Juice - 935 Reviews

Mr. President I appreciate you taking me out to dinner. I even appreciate that you took me to this world-class steak house, even though I'm a vegetarian. Oh don't worry, how could you have known. You're too busy you know with running the free world. What's that? You are also pitching for the New York Yankees now as well? Well sir you have quite the full plate. Color me impressed. How did you ever get that gig? Oh of course you threw the opening pitch of the season and impressed the entire team. Makes sense. I still don't understand why you took me out to diner to begin with, but don't worry about me, I'm sure I'll find something on the menu I can eat. Oh look there's a salad. Oh it's got fruit on it. That's sounds good. You just order a steak and enjoy that. I'll fill up on leafy goodness.
*25 minutes pass and the waiter brings out two glasses*
Well that sure was a long time to get our drink orders. Wait, what? You mean to tell me that this is some fancy upscale modern restaurant where they serve all of their food in a liquid form? Hmm. Oh well, down the hatch. Well as far as liquid salads go this isn't too bad. I mean at least the chef had the good sense now to include the salad dressing. The strange thing is that it's not the vegetables that are throwing me off. They are pretty faint tasting. It's the pears. It's such a strong flavor it takes away from the veggies. Also why did he add sugar to this? I think a nice pureed veggie juice would be much better than this. Okay I was wrong before. This isn't very good. It's pretty gross, but I can assure you that it has be better than that glass of liquefied meat you will soon be drinking. I wish you the best of luck with that and your game against the Red Sox tomorrow Mr. President.

I've got it.

What's that?

I've made a cashew juice.

You can't juice cashews, idiot.

Woah. First thing, I'm a scientist so I am most certainly not an idiot. Secondly you are the idiot because cashews grow from a fruit. Here try it.

Ugh, it smells like puke.

Just try it.

It's hard to get past the smell but it's...alright. It's smooth and obviously nutty. It almost tastes like a light mango juice if it was filtered through a can of Planters peanuts.

Yeah? Awesome, right?

No, not really. It's a good try, and I've learned something, but I really don't see myself drinking this, regardless of it's supposed health benefits. So long as I don't smell it, it's alright, but the thought of drinking nuts doesn't really appeal to me.

Stop being such a scardy cat and/or wuss.

Yeah? Stop inventing strange and gross drinks.

This can came courtesy of my friend Bree from Pittsburgh. On a mission to find weird drinks for me, she came across this at a dollar store. While I love the name of the drink and the art (who doesn't love otters who can play hockey?), most dollar store drinks are that cheap for a reason.

I was surprised that I actually enjoyed it. It's a sparkling juice marketed to kids, and not as sweet as i expected it to be. It's a decent orange taste, with a bitter (almost energy drink like) aftertaste. While it's good for a dollar store drink, it's not something I'd regularly buy.

Ahh, the tropics. I've never been. I've been to Florida, but never anywhere tropical. I feel that everything is sand, everyone drives beach buggies, everyone wears hula skirts, and there is an abundance of fresh fruit everywhere. I am certain this place exists somewhere in the geographic world. No, I will not put money on it, but I can still be certain that it's there. In the case that you can't come up with the $1,000 it takes to go there, you can probably stop over to your local grocery store and try and find this drink. Although I am second guessing some of their "tropical" fruits, the taste is pretty good. Yes, there is the dreaded banana in it, but apple, peach, and pineapple juices mask it.

If I had things my way, I would be in a palm tree, drinking this out of a coconut with a little umbrella. My straw would be made of bamboo because that sounds awesome and I would be waiting for the pig roast below to be complete so that I may eat until my heart and stomach is content. Also, if you don't know me, in this fantasy I have also given myself the ability to climb trees. In high school I had to do the rope climb and might have made it as high as I can jump and hold on. Someday I'll master that rope and as soon as I do, bon voyage.

Hansen's, you know what you are doing when it comes to sodas. I don't care what Derek thinks. Mike and I love you for your fizzy greatness. Your canned smoothies left a lot to be desired. In fact I think your pineapple coconut one was the first drink we ever gave a "one-bottle" review to. I know we use the phrase "barf sauce" a decent amount on here, but that smoothie literally tasted like vomit. So you are up for pop, down for soda.

Here we venture forth into your third line of drinks, juice. This here is the tiebreaker and as it turns out, you come out on the winning team. This is some pretty great juice. It's good on it's own, but the fact that it's a diet juice puts it over the top. Rebiana is a great lo-cal sweetener that doesn't have a very strong diet taste. It tastes like pomegranate and blackberry, just the way it should. I wish it was more than 35% fruit juice, but as I said for a diet beverage, this has a lot going for it.

