Soda Pop - 1421 Reviews

Follow this path of information. Arizona is from Long Island, and they are co-opting a beverage from Brooklyn. Okay, that wasn't too bad was it? They started at the end of last summer when they released their Cherry Lime Rickey, which I believe was their first trek into the world of carbonation. It was a drink I enjoyed. It was pretty crazy, and ridiculously sweet, but on a nice hot day, it was enjoyable. Recently they have released three new flavors into their Rickey line, and they are what they are.

While it may only constitute 10% of the beverage these Rickeys are flavored with real juice. I don't believe there was ever a time in nature when grapes and limes commingled. They certainly are a strange pair when put together, but it's kind of enjoyable. I started drinking this last night at band practice, and it was a bit much to handle. Upon taking one sip I knew there was no way I was going to drink this entire can in one sitting. The label says it's three servings, but Arizona knows as well as we do that we are a country of gluttons and 99% of their customers drink them don't divvy up the portions. They separated the sweetener into HFCS and sucralose to keep the calories down, but it still makes it way sweeter than it needs to be. It is also harshly carbonated, so be aware of that when you go into one of these. Sometimes I really like that kind of carbonation, but last night was not one of them. The grape lime flavor was very interesting though, so it helped me get through half the can. The rest I put in my fridge so that I could review it later.

Here I am, the next afternoon, and now the beverage is lightly carbonated. Without the harsh bubbles, the flavor shines through a lot more. You can definitely taste the grape and lime juices, of course it's through a haze of sweetener, but that is what the majority of the Arizona customer base wants. Unless the temperature is over 85 degrees I probably will not purchase another one of these, but I am still excited to try the other two new flavors.

I've been around for thirty years and I still don't remember when it gets warm. We in Western New York get spoiled once in January with a fifty-degree day and a little bit in May with near tropical temperatures then it drops back down. To psych myself out and make my dumb body feel like it's summertime, I cracked this bottle of vintage open. Vintage because it's been over a year since I've had this on me and have been, well, dreading drinking it. It gets a little more credit than I've given it though because it's not too bad. It's not too bad for a melted Popsicle, if I were twelve. I'm thirty. This takes me back to a lot of fun times as a kid and just being dumb. If you want to get dumb again, drink some of this with some friends you went to junior high with and play some street hockey, listen to Michael Jackson "Dangerous," and live it up. When this drink is done, you have to get in your sedan and get back to your desk job. The last fifteen years have sucked in hindsight, right?

This is the least dramatic Joia I have had. Is it still good? Yes. Is it as good? No. I enjoy the oddities that come from these guys. This one still has nutmeg and jasmine, which, for all intents and purposes, are strange ingredients. What does it do? It makes for some of the best sparkling orange juice I've ever had. I would amp it up, Joia. That's what you do. Ramp it up. Double the nutmeg. I want this to taste like a Christmas orange juice drank inside of a floral wonderland. This is just a great orange juice with fizzles. Yeah. Fizzles. I do what I want. This is great just not as great as I wanted it to be. Still got a four out of five. Even when they fail they win.

I have drank too much garbage whilst doing Thirsty Dudes to really be "nice" anymore. I see companies, typically small, doing really good things but then there are larger companies probably making just absolute garbage. This is candy. Kids will love this. It's almost completely devoid of anything fruit related and completely candy-esque. That being said, if they had a black cherry candy that tasted like this I would like it. As a pop it's simply too much. It's super dark, which is a selling point in root beer but not in something that's just too syrupy. No rewards given for a bad mix. That goes for live music as much as it goes for drinks. A bad mix kills everything.

Your fruit, while technically proficient, lacks passion and in a world like ours, that simply won't due. Stop being so wishy washy and step up to the adults table and get yourself some passion fruit. It's the fruit of your dreams. It's sweet and tropical, just like those previously mentioned dreams of yours.

