Sports/Dietary Supplement - 535 Reviews

Gerald, you just won a big race but I didn't tell you that I have a flat tire and we actually have to run to return this copy of "Bridemaids" to the video store and it closes in fifteen minutes. I have for you a small bottle of energy water. It's like water but it's got some extra goodies in it. What goodies? I don't know; what am I, a scientist? Did I make the drink? No, Gerald. I did not make the drink. Every minute that we're stuck talking about the drink is time that you could be running to the video store. Yeah, I'm surprised that they made the movie on VHS, too but they did. What do I look like, Gerald? A rich person? Only rich people use DVDs. Blu-Ray? What's that?

What does it taste like? Jesus Christ, Gerald. It tastes a little like Tang but a little bit thicker and a little bit more diet. It's good. I had one and I'm wasting my energy talking to you about the where's'it's and who's'it's of this drink. Just get out of here. You don't have to worry about your precious figure because there are no calories in the entire bottle.

Thank you, Gerald, for finally returning my video. Now when you get there, see if they have a VHS copy of "Bachlorette." I'm on a real "bad girl wedding" tear right now.

Whilst reading about the great mythical creatures of ancient Greece the idea for Nu Aquos was born. You see all of the best monsters in history are nothing more than multiple creatures thrown together in some sort of pre-gene splicing experiment. Why couldn't what Minotaurs, Centaurs, Pegasus, Harpies and the like have done for animals be translated into the beverage world?

After months of experimenting Nu Aquos was born. Finally a beverage that could simultaneously rehydrate, restore and recover hit the market. The way it was achieved was by creating a hybrid of a protein drink, sports drink and well…€¦Vitamin Water. If you think about it you can actually taste each of those entities in the drink underneath a pomegranate, acai and blueberry flavor that is as strong as it is in any of its sum parts.

I'd like to see an ad campaign with the previously mentioned creatures all pounding these drinks to help them get through their tough days of fighting off warriors. Hilarity would ensue. Hilarity that even the gods would enjoy.

Health Guard is one pushy company. First they were telling everyone to “Be Happy” and now they have their megaphone out yelling “Be Skinny” to the world. I mean it's a bit presumptuous to think you know what is best for everyone and what people want.

I kid. I know Health Guard isn't a militant group forcing people to be skinny and happy, but the “Be” part of their product names conjures a great Gestapo type vision in my mind, and it makes me laugh.

The shtick of this shot is that you drink it about an hour before meals and it helps to suppress your appetite so that you won't gorge yourself, as many of us are prone to do. I believe it's supposed to trick your body into thinking you're full with a burst of pineapple and cranberry fluid.

Let us start with the flavor. It's a shot, so everything tastes concentrated, which is to be expected. The concentrated pineapple and cranberry flavors are about where you would expect them to be, strong and intense. It's a shot, so you're just supposed to down the whole thing in one go, and the function matters more than the flavor. The problem is in the fact that it tastes like it was made with hose water, and then since it was a shot the hose water taste was also concentrated. I know they didn't actually use hose water, but that is what it tastes like and any saving grace that might have been in the flavor is completely out the window at this point.

As far as functionality goes, I downed this shot, and then an hour later I proceeded to eat an entire loaf of French bread in one sitting. I think it's safe to say that it didn't work very well for me. If there would have been more food around I'm pretty sure I would have kept going. Christ, I am a glutton.

Oh you hate energy drinks? First, "hate" is a strong word. Hate should only be assigned to things like racism, which should, in itself be abolished. Such a vague, ignorant statement, but I'm saying that the word "hate" should be more reserved than it is.

Secondly, you can now put an asterisk next to your previous ignorant statement because this doesn't taste like an energy drink. It is still an energy drink, yet it actually tastes pretty good. It tastes a little like everything and a lot like fruit punch. The acai is a little overpowering but not offensively. The pomegranate and blueberry are there but not really distinguishing enough to call them what they are.

Fruit distinction aside, this is good. It's light, not too sweet, and still a deceiving energy drink. You tricky bastard. You're going to accidentally make parents lose their mind because they're going to buy juice thinking it's just juice and they will read the fine print and quickly realize why their kids are just non-stop running around in circles constantly narrowly avoiding the grasp of the parent's hands. Sorry parents. Don't say that I didn't warn you.

