Ginger - 217 Reviews

I often find myself wondering if this website is actually of any use to anyone. I'm fairly certain that no one reads it religiously, but anyone coming for actual input on drinks is either met with ridiculous fake story/reviews or they have to deal with our strange tastes. Let's take this bottle of Bedford's ginger beer for instance. A normal human would probably drink this and think that it has a strong burn to it. To me it's very weak. Sure there is some burn there, but it doesn't do what I want/need it to. I want there to be pain and discomfort when I drink a ginger beer. I want it to be hard to make it through an entire bottle. Could get through multiple bottles of this and I would only stop because of sweetness, not the burn. To me this tastes like the company took a great ginger beer and mixed 2/3 of it with 1/3 generic soda. It's just a tad too sweet for what it is, and it takes away from what I love about this type of soda. Others would probably find this just the way they like it. I rarely find anything just the way I like it.

Why aren't ginger ales more popular in bars? I mean you occasionally come across some bottled root beers in watering holes, and the west coast drinkers seem to have a love for ginger beer, but I've never come across bottled ginger ale when I'm awkwardly in a bar because it's where my friends wanted to hang out. I would really like to, and that may be solely because it has the word “ale” in its name. truth be told I would take a root or ginger beer over a ginger ale any day of the week, but sometimes it's nice to have choices, and my brain tells me that it should be served.

Bedford's makes a ginger ale that would be perfect for such a scenario. It's much better than any ginger ale that has ever come from a dispenser gun, and anyone who says that bartenders “mix” ginger ale is really good, is a crazy person. This soda has a nice label that would fit in perfectly with those of real brews, and it really does taste great. It has a different sweetness than your Canada Dry or Schweppes. It tastes like it had the same general taste that those sodas do, but that they slowly swapped out ingredients one by one with those of a higher quality. The result is a very slightly new twist on an old favorite.

If you need me I'll be nursing a bottle of this against the wall, not talking to anyone and pretending that I am enjoying myself.

The story of this beverage is great. You've probably never heard of him, but Buck O'Hairen was a notorious creator of moonshine in the Appalachian Mountains. At the height of his operations he was producing 60 gallons of whiskey a day. Do you know that that equals? There are several answers, but the one we're looking for is “A whole mess of hangovers.” Sick of feeling like garbage after sampling his wares (and his still blowing up causing wildfires), Buck developed a recovery beverage that he called Sunshine. He claimed it would “It'll fix yer mornin' right.”

This is in celebration of the beverage that Buck was making when he mysteriously disappeared. Just like back in the 1800's this recovery beverage is made from ginger root, blackberries and soda water. I don't know how the original tasted, but this current version is fantastic. If it were a regular soda it would be one of the best I've ever had, and more than likely the best fruit soda that has ever crossed my lips. It has a strong berry taste with hints of ginger, but with no burn. It flat out tastes refreshing.

This is not your typical energy drink. It's not going to make you feel crazy and give you an insane boost of energy that will lead to jitters. It does pack enough of a punch to make you feel more wake and alert in a natural way. You don't feel like you've been given an artificial kick in the butt. It makes you feel like you've woken up from a perfect nap and are ready to take on the day. I know it's got me ready to hop on my bike and just ride.

Happy birthday to me. Well, actually since I'm over 21 and this is not a decade birthday for me it really is meaningless, but let's pretend it does for the sake of this review. You see this beverage is my birthday cake. I didn't have a real one, because you're 36th birthday doesn't mean a goddamn thing, so I'll substitute a carrot cake smoothie in for a physical solid cake.

This is more intense than any real cake that would be served to me anyway. This beverage is basically what would happen if you made a vegan carrot cake, and took out all of the gluten elements of it. What you have left is a very thick concoction of carrots, banana (luckily it was invisible in the flavor), cinnamon, ginger and almond milk. It tastes exactly like carrot cake with double the amount of normal spices. The ginger and cinnamon in here are really intense. I'm not kidding it's to an extent that it's a challenge to drink the whole bottle, but it's the kind of challenge that I like…€¦okay I'm about 2/3 through the bottle and it's getting hard to keep going with drinking this. It tastes exactly like it should, but man those spices are intense. This smoothie certainly isn't for everyone, but if you love this specific type of spice and carrot cake is a passion of yours, by all means dive right in. I'm sitting here powering on, just regretting that I didn't put a candle on this thing and blow it out like a dumb idiot.