This can may contain only 6% juice, but it still is up to par with almost any sparkling fruit juice I've ever tasted. It tastes just like passion fruit. Slightly overly sweetened passion fruit, but passion fruit nonetheless. You could squeeze about 150 pieces of fruit (they are little, and you don't get much out of them) and mix in some sugar and carbonation and you would be close to this drink. You'd only be missing one little thing, and it's the only thing in this drink that is even remotely off putting; you need to add a little sucralose. Ugh. I don't know why they put it in here. It takes a drink that easily would have gotten full marks and drops it down one notch. It doesn't have a super diet taste, but you can definitely tell that there is something a little off. It's still a monumental beverage, but we're always reaching for the stars here at Thirsty Dudes

When you are a kid you make a drink that we locally call "The Lasertron Special" where you take one cup and run down all the flavors in the fountain drink machine. This drink might as well be called that because that's what it tastes like. It's got the strange bubblegum taste of Kola Champagne and the creaminess of a cream soda and a little bit of, I don't know, like a ginger ale or something in there.

I think this drink is someone related to Irn-Bru because they both come from Scotland and have a similar taste and I feel similarly about them, not enthusiastic and apathetic. Sorry, Scotland. It's nothing against you; it's just against your taste in drinks. I haven't written you off yet, my kilted friends, so don't worry.

So you're having a backyard party and you want to make sure that you get the proper beverages for just such an occasion. It's not really your friends coming over; it's mostly family, so there's no need to splurge on any fancy sodas. Everyone knows that all backyard parties must have both orange and grape pop available by law. You recently took a trip up to Canada and brought back some C Plus, so you have the orange pop scene on lockdown. Now you just need to get some grape. Why spend the money on Crush, Faygo, Sunkist or Fanta. Sure they aren't really that much, but with Push available you get to save even more loot, and they all taste the same. Seriously, it has been scientifically proven that all grape soda that comes in a plastic bottle tastes the same. Use the extra money you saved to buy some nicer salsa for the adult table. They will be sure to thank you.

In the burned out city of Detroit it's good to know they still have a couple of things going for them. Okay, all I can really think of is the Motown museum, and tons of rad abandoned places to explore, if you are in to that sort of thing. I guess they also have this somewhat decent line of sodas that is made right in the 48234. (Oh yeah, they also have Faygo, which to paraphrase 7 Seconds is "Not just clowns fun.")

If this came in a can or plastic bottle it would be nothing but a generic, run of the mill cream soda. There is really nothing remarkable about it at all, but something about it coming in a glass bottle that makes it seem a little more special. It's pretty syrupy and has a fairly strong vanilla flavor, but it's pretty much what you would expect. The picture of a float on the label really makes me wish I had some vanilla ice cream, as I bet this would make one hell of a dessert beverage.

I recently started a new job designing/developing websites. I have been freelancing for a while so getting this job was a nice change. Seeing as I do a lot of reviews in the office, my co-workers have taken an interest in the drinks I bring in. Our project manager Carly mentioned that she liked lychee in the past so I knew she was going to be excited about this drink. Given the track record Rubicon has been having with us lately, I had a good feeling this wouldn't be disappointing.

First thoughts were it had a nice lychee smell to it, but there was something else in there that I couldn't put my finger on. It has a sour after taste, in a good way. Carly said it tasted like grapefruit and I totally agree. It really works well with the lychee, though mysteriously is not present in the ingredients. Keep up the awesome work Rubicon.

Jimmy was a kid growing up in the 1920's who lived in a one-bedroom basement apartment with his parents and 5 brothers and sisters. Unable to afford anything and unable to get to school, he spent his days roaming the streets looking for something to do. He once came across some kids on a stoop playing marbles. He had never seen marbles before and they intrigued him. He was timid, but he managed to ask them if he could join. They were reluctant, but said he could play with them if he brought his own marbles.

This proved to be a challenge to Jimmy, as he didn't have any money to buy marbles. Just then he stumbled upon an empty bottle of Ramune in the trash. He had seen them many times before while he went looking for cans and bottles to return. The one thing he never noticed was the marble in the neck of it. His face lit up as he rattled the marble around the bottle, but slowly faded as he realized the marble was stuck in there.

