Relaxation - 67 Reviews

Well this is delicious. Hibiscus is the new pomegranate and I could not have been happier. The first time I came across this wonderful flavor was in 2009 when I was in Europe and we stopped by our driver's mother's house. She made us lunch and made us lemonade with hibiscus from her garden. It blew my mind and I drank far more than my fair share. When I returned home I searched for more beverages of this flavor and slowly but surely they started to pop up as the years went by.

While I prefer hibiscus mixed with cinnamon and other spices, I have no qualms with it plain either. In here it's fairly standard plain hibiscus, but it is still more than tasty. It's sweetened but not overly sweet with 17g of sugar. That does not detract from the main flavor at all. In addition there is chamomile, lemon balm, and theanine from green tea in the mix. Even with these ingredients, it is not a sleepy relaxation drink, but more of a de-stresser. That is something I needed as I stayed in an apartment right next to the BQE in Brooklyn. The constant stream of cars filled with people traveling to and from work is rather unnerving and prone to give me anxiety. So thanks Tran Quini for getting me through that ordeal.

Go grab your stocking cap and your eye mask because when you drink this you are going to want to melt into whatever it is you are sitting/laying on. You might as well pop on those novelty pajamas you got for Xmas a few years back that have “Nemo” embroidered on them, because you are going to be taking a trip to Dreamland. Okay that may be a bit of an overstatement. It's not like this drink is a magical potion that just knocks you right out, but it surely did make me feel relaxed and ay trouble I would have had falling asleep about an hour after I drank it were out the window. It wasn't like I was counting down from 100 before some dental surgery, but it got the job done.

The main ingredients in here are passion flower and mulungu, both of which have been used for hundreds of years for their sedative properties. They are the type of ingredients that would have been considered magic in olden times but nowadays are just herbs. Man, the world was, and continues to be a crazy place. People were possibly murdered for witchcraft, just for knowing that these plants could be used to help someone get to sleep. Magic is science and I embrace it all. Oh yeah, and on top of this being a bottled magic that works it also tastes delicious. It's perfectly sweet and floral tasting without any added sugar. It tastes like a more floral passionfruit mixed with apple juice, but not nearly as sweet. I could drink a gallon of this without batting an eye, but then I would probably fall into a wonderful, dream filled coma for an extended period of time. Actually, that doesn't sound like a bad way to spend next winter.

They may have dropped the “passion fruit” from the name, but I'm pretty sure this is the same formula as the old Black Tea, Peach, Raspberry and Passion Fruit bottles that I used to drink more often than I probably should have. If it is different it not by much and it's still wonderfully delicious.

It's always a shock when a functional beverage can not only taste like the beverage it's masquerading as, but also be an exceptional version of that style of beverage. If this were a regular iced tea that wouldn't make me sleepy I would drink it all of the time. It tastes fantastic and fruity, without being overly sweet. As it is I drink it sparingly when I need to chill out a bit. I do miss it in resealable bottle form though. A full can might just knock me right out.

When Mellow Mood first came out there were insane. I almost died because I didn't know how strong they were and I drank one before a twenty minute drive home. Shortly thereafter they apparently changed the formula and lowered the effective dosage. I no longer feared going from completely awake to asleep in a few short minutes, but they definitely relaxed me and helped me to get to sleep on many a restless night. My brain tends to go into overdrive sometimes and when that happens my chances of organically falling asleep are slim. Mellow Mood allowed me to have following days that weren't completely miserable due to lack of sleep. It was a lifesaver.

Now there's a new can, and kind of new flavors (there was a light version of this available in the past), but this can did not have the same effect on me as they have in recent times. I'm afraid they changed the formulation again and it no longer works the way I want it to. I blame the lack of melatonin. I ended up lying in bed all night and I remember light creeping around my curtains before I finally fell asleep. I really hope this is still available in the old formula because this simply won't do. I mean this is really delicious, but that was never a problem with these drinks. It tastes like a perfect Arnold Palmer with a little bit of raspberry mixed in. I still don't know what that has to do with Bob Marley, but I love the way it tastes. I just wish it still helped me get to sleep.

Relaxation is sweeping the nation, and I'm okay with it. We've been living in an energy drink world for the past two decades and I think everyone needs to take a break from being over-caffeinated and jittery. More and more relaxation beverages are hitting the market all the time. While some of them are meant to just make you sleepy, or come down from an energy drink rush, there are others such as Take 5 that are meant to help you relax, but still stay awake. Since I had a complete stranger tell me that I looked like one of the most tense people she's ever seen, I probably need this in my life. I don't know when or how I got so uptight and stressed, but I'm open to options that don't involve me smoking weed.

