath it. After seeing this I do taste the lemon in the after taste. Whatever, it still tastes like pear.

This is one of those rare times where I give a beverage that I did not enjoy a great rating. I couldn't get through more than a few sips of this tea, but that is my problem, not Harney & Sons. If I were a person whose taste buds were in love with coconut (the meat of the fruit, not the water/milk), I would be all over this. It's sad that it turns out I don't have the palate for the stuff. This is a high quality green tea with a little vanilla and even less ginger added to it. Had that been the end of it, I would drink this all the live long day, but there is that previously mentioned coconut in there that just turns me off. The thing is if you are someone who does enjoy that sort of tropical delight, this is probably one of the best teas you could find on the market.

There are a bunch of teas on the market that claim to be lightly sweetened, and that just means it's what should be a normal amount of sugar added, instead of the insane amounts that most tea companies use. Harney & Sons make no such claim, but this tea is the definition of lightly sweetened in my world. There is a little cane sugar and a little honey in here, but it only equals 5g of sugar. It's enough to combat the bitterness of the green tea, but not enough so that it's completely nonexistent. This is a tea that you could drink obscene amounts of and not feel terrible for having done so.

It should also be noted that even though I don't like the coconut I'm powering through this, because everything else in it just tastes that good.

On this day, National Iced Tea day, I did intend on drinking only iced tea but promptly screwed that up. Who cares, right? It's just one day a year. I'm getting my iced tea in. You should be celebrating it stronger than us because we drink more than you. We don't like to drink old things and it is often hard to find new, specific drinks. Believe it or not, I only had this one iced tea at the office. Please allow me to review said drink now.

This is good. It's got a nice green tea taste and is substantially less sweet than Arizona although the taste is pretty close. I feel that they really hit the nail on the head with the quantity of honey because you can really taste it. I am no mathemagician but I can tell you it's about 50/50 sugar/honey up in hrrrrrrrr and I like it.

Now that you can add one more tea to your repertoire, find it and drink it. According to the Eastern time zone, you've got less than ten hours to celebrate!

On iced tea day, I intended on only drinking iced tea. That is until I saw a commercial for cold hot chocolate and had to switch things up a little bit. I'll get to you tea but as it is, I drink more iced tea per week than an entire family.

I went to Dunkin' Donuts and humiliatingly ordered "Midgees" which I guess was the old name for "Munchkins" and I think the cashier picked on me but I can't be sure so I have to let them get away with it. Then they didn't have anything but glazed ones anyhow so it really didn't matter what I called them. Nothing but problems with that place. Then I got this drink and I was ready to go.

Now this drink is simple, right? It's hot chocolate but cold. They "Icee" it up a little bit using their super crushed Coolata ice. I don't know how they do it but it's nice. It's nice for a limited time and then it just turns into a regular, flat drink. I drank about half this as something special and then the second half, as far as I am concerned, was just chocolate milk. As you can see in the picture, they just have chocolate syrup in there anyhow. It's not like they invented anything here. They just made something hot cold and blended it in a machine that they use to make other things in.

Sure, it's good. Sure I would get another. It's hardly breaking down any barriers. I know they're not trying to do that and I'm not trying to judge them too harshly. I don't know what I would do to improve that aside from things on my part. Number one would be to get a smaller drink so that I can enjoy it as it was intended in its entirety. Second would be to drink it faster and not care about the inevitable impending brain freeze or actually enjoying the drink. I think that the first option is the better one. Smaller. I didn't need all that I got anyhow. I think I ordered a small but they might have given me a medium. Maybe I got a medium. They probably just proved me right and just got my order wrong again.

Ahh, a bottle of vintage. I'll never forget those days, going to the grandparent's farmhouse during the hot summer months. Working with grandpa bailing hay, cutting dozens of acres of lawn, milking cows, and putting shoes on horses. The later was for fun. It wasn't actual horseshoes. It was my sister's shoes that she brought in case there was some sort of ho down at the town square that she needed to get all gussied up for. Imagine a pony wearing mid-sized heels. It's a treat to see. After a nice, moderate ten hour work day with pappy, he and I would go inside and talk about things like Bill Clinton, Atari, segregation in schools, apples, and the like. We would discuss these topical issues over a nice bowl of turkey caramels until it was time to go to sleep. Ahh those caramels. Nothing is quite as refreshing as sugar free turkey caramels. It just hits the spot after you have a nice turkey dinner with mashed potatoes and peas. You know how awful it is to eat a meal and then wash it down with something that doesn't taste like what you just ate. Oh, I hate it. If I just ate a hamburger, I wish there were some sort of hamburger ice cream that I could eat to keep my palate just where it was.