The name and label on this bottle make it look like a supermarket's store brand. TK totally sounds like it could be a grocery store chain down in Florida, and why wouldn't a grocer in the Sunshine State have their own line of hibiscus teas? I really do like the simple clean look of the label, but I've been to too many grocery stores around the world and it has “that” look to it. I'll tell you what though; if this were a store brand I would be jealous that they didn't have any stores in or around Buffalo.

I don't think I've ever come across a hibiscus tea that I didn't love, and when you throw ginger into the mix, I don't know if there was any chance of this being bad. This is simply hibiscus flowers brewed in water with a little ginger added and then it's all (very) lightly sweetened with agave. There is no burn from the ginger, but the flavor is still very prevalent. Overall this just tastes natural with nothing hiding. All of the flavors are right out front where they should be, standing naked in front of your taste buds. It is delicious and it is refreshing.

A lot happened in 1966. There were Vietnam protests, cigarettes had to start having warning labels, and the Moors Murderers were jailed in the UK forever influencing a young boy names Steven Patrick Morrissey. All of these interesting things happened that year, but that is not what Bruce Cost is celebrating with this soda. What all rant party hats and streamers are for is that they have created a soda that has only 66 calories, without the aid of artificial sweeteners or stevia/erythritol. This Brooklyn based company has come up with a mixture of cane sugar and monk fruit extract that gives the soda sweetness, without tasting gross and diet. Monk fruit has been used for centuries in Chinese medicine, and Bruce Cost thought to try it in their sodas.

I have to say the results are interesting. This tastes much better than most low calorie sodas, there is no doubt, it just has a very strange, distinct type of sweetness to it. Actually it tastes like someone was at a magical fountain machine that served Bruce Cost's regular ginger ale, and some other stuff and mixed some flavors, Laser Tag style. It really tastes like two different sodas, one normal and one weirdly diet, were combined and didn't really combine into something new. Unfortunately the delicious ginger soda was the weaker of the two in the grouping. If you're looking to cut back on the calories and love yourself some ginger soda, you're not going to find anything better on the market. It still feels like it could use some improvement though. Now, if you're looking for me I'll be wandering around Brooklyn, searching for that elusive fountain soda machine that I mentioned. I bet it only exists in my mind.

The best time to enjoy a nice cold bottle of soda of any kind is while sitting around a fire in the middle of nature. Don't let anyone tell you anything different. Okay, orange soda may be better at a bbq but everything else is at top speed at a camp fire. This weekend I escaped to the woods with some friends and after a day of taking the majesty of it all in and getting caught in a torrential rainstorm halfway through a five mile hike, the skies cleared and we settled in around the fire. Everyone else popped their beers and I cracked open this ginger beer.

With the first sip I experienced some disappointment. It tasted like a generic soda with a little bit of a burn to it. With hope in my eyes, I put my thumb over the top and gently swirled the bottle around to mix it up, in case settling had occurred, and lo and behold we have a whole new drink. It suddenly went up to a medium burn and the flavors started to burst out. It's the type of ginger beer that tastes more like a ginger ale with a kick. It's what I actually prefer. The ginger actually has a flavor and not just a burning sensation. I slowly sipped it until we ran out of wood and then everyone else went to sleep and I tried to read with a head lamp, but it just attracted every moth in the forest and I needed to run away.

Last week we received an email from Bruce Cost telling us they had some new flavors and that they wanted to send them to us. Moments later I received a message from Mike that simply said, “Bruce Cost. Finally. We've made it.” The man had a point. Bruce Cost makes some of, if not the best ginger ales on the market and getting acknowledged by them felt like we were doing something right. We're nothing but honest here at Thirsty Dudes and we are terrible writers. A lot of the time our reviews have very little to do with the actual beverage we are writing about and more about some tangent that is in our brain. We love doing the site though, so we keep writing, more for ourselves than anything else. When a company we love thinks that our ramblings are worth their time, we really appreciate it. More than that we appreciate a good ginger based beverage, and this is beyond good.

This is listed as a “BC Limited” soda, so unfortunately it looks like it's not going to become part of their regularly available sodas, which is a shame because it is fantastic. Take a base of their flagship ginger ale, which is made with 100% fresh ginger and has a nice little kick to it, that borders a tame ginger beer, and add some blood orange and lemon juice to it. It's as simple as that and there is magic in simplicity. Perhaps they could use a little less lemon, as it takes away a little from the glory that is blood orange juice, but other than that this is perfect. It is first and foremost a ginger soda and the other flavors are there as secondary notes, the way a good ginger ale should be.