While a lot of other relaxation drinks contain things such as melatonin, valerian root, and chamomile to calm you down and make you pretty much comatose, Take 5 uses B vitamins, L-theanine, magnesium and GABA. None of that really means anything to me, but I'm sure there's science behind it.

Normally shots are very potent, but this tastes pretty watered down. That sounds negative, but it's actually a nice change from what I'm used to. I mean these aren't meant to be sipped, you're supposed to drink the whole thing in one gulp. I'd prefer that gulp to taste like watery lemon/lime juice instead of weird chemicals any day. I can't really tell if this works because waiting to see if it works is making me anxious. Oh man I surely am a mess.

When it comes to cherry juice, Cheribundi does not mess around. Those days of thinking that everything cherry either tastes syrupy or medicinal are long gone. It's like walking out into an orchard and filling your stomach with cherries you picked right from the tree. They have tried their hand at mixing cherries with tea, chocolate and other fruits (all with great results), now they are expanding into the world of relaxation drinks. Yet again, they have not failed to deliver.

Did you know that cherries naturally contain melatonin? I certainly did not, but it's good to know. Unlike some relaxation drinks that are just meant to calm you down and focus, this one is more for sleepy time. You've got your specific tea for that when the weather is cold, but in the summer when you don't want a hot beverage you can now reach for a bottle of this.

The only things in this bottle are tart cherry juice, water, L-theanne (tea extract) and reb a (stevia). I honestly had no idea that there was stevia in here at all, and that is saying something since I can normally spot it a mile away. The taste of the cherries completely overpowers it. This is how zero calorie sweeteners should be used. You'll have to excuse me now I can hear my pillow calling.

Just Chill is quickly falling into the category of drinks that I wish didn't have an intended purpose, because I just like the way they taste. There are times in my life when it's probably not appropriate to chill, but does that mean I should be deprived of delicious beverages?

When most drinks are named something citrus it's a pretty safe bet that orange or pineapple is going to be your forerunning flavors. This is not the case here though. This drink is chock full of lime that actually tastes like limes and I love it. There is a weird hint of lemongrass too. It threw me for a bit but after a few sips I was glad that it was there. I think I detect a slight amount of mint as well, but that could just be my taste buds dreaming of mojitos.

Something that sets Just Chill apart from other relaxation drinks is the exclusion of melatonin and valerian root. As a result you can just calm yourself without falling asleep. I swear the first time I had a Marley Mood I wasn't ready for it and I thought I was going to fall asleep in traffic. There is no fear of that with these drinks. They are simply delicious and calming, just as advertised.

Drink this in. I received a case of Just Chill in the mail. I excitedly put a couple in the fridge to cool down and then went about my day. The next morning I am woken up by my ladyfriend who is crying hysterically because she fell down the stairs. I somehow assumed the role of decent boyfriend and jumped to make sure that she was not seriously hurt. I mean I'm not a monster, but after discovering that no real harm had been done I could see myself going back to sleep. I did not play the part of the jerk that day and I consoled her, as she was really shook up. She was pretty worked up, as any normal human being would be after tumbling down a full set of stairs at 7am. I really, really wanted to have her drink one of these to help calm her nerves, but as soon as the thought crossed my mind I instantly knew that if I uttered the phrase, “You should drink a Just Chill” all she would hear is the word chill and assume I was telling her she needed to chill out. In hindsight I should have just gone and grabbed her a can, but it was early and I am part monster, and the warm bed won out. Eventually she calmed down and went to work and I did the same. It's a longwinded story, but the fact is that these drinks do what they are supposed to and it actually would have been appropriate for her to drink one at that time. I feared getting stabbed so I didn't' bring it up. No one likes to be stabbed.

In addition to their functionality these drinks really do taste great. They do the whole mixture of sugar (crystalline fructose) and stevia thing to keep calories low, but retain a decent taste. I don't know how they do it, but I would never guess that stevia was involved at all just by the flavor. I have not ruled out sorcery. Rio Berry is light, but realistically fruity. I appreciate a beverage that actually tastes like berries and not artificial garbage that we are told taste like fruit.

Just Chill has been good to us. They have sent us samples several times, and when they have they have sent a lot of them and we appreciate that. Here at Thirsty Dudes we are not to be bought though, just ask Mountain Dew about the time they sent us a care package with the samples of their Kickstart line before they hit the market. The same can be seen in our first Just Chill review. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. It was a perfectly serviceable middle of the road beverage and because of that it got a 3/5 bottle rating.
I'm pretty sure they accidently sent our samples to us twice because I got two identical packages with a whole lot of beverages in each. It's no secret that I am a sucker for ginger flavored drinks, but the mountain of cans staring at me that clearly state that they are zero calories had me a bit standoffish. I can handle stevia and in moderation it's just fine, but thinking of so many ounces of it just waiting for me was intimidating. I let a can chill (get it) in the fridge for a while and then cracked it open for a nice relaxing night on the couch with a movie.