Dear members of the board, let's change the name of the company to "Texas Burst". Why? Well, because "Jersey's Best Drinks" isn't really as strong a name. You've got the "Texas", which is big and large and the "burst", which is flavorful, explosive, and tasty. "Jersey's Best Drinks" was a name given to us by that strange indie kid who used to listen to strange headbanging music on his headphones. Creative department. I took a design class at community college and think that I know a thing or two about design and creativity. Kids, what do they know? So, "Texas Burst" it is. No, John, it's not lying. We don't have to be in Texas to reference the name. It's not misleading at all John. Why are you always challenging me? Man, give it a break.

So flavors...how about something tropical? Mango? No. Pineapple? Yeah. Definitely. Something else...strawberry? Serious? John? Strawberries aren't tropical. Idiot. Watermelon. Nothing's more tropical than a good ol' watermelon. Done. Those two will be perfect together. What else? What?!? John...cane sugar? What are we? Made of money? Corn syrup will do just fine in this application. Let's get a nice big bottle, too. People love quantity over quality. Oh, and mark it down, too. Cheap, like sub dollar cheap. We're going to make a fortune.

100% juice is just the way I like it. There is some peach in this mix, but it really doesn't stand a chance with such an overbearing partner like apricot. If this were the DC universe, apricot would represent Batman and peach would be filling the role of Robin. I take that back. Everyone loves Batman, but who really cares about Robin? Peach is far too delicious of a fruit to be Robin. I need to come up with a better superhero team where the sidekick is better than the hero, but where the hero is the center of attention. (I know Batman is not a superhero. In fact, that's what makes him so much better than other heroes). How about Kato and the Green Hornet? I guess that works.

Often times, nay, most times, I am surly. I've always got something to say about everything. I am not awful to be around, but I can get tiring. I know people worse than myself, but I'm man enough to admit it. I enjoy the company of others who complain, but to a certain point. I like to think that I complain in a humorous, reflective way, where others just don't know how to have a good time. This drink had good intentions, but as far as I'm concerned, it's just a good orange pop. Like the great Paul F. Tompkins once said, "The best barbecue is only good barbecue." Orange pop is alright if you're at a party or if you're nine. I guess it's also alright if you're going to have blood orange so you can call yourself "worldly" or some garbage, but this to me just tasted very medium. I've had an excellent blood orange Frizzante before, but this doesn't do it. Orange pop is just orange pop to me.

I'm pretty sure there was a secret conference somewhere in the past year or two where it was voted that acai would be the new hip fruit. For a couple of years before that pomegranate ruled the school. It was obviously time for it to pass on the torch, and it seems that acai was voted into office. It's all over the place lately. Antioxidants are all the rage and acai is at the top of the charts.

Acai Roots decided to step up the game. Unlike most, if not all other companies, Acai Roots does not mix other fruit juices in with their acai juice. It's water, acai puree, and cane sugar. I can get behind that. If you were spotlighting a certain fruit, why would you want to muddy up the flavor with other ingredients?

It's a strong juice. It has that specific acidic taste that let's you know "This is a juice that is exceptionally good for me." It's not something the average person could drink a big 16oz glass of, but a nice smaller glass a day is not out of the question. The bottle also recommends putting the juice into a smoothie or a shake. Both of those sound pretty incredible.

Coffee as a fruit? The first thing I (unfortunately) thought of was that monkey poop coffee. Oh, you've never heard of it? Some monkey somewhere eats coffee fruit, poops out the coffee beans, and people go crazy-go-nuts over it. It's the world's most expensive coffee. It comes from a monkey's butt and people clamor over it. Gross. I don't like coffee, or things that come out of butts, but this, luckily for me, is neither. It's pretty fantastic. It's got a sweet Stevia taste, but it really allows the clementine flavor to shine through. It's very fruity and very inviting. It's got a great smell and I could easily drink a straight 40 of this stuff. It goes down really smooth and 16.9 ounces is only 10 calories. This is downright healthy for you and is actually 100% of your daily vitamin C intake.

I hate oranges, but love orange juice. I know it's stupid, but there is just so much work and I've got better things to do than peel an orange all friggin' day.

Today I spent the day in the studio recording with my band. It was awesome and we had a lot of fun. An added bonus was that we were locked away and we missed the complete annoyance of the St Patrick's Day parade on the streets below. We wrapped up a little while ago and I was walking to my car when I noticed some drunken jerk had completely trashed the side of my car (there was a video camera in the parking lot and the driving was definitely a drunk parade goer). So here I sit, hating drunken idiots even more, waiting for the cops. What better way to pass this time then with a drink review?

Bai is turning out to be a pretty incredible company. They use the fruit of the coffee plant in their drinks for its antioxidant properties. You may expect that to be gross, but it doesn't taste like brewed coffee. It actually tastes like a really fruity tea. This one specifically tastes like tea with butt-loads of fresh peach juice added to it. It's good enough that it's helping me calm down. It is also so good that I didn't even realize that this was the diet version until I was halfway done. Yep, sweetened with erythritol and I didn't even realize. That gives it two thumbs up from me.

