Crystal Light - 10 Reviews

Dear Kraft, You sent us these samples months ago and I'm sorry I'm just getting around to reviewing this now. You see it somehow fell behind the giant mountain of drinks that is my kitchen, and it wasn't until I tried to organize everything yesterday that I found it. Such a little squeeze container can easily get lost in a forest of the gluttonous large bottles of most American beverages. In this country we are taught that more is better, but most of the time that is not true. More often ends up with stomachaches, cavities and diabetes.

The more is better mentality also does not fare well with Crystal Light Liquids. When they say one squeeze for each 8oz serving, they mean a small squeeze, not a big honking one. With a small squeeze you get a nice fruity flavor that tastes more like a tea that it should for not having any tea in it. IT has a general tropical fruit flavor rather than one of specific fruit. There is also a slight diet flavor from the sucralose they use to sweeten it, but it's more than manageable. The more you squeeze, the less pleasant the flavor become and the more the diet taste of it all jumps out at you.

When done properly this can make a nice little beverage for those weirdoes in the world that don't like the taste of water. It's also a nice substitute for sugar water if you're trying to lose some weight or just consume healthier beverages, just don't overdo it like you did those bacon triple cheeseburgers that got you into this mess in the first place.

There are two things that this drink reminds me of. First is the most suburban America restaurant I can think of: Olive Garden. I would like to go on record and say that anywhere that has endless breadsticks, salad and soup is in no way shape of form a fancy restaurant. There is no need to pull out your fanciest clip on tie, and your slightly stained suit coat to take your family out for a meal there; t-shirts and jeans are just fine. Also, it's not gourmet food. It's a crappy chain restaurant that has a fake fancy image to trick the common folk. The one thing it goes have going for it is that they serve peach bellini, which is a nice tasting peach and raspberry iced tea with chunks of peach in it. Now that is something to brag to your friends about, not how large the portions of mediocre pasta are.

To be fair Olive Garden is my only form of reference for peach bellinis. Apparently, it's normally an alcoholic drink that is a mix of peach schnapps and champagne. That sounds horrendous, especially because in the way back time in the early 90's when I actually would drink alcohol I drank way too much peach schnapps and vommed everywhere and it was black and stringy. I couldn't eat anything peach for years.

This is closer to the Olive Garden version than that other unmentionable version. In moderation it tastes like a watered down peach/raspberry tea, but if you add more mix to give it a bit more flavor there is some weird taste floating around beneath the surface. I don't know what it is, but it tastes remotely like plastic. This is to flavor water though, not make a sweet drink, so follow the directions and go light on your squirt and it's a nice treat that has no sugar and no real diet taste.

Oh, and that other thing that each bellini reminds me of? Well, that would be the Kids in the Hall's “Touch Bellini” contest. In fact I'm going to have my own “Touch Bellini” contest. For the next week anyone who sends us an email to thethirstydudes@gmail.com or comments on our Facebook page as to why they should be able to “touch bellini” will be put into the running to receive what is left in this squeeze bottle of drink mix. Kraft sent it to us to review, so we shall pass along our leftovers to you, our twelve readers.

Sometimes you can just cram a couple berries together and make something nice. This isn't always the case. Most fruit and berries are pretty good but sometimes you find something that just sucks up your drink. I feel like, for the most part, you could add grapefruit to anything and it will turn your concoction into the equivalent of a fruit poop. Yeah, if fruit had butts, it would make that. Blackberry, a pretty sacred berry, and blueberry...eh..., come together for an epic collaboration that you will talk about like it was 1992 and you just heard "Nothin' But A 'G' Thang" for the first time. Now, sure, in that case, Snoop and Dr. Dre are both blackberries since they are both awesome and calling either of them blueberries would be insulting to their bodies of work.

This is a pretty great drink, though, all jokes aside. It's diet but does not taste like it and just tastes like a juice. Go ahead. Go to a Snoop Dogg/Lion show and make him a glass of this. He'll love it. He'll (slowly) say that it's sweet, tastes like the fruits that are in it, and probably ask for another glass since, I don't know, I feel like he's eternally thirsty. Dr. Dre is in cahoots with Dr. Pepper so he probably wouldn't drink this for you. That's not a dis, it's just that I don't want you to get shot down. Go with Snoop.

