Alo - 14 Reviews

Hello, my name is Jason and I am an addict. I spent years of my life chasing the dragon, trying to grasp the unbeatable fix. I went from sketchy place to sketchy place looking for the best that the world could offer. I knew I had reached a low point when I found myself eating plants to get a fix. I was literally poisoning myself, and for what a taste of the good life. I realize now that I could never find a high sweet enough, or a chunk big enough. You see I am addicted to aloe drinks. I have kicked the habit, but I know that I will always be an addict. Actually that's not true…€¦I had kicked the habit, but I'm ashamed to admit that I have had a relapse. I just couldn't help myself. When a company like Alo released a drink that is watermelon and peach flavored, I feel like I have no choice but to submit to my urges. I mean it's made with real juice for crying out loud.

I am shamed, and going back to the …€˜lo wasn't even as sweet as I wanted it to be. I was a fool. I knew watermelon drinks tended to end up tasting like Jolly Ranchers, but the use of real fruit gave me hope. In a cruel twist of fate, I was correct that it did taste like watermelon, but I had forgotten how light and nearly unflavored the juice that comes from a watermelon could be. This tastes like the great seeded fruit, but it was so darn light. Peaches are a much stronger fruit, but for some reason in this it was light as well. In some sips it came out stronger than others, but ultimately I must admit this was a very light drink. That can be fine and actually preferably in some beverages, but when it comes to aloe one wants bold flavors.

As far as chunks go, they are not as plentiful in Alo drinks as with other companies, but when you do get them, they are much larger than normal. It's a trade off you must make sure you are okay with. At my moment of weakness I would have accepted any chunks the Alo gods offered up.

I was weak, and my confidence was shattered. I came here to this group in search of help and strength. I hope that you fine people will allow me to lean on you as you fight your own demons. Wait…€¦what do you mean this has nothing to do with aloe? This is AA, right? Aloholics Anonymous? Oh…€¦well it looks like I'm in the wrong place. Thank you for your time anyway.

I pose to you a question: When Kurt Russell was escaping from New York, and later L.A. would he have had an easier time if this drink were on hand? Would it have given him the refreshment he needed in such dire situations? Would he have just been able to trade a bottle of this for the president? I can only imagine that pineapples and guavas would be like gold on a prison island. If you lived in an area that was cut off from the world for years and suddenly someone dangled those fruits in front of you, I think you would be surprised as to what you would do to procure it. The joke would be on you though if you traded something as precious at the president for a bottle of this. You see there are four main ingredients in this bottle: aloe vera, pineapple and guava (which are all incredibly delicious), but then you also have sea buckthorn berry. I've never actually had one before, or heard of it until now, but a quick internet search tells me they are extremely healthy an also extremely tart. My question is if they are so tart why does this drink taste like someone took a delicious tropical aloe drink and mixed in a little bit of vegetable soup? There is just this little flavor of soup that makes this whole thing really, really weird. It counters the tropical flavor, and once you realize what the taste reminds you of it's hard to concentrate on any of the other flavors. It's still enjoyable, but it's just a weird drink. Snake Plissken sure pulled a fast one on those cons. Now he just needs to get the president back to his glider.

Oh yeah, in case you didn't already realize it this drink also has chunks of aloe in it. I normally love them, but they kind of add to the vegetable soup scenario in here.

So far we have not had good luck with the Coco Exposed line. I have to blame the coconut for our disinterest. Alo makes incredible aloe drinks, and this line is basically those same drinks with coconut water added to them. The only difference I can see is that dumb coconut water. I've come around to coconut water for the most part. I don't mind the chalkiness and it can be extremely refreshing. There is something different with the coconut water in here though. In another review Mike described it as tasting like the powder left over in the bottom of the box when you run out of Cheerios. I don't think he's wrong about that. It has that same wheaty/grainy aftertaste. It's strange as the other coconut waters I've drunk did not have that flavor. In reality it could be because this drink has no sugar added to it.

I was hoping this flavor would be better than the others because it's passion fruit and pineapple flavored; two of my favorites. Unfortunately the non-coconut flavor in here just tastes like a vaguely fruity aloe drink. Neither the passion fruit nor the pineapple stands out in any way. It's a shame, but at least I was able to get through this whole bottle without being completely disgusted. That's further than we got with the other flavors.

Nope. I went into this thinking it was going to be gross and hoping to be wrong and I was right. Story time? You've got it.

There was once a bar that Jay DJ'd at and it was pretty great. They sold everything and also served food and drink. You could go in there, buy a nice meal and the chair you sat in to eat it. Tables, chairs, toys, odds and ends, and more; everything was for sale. It was cool. Jay and I were there for a night he was playing and he took a break and they offered wheatgrass so we split a shot of it. It wasn't bad. We thought it was going to be gross, but it just tastes like the smell of freshly cut grass. A little sweet but very...fresh. Very green. It's got some immense amount of vitamins and minerals equivalent to multiple servings of vegetables.