Thanks to Thirsty Dudes I now have the wonderful fruit pomelo in my life. It's an Asian grapefruit that's not as acidic. I really enjoy it. When Mike and I found this in a little Asian market I quickly claimed it as my own. I wanted it to be a lot stronger than it actually was, but you can't win all of the time. It's an over sugared pomelo juice that has been watered down a bit. It's nothing spectacular, but it's still a decent drink.

For too long fruit punch has been run by the more tropical areas of the world. Everfresh has decided it was time to put an end to this long running era of tyranny. Although they don't refer to it as such, this drink is a fruit punch for America. Peach, Plum, and Pear can all be found locally (locally meaning in the US) in abundance. They've managed to blend them all together in a way that creates a new flavor that tastes like home. If you search them out you can detect each individual flavor, but if you blindly down a bottle, it just tastes nice and fruity.

Do you know what I hate? Straight up V8. I blame the tomatoes. Tomatoes are strange things. On their own they are the devil in food form. Seriously disgusting. I can't get over it. The thing is, salsa is one of my favorite things ever and the tomatoes in that don't bother me at all. I also like red sauce. I think ketchup is a crime against humanity, though. The smell alone makes me want to hurl. V8 didn't really stand a chance in its original form when it went to war against my palate.

V8 eventually saw that they were never going to be able to please me with their old business model (I mean I am who the company is always trying to please). They stepped up their game with the Splash and V-Fusion lines. They realized that if they mixed a bunch of fruits and vegetables together (yes tomatoes are still in the mix) it actually tasted decent...and not like something Beelzebub would be sipping on in the sixth circle of hell.

This is one of the best that V8 has to offer. Each 8oz glass contains a serving of both fruits and vegetables. In doing so it performs some sort of sorcery that makes the drink still taste like raspberry iced tea. This has sweet potatoes, carrots, and tomatoes in it. You would never know unless someone spilled the beans. Apparently they still keep Satan on the payroll.

For the first time in a long time, I can taste pomegranate as pomegranate when it's mixed with something. Assume for a minute that pomegranates are people and there is a king. No, not king. Boss. Yes. Pomegranates are a company and they named their company "Pomegranates", you know, like how the band New Kids On The Block had a song called "New Kids On The Block" off of the album "New Kids On The Block". Pretty original. At least don't give it a title so it inherently becomes "Self Titled" or "S/T". Anyhow, the boss has all these people making sales. Selling themselves as contractors to juice companies. For example, Juice Co. is making an orange pomegranate drink and they need pomegranate, obviously. So these pomegranate workers go to Juice Co. in order to flavor their drinks with their own skilled labor. Here's the thing, though. Pomegranates are crappy workers. They aren't good at getting their distinct flavor into anything and it reflects poorly on Pomegranate (the company) and therefore, reflects poorly on the boss.

Snapple has hired only the best Pomegranate workers and, for once, they've done their job well. You can taste the raspberry and the pomegranate together in a harmonious blend. Harmonious is a strong word, but I wanted to be complimentary. It's a bit strong. It's good, but it's pretty sweet. Fruity yes. Cardboard no. I mean...my favorite, no.

It's 1991. City of Compton. Rough, rough streets. Kids killing kids over things you and I would laugh at. They don't laugh, they kill, as I mentioned before. Not a day goes by where you don't hear a gun shot or at very least, a domestic dispute. These are hard times. Hard times turn people to drink. Alcohol. 40's. Big alcohol. 40's are like the party sub of malt liquor.

Here's my proposal. Let's go back in time and instead of having overpriced bodegas sell 40's of St. Ides, carry the 40(ish)'s of Archer Farms Wild Berry. People could have been in a bad mood because of financial times and street warfare, but they also could have been upset at the fact that they were drinking a clearly low quality beverage. Archer Farms Wild Berry Italian soda is a bright, clean, and crisp drink. So many flavors roll across your tongue with every sip, like elderberry and blackcurrant to name a few...and it's more than affordable.

Cleaning up the streets is a rough job and since it clearly can't be left in the under-capable hands of O'Shea Jackson, leave it up to the Archer Farms Italian soda lineup.

Did you know that when coffee is harvested it's a fruit? I certainly had no idea. Apparently it's a fruit and coffee companies discard the skin and the fruit, only keeping the center bean to make the caffeinated drink that billions of people are obsessed with. This may be the most interesting thing that I've learned thus far while being involved with Thirsty Dudes. I personally think coffee is swill. When chocolate is introduced into the mix it's not so bad, but regular coffee is grossville station. This made me very wary of this line of drinks. Coffee and fruit? Ick.