At first I thought I was bummed that it wasn't a ginger beer and didn't have more of a burn, but if that had been the case a lot of the flavor would have been lost, and no one wants that. You have limited time people, get out there and scour your local bodegas and stock up. Who knows when you'll come across it again?

Last summer at the Pride parade I stopped into a little shop that was on the route that I knew had an ever changing, but always decent soda selection. When I saw they had Cock …€˜n Bull ginger beer I instantly thought they had missed a great opportunity to move some product to the people celebrating right outside their doors. Seriously, just a small sign with the brands name and I bet they could have sold a few cases worth. They didn't realize what they had, and that was the last time I thought about Cock …€˜n Bull until I came across this new variety in a grocery store on the west coast. It's not often you come across a flavored ginger beer, so when you do, you take notice.

Cock …€˜n Bull may not be the craziest, strongest ginger beer on the market, but what they lack in heat they make up with flavor. It's more like an old fashioned ginger ale with a little burn to it that hits in the after taste. It's got a nice afterburner to it, like your favorite bowling alley arcade game. The cherry is nice and subtle, but it still adds a lot to the drink. It's like someone mixed a cherry Slurpee with a ginger beer, and that may sound gross to you, but I mean it in the most endearing way.

Folks, Denver has come a long way in the last ten years. I remember the first couple times I visited there that I was not impressed. I had high expectations for the “Mile High” city, and they simply were not met. I recently made a return visit and I am singing a very different tune. I had amazing vegetarian food, I got to hang out at a barcade, I hung out with some old friends, and most importantly I got to skate one of the best skate parks I have ever come across. Keep in mind I haven't skated, other than for transportation in years until that day, but I got into it. The temperature was negative zero in Buffalo and I was outdoors in the sun skating and sipping on some juice. The juice that I chose was a perfect pairing for the day I had. To be fair this juice would pair well with most days in my life, because I can't think of a time when I wouldn't want a ginger beverage.

The ingredient that were combined to make this juice were apples, water, ginger and lemongrass. While the great natural ginger flavor could have saved most any apple juice, the one they chose to use could have easily stood on its own. It had a great flavor that bordered on cider territory. That is a good place to set up camp, right on the edge of cidertown. While I couldn't taste the lemongrass (I am more than okay with that) the ginger was on point with a mild to medium burn. Overall this was just fantastic and now that I am sitting back in cold Buffalo writing this from my notes I long to be back in higher altitudes just crushing the Galaga machine and getting the little bit of air that I am capable of achieving.

Soda has existed since the 17th century. It's had a wild ride that started from flavoring naturally carbonated mineral waters, through infusing water with carbon dioxide bubbles to where we are today. It's an interesting history, but there is one part of it that I need explained to me; at what point did companies decide that people needed their sodas to be laden with so much sugar/sweeteners? They took a beverage that was once used for its health benefits (some probably imagined i.e. Moxie and soft brain) to a drink that has been linked to obesity and other health issues. Sure I enjoy a nice sweet soda, but if that wasn't what was fed to me as a kid I wouldn't miss the sugar and I think if I drank one now for the first time ever I would proclaim it to be far too sweet, and not be able to understand how people enjoyed it. All one needs is bubbles and flavor. Sure the sugar brings out the flavor a little more, but it only takes a little bit of it to do that. Dry knows this and used that practice in their soda making. This 12oz soda has 16g of sugar. A can of Coke of the same size has 39g. That is an insane difference. I would never say that this soda I'm drinking wasn't sweet; it's just not more sweetener than flavor. Also, the health difference is enormous.

The sugar content does make a big difference in the flavor as well. It has a real ginger flavor to it, and does not taste candied. The ginger flavor is actually fantastic, and this is what I want out of a ginger ale. It's not a ginger beer, but it's on that same road. Normally ginger ale always feels like it's on the access road that runs parallel to the highway that ginger beer travels. It's the highway of kings.

Ah, familial holiday parties, what a better time to eat more garbage than you ever would on a normal day and also get a standard beverage review out of the way for Thirsty Dudes. Somewhere in the haze of cookies, pies and ice cream I found myself with this bottle of Schweppes.

Sometimes it boggles my mind when I realize we haven't reviewed a certain drink. As it turns out when we started this website we wanted to review the drinks that people might not be as familiar with, and now we have some catching up to do on the usual suspects. To me Schweppes is THE classic ginger ale. It's what was around when I was young and it's what I was given when I had a stomach ache. Side note to parents it's the ginger in old time ginger ale that soothed the stomach. In most modern ginger ales the amount of actual ginger included is minimal if it's there at all.