His initial thought was to smash it on the ground, but he was afraid of cutting himself, causing a scene, and possibly losing the marble. He then notice that the top of the bottle was plastic so he found a sharp rock and started prying it off. It took some work, but he finally did it and retrieved his first marble. But this was only one marble, how was he going to get enough for a whole collection?

Just then he remembered that the karaoke bar down the street always had a lot of empty Ramune bottles in their dumpster. Sure enough, he was right and he found over 30 bottles he could pry the marbles out of. As he was going through one, he noticed a raspberry bottle still had some soda left in it. He had never had soda, and was afraid of his parents catching him drinking it. He hid behind the dumpster as he took a sip of the fizzy beverage. It tickled his throat, but was much too sweet for him. The most sugar he has ever had was a small piece of cake on his birthday last year. To his family, sugar is "not-essential" so he has learned to live without it.

Within a couple hours he had a couple dozen marbles and returned to the kids on the stoop. They were impressed with his collection and promptly punched him in the face and stole them all.

Moral of the story: don't play marbles with randoms on the street.

Step 1: Take a grapefruit and cut it in half.

Step 2: Take a 9 volt battery and shove it into the grapefruit.

Step 3: Juice the grapefruit into a tall glass. Add ice to taste.

Step 4: Drink your homemade Diet Squirt.

The beverage world is clamoring trying to make a healthier soda for the consumers who think that they are too good for diet drinks, who are sexist and think that diet drinks are only for girls, and more than likely those who just think diet drinks taste gross. I myself fall in the last category. I just can't get down with normal zero calorie sweeteners. Sometime I find a stevia sweetened drink refreshing, but even that gets old fast. Dr Pepper Snapple has found a middle ground. They use three sweeteners: aspartame, acesulfame potassium, and high fructose corn syrup that result in a drink with only 10 calories and only 2g of sugar that doesn't have a very strong diet taste to it. I don't understand how they worked it out that HFCS is the second ingredient and kept the sugar amount so low. I can only assume that there are especially low amounts of the other ingredients as well, but it still has a strong flavor. It doesn't just taste like soda water.

This tastes surprising like the real deal Canada Dry. It's by no means a top of the line ginger ale, but it still somewhat tastes like real ginger, which they brag about on the label. You could hold this in your mouth all day long and it wouldn't taste diet one bit. The thing is that once you swallow, you get a bit of the diet in the aftertaste as you take a breath. It's a huge step up from normal diet drinks, but the world has a long way to go before they develop a diet soda that I would drink on the regular.

I recently wrote in a review that pineapple pop always tastes like a candied version of what someone thinks the fruit tastes like, and that person is always off. Sumol decided to call my bluff. While this doesn't taste exactly like carbonated pineapple juice it does fall more on the actual juice side of thing than that previously mentioned candy flavor. There is 8% juice in here, and to be honest it could use a higher percentage, but it's still one of the best pineapple sodas I've ever tasted. It's carbonated, but the bubbles aren't shoved down your throat. It's the kind of soda that one would enjoy on a warm sunny day. Oh look, that's exactly what it's like outside today. Well chosen me.

What is it about soda pop and fruit that just doesn't add up? To be more specific, why is it that when pop companies make a fruit flavored sparkling beverage nine times out of ten it ends up tasting like candy and not like the fruit it is meant to be? These sodas end up being like the actors that are used in true crime shows to recreate the events of a horrific ordeal for the world to see. They are kind of similar to the people who were originally involved, but there is something just not natural about them that is just off. In such shows, pineapple would be one of the better actors. Sure he still doesn't come across as true as a real pineapple, but he's a much stronger actor than banana and his cohorts. He may not play fruit the way we want him too, but I'll be damned if he doesn't take the character in a different direction and make us believe that it is the way things have always been.