I decided to try this one on for size during dinner tonight. I twisted off the cap and took my customary sniff. Surprisingly it smelled like sweet fruit with no coffee smell to note. For the record I do think that coffee smells incredible, I just can't get down with the taste. I took my first sip and learned some even more interesting facts. The fruit of the coffee plant does not taste a damn thing like what the masses know as coffee. It was as if there was a parade in my mouth. I let the taste linger on my tongue for a bit, so it was a fairly long parade. I'm sure there were people on both sides (getting more and more annoyed by the second) waiting for the parade to end so they could get to their destinations.

The bottle says it's mango flavored, but the label lists both mango and pineapple as ingredients. It really tastes like a perfect blend of those two fruits. My brain wants me to think that the drink is gritty for some reason, but it definitely is not. I think I'm just imagining stray coffee grounds in my juice.

The added bonus of this great tasting drink is that coffee fruit is apparently the ultimate super-fruit. Pomegranate has 65 ORAC units of antioxidants. Acai has 100. Coffee fruit has a shocking 4,000 ORAC units of antioxidants. Any oxidants that were in my body prior to ingesting this have surely been banished to the depths of coffee hell. By coffee hell, I mean some terribly artsy coffee shop where all of the patrons and employees are the most pretentious group of people to ever be assembled. The walls are adorned with terrible art that they think is the deepest thing ever. In their minds they are about to turn the art world on their ear. Really they are just rebelling against their parents, since they still live in their basement, even though they are in their mid forties.

Before I even opened this drink the packaging made me fall in love with it. It's so bright and vibrant in a very classy way. The shape of the bottle is also pretty great. I obviously would have preferred a glass bottle, but at least they had the decency to use recycled plastic.

For starters, Pitaya is another name for Dragon Fruit. I learned from the label that the flower of the Dragon Fruit only blooms at night. That's a pretty sweet little nugget of knowledge. I will admit that I was a bit skeptical of this drink because I'm not a fan of coconut water. Every other flavored coconut water I've had tasted like the flavoring fruit had curdled the coconut milk. Pitaya + does not taste like that at all. It reminds me of a juice box I used to drink when I was a kid. Which is strange because those "juice" boxes were filled with so much artificial junk that they were labeled "juice drink." This on the other hand is the picture of healthiness. It's made to keep your digestive system healthy and to cleanse your body of toxins. I strongly believe that they should manufacture these in juice box form for parents to buy their children. I bet the kids would never know the difference, and you would have to keep them away from those school lunches. No matter how delicious those mounds of mashed potatoes and turkey smothered in gravy are, there is no way they are ever remotely healthy for you.

On top of producing a very healthy drink that is also very tasty, Pitaya is also a socially conscious company. The fruit is harvested from farms in Central America where they only hire single mothers from the community (Who they pay well, I might add) to help them care for their families. They are committed to sustainable farming and run one of the only solar powered facilities in Central America. For these things you get two thumbs up from Thirsty Dudes.

Summer is a great time. Every year I wait for the three weeks a year where it's nice out. It seems that every day someone is having a barbecue or a backyard party or something. People who live in a tropical climate don't know what it's like. They live with it all of the time and don't have anything to look forward to. Summer vacation was the greatest time, every time, because it's so cold for so long. How long do I have to wear gloves and two jackets? Seriously. It's getting ridiculous. Summer is the time for fresh vegetables, fruits, and fish.

I would love to use the word "embodiment", but I feel that might be a bit excessive. It also might just be plain wrong, but this is my review and I can do what I want.

V8...I love it. Now that they have low sodium V8, everyone doesn't have a reason to crack open a can and get some vegetables. It's like a salad without all of the work. This drink is like a spicier, seafoodier V8. Yeah, dude, there's clam "extract" in there. I trust that doesn't mean poop, but what do I know? I feel like the FDA wouldn't approve of American's drinking poop. It's just the smallest bit clammy. Enough that it's recognizable, but also just enough where you don't want to throw up because someone tricked you into drinking clam juice instead of a Mountain Dew.

Friends. Ladies. Do you know what is absolutely awful for you? Fig Newtons. I don't know why because I don't think I've ever read the label and I certainly don't work in the factory at night, moonlighting as a janitor only to steal industry secrets.

As rad as that would be, except that every secret spy knows that if they take the job of a janitor, even for one day, they will at some point in their mission have to clean the ladies bathroom which, as we all know, is much worse than the men's bathroom.

This has a peculiar taste. Not bad, just different. I'm not familiar with figs outside of their delicious casing. It's almost like a black current or perhaps a red grape. It's not bitter but it is a sipping juice.

Next time you are doing espionage work at the Fig Newton factory, stop in to the juicer room where I assume they juice real figs to use down the line, and steal a sip.