If you've ever had a ginger ale you can imagine how this tastes. It's a ginger beverage that contains very little ginger, so it has zero burn, but sometimes that is just what you're looking for. To me this is what all store brand ginger ales are based off of. It is superior to them, but it's that type of ginger ale. It's sweet, quasi ginger flavored sparkling water; exactly what you would expect from a “big soda” ginger ale.

Okay everyone out there who is making juice, you can give up now if you were just doing it for the flavor. Honey Drop has reached perfection on that front. I could be given a forty gallon drum of this stuff and it wouldn't be enough. I don't care if it's a physical impossibility for me to drink that much liquid in one day, I would try and I would break the rules of physics by succeeding. My enjoyment would surpass science and alternate universes would be exposed by the amount of this juice I would consume if given the opportunity. This is the absolute perfect blend of apple, ginger and lemon juice. I can honestly say that I never would have expected these to be the flavors that created the greatest juice of all time, but there you have it. Oh wait; there is one more ingredient in here as well that that is Manuka honey. It gives the juice that specific sweetness that only honey can, and as an added bonus it leaves a nice tasting film on your lips that lingers around until you lick them later.

Actually, this juice is not only potentially devastatingly good, but it is also healthy. Manuka honey is a known antibiotic and it helps the body resist infections. On top of that vitamins A and C are also prevalent in this mix up.

For the sake of the known universe I advise that this juice be monitored by the government. People should have to present an ID in order to purchase this like with cold medicine. You don't want one person drinking too much, or else universes will collide and we will all most likely perish as a result. It will be a delicious end for one human though.

What is wrong with me? Why do I do it? Why do I love sodas that cause me physical pain? Ginger beer is one of my favorites, yet it hurts. Oh how it hurts. I had an overnight drive and instead of downing an energy drink I decided to drink this bottle of ginger beer. Every time I felt a bit sleepy, I took a sip. What better way to stay awake then by giving your throat a nice liquid kick of fire?

Overall this is a pretty standard ginger beer. It's nice and sweet with a decent burn that you feel in your throat as well as your stomach. This is basically the non-alcoholic version of a shot of whiskey. It's not insanely intense, but it's enough and sometimes that is exactly what you're looking for.

Folks, a miracle was truly performed by this beverage. They used lemongrass tea and I didn't find it to be gross. In fact, I actually really enjoyed it. Unlike most miracles this is a divine interaction that I can deconstruct. The secret here is that the lemongrass tea isn't the base of the drink; it is merely an added flavor. The heart of this beverage is a mixture of water, apple juice and agave syrup. It's one of those drinks that you don't really taste the apple juice until you read that it is in the mix, and then its inclusion becomes very apparent and you can't believe you didn't realize it before. Now add a bit of orange juice to the mix and things really start coming into form. Throw in a few miscellaneous ingredients such as lemon juice, ginseng, orange extract, oolong, and that pesky lemongrass. Things are almost ready for the public, but that lemongrass is just sticking out too much in the flavor. Whatever should we do? Oh how about tossing in some ginger which will compete for one of the strongest flavors in the drink, but with not even a hint of a burn.

In the end this is really more juice than tea, but the effects are the same; it gives you a sweet, delicious organic energy, that might not be as intense as the chemical, artificial ones on the market, but it works enough.

Look at that I have explained a miracle. Perhaps the Catholic Church should hire me when they need to investigate such matters. I mean I don't have to be a believer to disprove things, right?

If Old Faithful spewed something other than water, it would be more amazing than it already is, right? If it spewed something like pastrami sandwiches, that would be awesome. Legos? Wicked. Pez? Even better. If it spit this out, though...not so fantastic. It would be cool at first but then people would say things like, "What is this? Diet?" to which the manager of the park would say, "No, sir or madame. It is not diet. Sorry for the ambiguity but I can't tell which sex you are with that giant hat on."

This would decrease the attendance at the park since it would be spewing not-fantastic ginger ale. I mean, it's not every day that a geyser spews out something other than water but the argument would always be, "Yeah, but it's not good ginger ale." It's got a decent ginger taste and a light burn which is on the better side of ginger ales but something in it tastes diet-y and that's not good. It was was diet, it would be fine. It's not but it tastes like it is which unfortunately loses points.

Old Faithful, sir, I will see you someday perhaps. When I come, I will let you know that I'm coming so you can prepare your finest Gak or Floam or other 90's Nickelodeon kids product.

