JB's - 6 Reviews

Memorial Day weekend just wrapped up. It was three days filled with hangouts and barbeques, as those are the perfect ways to remember things. The last party of the weekend was a pool party at some friends' house. I think only one person actually ended going into the pool but the rest of us ate more than our fair share of food, including my new favorite thing “Cowboy Caviar.” Just look it up, it's delicious.

I brought this bottle of tea to share at the party, because I didn't want to end up drinking it all myself. As it turns out I think I am the only one who drank any of it, and it was only one glass. It doesn't really taste like a half and half. It's more of a lemon tea, and cheap tea at that. It actually has lemon juice concentrate in it, but the lemon flavoring doesn't taste real at all. The lemon taste is also far too overpowering. Had it actually tasted like lemonade I would have been okay with that, but the way things are it was too much. I drank my one glass, and when I went up for a refill I noticed that someone else had brought Arizona's Arnold Palmer and I ended up drinking that the rest of the night.

Charles, a mild mannered man, loved jazz. He didn't play any instruments himself, unless you consider the most cacophonous junior year of high school ever when he played guitar. He spent most nights alone in what used to be smoky jazz clubs in the city. Now they are smoke free and he is happy about that, but he admits that it misses a certain...something. He loves the greats like Maceo, Monk, and Miles as well as new cats.

Last night he went to a club downtown that just opened up a few weeks ago called JB's. He walked up to the entrance, and there was a man doing mime outside. He looked inside and there were TV's playing sports and people yelling. In the very back corner, he saw a man playing guitar. He heard the rest of a band, but couldn't see him through the crowd. He approached the doorman and said to him, "Is this a jazz club? It doesn't look like one and you advertised it as one." The doorman rudely said, "What are you, the bar police? Pay the five dollar cover and go inside if you want to see what JB's is all about." Charles reluctantly did and headed right towards the guitar player.

He shuffled through the people towards the guitarist so quickly that he didn't realize that there was no band at all. The man with the guitar was playing along with an iPod playing jazz. He was good, but it wasn't the same. He approached the bar and asked for something to drink. The bartender asked what he wanted and he asked what the house specials were. The bartender said that JB's had it's own line of drinks and gave him a list. Charles, knowing this night was going to be quicker than intended and he was probably going to leave soon, got a lemon tea. He took a sip and expected that it was going to be awful like the rest of the club. He was wrong. The tea had a nice lemon flavor and decent tea flavor. It obviously wasn't something you would make at home and tasted pretty manufactured, but he liked it more than a lemon Brisk. It tasted more real than that.

He finished up his tea, tipped the bartender, said goodbye to the doorman and got in his car to go home. It was only eight and he was too upset to stay out so he went home. That was the last time that he went to JB's for the jazz but on occasion, he would stop in during the day and get an iced tea and talk to all the creepy day-drinkers.

Dear Readers,
I am afraid that Thirsty Dudes has ruined me. I used to drink cheap syrupy iced teas all the darn time, and I loved it. Now that I've been drinking so much quality teas and the unsweetened variety has become such a part of me these teas are a little hard to get down. They don't taste like real tea in any way. I feel like I'm drinking sugar water with heavy flavoring in it. It has that fake peach flavoring, which I can no longer get down with. This claims to be 100% natural yet it contains no juice and is sweetened with corn syrup. I think JB's is taking a loose interpretation of the word natural.

All of those complaints aside, I drank this while I was dripping with sweat, printing shirts in a million degree room, and I will admit it quenched my thirst. Then again a tall cool glass of horse urine may have refreshed me at that moment.

Things I've eaten today:
1. Raspberry yogurt. Good for you.
2. Deep fried chicken "Whopper" from a local pizza place. They are delicious, but not good for you.

So in order to meet myself in the middle with my daily nutrition guidelines, I decided on fruit punch. It's 100% of my vitamin C intake and probably has some other goodies in it. Here's the thing though. Sure, it's a HFCS jam, but it's got actual pear, orange, pineapple, grape, and apple juice in it. It is not bad and if you like fruit punch, you might want to grab this one because you will be surprised.

I did not have high hopes for it as it was on markdown and a place that already sells stuff on markdown, but look at me! I'm impressed.

Guys I just brewed the best tea ever. What's great about it is that's it's all-natural! What's in it? I'll tell you what's in it! It's just three simple things; tea, water and heroin. Why are you looking at me like that? The tea is certified organic and free trade friendly and the water is from the purest springs. Obviously you must not be taking offense to the heroin. It's made from locally grown poppies. What do you mean it's not "natural"? I just told you it's made from poppies. If JB's can say that HFCS is natural than I can say my heroin is as well!

Seriously, don't say all natural and then use HFCS. Own up to it! The tea isn't all that bad. Sure it's syrupy, but it tastes good. Just accept yourself for who you are. Like Angus, "you're still here."

I saw it on the shelf and had to buy it. Remember in the Peanut's Christmas special where Linus bought that rather pathetic tree and everyone picked on him? This was on a shelf in a dusty old corner of a local drug store and I had to get it. I don't know if it was on clearance but it certainly was privileged enough to make it into their giant coolers.

This could be on behalf of the can looking like it came from 1997. A distressed font and angled text just screams "Alt". Also, when I read "100% Natural", I (stupidly) thought it might have been cane sugar, which would have been pretty rad. I can't pretend to be surprised.

Since this is a tall boy in the flavor of green tea with ginseng and honey, I just thought that it was going to be a Arizona clone, and for the most part it is, but it has it's subtleties. There is a bit more honey flavor, as well as more ginseng. In turn it's less green tea but these drinks are rarely very green tea flavored at all.

I will say this now and forever, this is a pretty parallel replacement for Arizona. I'll put my reputation on it. Someone please vouch for me so I don't sound so drastic.