Alright now, just ease back the cord of the bow. Hold the arrow back for a moment. Now, don't forget to breathe and relax. Once you feel confident that you have your target in your sites simply let go and let the pressure do the rest. Oh it looks like you missed the target. Speaking of, do you know what else missed the target: This bottle of Nature's Blends. I mean I guess it hit the target, but it certainly wasn't a bulls-eye. It hit somewhere in one of the outer circles.

The whole shtick of these drinks is that they are spring water and real juice. The thing is that if you add water to juice, you just get watered down juice. That is exciting for no one. So instead Poland Spring took some juice concentrate and added spring water, which would essentially make it juice again. They also added sugar and a couple of other ingredients that give it a slightly weird aftertaste. The thing is that instead of coming across like juice, this tastes like a Vitamin Water, minus the vitamins.

I'm pretty sure that nine times out of ten I would choose either plain water or just juice over this. It tastes perfectly satisfactory, but there are a handful of companies who do similar things better that are readily available.

Whenever I think about Muscle Milk all I can envision is a bunch of cows hanging out at Muscle Beach in Santa Monica just getting ripped. They are doing reps, they are doing sets and it is all for the tourists who watch from the other side of the fence. Seriously think about a cow bench pressing it's own bodyweight whist wearing a neon torn up tank top with a rad bandana on. I hope they have spotters. I wouldn't want any of them getting seriously injured.

Since the bottle clearly states that this contains no milk, and it is lactose free I can only assume that Muscle Milk is what those cows sweat out while they power lift on the beach. Obviously this flavor is the sweat from a brown cow. I never knew that sweat could be so thick. This actually tastes like high quality chocolate milk. You know the kind that someone actually melted chocolate into, instead of just mixing in a powder. It does a good job at not being chalky like protein shakes are prone to be. Now please sit back and giggle as you think about cows working out in the California sun.

Dear friends and colleagues, we don't need a “new water,” the current version is doing just fine thank you. If for some reason you needed something more, may I suggest one of those fancy alkalized ones? They are somehow way smoother than regular water, and I'm a person who normally says all waters are the same.

One thing I can say for certain is that in no way should anyone consider this line to be a new water, as its name hints. Water is essential. This is not. It in no way should be a replacement beverage, but I do think it could work well along side with water. It's chock full of vitamins and minerals, electrolytes and protein. I can understand what they are going for as it will certainly help the drinker rehydrate and refresh. Most importantly with it's pairing with water is that I think it needs to be watered down. It is one of those drinks that upon first sip you question in your mind if it is actually a concentrate. Okay, it's not that strong, but the flavors are a bit oppressive, and it would be hard for me to down a full bottle in a sitting. It has a candied peach mango flavor to it, and it tastes like someone put far too much of that flavor into the rest of this mix.

It's a slightly thicker beverage, but it doesn't have any trace of that traditional chalky protein taste. In all honesty if they had just held back a bit on the peach mango flavoring this could be a work of art. Well maybe the art that a teenager would do. You know they think it's all deep and meaningful, but you could go to any town in the US and find another teenager who drew the exact same thing. How is that relevant to this review? I honestly have no idea.

Welcome to Pineapple Pokopo where we make all of our food to Cokopo…€¦err coconuts. The thing is that the only things that are prevalent on our island are pineapples and sharks. Our president is very insistent on the whole coconut thing though, so he has trained sharks to go to neighboring islands and bully their residents into giving them coconuts to bring back to us here at Pineapple Pokopo!

I must say that using coconut and pineapple in everything definitely limits the food available for us. We do drink a lot of pina coladas though. Actually I'd say that 95% of the occupants of our island are drunk for most of their life. They say it is the only way they can force down the food we have, and deal with their crippling fear of sharks.

Glaceau has hired us to make them a new flavor of Vitamin Water due to our surplus of pineapples, and coconuts since the sharks have gone a little overboard with their bullying. We call it Coco-Refresh, and it is essentially a non-alcoholic pina colada that is rich in vitamins. The residents of the island actually drink them as soon as they awake to help combat the brutal hangover they invariably have until they start drinking again.