There are two important things to acknowledge at this point.

First, this is a relaxation beverage, but it did not put me to sleep and that is the way I feel these things should work. I have no doubt that has I went to bed shortly after drinking this I would have been fast asleep in no time at all, but I appreciate that it allows me to stay awake in a calmer state. I've had a handful of other drinks of this variety and most of them just make me sleepy. This one still allowed me to function and that is great.

Second, ginger reigns supreme. Zero calorie sweeteners are no match for a healthy dose of ginger. Think of the perfect ginger ale, with just a hint of a burn, and then up the ginger flavor a bit more and you have this drink. If I were to place a wager I would put my money on 95% of the stevia flavor is masked by the ginger. Only the faintest hint of it remains.

You may not be able to buy our opinions at Thirsty Dudes, but I am very grateful to have a stack of these on hand to drink at my leisure.

After nearly 20 years the world's questions have finally been answered. Nearly twenty years ago a commercial was aired where a teenager read off the contents of his fridge to his friends so they could choose a beverage; “OJ, purple stuff, soda, Sunny D.” The purpose of this was to show that kids preferred Sunny Delight over other beverages. We all know that is a fallacy, as the stuff is fake orange juice that is so syrupy. I don't know a person now who would accept a glass if it were presented to them. The mystery has always been what was the purple stuff? Was it grape juice? Kool Aid? Some other weird concoction? I now know that it was a product that was ahead of its time and the children in the ad simply did not know what to do with it. Purple Stuff was/is a calming, relaxation beverage.

Now call me old fashioned but when I think about relaxation, drinking a cola isn't the first thing to come to mind. Actually, carbonation and relaxation don't commonly fall into the same sentence. Finally the time came when I was freaking out about the house I am in the process of buying and I needed to just calm down or I was going to give myself an ulcer. I sat back, cracked open the can, took a deep breath and sipped away. I was surprised at how good it tasted. It had a very nice cola flavor and the cherry is also pleasant, but in a way that is almost like an energy drink. With each sip it starts off as a normal cherry cola but slowly shifts into a candied aftertaste. No part of the experience was gross or weird though. In addition to a pleasant flavor this also helped to slow my brain down a bit so I could continue with life and not be consumed about all of the little things I had to get done from the road in order to close on my house. I could make a dumb joke about that British army saying, but you've seen enough puns of that for a lifetime, so I'll leave you alone.

I have never been to a spa. I feel like the intended relaxation would fail and I would be left feeling anxious. You know, now that I think about it I really don't know what exactly happens at a spa. I imagine massages are the norm, and that I'm okay with. It's the facials, mud baths (do those exist outside of movies?), and things like that which leave me uncomfortable. I feel like my version of relaxation is very different from the bulk of society. I don't even truly know what my relaxation is, but it's not just awkwardly sitting somewhere with goop on me, constantly wondering how much time I have left. Wow, I sound like turd dude there, but honestly is everything…€¦..right?

Why am I talking about spas? Well, to me this drink tastes like what I imagine you would be served at such a establishment. Now I doubt spas serve anything carbonated, and probably just give everyone cucumber infused water or something along those lines, but to me this is the taste of self-indulgence and relaxation. Actually it tastes like someone overly infused some water with raspberries and added a touch of sugar as well as a few botanicals. It's light but still fruity, just the way I like it. It's the taste of reflection, if you want to be arty about it. Even though it has natural caffeine in it it's the type of beverage I can sip and relax and go over my life without having a freak out. This company is all about balance, and I have to say that it comes across in the way their beverages affect me. It makes me want to sip on a can and then walk through a portion of the woods where I am sure to not encounter another human and just take it all in.

I'd like to stress that this is not a relaxation drink in the way Marley's Mellow Moods are. It's not going to put you to sleep. It's simply going to let you settle and reflect. You know what if this was involved with a spa maybe I would put up with people touching my face (which I hate). At least the anxiety would be turned down to a minimum.

