Soda Pop - 1421 Reviews

Once again Mike and I are on the same wavelength. We both randomly drank and reviewed Sonoma Sparklers today. We know each otherâ…‚¬…„¢s bodies. He said his raspberry was pretty tasty, and I can verify that the natural peach flavored one is out of this world. It tastes exactly like Looza peach nectar if it were carbonated (and not so thick). Itâ…‚¬…„¢s out of control good. Itâ…‚¬…„¢s like someone took the worldâ…‚¬…„¢s most perfectly ripe peach and injected it with a syringe full of carbon dioxide. Itâ…‚¬…„¢s apparently mostly apple juice with peach concentrate added, but I really only taste peach. There was no need to add sweeteners, so they didnâ…‚¬…„¢t. When I say Iâ…‚¬…„¢m in love you best believe Iâ…‚¬…„¢m in love, and I am 100% in love with this sparkling juice.

Jimmy loved the Fourth of July. He loved both the holiday and the Soundgarden record. When he rode to his aunt and uncle's house every Fourth, he would see how long he would be able to listen to that song on loop before he couldn't take it anymore and turn it off. His record is nine.

When he got to his relative's house, his aunt said that she had some sparklers for him. Now Jimmy was nineteen and didn't get the same kick out of sparklers as he once did. He went to go get some pulled pork and corn when he saw his aunt coming out with a small box. She handed him the box and he asked her what it was. She told him that it was a box of sparklers. He looked inside and there were small bottles of a carbonated drink that was all fruit and no sugar. Jimmy was pretty psyched because it was either this or off-brand colas.

He sat down to talk to his grandpa about what each other have been up to and cracked open the raspberry Sparkler. He was pretty excited about how good it was. It tastes like carbonated apple juice with crushed up raspberries in it. He then went through all his relatives at the party and told everyone to drink some. They all liked it. He was more than happy to have this box of drinks to share with his entire extended family. He doesn't really have a lot to talk to a lot of them, even the ones that he sees outside of the annual reunion. Now that he had this drink, that wasn't going to be a problem for at least two years.

I found this at a specialty soda shop here in Portland called Cosmic. After visiting Galco's, Village Candy, and Pop Culture, I didn't think there was a chance they'd have anything that I hadn't seen before. To my surprise, there were a good handful of brands I hadn't heard of yet. I decided to give this one a try first, perhaps because I was with two friends from Philadelphia at the time.

Disappointment. That's what the first sip tasted like. It has a very syrupy taste to it, but practically no bite. It honestly was more of a sarsaparilla than root beer. It wasn't horrible (I've had much worse), but it wasn't that great.

I met one person that doesn't like chocolate. Well here's the deal. She said she didn't like chocolate but had a sort of asterisk next to everything. "I don't like chocolate but I like chocolate chip cookies." or "I don't like chocolate but I like dark chocolate." Face it, girl. You like it. Just accept it and move on. She doesn't really eat a lot of food, so I don't think she'd like this drink. It's not as terrible as you would think that a chocolate fudge pop would be, though so if you are weight conscience, you could easily take a sip or two. If you feel guilty, give yourself a Weight Watchers point or something.

It's true. I haven't had a lot of chocolate pop and the ones I've had have been alright. This one is one of the best but let it be known, it's thick, man. It's a dark cola and it does taste a lot like chocolate fudge. Just saying "chocolate fudge" makes me think that I'm just drinking pounds, like I would weigh 150 pounds, take a sip with my eyes closed, and then when I opened my eyes and put the bottle down I'm all of a sudden 160 and my pants don't fit anymore. It's not the case, but "chocolate fudge soda" just sounds revoltingly terrible for you.

I'm going to put this in the "score" category because it's actually pretty good and everyone I've had try it really likes it. Diet or no diet, chocoholic or choco-hater, you'll have a good time drinking this with friends.

I think I found this soda in a little Mexican mart in Philly. There is no flavor listed on it, nor are their ingredients listed. I always assumed that it was a pineapple soda, and since that is something I love I've been saving it for an appropriate time. When I finally drank it last night I felt I had taken a one-way train ride to disappointment city. Where I had expected an uber sweet candied pineapple flavor, all I got was the taste of over sweetened bubbly water, with only the faintest tinge of some sort of citrus. I don't even know if this was supposed to be pineapple anymore. I only made it a quarter way through the bottle when I decided that drinking this wasn't worth it.

As a beverage it's not gross, it's just there, and not what I look for in a soda at all. This is sub-store brand quality. On the other hand it does have a really cool bottle that I enjoy a great deal. Still, that is not enough to save this soda.