Since we do have more pineapples then coconut, regardless of the sharks being jerks, the drinks is heavier on the pineapple then the tree nut. Are coconuts really nuts, or did someone just give them a dumb name because of their hard shells? Either way the coconut that is in the beverage is more along the lines of actual coconut water and not tanning oil. I'll never understand how people can enjoy something that tastes like that. Oh well, our Vitamin Water is refreshing and tasty, like everything here at Pineapple Pokopo. Won't you come and visit?

I was just saying the other day that I was wondering what the elixir of life was. Finally, an answer to this age old question. Sure, some might think that it's water, or water infused with gold and diamonds, but they would be wrong. The true elixir of life is, apparently, a spicy, Indian inspired, coconut drink. I know; we were way off until this point.

What do I think of the elixir of life? Well, I don't think that I'm going to live that long if this is what we've got. Yes, as expected, this is a little spicy, pretty tangy, and doesn't taste that much like coconut water. All good, right? Sure if you hate the actual taste of the drink and love the delectable, rare exotic spice called salt. I'll say it, and parents cover your kids' ears; this is a salty bitch of a drink. I wanted this to taste more like Indian food and peppers and all of the ingredients on the side but instead I got something that felt like whatever reverse blood pressure medicine would taste like if you poured all your spices from your spice cabinet into a bottle of cold water.

Even with doing that, which this company did not do, you do get a little bit of goodness in every sip but I could take about half a dozen sips of this before I, aloud, questioned what I was doing drinking this. It's quasi-drinkable but you've really got to have a dead palate to get past its downfall. And let's be honest, if you can't taste anything, you should not be wasting your money on drinks like this.

We took the plunge. This is a real 1% drink. Remember last year's 99% versus 1% debate? Well I'm bringing it back because unless you are making $250,000 per year, you don't really have any business buying twelve dollar drinks. I don't mean to be rude, but I'm trying to make it so you can afford to put bread on the table. For the cost of this drink, you can put three loaves of bread on the table. That would feed your carbohydrate hungry family for quite a while or just quench your thirst, oddly, for an hour or two.

"Special birthday drink" aside, let's get into the nitty gritty of this beverage and no, I am not using that phrase lightly. Upon inspection of this drink of the shelf, you will notice that it is, like the other BluePrint drinks, a sixteen ounce bottle with lettering that makes it look like one of those hip hop shirts from the mid-2000's. You know, the ones that say things like, "Dre, Easy, Ren, Ice" and you are supposed to know, "Oh, that's NWA." You should know that's NWA but that's beyond the point.

Anyhow, you're looking at the bottle and you turn it upside down and there is three quarters of an inch of white sludge on the bottom. It looks almost like paste. It shakes up just fine but man, it is sludgy as can be. You shake her up and smell it and...well...it's like if your three year old son made you a drink comprised of paste and milk. That's two out of the five senses.

You say to yourself, "I spent an hour's worth of money on this drink, I'm going to drink the whole thing. You take a sip and it does not taste like milk paste but it tastes like the milk after a heaping bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, also known as Jay Draper's favorite cereal. There is sense number three.

Number four is touch which I should put in quotes because you are feeling it with your tongue. It is a gritty son of a gun. I assume it is the handful of cashews that were murdered to make this drink. It tastes a bit sandy but it's cinnamon, nut flavored sand so it's alright. You know it's not going to hurt you so you are fine with your newly sanded esophagus.

I suppose we could have put our ears to this drink and said, "Sense five is that it doesn't sound like anything." but that would be a cop out. We could also go the more new age way and say that we heard it "calling us." but we're not really that type of guys.

Four out of five senses were used in the drinking of this and the flavor itself would get a three out of five but in terms of uniqueness and quality it has earned another bottle.

Somewhere in some universe teenager me is watching modern day me and shaking his head. He's thinking what has my life come to that not only am I drinking nutritional shakes that are high in protein, but that I am doing so with it's intended purpose in mind. The idea of working out at a gym is laughable to the kid who talked his phys ed teacher into letting kids play hacky sack instead of working out. He's a kid who believed that all the exercise one needed in life could be had by skateboarding and wandering around in the woods with your friends. It is also the same kid who thought he could subside forever on tacos, Pop Tarts and Quaker granola bars.