I have no idea what is up with me lately. Up until recently I have never had a problem with falling asleep. For my entire life, any place or time, I could just lay down my head and in a few minutes I would be out in blissful sleep. Things started to change when energy drinks hit the scene. I don't drink coffee, so my caffeine intake is pretty low, so these drinks affect me a lot. If it's in the evening when I drink one, I can kiss sleep goodbye. I'm aware of this issue though, so I know how to control it. Recently though, sleep tends to avoid me for no good reason. There are times when I haven't had any caffeine, or other stimulants, my mind isn't racing and I'm not worried about anything; I just can't sleep. I don't understand it at all. I'll be watching a movie late at night, feeling like I'm about to nod off, so I'll go to bed and as soon as I lay down, BAM I'm awake. Luckily it's not a constant, just once or twice every couple of weeks, but it's still bloody annoying. It's for times like these that I like to keep a bottle of Mellow Mood in my fridge.

Now, as you can see from our older reviews these drinks will make you feel all warm and cozy, while your will to stay awake washes away. They aren't as strong as they originally were, but they still get the job done. It confuses me when I'm on a decent hike and I find a bottle deep in the woods. Who thought that would be a good idea? You're trekking through the woods and you decide, shit I need to sleep right now and then leave my trash behind. Scumbag idiots roam this planet.

There are a handful of flavors of Mellow Mood on the market these days, some are teas and some are sparkling. I am more a fan of the tea varieties. I mean who wants to drink bubbly water before sleep? (Yes I know this is just meant to relax you and not actually put you to sleep, but everyone I know who has drunk them falls asleep quickly.) Marley's has done a great job making functional beverages that actually taste delicious. This is very clearly raspberry tea mixed with lemonade and it tastes natural. Sure it's sweetened erythritol as well as cane sugar, but it doesn't taste very diet and the other functional ingredients are completely hidden from your taste buds. I would drink this even if it didn't help cure my ailments. I'm just lucky it serves other functions as well as tasting nice.

I don't know what relaxing about struggling to stay awake. I drank maybe about 50% of a serving and all I want to do is sleep. That's not relaxing. I wish you could see me type. Every other word needs to be deleted and respelled because my hands are so tired. You know when you close your eyes for a second and wake up like thirty seconds later and you don't know what's going on. That feeling is this in a bottle.

How does it taste? Diet. It's not good. The limited ingredients make whatever magic in here that much more potent. I'm telling you. I wish you could see me struggling. I'm mad at myself for drinking it because now all I want to do is sleep. It's twenty to eight at night and I might have to just call it for the day.

If I know anything it's that this is a leftover promotional relic from the HBO show Dream On. To be fair, I don't know anything about said show. Up until now I thought that Larry Sanders was on it, which is apparently not true. There it is though, right at the top of the bottle, “Dream On.” Actually, maybe someone in Aerosmith owns this company. They did have that one song that sounded like nothing else in their catalog that had the same nomenclature.

Whoever is responsible, rock star or film star, they have come up with a decent shot beverage that doesn't taste too terribly disgusting. I mean with all shots there is a level of concentrate that causes the flavor to be a little off, but this has a nice berry flavor to it that tastes a bit like candy, even though it's sweetened with stevia. Since you would generally just slug this thing back I doubt anyone would even realize the stevia was there. It's more berry than poison-shot in the taste department, and there's not much else one could ask for. Oh it also definitely knocked me right out 10-15 minutes after downing it. I guess that functionality is something I could have asked for, and received.

Do you have a fetish that consists of drinking liquid plastic until you reach a state of relaxation? You do? Well I did not expect you to answer that in the affirmative, but good news for you is that this drink is probably just what you have been looking for; a way to sate your compulsion but without being poisoned by it.

This 100% tastes like the most diet berry drink anyone has ever dreamt of. That beverage was then kept in some sort of plastic container, and the flavor of the plastic somehow seeped into the drink. The result is ridiculously diet tasting plastic.

In addition to tasting like nothing I want to consume, this is also a relaxation drink that will keep you calm without making you feel drowsy, like Marley Mellow Moods. In order to achieve that they use a blend of lemon balm, hibiscus, l-theanine, green tea, passion flower and a few other things.

So there you have it. You're rare fetish can now be explored anytime you wish. You just may have to head to Canada to pick some up.

The long of it:
Order yourself a nice key lime pie to go. Then take a pit stop to Gotham and get yourself a scoop of that toxic sludge that transformed the Joker in Tim Burton's first Batman movie. Blend that together with your pie, and then set up some bunsen burners and a little torch to evaporate any liquid that might be left in the concoction you made. Take the crust that is left and crush it up into a fine powder to add to your drinks when you want to pretend that you will sleep.