Ps. Kraft sent us this sample. They want us to make sure we say that.

Concentrating and dieting tea sounds like the worst idea to me because I'm such a tea snob that I can't stand anything but either unsweetened tea or pure Southern sweet tea. Everything else is just kind of situational. I drink it for the site but I can't tell you the last time I went to a restaurant and even wanted anything other than unsweetened tea. One primary reason is because sweetened, mass-produced tea typically sucks. No need to beat around the bush. In terms of legitimate quality, it sucks. Every once in a while and completely due to this website, I come across a diamond in the rough that breaks the mold a bit.

This Crystal Light Liquid that Kraft sent us doesn't break the mold but it's a nice middle ground that I'm giving extra credit because it is a diet drink that doesn't taste like diet. It tastes like a watered down, not sharp tasting, Brisk. Basically, it is what Brisk should be instead of the toxic sludge that it is. It's got a decent sweetness that, no, doesn't taste "natural" but isn't offensive. The tea taste is pretty good, too. All-in-all, I would say that this is a success. Diet or not, this is a pretty good tea mix.

"I don't like this. Do you want it?" she says to me. I don't often get proposals like this but I will always jump at the chance to drink something someone else doesn't want as long as it makes a good review. Obviously I said yes and the effect of that was over half a dozen packets of cherry pomegranate diet drink mix in my hand and a happy co-worker that doesn't have to look at them ever again. Everyone wins.

I made myself a glass of this and here's how it goes. If you fast-forward to Fall where people make candy covered apples, take their excess candy coating and roll some cherries and pomegranate arils in it and munch away on that. After you're done eating those at-one-time-healthy-snacks-now-made-terribly-unhealthy-snacks, imagine how they would be liquefied and that's about the slot that this drink fills. It's candy sweet but you can still manage to taste the pomegranate and cherry. That surprises me after thinking now of how good candy covered pomegranate is. Candy covered cherries doesn't appeal to me for some reason. If you're covering arils in the same stuff you use to make candy covered apples, you will have more candy than fruit. I guess I didn't think the logistics and dynamics of the comparison before I mentioned it. Oh well. It still stands. Enjoy your diet, everyone. Now with candy!

Ahh mocktails, the perfect drink for a summer afternoon. This drink fits many "perfect" slots for many people, too. For instance, did you know that you cannot drink when you are pregnant? Well, technically you can but there's no telling what will happen to the baby growing inside your tummy. Answer? Mocktails. Alcoholics shouldn't drink because it could quickly spiral out of control for them and the next thing you know they'll have a unicorn with a rainbow on it tattooed on their ankle. No one, not even fans of unicorns want that tattoo. Who else would love a mocktail? Kids? It's a stretch but kids that want to act cool and drink like their parents could drink mocktails all day long.

Now onto the drink itself: It's a fantastically retro peach Bellini. Traditionally made with sparkling wine and peach puree, this drink is probably closer to none of those things. It's not sparkling although you probably could make this with seltzer water and it would be spot on. It does taste quite peachy and no, I don't mean that in a 1996 KoЯn kind of way. Could you imagine if you went backstage at a KoЯn show and Munky, Head, and Fieldy were all drinking mocktail peach Bellinis? That would have been quite an image. Tough, nu-metal dudes drinking a low-cal faux alcoholic drink? I mean, they are professionals and had a show to put on. I would imagine that the pre-show ritual would include mock drinks but the post-show would involve shear chaos.

This drink isn't bad. It doesn't taste terribly diet, which is a plus and a bit of a shocker since I can usually spot a disgusting aspartame drink a mile away. This is loud on the peach, but take it from someone who isn't 100% into peaches, it's still good. KoЯn agrees. The Allman Brothers agree. The Presidents of the United States of America agree. This peach Bellini is pretty good.

Carol loves a good jog. She's in her mid-forties and has always done a good job taking care of her body. Sure, she "cheats" every once in a while. She's determined but still human. She'll have some ice cream every once in a while and loves chocolate. She eats less of it than she would like to, but she has self-control. Admirable, I know.