Sometimes your preconceived notions on how something should be are not always the best. In the world I have embraced lemonade is a beverage that is overly sweet and at the same time also tart. It's the child in me that craves this as a refreshing summer beverage. The thing is who decided that is what lemonade should be? We've been conditioned to expect that, the same with the sweetness of soda. If from a young age we were given versions of these beverage with little to no sugar, that is what we would see as the norm, and I'm sure it's what we would crave.

This bottle of Sweet'tauk is how I wish lemonade was introduced to me. If you take out the added blackberry and ginger flavors, all that is in this bottle is water, lemon juice and evaporated cane juice. The results are very different than what you are used to. There is more of a tartness to it, but it's not even close to an extent that would make it hard to drink. It tastes like lemonade with less sugar, because that it what it is. I'd be lying if I said my body didn't wish there was more sugar in here, but my brain, who runs the show, knows that I don't need all that excess sweetener and it's happy for the lack of it. I want to have grown up on this. I want this to be what my body expects when it wants lemonade. I certainly have a sweet tooth that I'm working on kicking, and this would fit right into my ideal sugar-intake world.

A downfall of their being less sugar is that the berry flavor is not as exaggerated. Again this is something I could get used to, and there is enough berry in there for me not to question its naming. I do wish the ginger was more present in burn as it is in flavor, but you can't always get what you want. I understand that the majority of people out there don't want their beverages to hurt them when they drink them, so I can accept it for what it is and what is it is what our past should have been.

This…€¦smells…€¦weird. It's like unbaked bread and vitamins had a baby that a liquid. Sometimes working your way past a smell can lead to great enjoyment for your other senses though. I woke up this moment feeling like doo-doo for some unknown reason. I was just worn out and achy. One would think I had a hangover, but that certainly wasn't the case. I did some things around the house and still felt like garbage, so I decided to take a nap. Of course it was this time that my sleep paralysis decided to come out for the first time in months (For those of you who don't know it's when you're sleep rhythms mess up and you get stuck between slumber and waking. You are aware of our surroundings and know that you're asleep, but can't move or fully wake up. It's the worst). When I finally convinced my brain to wake up 100% I felt even worse. I was just in a haze. That's when I remembered this was in the fridge. I started drinking it and within 10 minutes I was feeling noticeably better. Not only was my predicament improving but I was also really enjoying the taste, minus the weird smell.

This is carbonated lemonade, if lemonade has made with lemongrass as well as regular old lemons. Now I don't know if there is actually any lemon juice in here, but it certainly tastes like it is. There is also a nice ginger flavor to it, but without any hint of a burn. Around the edges there is some hints of the vitamins and other such things that help with recovery, but they are mainly just hanging around in the background. One thing I need to point out is that this is ridiculously carbonated. If you're entering into a belching competition, it would be wise to slam a can of this right before you go on. Then you'll be burping like an angel. Seriously though, look past the strange scent of this beverage and you may find yourself with a new little friend.

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

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

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

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

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

Ladies, Gentlemen, Beloved Stockholders,
I've gathered you all here today to tell you what our numbers have been saying for years. The zero-calorie beverage game is a losing one. As much as Americans would like to ditch those empty calories and lose some weight, they are also a lazy lot, who also do not want to give up flavor. While we've come leaps and bounds in that department with stevia and its cohorts, it's still not enough. Those natural sweeteners still have a very specific taste to them. This meeting is to let you know that we are giving up. No we are not folding the company; we are simply going another route. Instead of aiming for zero-calories we have decided to shoot for low-calorie. We have discovered that if we mix up cane sugar with stevia, we can keep the sugar/calorie levels on the lower side and maintain some of the flavor from the premium ingredients we use.

You are all familiar with our ginger ale soda. We used real ginger and lemon juice in it. It should have been a masterpiece, but then we added a whole bunch of stevia and people complained that it was the only ingredient they could really taste. I am happy to now present you each with a can of that same ginger ale with the stevia lowered and a bit of cane sugar thrown in the mix. Tell me that isn't the best diet ginger ale you've ever tasted and I will call you a liar. No longer is the stevia distracting from the last of the ginger. This is the way ginger ale was meant to taste. You can actually feel the slight lemon kick that has been hidden for all these years. Sure there is a bit of the coolness of stevia, but it's so low that in blind taste tests most people didn't even notice it. All of that flavor and it's only 15g of sugar as opposed to the 30+ from other “mainstream” ginger ales. On this side of the table we really believe we are on to something and we hope that all of you feel the same. We've seen the future folks and it is called compromise.