I don't know if I can properly express Mike's disappointment in the Jones Dungeons & Dragons line. It crushed the man. He saw an ad that Jones was releasing this line, and he jumped on it. He ordered us the whole series, and spent a pretty penny doing it. In his mind the new flavors were out of this world and from an older time, some would say a simpler time. Others would say it sucked because you were always worried about dragons or orcs attacking you. One thing that no one would argue about was that the beverages back then were way different. The day finally came when the package arrived. Mike opened it up and said some expletive or another. You see the ad listed the flavors as things such as “Sneak Attack,” “Potion of Healing” and “Eldritch Blast.” What it didn't tell you was that these were just the normal Jones flavors with new wacky names (Cream Soda, Blackberry and Green Apple). Mike was so upset that after we divided the flavors between us it took him nearly six months to review even one, and that was under duress. I feel for him. No one likes disappointment, especially when it comes in the way of sodas you were super stoked on.

What is an Eldritch Blast anyways? I thought it was some sort of creature, as I have no idea what the being on the label is. I Googled it and eldritch just means strange or spooky. I guess that it makes sense as Jones was able to make a green apple soda that actually tastes like pop and not like someone put a handful of Jolly Ranchers in a cup and then microwaved them for two hours. Sure, it's sweet as hell, but underneath the sugar it actually tastes like a nice sour apple and not just candy. This is the first soda I've ever had that has done this properly. I hope that makes up for some of Mike's sadness. I know it won't but a man can dream. Actually if I'm dreaming I should probably be dreaming bigger, like say Mike won a contest when he ordered these lies of soda and he's getting one of those fancy cars that he loves and 25 pachinko machines to annoy his “live in” girlfriend. Now there's a dream.

First off, I'd like to say how stoked I am that Mountain Dew included us in their “pre-promotion” group or whatever they call it. Getting two cans of what looks like top-secret soda in the mail is a great feeling. A plain silver can with a inkjet printed label with little to no info makes me feel even more like a scientist working on a secret program. In order to keep up the mystery I took a picture of the can cast in shadows. All that I knew about this drink was that it's their new flavor, that is going to have different regional names, and that it is malt flavored. Now I've had my severe issues with some malt drinks (i.e. Malta Goya), but I've also had some that were pretty spectacular (apple and pineapple ones come to mind). I was hoping this would be more like the latter than the previous, as it has added citrus flavor. It turns out the flavor falls somewhere in the middle of great and gross.

When I cracked open the can I almost didn't take a sip. It smelled so much like beer that I was afraid that Mountain Dew might be marketing a new alcoholic beverage. I made my ladyfriend taste it, and she said that while it did smell like cheap beer, it didn't taste like it. That was all the info I needed and I took a few sips. It really tasted nothing like it smelled. It had a slight malt flavor, but it the main flavor was a slightly more lemon lime ridden Mountain Dew. My relief was great, and I decided that this was actually a tasty beverage. I went about my business, periodically taking a sip over the next 15 minutes. With each sip the citrus flavor decreased and the malty beer taste increased. It was still drinkable, but getting worse. Then I burped. That burp was so reminiscent of beer that it was completely disgusting. I took one more sip, and decided that at this point it tasted like the can was 2/3 beer and 1/3 Mountain Dew. It surely was not for me. If it were just the initial flavor, without the beer aftertaste, I could get down with this. As it stands: no thank you.

I'm not sure who they are going to market this drink towards, but I don't think it's the normal high school/gamer crowd. What high schooler is going to want something that tastes like beer, but doesn't get them drunk? I applaud Mountain Dew for trying something new, and something out of the ordinary at that, but I feel they missed their mark too much for this to be much of a success.

Remember when Jones came out and you thought to yourself, "Green apple pop?! Woah!" Now, look, they've still got strange, fun flavors, those crazy Canadians, but you've got to pay the bills. Diet cola sells and people love the stuff. Even for a company that prides themselves on using pure cane sugar, they can't do that unless they make a super weak, odd tasting pop. Dry does it, but they're good at it and that's their thing.

This, and you shouldn't be surprised, just tastes like a diet cola. It has an alright cola taste but is still diet. I might say that this is a titch (scientific term) better than diet Pepsi. I'm not hating; just doing a poor comparison. I'm not a hater. I'm cynical, but I'm no hater. 'Nuff respect, Pepsi. Let these guys do what they do.

In space, no one can hear you scream. This is fine because everyone up there is texting all the time anyhow. It's worse than Earth. Everyone up is there is emoticon-ing so much more than down here that they had to invent phones that have an extra row of keys that are just different emoticons. LOL, ROFL, ASL, and WTF, are so last decade up there. No one talks anymore.