Here are some words of wisdom for me of two decades past; when you get older life gets in the way, and you won't be in the woods nearly as much as you used to, or want to, and when there's no one else to skate with anymore, and you realize that you can in fact hurt yourself, you only get on a board a couple times a year. As far as the food goes, keep eating those tacos, but Pop Tarts are just gross and you know it. The only reason you eat them is because your mom keeps buying them. As for the granola bars, you'll upgrade to higher quality ones and still eat them on the regular. The point of all of this is that when you're in your mid thirties things will start to catch up with your body, and you'll realize that you're not a scrawny little kid anymore, and you really need to get some exercise, which also actually makes you feel good and helps with that stupid depression that lingered around for most of your life because of the dumb music you listened to. Okay, you'll still be listening to that same dumb music, and loving it just as much, but the physical activity helps counteract it, so you're not up until dawn every night doing absolutely nothing, and rarely seeing the sun.

Oh and while you're exercising to help make life more bearable (while listening to songs written in a minor key like a maniac) you might as well help your body recover by drinking some of these shakes. They do help, and nowadays they don't all taste like dust. This actually just tastes like something between a nice smoothie and a melting milkshake. You probably have no idea what pomegranate and acai are since it's the early/mid 90's where you are and they haven't invaded every facet of eating yet, but trust me…€¦you enjoy them. Well, maybe not acai too much, but when it's mixed with other stuff it's not bad at all. This doesn't taste overly like a protein drink at all, and it's nice that companies such as Mix 1 are expanding their lines into things other than chocolate, vanilla and strawberry banana. It's mellow. It's fruity. It's enjoyable.

Oh, and teenage self. Why don't you spend some of that time that you are awake all night and actually pick up that bass that's next to your bed? I know you think you're good, but I can tell you twenty years later you really should be much better than you are. As it is now, you're just faking your way through it, but hey at least we're still making music.

Part of an essence water is that it doesn't really taste like much. This, on the other hand, not at all following directions, tastes like a Stevia laced hard candy. There is natural sugar in it but it's almost to the "what's the point" line where it tastes primarily of said artificial sweetener. It's not bad but it is very, very sweet and tastes entirely of a juice and nothing like flavored or essence water.

As far as strawberries and watermelons are concerned, yes, they are in there. If you keep it in your mouth and swish it around you can taste those two rumbling around like a couple of unbuckled children in the way back of an early ninety's station wagon. As soon as you swallow, you get a rush of everything that Stevia has to offer which you can take at however you feel about her and her doings.

I don't know the rules of naming a beverage but I like to think that I've been around the block enough to know that this was mislabeled.

Are you a weakling? Do you wish you were strong like the muscle men on the TV? Are you afraid of hair loss and shrinkage? Well do we have the steroid alternative for you! Powerade gives you the “aid” to need to get “powerful.” See what I did there? The dumbest spelling out of a name's origin you will ever see.

You may find yourself saying, sir I have seen Powerade around for years. Isn't it just a knock off of Gatorade? Yes you would be correct, but Gatorade does not have these fancy little concentrate bottles that you can keep in your purse/fanny pack. This way you don't have to worry about the bulk of the big bottles, and you can add it to water anywhere you go; your home, the gym, that fancy French restaurant you go to on your anniversary. Literally anywhere.

The real bonus of this product comes in the fact that you can squeeze to flavor it however you want. If you find regular Powerade too watery, you can just squeeze a little more in and make it a bit stronger. There are no calories and no sugar so there are no worries about how much you add.

This has that fake blue raspberry flavor that many drinks/candies have. You know what it tastes like, but it's got sucralose, so it's a tad on the diet side, but not much. It's actually much better than I expected and I will probably drink more than one cup of it before passing it on to someone else.

I want to hire a sweet MC and have him say, "This is a 7-11 exclusive" in that voice that they do on mixtapes. You know the one. The arbitrarily placed, out of time, over lyrics, poorly recorded, mostly yelled tagline that someone like Don Cannon would do so you know you can't get it anywhere else and more importantly, partially ruins it so you can't get a decent recording of it without some dude yelling over top of it.