Push's pineapple is at the top of his acting game. It's not fruit by any stretch of the imagination, but he pulls off a compelling performance that is as good as any fake pineapple I've ever tasted.

This doesn't suck. It's just candy but it's good. You sniff it and it's watermelon and then at the tail end, it's pineapple. It's probably just half pineapple and half watermelon since I think they make both flavors. It's pretty sweet and is probably instant diabetes if you drink the whole thing but if you share this with some of your friends, you'll be fine.

Someone at the Faygo plant probably wanted to see what it was like so in the company break room and used the seemingly endless fountain drink machine to make it. Rumor has it that if you take a tour of the Faygo plant you can see but not touch the fountain drink machine. It's something like eighty flavors, most of which don't see the light of day: pickle, asparagus, triple cola, chocolate cake, steak and potatoes, and motor oil. It's Detroit. Motor oil runs in their blood. You have to work there to drink out of the fountain machine. If you apply and manage to make it to the interview process, you can fill one eight ounce cup. Other than that, no one can use the machine. Not even family, unless Faygo hires them. They can look but they can't touch it. Faygo will fire you if you try and smuggle out a flask of anything that isn't their regular line.

“And when we hit the twin cities, I didn't know that much about it. I knew Mary Tyler Moore and I knew Profane Existence.”

Dear Craig Finn, You forgot about your beloved Minnesota Twins and their beloved Harmon Killebrew. I mean you even wrote a song about them with The Baseball Project. Man, that must have been awesome to work with Peter Buck. Oh you also forgot about all of the “crust lords” that reign supreme in your city.

Well Mr. Finn I'm here to remind you with this review of Killebrew root beer. Harmon's son makes it and it's a homage to his father. First off, this is the first root beer that I have ever drunk that comes in a resealable aluminum bottle. It's weird, but I like that I can reseal it without having to deal with plastic. The root beer itself is sweetened with “pure Minnesota honey,” which is nice, but for some reason they also use HFCS, which seems unnecessary. The honey gives it a nice taste that you don't get in everyday root beer. There is something about it that tastes slightly medicinal in the way that Moxie does. It's also very dark tasting. I can't help but think that this would taste a lot better in a glass bottle. You know, the way that root beer was meant to be served.

As a final note I would like to point out that this would make a great float if you mixed it with some vanilla ice cream. Maybe that's just because I've consumed way more ice cream in the past two weeks than any human should.

Ladies and gentlemen, steal them from seafood restaurants or from your children, but do whatever you can to get yourself a bib, because we're in for a wild ride. Welcome to the 4th annual Westminster Chug-A-Thon, where literally dozens of people come to compete to see who is the national chugging champion. Due to legal issues, we can no longer use beer as our chugging liquid of choice, so this year we have a treat for everyone with some nice Blackberry Lime soda from the appropriately named Bibb company. We have a tanker truck full of the stuff, and that is about 8,000 gallons people. That's a whole lot of liquid, which means there is a good chance we're going to need the paramedics that we have on hand. It's also guaranteed that our contestants are going to be hurling the contents of their stomachs all over themselves, hence the bibs. There's only so much liquid the human stomach can hold, and they are going to need to empty their "tanks" several times if they are serious about winning. It's really a shame though, as the soda we're using is quite delicious. Actually, I feel odd calling it a soda, as it's more of a sparkling juice than soda pop. It's just blackberry and limejuice mixed with carbonated water and a little sweetener. With only 13g of sugar per serving, it looks like no one will be getting diabetes during this contest, which is good because we can't afford another lawsuit. Seriously though Bibbs has a great blackberry base with a strong lime flavor added to it that is nice and present without making you think that it should be called lime blackberry instead. It really is a shame that such a tasty drink is going to flood the streets in the form of regurgitation. With 8,000 gallons in the trunk there is sure to be enough leftover for everyone in the audience to enjoy a glass or two as well. So you're welcome and enjoy the event. Please put on your nose plugs though as we don't want another Stand By Me scenario this year.