While making her bi-weekly shopping trip, she came across a new version of Crystal Light. She used to drink it a lot in the last 80's, early 90's but after the whole diet/cancer scare, she's tried to stay away from it. This looked like something new and used Stevia so she bought it.

So took her evening, after work jog and came home to make a glass of this drink. She took one sip and was part relieved and part unsatisfied. She liked the fruit flavor of the drink but it was a bit too sweet. It has the Stevia taste that she was used to, but it was as if it had just too much sugar in it. She mixed it correctly. She checked the size of the bottle and the directions on the box. She finished the bottle and would probably finish the rest, but just in a longer time than she thought.

It was not what she expected and although it was better than the Crystal Light she was used to, they hadn't exactly "done it" quite yet. Keep going, Carol. We're all rooting for you.

Remember that scene in Better Off Dead where Booger, or whatever his name is in that movie, you know who I'm talking about, is on the top of the mountain, probably the K2 when he says that the snow is like cocaine and snorts it? For some reason that's what I think of when I have powder drinks.

This is such a step in the right direction I don't know where to start. Flavors roll call! Orange. Blackberry. Passion fruit. Bam. Delicious cubed. Also, you can taste the Reb-A a little bit but it's mostly real sugar, good sugar, and awesome fruit flavors. Low calories. This is such a win in my book and like I said, a step in the right direction. A low calorie drink using natural sweeteners with delicious fruit flavors that doesn't suck and doesn't taste like it's diet and all that other stuff. Great.

It's so hot. Water...water...where is it? What's going on? What's happening in the paper? What?! A toxic spill causes rain shortage? Oh man. That's pretty terrible. What am I going to...what? What's going on? It's raining. Awesome I'm going to put my head right under it. This isn't rain! It's appley. Let me try this again. It tastes like a green apple and it's green. This is going to make everything sticky and probably kill all the plants but it's pretty refreshing. I wish it would hail so that...holy crud it's hailing. This is the best thing that could ever happen. It's like I'm taking a shower in a Crystal Light Appletini. There is even got the flavor down to that strange stinging in the back of my throat.

I think that, yep, now that I'm reading this paper, it seems that the toxic spill was actually a giant shipment of the powder of Appletini crashing into a river during a drought. So it naturally wasn't raining and the river mixed up the drink and then it evaporated into a lake. What a delicious disaster! Good thing Kraft sent us some samples so we could properly place the flavor.

Kraft Foods sent us a sample of Crystal Light Mocktails and out of the goodness of my heart I made a pitcher of this and poured a glass for my girlfriend and myself. When I was pouring, she asked, "You have to make that in a pitcher." thinking that I had poured powder into cups and was just going to mix it up. Like I don't know how to read the simplest of directions. I quickly mocked her and brought her a glass with crushed, not cubed, ice. Honestly, when you have the option of having crushed ice, why would you ever go back? Oh, it gets my drink colder, faster? Naw, I'll go with the classic. Please.

So, not drinking, I don't know the pleasure or sorrow of a "real" mojito. I've had mojito drinks; little bit of lime, little bit of mint; but I've never had a pure, authentic one. So here's how my authenticity review process went:

Me: What do you think? Does this taste like a real mojito?
J: No. It tastes really diet.
Me: It's not really a mojito but compared to a real one, what do you think.
J: Well, I guess it tastes a little like it. If you put some rum and mint in this, it would taste pretty good.
Me: Well there is mint in here.
J: Actually it tastes a lot like a mojito.
Me: ...

Straight from someone who has had a mojito, and so that I'm not some poseur, there's your review. Within half a glass, you too can come full circle and feel like you're drinking a real mojito. My review? Sure. It's not bad. It doesn't really taste diet and actually all of the flavors are pretty calm and subdued but if they were any more enhanced, I feel that it would get overwhelming and might not be as quenching. I didn't get a lot of mint flavor, but the lime was there. It wasn't bad and I've got several more packs of the stuff that I won't get upset if I find made in my fridge. One small pack makes two quarts so a little bit goes a long way. This will be great for a party we're having next week for all those women who are watching their figure. Dudes, it's for you, too. It's just a drink. There is nothing fem about drinks.