Now that my mixtape fantasies are looming through my head, we can get down to brass tacks. You know what Gatorade tastes like, right? You know what lemonade tastes like, right? You know what strawberries taste like, right? Well, if you can draw a line through all of them, you get this. It's good, not too sweet, but no Gatorade is really too sweet now, is it? It didn't have a sting that one might expect either. It was actually, probably due to the Gatorade core, a pretty smooth drink that I will come to again and again until it's gone.

Since I can't drink for pleasure and I don't play sports, I probably won't get another bottle, but it will certainly make me wish that I could shoot some hoops, toss around the pigskin, slap some pucks, or play soccer. "You forgot Baseball, you stupid idiot!" you say? No. I did not. Most baseball players could smoke and drink and it wouldn't change the game one iota. Only the runners on base deserve Gatorade and since, at max, four people at a time can drink it, it's not really fair to the rest of the players so no one in baseball can drink Gatorade unless it's pre or post game.

I'm fairly certain there was a mix up with shipping at the plant where 989 is made. You see each week they normally get a shipment in of the oddly tasty Flintstone chewable children's vitamins. They then dump them into this gigantic electronic pestle and mortar that they have in the back and it turns them into a nice fine powder to which they add their personal blend of ionic minerals and electrolytes. From the smell/taste of this I think someone screwed up in the shipping department and ordered a bunch of old people vitamins instead. You know, the kind that always smells stale, and you don't want their taste on your tongue at all. Whoever accepted the shipment must have just shrugged and loaded them in anyways.

The rest of this line has ranged from acceptable to tasty, with very few real complaints from us. This grape unfortunately does not cut it. It smells like a mixture of white grape juice and Centrum. Actually that's pretty much how it tastes as well, except there is also a more than heaping serving of stevia in there as well, so you have a cooling adult vitamin flavor. It's not something that I can say I enjoy.

I would also like to point out that I was with a three year old when I drank this, and they were so completely excited about it. The twisting of the cap so that the vitamin powder mixed it elicited cheering and clapping. She could not get this drink to her lips fat enough to drink it down. Then as soon as mouth contact was made, she immediately stopped, handed the bottle back to me, whilst making a grossed out looking face and simply said, “I don't like that.” Even kids can tell there is something wrong here.

Seeing as Derek is vegan and Mike doesn't believe in strenuous activity I have become the de facto protein shake reviewer here at the offices of Thirsty Dudes. Of course by offices I mean my computer room in my apartment, Mike's desk at his day job and wherever it is what Derek does his writing. We live the glamorous lives of the beverage reviewer and there is no one that can take that away from us.

I got done with my work for the day early, but no one else was around, so I decided to go on a bike ride. I meant to just ride around for an hour or so, and maybe check out some neighborhoods that I've never been to around my house. That led to a much longer ride that took me over nearly 30 miles of road. Did I mention it was ridiculously hot and humid as well? I don't know if I have ever sweat so much in my life. I was literally able to ring sweat out of my clothes after I got home. After bringing my bike into the house I dragged myself to the kitchen and grabbed this out of the fridge, because of course what you want when you're ridiculously dehydrated and are so tired that you don't think you'll be able to move much more is a nice milkshake that has bananas in it aka the worst fruit ever.

The protein gods were shining down upon me as this is the first beverage that I have ever had that contains banana that didn't taste exactly like the grossest of all fruit. This has more of a creamy base with a nice strawberry flavor added to it. It's light in flavor, but for some reason the banana flavor is hardly there. I certainly wish it would have been just strawberry in flavor, but I can't complain about the minimum banana that I was presented with. It's also sweetened with stevia, so perhaps it was that natural zero calorie sweetener that hid the banana for me. It also didn't end up tasting very diet at all. This was actually down right enjoyable for a protein drink. I'm sure I would have liked it even more had I had more moisture in my body.

Of course as soon as I was done with this I downed a gigantic coconut water to rehydrate. It took about a half hour after that for my muscles to work again and then I was ready for new adventures.