This is just a strange, smooth, chunky texture, like if you watered down your morning oatmeal and drank it, except your oatmeal smelled like if you poured the dust from a box of Cheerios into a cup rather than actual cereal.

This is bad. I have said it before and I'll say it again. How does stuff like this make it to market?

This could not be a more disgusting drink. I mean it. This is hardly drinkable. I took one sip and essentially signed off on the whole thing. I love aloe. This has so much chunk in it that you think that you're drinking something else. It's downright thick. Second, it's got coconut water in it which I am not the largest fan of, but I thought that since it's got fruits in there, both prefixed with "mango" ironically, it might be alright. Nope. It stood out like a sore thumb. I can taste the fruit but it's so masked by chunks and coconut that you'd be better off just not adding flavor, or more flavor. This drink is a Frankenstein of all things bad and no, I'm not using that phrase because it's a week away from Halloween.

I'm not a fan of V8 vegetable juice. I've tried it several times over the past 20 years and it never tasted good to me. When I saw this on the shelf at the co-op, that's what I instantly thought of. But then I remembered how delicious V8 Splash is. Plus, Alo has never failed us in the past so this couldn't be that bad, could it?

First, lets look at the list of fruits and vegetables that are in here:

• Broccoli


• Cabbage


• Celery


• Spinach


• Passion Fruit


• Carrot


• Grape


• Pineapple


• Lemon


• Apple


• Orange


• Strawberry

It's quite the assortment of fruits and veggies. Upon opening it, it smelled like soup, a vegetable or minestrone if you will. This both excited and scared me. Don't get me wrong, I love a good soup on a chilly autumn day, but I like to eat soup out of bowl with a spoon while it's still hot. I don't like cold soup (especially gazpacho).

So the question of the hour is, does it taste like soup? Indeed it does! It's like drinking a bottle of vegetable noodle soup, with the aloe chunks acting as the alphabet pasta. While it's not something I see myself drinking on a daily basis, it's actually not bad at all. If I was in the mood for soup on a hot day, I could totally see this being amazing. There's no distinct fruit or vegetable flavors to it. It's just a jumble of all the flavors. With the addition of the aloe, fruit, and cane sugar, it's slightly sweet but allows the flavors of the soup... I mean vegetable juice to stand out.

Alo what have you done! Your mother and I leave you home alone for two hours, entrusting you with keeping the house safe and this is how you repay us? It looks like you filmed a Beastie Boys video in here! All we can say is how deeply disappointed we are in you. You've always been such a well-behaved beverage. Sure you hung out with the weird flavored nerdy kids every once and awhile, but overall you got good marks. Lately you've been getting mixed up with an unsavory crowd like that Johnny Coconut kid. I don't like the cut of his jib. Don't argue with me! I don't care if it's the only jib he's got! That kid is bad news. Just look what he's done to our home and more importantly our precious aloe juice! He's tainted it! It no longer tastes wonderful and sweet. It doesn't even taste like chalky coconut water. How on Earth did you two get all mixed together and end up tasting like some sort of cereal milk? Have you been drinking? Please tell me you're not on the pot! The fun has even been taken out of the chunks. I don't believe this. We're you supposed to be babysitting the neighbor's kids, Peach and Kiwi? Where have they gotten off to, because I sure don't taste them in here!

I have a weird relationship with Coconut Water. I have nothing against him, but he's not my favorite. He always shows up in nice packaging and chilled, but usually leaves a sour (not literally) taste in my mouth. When I picked him up today, he was hanging out with my good friend Aloe Vera. Now I haven't known Aloe Vera as long as Coconut Water, but he's a good dude and he always brings a smile to my face.

When they showed up today together, I was excited to try them together. They had an interesting fragrance on, not bad but not mouth watering. They had "Goji Berry" and "Lychee" clothes on, two names I was familiar with and have liked in the past. Now I don't want to blame it all on him, but I wish Coconut Water wouldn't have come. He kinda ruined the party. Otherwise, I think it would have been a really fun and memorable experience. He just kept bumping into everyone else and making things a mess. It's too bad because I was really looking forward to this.

Oh Alo with your giant chunks of aloe. You treat me so well. Let me tell you all, y'all, a story about going to an Asian market. I went to an Asian market with Jay, Thirsty Dudes editor Dan, and some other friends and we came across an olive juice drink. I wanted to buy it so badly because of two reasons:
1. It would have been potentially gross.
2. It would have been potentially delicious.

