Soda Pop - 1421 Reviews

Hey Steve, what do you want to call our new line of drinks? Steve's Sweet Styles? You do realize that is the dumbest name I have ever heard, right? Like, it's beyond bad Steve. Not in the better than bad it's good way; in the so bad I want to punch you right in your stupid hole that those words fell out of. Well fine, I will come up with something better. Juice Sparklers? No. Oh, I got it! Let's name it after what we do to make it! All we do is mix all the ingredients together in a basin, minus the fruit and then mash that all up on a screen above it to collect the precious juice. Let's just call it MASH. It's a good, simple, non-offensive name. I mean the way we get the juice out of those grapefruits it's pretty violent, but no one needs to know that, so the name won't conjure images of us putting all our weight onto cinderblocks and just mashing the daylights out of that citrus. The results do sure taste right nice though.

I didn't have faith in you when you wanted to use crystalline fructose and sucralose to sweeten it, but the way we mixed it all together, no one would ever be the wiser that this was a diet drink from the flavor. Well, I guess it's not too diet. There are still 25g of sugar in our 20oz bottles. That's much better than our competitors though, those guys use two to three times as much sugar as we do.

This is one fine pink grapefruit soda though. It tastes nice and crisp. It carries the sourness of the fruit nicely without making you pucker your lips. Also, kudos to you for calling it a “low calorie sparkling juice drink.” That makes it seem much fancier than calling it grapefruit pop.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we live in a post Harry Potter world. Both the book and movie franchises have come to their conclusion. As I write this it has been two and a half years since the final movie and they are trying times. Butterbeer has made its way into reality from the imagination of a British woman. While it may not be exactly what the author had in mind, a butterscotch flavored cream soda burst onto the scene and captivated the taste buds of dozens. Okay, hundreds, if not thousands. It was not quite for me, but it exists and that is an interesting thing. It was the first butterscotch soda I have ever tasted, and as a person, who dislikes the candy, I found it fairly enjoyable.

Dang! has put together a little variation here. Instead of using cream soda they went with root beer for their base. To be fair this may have existed long before the other soda, but since I have never come across it until now, in my find it's post-Potter. I must say that I enjoy this a whole lot more than the Flying Cauldron Butterbeer. The root beer flavoring tones down that of the butterscotch. Don't worry, both flavors are most definitely present, but neither of them overpowers the other. This is fairly creamy, smooth and delicious. The flavor starts briefly as a nice dark licorice heavy root beery that quickly fades to tones of butterscotch, but the best part is the aftertaste is a perfect medley of the two.

I am looking forward to someday coming across Dang's regular root beer, because that initial flavor gives me a lot of hope for it. As for this, well it's a memorable soda that I wouldn't drink all of the time, but it would make a nice little treat every once and a while. If you are a fiend for butterscotch, you should most definitely track some down. You won't be disappointed.

It is always a treat in my travels when I come across small local breweries that make their own soda. I had never heard of Schmohz Brewery until I came across this root beer in a small coffee shop in downtown Flint, MI. The home of the brewery is actually Grand Rapids, but it found it's way a short distance to Flint, which might I say has come quite a ways since I last visited there a decade ago. Back then the city was a ghost town, and everything seemed to be falling into ruins. This time there were some businesses that seemed to be thriving and things looked like they were on the up and up. Good job Rust Belt, let's keep reviving these cities.

Okay, enough about economic downfall and rejuvenation. We're here to talk about root beer so let's get down to brass tax. This root beer starts off fairly light in your mouth. It seemed like the ratios of the other ingredients to water were a bit off. Once I took a couple of sips I realized that while it's in your mouth it tastes a bit weak, but once you swallow it has a nice dark aftertaste. This doesn't taste like your run of the mill “classic” root beer. It's a but darker and you can tell it's microbrewed. There is nothing overly strong about the flavor. It's certainly there, but it's something you have to kind of sit and ponder over as it's not on the nose like most root beers.

Sugar and “More Sugar” are both listed in the ingredients, so I was expecting this to be overly sweet, but it's not at all. It has an average, and possibly even a little low level sweetness going on.

Finally, I'd like to acknowledge that a portion of the proceeds of this soda are donated to Sammi Rae of Hope, which is an organization that helps families who are suffering with the possible loss of a family member that can result in high medical bills. Sammi Rae helps those families to not lose their homes. Sounds like a great organization to me, and it's more than enough reason to take a chance on this pop if you ever find yourself in Michigan.