That isn't a bad thing for everyone, though. When word gets out about a new product, since everything is digital and instant, everything happens super fast. When the latest shipment of Earth food came up there, there was a case of Zevia strawberry pop. Some of the people split it up and instantly started raving about it. They said that it was sweet and had a real Stevia taste but the taste of actual strawberries was stellar enough that everything blended together wonderfully. Also, like in the movie Wall-E, everyone is disgustingly obese and rolls around in abandoned Lark scooters so the zero calorie thing really helps.

Are you tired of drinking the same old sparkling cherry drinks? Have they become old hat and boring to you? Well do we have something special for you! We're proud to introduce the sparkling alternative to sparkling cherry! It's fruity and sweet and....wait a minute...this isn't right...according to this drink/label the alternative to sparkling cherry is sparkling apple. All that is in this bottle is sparkling apple juice. According to the ingredients there isn't a drop of cherry juice or anything cherry related at all in here. That makes sense since this really just tastes like a high quality sparkling apple juice. There is no added sugar, like all juice drinks should be. It's really delicious, but the lack of a cherry flavor with a name like is has is off putting. I don't know if it's mislabeled or what, but WTF mate?

Bruce Cost never disappoints. They are a company that knows how ginger ale should be made. They don't bother with that pale dry nonsense. They start off with a solid base of real ginger, which gives the drink a slight burn, not too bad though as it is still a ginger ale and not a ginger beer. How often does one come across a ginger ale with real ginger in it? They all really should, but somewhere along the way "big-soda" phased it out and the smaller guys followed suit.

The addition of passion fruit juice to this soda does nothing but up the game. Bruce Cost doesn't play games. If they are going to use real ginger then they are also going to use real juice to flavor it. It's magic in a bottle. The final touch was to add some turmeric powder. Now I know that turmeric is as spice and I've witnessed it placed in many a spice rack. What I didn't know was that turmeric was actually ground up yellow ginger. You learn something new everyday. Since there is so much ginger in this drink I don't know if the turmeric just blended in with it, but I really couldn't taste it, or could?

This is the second time I have bought a bottle of this, but only the first time I was able to drink it. You see, the first time I had this the bitter cold of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan decided to freeze and shatter the bottle as I slept. Lesson learned, don't leave your soda in the van overnight when the temperature it below zero (that's -17 in Celsius).

Not this time! I was finally able to taste this elixir (I love that it's called an elixir). I thought it was going to be a spicy pepper infused cola. To my surprise, it tastes a lot like Dr. Pepper. But not just any Dr. Pepper, cherry Dr. Pepper. The best part is the slight deep pepper burn in the after taste. It also has a medicinal/ natural cough drop taste slightly. I am not a huge Dr. Pepper fan, but this is worlds better than it.

Joia soda, we meet again! Your complicated looking flavors always intrigue, and never disappoint me. I have never met a grapefruit soda I haven't liked, and this is no exception. I can't really distinguish the chamomile or cardamom in this, but the grapefruit is strong and delicious. While other grapefruit sodas have a decent amount of grapefruit flavor, this actually tastes just like taking a bite out of a grapefruit. I've already finished the bottle, but my mouth is still watering from how delicious it was.

Sometimes you find yourself taking a picture of some animal that is either a donkey or a antler-less moose standing in water at dusk. I think it's safe to say that if you ever find yourself in that position, things are going pretty good for you. Things are also going pretty good for you if you're sipping on a bottle of this soda.

Jones has so many flavors that I don't even know about. I had no idea they even made an orange cola until it showed up (with the lemon lime) at our local Big Lots. I was intrigued as the only orange cola I have previously had is Mezzo Mix, and I love the stuff.

The Jones version doesn't have as much orange as Mezzo Mix, but I'm okay with that. IT tastes like they took their normal cola (which leaves a little to be desired) and added just a bit of orange. You can definitely taste the orange, but the cola is the main force here. I like it. I love it. I want more of it.

Does anyone else out there find themselves at points in their lives where they just plain need a can of soda? It's not the sugar, or even the flavor that I'm really after. I just sometimes get this itch in the back of my throat and I know the only way I'll be able to appease it is with some carbonation.

At times like these I'm glad that Zevia is around. I usually don't want a sugary drinks at these times, and the stevia they use makes my scratching utensil that much healthier. Unlike most diet sodas they actually taste decent. The diet death taste of sucralose and aspartame are not present, just the cool sting of stevia (as Mike says).