The short(er) of it:
This tastes like liquid key lime pie that someone spilled toxic waste on, and it didn't work for me. I got home around 2am and immediately took this to ensure I would be able to fall asleep quickly (I know it says to drink a half hour before sleep). Come six am I was still awake. Gross and ineffective.

The essence of Hawaii has been captured and is now available in can form. From my brief stay there I believe I have gathered enough information to make the scientific assumption that it is impossible to be stressed out there. Everything about the island that I was on was just peaceful and beautiful. Lanilai wants to share that inner tranquility with you, the mainlanders, so you can know their joy.

Unlike many relaxation drinks, this is not meant to be a sleep aid. It is simply there to help you “relax, refocus and rejuvenate.” Basically it just calms you down so you can enjoy the little things that are going on around you. It is also non-carbonated, which is nice because harsh bubbles don't really scream relaxation to me, yet a lot of these types of drinks use them. It's something I will never understand and at this point I don't care, because I'm just chill.

The flavor is a mixture of purple muscadine grapes, peaches, mangos and herbal passion flower. I tastes quite sweet and tropical, the way you would expect an island non-adventure to. The peach flavor really stands out the most, but you can detect the other flavors as well. My only complaint is that they used stevia alongside evaporated cane juice, and it left a slightly distracting taste. I don't think they needed to add another sweetener, the amount of cane juice in here would have been just fine.

You could do hours of yoga to relax, or you could be lazy and drink one of these. Guess which one I chose.

I rarely have trouble sleeping but last night and the last couple nights, my mind has been racing and it's all about one thing and that thing is SimCity. I have been building a region with two dudes from work and have stayed up later than I have in a long time. One o'clock, two o'clock. Who cares? I need more simoleans. I need more power. I need to build another block of residential. I've got a sewage problem. There is always something that needs to get done. After a week of intense game play, it has eaten so much of my nights up that I am ill. I just need too much sleep now to compensate.

In hopes that this knocks me into a nine hour coma, I am trying this drink. It's small, two swigs, and it's gone. It's a little diet but less than most diet drinks. It's fruity but doesn't taste like a "real" fruit. I assume without doing any research that "dreamfruit" is not a real fruit. I don't know if all the fruits, but I am going to jump the gun and say that it isn't real. It might be psychosomatic, but I am getting sleepy. That's good. It's been about ten minutes. I have to manage the strength to brush my teeth and wash my face and then just fall into bed. I just need to stop doing this review.

I had a fairly stressful day that I don't want to get into, so I won't because it's my life, and my website and I make the rules. I was worried. I was upset. I wanted to sleep the day away, but I had too much to do. Lucky for me this little guy had shown up in the mail. I downed the shot like an alcoholic at noon, and went about my scheduled activities.
Since it is a shot I didn't expect it to taste the greatest, but I would never have expected what I got. I expected the harshness that only a concentrate with a bunch of chemicals in it can give you. What I got was a fluid that tasted like someone liquefied some baby aspirin and added a berry flavored , sugar replaced with stevia Pixie Stix. At first it really threw me off and I thought it was gross, but then I realized that it actually tasted fairly pleasant and way better than the harshness I had expected.
I definitely calmed down shortly after drinking this. I will attribute part of it to the ingredients of this bottle and part to Mike's ridiculous stories that he told in a podcast we recorded for Buffalo Eats. Which one played the stronger role? I guess we'll never know, but I am glad that I have a few more bottles of this on hand for future stressful days.

There may come a time in your life when you get a call that says the plan in on, and to be ready by 2am. Since you know this is going to be an all night drive, with a full day following you decide you should get some sleep. It's too early for you to naturally fall asleep, so you grab a can of Purp Lean and let it do its work. I drank the can that tasted exactly like your average grape soda around 10pm. It had expected a little bit of a different flavor to it, like most relaxation drink have, but the fake grape flavor covered it up nicely. About 20 minutes later I went to bed, and was out in less than 10minutes, which is unheard of for my sleep schedule. I was doing fine getting a couple of hours of sleep in before it was time to hit the road, suddenly I was disturbed by a confusing sensation. It took me several moments to realize that my cat had nestled in to go to sleep on my head. She's never done anything like this before, so I can only assume the folks at Lean set this up to prove to me how well their product works because I didn't even get annoyed. I didn't even get her to move. I just calmly went back to sleep.

At 1:45 my alarm went off, and I got dressed and jumped in my car to head off to Punxutawney, PA to see Groundhog Phil emerge to predict the end of winter. Unfortunately after an hour and a half into the drive we realized that with the bad weather would not permit us to get to our destination in time to see Phil emerge. Total bummer. Home we went, and I got the rest of the sleep I didn't expect, so it wasn't all a loss.