You have no idea how much I wish I liked bananas. They are cheap, healthy and portable. Unfortunately they also taste absolutely disgusting to me. We're talking top 5 grossest foods to my mouth. The thing is that here at Thirsty Dudes we have an obligation to our readers (or accidental perusers if you will) to drink and review any and all non-alcoholic beverages that cross our paths. I don't remember exactly where I found this drink, because it's been sitting on my shelf for a few months, but I can assure you that it caused an audible “ugh' when I saw it.

Lucky for me I had some friends over last night and one of them loves bananas. I offered him this soda and he happily accepted. I took two quick sips to confirm that this tasted exactly like it did in my head and I was satisfied with my presumptions. This, my readers, tastes like a sweet soda water that has had banana Runts melted into it. Of course it does not resemble anything close to the actual fruit. It's sweet. It's strong. It's liquid candy. I want nothing to do with it, but others seemed to enjoy it. A middle of the road three bottles it is.

Steaz has their heart in the right place, and for years they have been working at creating perfect harmony between soda and green tea. Unfortunately they are not quite there. I would never say any of their creations have been gross, and I had no problem drinking them, it's just that they never reach their potential. Tea pop should be the greatest thing ever, but they always see to fall short. The soda flavor is always far too light. I'd like to say that was because they were more concerned with the flavor of the tea, but that also gets lost most of the time. Take this drink for example; cola is one of the strongest flavors a soda pop can have, and there is no excuse for its weakness in this beverage. I want crisp, dark cola flavors. This tastes lighter than the most diet of diet bogus colas. The taste of the green tea is there, but it's muddied by the erythritol, which they used to sweeten this.

My final verdict is that while this is a completely acceptable beverage, it could be made much better if they either used cane sugar (it's a zero calorie beverage, so that won't happen) or make the cola flavoring stronger. I bet they could make it could even mask the sweetener. The tea flavor would probably be lost even more though. Let's get a team of scientists on this. I want this to be so good, and I know it can be.

Many a sailor has been known to warm his belly on dark stormy nights with a large bottle of whiskey. What is there out there for those teetotalers of the high seas who have lost their families and their former lives, not to the harshness of the sea, but to that of the bottle? The answer is simple, get each and every non-drinking sailor on your holiday shopping list a bottle of this Trader Joe's Triple Ginger Brew. It may not numb the pain in their lives, but it will give their throat and guts a similar warmness as their former love once had.

An employee has told me that all Trader Joes private label products are really other company's products that they have worked out a deal that they can slap their own name and label on. I really wish I knew the original producer of this soda, because I would sincerely thank them for creating such a treat.

The label announces to the world that this is “Ginger ale with a kick!” Don't be fooled, this is most definitely a ginger beer, and if you go into this expecting a nice pale dry ginger ale you're certainly going to get that aforementioned kick to the throat with the burn on this thing. It's simply wonderful. The thing is not only does this have a nice little kick to it that is better than most ginger beers, it also has an incredible flavor. Most companies just use ginger and maybe a little lemon in their ginger brews and while that is fine and good, it's a pretty straight forward flavor, albeit with a lot of kick. The mix in the bottle not only contains the usual suspects, but it also have honey, lime juice, spices and most importantly pineapple juice. Even though it's barely noticeable that little bit of pineapple makes all the difference and puts this ginger beer at the top of the game flavorwise. This is sweet, bubbly, throat burning and slightly fruity. I couldn't think of anything more to ask for in a soda. Oh wait, they did think of something else. They put it in a classic looking green glass bottle with a swivel top. Now that's class.

Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Professor. Wait…€¦what? I thought we were a group of esteemed physicians here giving each other nice salutations. Now there's this professor in the mix. He doesn't even have a doctorate, just a measly masters degree. Like someone with an inferior education to us could ever show us a thing or two about a thing or two. Fine, I'll try your stupid soda that you created with your lower level education. Hmm, this is actually…€¦kind…€¦of…€¦good. I didn't expect that. I saw the cherry on the can and I didn't even process the implications of the name you gave it, since you know I have a doctorate and I need not pay attention to lowly professors. This isn't cherry at all, not even black cherry. Okay, I lied there's cherry in there, but it's the way that my college over there Dr. Pepper has cherry in it. It's a close facsimile to his product, but why would the market need this? Wait you're telling me there is no sugar and zero calories in this beverage? How can that be so, it doesn't taste like diet poison?!?! It's sweetened with erythritol and stevia? Well then, I really wish you possessed that sheet of paper that would allow me to be friends with you because you have created one heck of a beverage there. I normally detest all things diet, but this really tastes wonderful. I don't know how you've done it. Perhaps we can get Pepper's degree transferred over to you for your scientific breakthrough in the world of soda. He's been working on cracking this code for decades and has never even come close to your products.