Pappy, if you're reading this, I don't miss those days and although my friends say that I was missing my youth, I thought that there is only one way to have such course, calloused hands and strong work ethic at ten. Those kids that were spending their youth playing football, having sleepovers, listening to pop music; those kids are soft. We, you and I, we are strong independent men who can take care of ourselves with the lay of the land. Animals? I'll milk 'em all of the day. We're men, pappy. All because of our talks and those delicious salty turkey caramel filled nights.

Last night as I was purchasing a loaf of Italian bread and an avocado for some late night hangout snacks (yes I ate almost all of it myself, and yes it was delicious.) I saw that Goya had ventured into the “Vitamin Water” world with a new line of drinks called Hydro Health. The cashier told me that Goya has been going crazy and is making everything these days. She was dumbfounded that they now made baby food and these drinks. That was all of the examples I was given, so I can only assume that Goya has two new product lines. Perhaps two=everything in some worlds.

It seems that for the entire Hydro Health line Goya decided to forgo cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup, and kept them all zero calories. They did so by using erythritol and stevia, so that it would be zero calories and all natural. The end result turned out surprisingly well. It doesn't taste overly diet at all. In one of those blind taste tests that were all the rage in the 80's I bet a good majority of the participants wouldn't even realize this was diet. It may be the most un-diet diet beverage I have ever tried.

This is just as good as any Vitamin Water or any of the other similar brands out there. It's a little light on the flavor, but I actually prefer it that was. It's supposed to be a water drink, so I don't want it to taste like a mouthful of sweetener and artificial flavor. It's light and it's smooth. It has more of a generic tropical taste rather than a heavy guava or passion fruit, but I can look past it since it's so refreshing.

Glaceau has somehow figured out a way to make sucralose sweetened beverages not taste like the third circle of Dante's diet hell. This still tastes a bit off, but it doesn't have that gross chemical taste to it. Perhaps it's all the added vitamins and the like that do a nice job covering it up.

This does not contain a single drop of actual juice, but they did a decent job replicating the flavors in their laboratory. Even though this beverage isn't syrupy at all the flavor tastes like a syrup. If that made any sense to you then we are on the same wavelength and I think I may feel sorry for you. It's the kind of drink that helps wean people onto diet drinks. I could see myself drinking this a bunch and slowly becoming desensitized to that gross diet flavor. This could help a lot of people, well they may get cancer or something from artificial sweeteners, but at least they won't be obese.

First of all, good one Motto. You got me. I knew this was sparkling and I saw some stuff at the bottom. Let's call it "sludge" for the sake of conversation. I turned the bottle upside down and moved it around and that sludge wasn't going anywhere. I looked at the bottle and it said, "Please shake well and open carefully" so I did. I don't know how carefully you can open a pop top bottle but as expected, it fizzed up over the top. I let that guy do his business in the sink. I'm no dumb idiot. I'm not getting all sticky and green teaful. That's for the birds.

After that debacle, I drank it. First sip I was turned off. Second sip through the end kept pulling me in. I "got" it. It's a lightly sweetened, super bitter Matcha tea. It tastes like a really bitter green tea if you've never had matcha before. It has vinegar in it, which seems odd, and you could taste it but it wasn't offensive. I don't really know what that guy was doing in there but he's in there, doing his thing. This drink was sweetened with honey, which achieves such high marks in my book. I'm going to say that to all Thirsty Dudes, something sweetened with honey gets a big thumbs up. The sparkling just makes the drink a little different and might actually cut the flavor down a little bit. Between everything going on in this bottle, the reprieve is nice.

I hope they come out with some different flavors. Maybe different strands of tea or some fruit tea? I'm giving you some gold here, Motto. Use it.

Every time this happens I am always shocked. You crack open an energy drink, take a big sip and are taken aback when it is not carbonated. Yes I know that the can says, “non carbonated” at the bottom, but I'm a shoot first, ask questions later kind of guy. I like to try my drinks with only a cursory glance at the packaging, so there are no preconceived notions about the experience.

This is a sugar free, zero calorie energy drink and for being that it's pretty good. The diet taste isn't very strong. It's a fruit punch that is slightly on the tropical side of the line, but it's also on the lighter side of most fruit punch. It's like Hawaiian Punch with some pineapple and other tropical fruits thrown into the mix, but not nearly as thick consistency wise. It's a nice change of pace from the regular energy drink crowd, something that I might look into again.