The cola flavor in this leaves something to be desired, but the cherry flavor makes up for it. For a second I forgot that I was drinking diet pop, which I guess is the end game for most diet things. If the cola were a little better this would remind me of Cherry Coke.

In the world of all sodas, this would get a 2 or a 3 bottle rating from me. In the world of diet pop this is a 4 all the way.

Boat shoes? Check. Polo shirt? Check. Madras shorts? Check. Book on how to tie knots? Check. Ray Ban Sunglasses? Check. Those are the prerequisites for buying a bottle of Yacht Club ginger beer. We have put together the necessities and have gone to the store where they unlocked the case. Then and only then did we pay the required $1.50.

We got it home, took all our fancy clothes off, put that book of knots back on the shelf, put back on our obscure band shirts and a pair of dusty old jeans and took a sip. All of our hard work at J. Crew was not for naught because this is pretty great. It's got a nice sweet start and then burns you. It's not terribly hot but it's on the warmer side of the ginger beer scale. That side is also known as our "good side" since we like it hot. Some like it hot. We like it hot. It left a nice tingle in our throats, which left us wanting more.

Now we've got all these clothes and the know how of sailing, maybe we'll put it to good use someday. Us Thirsty Dudes out at sea, eating sea fare with pirates and golfers is going to be in our near future. That's what sailing is right? Jib? Right? Stern and bow? Right? Starboard and the other one. Right?

I just found my new favorite drink. I wish I could say I was exaggerating but I'm really not. This is exactly what I always hoped a coffee soda would taste like. It has a really strong coffee taste, but it is also sweet and bubbly. It almost has a cream soda taste to it as well. I just passed this bottle around a room of skeptical people and they all said it was delicious.

This little bottle was $2 but it is so worth it. It would be awesome if they sold this in larger bottles because I feel like I'm drinking all 6 oz of this way too fast and I want it to last forever. Isn't a normal cup of coffee like 12oz? That would be a good size. I'd pay $4 for that, probably far too often than I'd like to admit.

I complain about this stuff all the time, a company delivers, and I complain. Therefore, I am sorry in advance. This drink, lemon sting, is just too much. It's a lot of lemon, and I like lemon. It's also a lot of honey, and I like honey. The two together tastes a bit too much like I should be drinking this with a sore throat.

I give this company full appreciation. I really do. Also, for adding rosemary in this drink saved you from a dreaded "2" rating. There is nothing in this drink, and for what it is it's great. What it is is reminiscent of long nights spent with a runny nose, coughing, and trying to talk as little as possible while trying to achieve 100% completion in whatever video game you're playing. I'm currently playing Just Cause 2 and if I have to have a sore throat and need lozenges for the duration of time it takes me to get 100% I might cut my throat clean off.

Wisconsin is a land of wonder. For some reason that state will always be a little slice of heaven for me, well besides the craphole that is Milwaukee. How can the rest of a state be so serene and magical and then it is mostly known for such a pile of filth. In the few times I have visited that city I've had a run in with suburban punk kids who thought they were nazis, watched a drug deal gone wrong and violence ensued, watched knives get pulled on people and various other activities perpetrated by degenerics. Then there are towns like Appleton that are filled with joy, wonder and amazing people. I got my highest score ever in Galaga at a Laundromat in Appleton. That is enough for me to love it forever.

I've been to many towns large and small in that incredible state, yet I have never visited Janesville, the home of Gray's Brewing Company. It is another beer brewery that also puts out a line of sodas. If I've learned anything through my years at Thirsty Dudes it's that you should pay attention when a brewery starts making some root beer. It's usually something special. Gray's knows that root beer should be stored in brown bottles; none of that clear garbage.

The root beer has a heavy wintergreen and licorice flavor to it. It's a classic root beer taste that is better than the pops “big soda” puts out. That is a hysterical idea: big soda. Seriously though, the way this tastes is what I think of when I think of root beer. It's not complex and there is nothing that particularly stands out about it, but it's solid and that's all you can really ask for.

Now Wisconsin, you should really think about kicking Milwaukee out of your state. Maybe IL would take them?

Eric's Famous, we meet again! I have only ever found this at Whole Foods, but this time I found the other flavors besides root beer. I'm a big cola fan so finding new brands is always exciting to me. I came here to do some work and was going to get coffee, but then I saw this and decided to give it a try instead.

As far as energy drinks goes, it tastes great and is really effective. As far as cola goes…€¦ meh. I've had worse but I've also had much better. The vanilla and the goji cola have been recommended to me so I'm excited to try those next (saving the best for last perhaps?).