Oh how I dream of a proper pineapple soda. My mouth waters on a beverage that is just sparkling water, pineapple juice, and I guess a little cane sugar. It would be heaven to your taste buds. Seriously, they would have visions of tipping their caps to St Peter and they entered the pearly gates. They would spend the rest of time resting on clouds while being bathed in this delicious concoction.

Unfortunately this drink only used two of the three required ingredients I mentioned above, and a bunch of superfluous ones. There is no actual juice in this soda, and the flavor suffers because of it. This just tastes like your average pineapple soda, that doesn't really taste like the fruit, but it's close enough to trick you into thinking it does. On one hand their use of real sugar puts then at an advantage, but on the other the flavor is a tad on the weak side compared to its contemporary sodas.

It's not amazing. It's not terrible. It would certainly do in pinch if you had an undying need for something that tasted vaguely like pineapple.

When Jay goes on tour, he comes home with some different drinks. If you stay in one place, things get stale. Jay knows that all too well so he's on tour a fair amount and, if I didn't know better, he spends as much time with the band as he does on the hunt for new drinks.

Now he just was in the United States but came across this little Australian tart. You know a drink that comes both in glass and with an awesome pull-tab is going to be good, so is it? Well, it's good and it's better than most but is it as good as I wanted to be? I don't think so. It is a nice, dark licorice filled root beer. That's for sure. What's wrong with it then? It's a little too sweet. Is it the molasses? Maybe. It almost tastes like a good root beer with something like a grape hard candy in it. That's not the worst thing but whatever that "candy" thing is in there, it knocks its great potential down a peg or two. Am I in the position to be assigning proper peg state? I like to think that I am. I would like to think that in turn someone out there is placing me on some ladder whether it be a skill ladder, sexual ladder, or something in between. We can all agree that those are the two extents of social ladders, right?

Harmony is an important thing in all aspects of the word. Living in peace and harmony with other human beings and animals is a great way to live, and you will ultimately end up living a happy life. It's also the vocal harmonies in your favorite songs that are probably the reason you like them so much. I know that's the case for me most of the time.

There is no negative connotation to the word harmony. That is the reason I think this company either needs to be renamed, or delete this flavor from their catalog. This soda was most certainly not in harmony with my taste buds. Harmony Springs makes a great sarsaparilla, so I was excited to try their ginger ale, another favorite flavor of mine. This pales in comparison to the nice dark pop that I had on my last go round. This tastes like a generic sugar soda with a little bit of ginger ale flavoring added to it. The ratio of flavoring to soda base seems way off and the flavor suffers because of it.

When you're making your next batch, think more Boys to Men and less The Shaggs.

Cranberry sodas have existed before this. Companies were content with just adding some cranberry juice (or more likely a mixture that tasted vaguely like cranberry juice) to some carbonated water and sweeter. I've never had one that I disliked, but also never one that I would ever describe as great. Taylor's Tonics are never ones to shy away from a challenge, and they set out to create a cranberry soda that is made from the stuff of dreams.

Why keep a soda simple, when there are so many ingredients out there to make it pop? There are things in the world like balsam fir needles, ginger, allspice, coconut water, cherry juice, extract of orange and a combination of Douglas fir and French vanilla flavors. These are the things that keep the beverage world interesting. When combined all of these things with the original three that other companies used created a beverage that I would most certainly describe as great, and perhaps even stupendous. The only problem is that somewhere along the way the drink started tasted more of a culmination of the extra ingredients (mostly allspice) and the flavor of the cranberry base got lost. While I do love the way this tastes, the boldness that is normally present when cranberry juice is in the mix is all but nonexistent. A simple name chance would lift all of that concern off of my shoulders, but Taylor does what Taylor wants.

I know what you're thinking. No, this does not taste like you're eating a Christmas tree. Actually it kind of does, but not in the way you're thinking. It doesn't taste like cleaner or pine. It does taste like the essence of Christmas though. If you took all of the good things about the holiday and threw them all in a blender, this is what it would taste like. This company has hit the nail on the head with their holiday four pack.

It's no secret that us here at Thirsty Dudes are very large fans of root beer. I was going to say junkies, but then I realized that we're not guzzling any version of the stuff we can find to get that sweet, sweet (literally) fix that we need. We have a bit of a refined palate when it comes to this particular beverage. Sure, if we're at a party and someone offers us store brand, we will drink it, but we search out those sodas whose companies have spent some time perfecting their brew. With all of that in mind, I would like to inform you that diet root beer is the devil. It is the liquid form that the dark lord takes to steal souls from the living on this planet we call Earth. It is always the lowest grade of root beer that has had its sweetener swapped out for something zero calorie; usually aspartame or sucralose. It's blasphemy and I want nothing to do with it.