I did not buy it because it was expired...by four years. As much as I like the idea of drinking milk that's two weeks old, I will not drink anything that's four years old. Why am I bringing this up? This has "olive leaf tea" in it and I hoped that it would taste like olives. Imagine my face when it didn't. It tastes like a sweet tea with chunks in it. Is that bad? Nope. Would I buy it again? No. Why? If I wanted a tea, I would buy a tea. If I wanted an aloe vera drink, I would buy one. I don't need two drinks in one. As novel it is, it's best not to mix something you're great at with something you aren't great at. I'm not belittling Alo, I'm giving them all the credit in the world for trying. Like I said, I'm not picking, I'm just stating an observation. This is a good drink, but it's like a hybrid car. I want all electric or all gas. I don't want to have to worry about plugging it in and filling it up with gas. I know that's not the same with all hybrids, but you know what I'm saying.

This is one of the better aloe vera companies and when it comes to bang for your buck, this company has some great and really different flavors.

Oh man. I spent all day at the beach. I went swimming, built sandcastles, commented on how ridiculous a lot of the people looked there, went on Shark Watch 2011, and most importantly I got a wicked sunburn. I slathered myself in sunscreen and everything. I'm talking SPF 85 here. Still my archenemy the sun got me, and he got me good. Burn city. The only thing to do now is to cut a leaf/branch off of this aloe vera plant and rub the juice on my burn to sooth the pain.....

Oh wait I'm sorry I just drifted off there. I'm actually still in Buffalo, NY. It's 14 degrees out and snow is everywhere. It's pretty ridiculous that even in my escapism fantasies I still get terrible sunburn. It's my life. I'm cursed with being an "outdoor kid" that is easily burned. I don't even own an aloe plant. What I do have is a bottle of original flavored aloe drink. My only history with an original flavored aloe drink is with Aloevine. Theirs tastes like white grape juice for some reason. I had stupidly assumed that aloe naturally had a grape like flavor. Nope. Alo makes a more natural product without all the additives and there's doesn't taste like grape at all. It has a fairly nondescript sweet flavor. There are big chunks of aloe in it like all of their drinks. I'm a fan.

Now back to my dreams of the beach. This time I'm upping the SPF even more.

Oh Alo the wonderful drinks you make. To begin with, you are the only aloe beverage company that I have had that uses actual fruit juice instead of artificial flavor. That alone makes you stand out. The fact that your aloe chunks are about 5x bigger than your competitors also adds to your charm. After my recent adventure in the world of mangosteen, I can say this definitely tastes like the fruit. I just found out that a health food store in Buffalo now carries these, so I'm pretty excited that I'll be able to get them on the regular.

When I'm looking for an aloe drink, there is no shortage. I've got so much selection that I can drink a different flavor every day for a week. I'm not saying that I have them on my person at all times and I don't wear cargo pants and carrying a week's worth of drinks in your pocket, unless you are planning on spending a week in the desert, is pretty stupid. I used to wear cargo pants. It was the 90's. What did you do in the 90's that you wouldn't do anymore? I bet you did a lot you regret. It was a rough time for everyone and cargo pants were our salvation. That and carpenter pants. Who carries hammers everywhere? That one I'm surprised made the jump from function to fashion.

Anyhow, this Alo has big ol' chunks. There are bigger ones than Aloevine or even Foco. The flavor is a nice mix of pomegranate and cranberry. Both are a little subdued, but still very good. You can taste the pomegranate and just the flavor, none of the bite, of the cranberry. The chunks are like flavor explosions in your mouth.

I've found this at nature stores. So if you have a Price Rite, that's where I've found it. I'm sure they probably have a "where to buy" section.

Oh, also, drink this cold. It's not too fantastic lukewarm.

I've consumed a lot of aloe drinks in my time. This is one of the best that I've had. It tastes fresher than most. It also has the biggest chunks of aloe that I've ever had in a drink. They are so big in fact that I would call them hunks, perhaps big hunkin' chunks. It also helps that it's the only one I've had that has actual juice in it (30% to be exact). You can really taste the grapefruit juice in it. It's also rare that a grapefruit drink actually tastes like the fruit, but Alo hit the mark. It also has Pomelo in it, which I wasn't familiar with. It turns out that it's an Asian fruit that tastes like a light grapefruit. Now I must search out a fresh Pomelo. Wish me luck in this frozen tundra.

A few years back I had a weekly DJ night at a bar here in Buffalo with my friend Bill. We got free drinks all night, but since neither of us drank, the bartender would feed us shots of wheat grass. I expected it to be gross, but I actually really enjoyed it. I was pumped to try this because it combined two things I was a big fan of. Unfortunately, it didn't really taste too much like wheat grass (well at least what I remember it tasting like). The aloe flavor and sweetness of it overpowered the wheat grass. The chunks of aloe in this were pretty huge too. Some of them were the size of crushed grapes. It's not the best Aloe juice I've ever had, but it was still a decent drink.