Yesterday, after many months of looking, I got myself a spinning bike. I love riding bikes and in the time I can't go out and ride for one reason or another, I always wanted to ride in the privacy of my own house. I hauled that thing in the basement, put on a record, turned on the fan, and started pedaling away. I put in a good half hour before I started to get uncomfortable for I am not as fit as I once was. I watch what I eat but I still eat things I shouldn't, which brings us to today.

On this fitness thing, I've got to watch what I eat so I thought what better way to watch my caloric intake than to intake no calories? Queue Fruit Water. It's fruit punch and watermelon, sparkling, and zero calories. Win? Well, almost. Initially it tastes like a good gum but soon thereafter comes the rush of "the catch."

What catch? Well with anything diet, you're almost certain to get something disappointing. As the years go on, science is catching up and making good diet drinks. This one just went on it's own and did things the old fashioned way, with a terrible artificial sweetener. Sucralose is awful in every way, shape, and form. It kills a lot of otherwise good drinks. This initially had the promise of being good but, once again, sucralose killed it. Sucralose, you are the Hitler of artificial sweeteners.

Ladies and Gentlemen, a few days ago brought in the summer of 2013. I am pleased, but what I want to know is how the hell did I get a cold in the summer? I'm stuffy, my nose is runny and I feel like garbage. I should be outside frolicking and running through sprinklers or some such thing, instead I'm inside napping and reading.

I know this is more of a precautionary shot, but I'm willing to try anything I have on hand to kick this as soon as possible. This little guy contains noni, mango, pear, apple, lilikoi, goji, pineapple, and acai juice, as well date puree. We got a bunch of these sent to us to review. I had one a couple of days ago, and I just downed it. It tasted like the most concentrated form of a handful of super fruits that I have ever tasted. It was harsh and you could certainly taste the dates. Now as I sit here about to drink another I discover that they suggest mixing it into a glass of water. Well, that makes a lot of sense. When I mix it with water it's much easier to drink and the flavors spread out a bit now that they have room to flourish. It becomes more refreshing and not something you are glad comes in a shot bottle so you can down it nice and quick. It now tastes like something that should be drunk in Hawaii. Perhaps I will get to do that some time.

NOS has decided to delve into the world of sports drinks. If you weren't careful, this could easily be mistaken for a bottle of Gatorade or Powerade or Genericade. They all have what plants crave, but this one also has caffeine. I like that companies started to include the amount of caffeine on the label because I can see this bottle has the equivalent of a couple 12oz cups of coffee.

But you didn't come here to learn how to prank your friends who love sports drinks but are sensitive to caffeine. You came here to find out what this tastes like. Well, the flavor description is pretty accurate in this case. It's like a fruit salad that no one would ever make, but is surprisingly not that bad. It's not as refreshing/thirst quenching as normal/non-caffeinated sports drinks though. It tastes like a lot of non-carbonated energy drinks we've had. So in that respect, this really would be a mean prank to pull on someone.

Sometimes your at a time and place in your life where your nutrition needs to come from a shake/liquid. Perhaps you work out a lot and need to replenish what you lost whilst getting ripped. Perhaps things were a bit more sinister and some creep punched you out of nowhere because he thought you were eyeing his lady friend when in face you were trying to watch The Simpsons in closed caption on the television that hung behind her at the bar. Perhaps you are just an idiot and thought, “Hey I saw them try to jump the Springfield Gorge on that episode of the Simpsons I watched at the bar last night in closed caption, I'm going to try to do the same at my local gorge, except I'm going to actually make it.” Of course you didn't make it. You haven't set foot on a skateboard since you were twelve and now you're paunchy and 34, so you no longer have teeth to eat solid foods.

Whatever your reason, If you're into the taste of blueberries and vanilla and the consistency of slightly liquidy yogurt, this drink may be for you. To be honest, I could use a whole lot more vanilla in here. Had they used the same vanilla that is in their straight up vanilla shake and just added some blueberries to this is would be pretty magical. Instead it has a general yogurtness to it, that I kind of disliked at first, but didn't mid after a couple of sips. The blueberry taste is right where I want it to be though, so that is also good. Overall this isn't bad, but it could have easily been made great as I mentioned above.