Like most teenagers in the 90's who didn't drink I spent many a weekend night at parties downing soda. There was no better way to do that than drinking IBC 40s. Okay they really weren't 40oz, they were only 32, but they had the same look. Many of the drinkers out there thought that we drank them to be “cool” and try to fit in. In reality they simply tasted delicious, and more importantly they did trick the drunkards into thinking you were also drinking, which led to way less questions as to why you weren't drinking, which led to way less taunts, which led to way less altercations. There the secret is out. I drank IBC “40s” so I didn't have to deal with idiots who thought they should give me crap because I chose not to drink alcohol.

As I got older, I started going to fewer parties, and started buying less IBC. It's just as well, as it seems they no longer make the large bottles. The dream died. In fact this is the first time I've had IBC cream soda in 10-15 years. Even though I've become a bit of a soda snob in that time, I can honestly say that this is still pretty great. I don't know if it's just because of nostalgia, but I really loved this. To me this is what cream soda should be. It sweet, and has a nice vanilla flavor without tasting like extract. It's also on the lower end of syrupy for being sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. Now I want to go out in the fields with a couple of bottles of this and sit around a small fire watching as kids try very unsuccessfully to hook up with each other. It's the American dream.

There has been a birth in the royal family. The child was created out of wedlock, so the family kept the pregnancy quiet. That was all good and well until the birth occurred and they knew there was no way the secret could be kept, for with gazing upon the can brought nothing but love to the royal family. The union of cola and cherry was complete and cherry cola was born. The family felt to shame so they proudly shared their love with the world (well at least the Midwestern states, as I haven't seen this anywhere else).

While this may not be the world's greatest cherry cola (it is a bit on the syrupy side), it is still better than most. It has a stronger cherry flavor than I had expected. It's more along he lines of cherry Pepsi than it is Coke, which makes it strange that I like it so much, as I have always been on the Coke side of the great cola wars. I would still choose this over its big cola competitors.

I doubt the day will come when the world hears, “The king is dead. Long live the king” as RC Cherry takes over the throne, but as a prince or a duke, it does a fine job.

I just found out that his flavor was introduced in the 80s. How I have never seen it until now is beyond me. I guess that is what I get for living in the northeast.

There are a decent amount of breweries out that that make sodas along with their line of beers. I always wonder what prompts them to do so. I'm not complaining, but to be honest, I can't see there being nearly as big of a market for pop as there is for alcoholic beverages. Maybe they do it out of nostalgia, or perhaps they do it because being around so much consumable liquid all day every day makes for some thirsty employees. They certainly can't sit around drinking the beer all day, or things would most definitely get messy around the brewery. Whatever their reasons I thank them for following through. The soda that comes from breweries is generally of a higher quality than your everyday pops that you find at the corner store. They take more time in making their beverages and it shows in the flavor.

I recently met up with Night Birds to do a mid-west tour. I took a bus to meet them in Cleveland, which caused me to get to town a couple of hours before they were to arrive. When you're in that town with some time to kill and an empty stomach they only viable option is to make your way to Melt. It's a gourmet grilled cheese bar/restaurant with a ton of vegetarian/vegan options and a soda list that rivals a lot of bars beer list. After a public transportation mishap and a two mile walk, I found myself sitting at the bar eating one of the largest sandwiches I have ever handled and drinking this wonderful bottle of ginger beer. At first I thought it was really tame, but the more sips I took the greater the ginger burn. I wasn't disappointed in that department. Actually, I wasn't disappointed at all. It had a nice natural ginger flavor with a slight burst of lemon. It had more lemon than any other ginger beer I have tried, but it worked ridiculously well with the ginger. It's also on the sweeter side of most sodas of this flavor, but you know what? I'm totally okay with that.

Someday I will actually make my way to Ithaca. It's in NY only a couple of hours from where I live, but for some reason I've never been there, even though it sounds like a place I would totally love. When I go I shall drown my non-existent sorrows in bottle after bottle of their ginger brew.