All of the above is what I would have said to you until I tried this can of Honest Fizz. This product went up against all of the odds and came out victorious. First off, it's in a can and not a glass bottle, which does not bode well for it. Properly brewed root beer simply does not come in cans. Yes, that is the snob in me coming out. Of course it's also fighting again being the most unholy force in the universe. The thing is Honest did the unthinkable and they made a zero calorie root beer, that I not only could stand drinking, but that I down right enjoyed. I think the secret is that they started with a quality product before adding the sweetener (erythritol). This doesn't taste like an everyman root beer. This tastes like something that was microbrewed. It has a darker taste than something your local supermarket would produce. Sure, once they added the erythritol there is a bit of diet flavor in the aftertaste, but the superb quality of the root beer does a nice job of covering it up, unlike all of the rest whose products taste more like diet than root beer.

I liked this so much that I could see myself drinking it on a semi regular basis. With zero calories and no sugar, my body will be sure to thank me for that.

It's Thanksgiving and the holiday season is officially upon us. Celebrate this dreary time of your with us and a bottle of carbonated eggnog. You know you want to. If it helps any it's not thick and gross like real eggnog, it's more like a spicy cream soda.

It's been a few years since I've had a Frostie root beer. It's not like Old Man Winter on the bottle and I had a falling out or anything, it's just not readily available in Buffalo, and while I'm traveling I'm always looking for something new. Cut to me entering the Village Beer Merchant in Buffalo with a friend and I see this little guy peaking out of the cooler. Interest piqued.

From the picture on the bottle this would appear to be root beer float flavored. While that sounded interesting, it also seemed a little gross. I don't want dairy in my sealed soda. Lucky for everyone involved it's more of a root beer …€“ cream soda hybrid that is very heavy on the cream soda side of things. It tastes like vanilla extract rather than vanilla ice cream, and the results are excellent. I would actually say this is 70% cream soda and 30% root beer. Keep that in mind because if you go into this wanting a strong root beer you will be sorely disappointed.

Now there are two different versions of their regular root beer the cane sugar one and the HFCS one. It's not shocking that the cane sugar one is superior in every way. This unfortunately is sweetened with corn syrup, so it's a bit on the thicker side. I can only hope that I come across a cane sugar version some day and fall in love even more.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let's talk candles, shall we? Scented candles are wonderful and can make any living arrangement seem just a little nicer. I myself love to go candle shopping. While I can't afford (read: don't want to pay the crazy prices) for really nice candles, the way they smell is amazing. They tend to have a smell that you can taste, and that brings us to this soda. This drink ultimately tastes the way the highest quality gingerbread candle would smell (it smells just like them to boot). I don't advise biting a candle to taste it, because what you get is simply not what your taste buds would expect from the scent. This though, this is exactly the flavor that I imagine those candles would have.

The bubbly liquid form of a gingerbread house tastes like a mixture of the cookies that are its namesake and chai. I'm not talking a weak chia that you made from some second rate teabag you got at the discount grocery store either. I'm talking real deal brewed from loose-leaf quality chai. It's so strong to the extent that there is almost a burn from it. Knowing what this company has produced in the past, I expected a burn from the ginger, but instead I was greeted with a nice spicy harshness from the chai.

This is by no means an everyday soda. Actually you shouldn't drink any soda everyday, unless you're looking to end up like the mother from What's Eating Gilbert Grape. This is the kind of soda you drink on a special occasion or at the end of a long day. You get into some comfy clothes sit back and sip this over the course of an hour or so. It's meant to be savored and enjoyed. Mull the flavor over in your mouth and think about the holiday season ahead. It's going to be hell, but at least you get some enjoyment in the form of seasonal soda out of it.

Our contact at the Buffalo Coca Cola plant told us this was coming out, and while I had seen the 2lt bottles of it in the grocer store I was keeping my eyes open for smaller bottles, or cans, but alas I did not find them. As a result I'm sitting here with way more pop than I actually need, telling myself that I should just drop the leftovers off with my upstairs neighbor.

Was I shocked to learn that we had not reviewed normal Sprite when I looked through our database? Not at all. You see when we started Thirsty Dudes a few years ago we made a conscious decision to put big soda on the back burner. We figured it was the kind of thing that we would be served at a family party, so there was no rush to go out and purchase it for review. The problem with that logic is that never in a million years would I choose a lemon lime soda over anything else at any point in my life. Lemon lime is perfectly fine, but it's boring, and I don't get enough enjoyment out of it to justify the sugar intake. So here we are with our first Sprite review and it's for their new cranberry variant, which I read was going to be limited to the holiday season.