In the summer as a child, you eat hundreds of freezie pops: three per day every day for the whole summer. Quality is no issue, as you have to beat the heat with whatever you and your friend's parent's have. That being said, I don't know if I've ever had a bad freezie pop. Why do I bring this up? Well, I tee'd this thing up pretty obviously but if you can't do the math, this thing tastes like a strawberry freezie pop.

It's pretty sweet like those old people strawberry wrapped candies that are wrapped to look like strawberries and when unwrapped still look like strawberries. Come on, you don't know what I'm talking about? Grandma's and grandpa's have these lining the halls of their homes. For every five Precious Moments dolls there is one glass candy dish filled with either Werthers Originals or those strawberry candies. Go visit your grandparents if you can. They put out that candy for you and trust me it's getting dusty. They don't eat candy. It would take out their dentures.

I am a simple man, and I enjoy the simple things in life. Logic dictates that since they contain very few ingredients and no attitudes that I should enjoy Blue Print's juice beverages, and I'm not one to argue with logic. This drink is wonderful is it's simplicity. Let me break this down for you. It's essentially lemonade that is made from filtered water with organic lemons squeezed into it. Since that would be a bit on the tart side, a healthy dose of agave nectar is added to the mix. I have no doubt that this would be a fine lemonade indeed, but Blue Print wanted to take things a bit further, so they also added in some limejuice. I've obviously had lemonade before, and I've even tried a few limeades, but I have never had them combined, and I must tell you they work much better in this fashion than when combined in a soda. The folks at Blue Print still weren't completely sold on their beverage. Sure it was delicious, and the marriage of the fruits made it stand out a bit, but what this drink needed was a bit of a kick. The only logical solution to this dilemma was to add our old friend ginger to the mix. That my friends is how Blue Print hit a home run with this beverage. The ginger is right up there with the lemon. It's got a little bit of a burn, but I don't believe it's enough to turn anyone off from the drink, it's just enough to make you go “OHHH!” and dive right back in for another sip.

My only complaint about this drink is the hefty price tag. It's $8 for a 16oz beverage with low cost ingredients. I know that their other beverages have a bunch of different fruits and vegetables in them, and that they are raw, and as fresh as prepackaged juice can be, but I could go to a juice bar and not spend that much on a drink that I watch them juice before my eyes. As much as I enjoy this I just can't justify paying that much, so there is very little chance that I will return to this flavored well.

Sometimes you find a really great pop from a popular brand and you are surprised. "What is this company doing making that other crud when they clearly have the ability to make stuff like this?" you ask yourself when you find it. Well? This could not be further from that scenario.

This tastes like perfume cream soda and is pretty downright revolting. Normally "orange cream soda" tastes like a creamsicle but this tastes like a bottom of the barrel orange pop that's just kind of weak and flavorless.

It's a shame that this is such a large bottle and 70% after sharing will meet its demise with the kitchen sink. Sorry starving African kids I think of every time I put food in the garbage or drink in the sink, but not even you would enjoy this gross drink.

Oh these drinks. I like 'em. I really do. They're different but this one I'm going to call their initial foray into this market because for the first time it tasted a little like crushed vitamins. Yes, this drink does in fact contain vitamins so it's not far from the imagination that it would but the previous flavors we reviewed do not have that taste. It doesn't make it undrinkable or even bad, but between the Reb A and the vitamins, it defiantly will turn some people off.

Because I am a great man and because we three Thirsty Dudes care about you, we can only draw such a picture with our carefully written words so I shot you a video of this drink in action to enjoy.



I don't want to hear any grief about it being in portrait versus landscape because we had a tight crop on a bottle, a portrait object by definition.

Back to the drink. It tasted like if you had a lemon lime juice and let a couple Flintstone vitamins marinate in it overnight and then drank it. As a kid I never hated the taste of them so this was fine to me. To Jay, disliker of lemon lime, he wouldn't drink this and it's no wonder why I had it and not him. I don't mind though. I hope they come out with a dozen more flavors so I can open up more of these bottles. Liquid good, people. Secret, liquid goods.

Okay guys, which one of you pulled this prank on me? You know I take my protein intake seriously. I mean how else am I supposed to get ripped so I can be a superhero look alike on the street for tips? One of you jerks obviously emptied out my protein drink and replaced it with a melted McDonalds milkshake. There is no way that this is not a McDonalds vanilla shake that was left out of the counter, and then put in the fridge to cool it down. It tastes identical to that. So, not only have you denied me my crucial protein, but you've also given me the least healthy dessert beverage of all time. Thanks, jerks. Now I'll never get to look like Thor for $7 in tips an hour. I'm never going to be able to pay off my student loans for medical school.