While I am not a huge fan of lemon lime, I will give Sprite props for not going overboard with the cranberry flavor in this. It could easily have overtaken the entire taste of this drink. At its core this is still mainly a lemon lime soda with a little cranberry flavor added as an afterthought. The added flavor is very light and it stays true to the brands respected flavor. This is all I could ever hope that a cranberry Sprite would taste like.

For the everyday man family friendly BBQs and children's parties mean coolers full of soda. I'm going to say that for at least 70% of the population that means coolers filled with generic, store brand pop, mostly grape and orange. Some might splurge and spend the extra money and fill those coffers with name brand soda. In my experiences if that is the case, there is going to be one hell of a fruit salad there as well. Who doesn't love fruit salad?

Then there are the other people, the select few whose incomes eclipse our humble earnings. At their parties mini fridges probably replace the coolers, and they aren't filled with normal soda, but healthier, natural versions, such as what I hold in my hands here. The people who have tennis courts in their backyards, and weird exotic animals are a little choosier with what they will serve their guests. Think of the upset in high society if it was discovered that someone was serving Kroger brand cola to their colleague's kids.

I admit that this bottle is a big part of what makes this drink feel so fancy. Who can argue with blue glass, especially with such classy looking print on it? The contents aren't half bad either. It's carbonated water that is lightly flavored. The added taste of fruit exists as more of an aftertaste than it does while your sipping it, but it does a good enough job of combating the seltzer flavor. There is a small amount of cane sugar in here as well as stevia, but the diet taste isn't very strong.

This is basically a “dry” soda that makes you feel like a big timer when you drink it. Everything about it screams money and sophistication, except the price. At the $1.50 that this cost me I can pretend I'm better off than I am while remaining the slack jawed yokel that I will always be.

So there are balls. Dragon Balls. They've got stars in them, which gives them way more special powers than some lame cats eye. They are marbles with special powers. You collect them and get special powers so you can whoop demons…€¦so many demons. It's not like superheroes where the villains represent some sort of socioeconomic issue. These guys are just bad. They just want to fight and hold lifelong grudges. Mean guys.

Now from what I know about Dragon Ball Z is that there isn't a lot of talking through conflict. It's mostly, "You are going to get it this time!" and then fight. No sitting down and debating. If they could sit down and discuss the issue at hand over a can of this cola, something might actually happen rather than fisticuffs. They could discuss things like who can take over this region of the country while drinking, for all intents and purposes, a better diet Pepsi. Sure, they might yell back and forth and have some empty threats but they will be quenched and might be able to order a nice sandwich platter. Classic dual over lunch.

The moth caterpillars may be the species on this planet that produces the most products in comparison to its size. Not only are these little guys gathered together to harvest the silk they spin out of their butts to make fancy dresses (yes your designer dress once came from a bug's butt, charming isn't it) and sheets that are far to slippery for anyone to get a good nights sleep, but they also produce a high quality product from the other side of their body. While these little fellas are busy popping out smooth fabric, they are also puking up a sweet carbonated substance.

Avery's Soda has decided there was a market for the liquid that moth caterpillars vom all over themselves, and have created a soda using it as the base. It has a general cane sugar sweetened soda flavor to it, with some hints of kiwi and pineapple to it. It most certainly tastes like candied fruit, and for that fact little kids eat it up. I will advise that parents tell their children that it's just a funny name for the soda, and not what it actually is: insect puke.

Sir, I'm sorry to interrupt your meal at this $1000 a plate benefit, but I must ask you a very important question, are you crazy? No, huh? Well would you say that you are crazy about berries? You guess. Let's just pretend you said that you are. In fact let's say that you are very crazy about berries. Some might say that you are “berry loco.” Huh, Huh, see what I did there?

So since you are so loco for these berries and I can't seem to get you to shut up about them, how about you try some of this new Aquafina Flavorsplash? It's a berry flavored sparkling water with B vitamins added to it. Sounds great, right? Well what if I told you that we sweetened the deal, literally, and added sucralose? You would say that you have no interest in artificial sweeteners, wouldn't you? I'm right there with you, and I have no idea why they did it. Okay I'm lying I know; this is a diet drink aimed to help people who like soda pop drink something a little healthier. While I'm not a fan of sucralose, I must say that underneath that fake sweetness hides a nice tasting sparkling berry drink. It tastes like the Kool Aid I imagine you rich folks drink would taste like. I know you're Kool Aid tastes better than the version they sell us poor folks, you can't like to me! Fine, I'll leave! I bet you would have had no problem with this drink had I served it in a champagne flute. Snobby McSnobSnob!