Prometheus Springs - 6 Reviews

Prometheus Springs really has a niche and rule at it. Aside from ginger beer, no one dares compare to the heat that Mr. Springs brings to the table. They're pros and they know it. They've got the gall to burn people's mouths and have them crawling back for more.

I enjoy giving their drinks to unsuspecting people and having them take a normal chug just to watch their faces. I giggle when they look as if they just unknowingly ate rat poison or got shot, unsuspectingly, in the chest. Sometimes it's hard to get them to try it again with a sip rather than a chug strategy.

This new line is tamer, I feel, than their previous line. It's way more approachable and I think they toned it down a titch. I find this new line more drinkable from beginning to end a lot easier. I haven't seen it on the shelves yet, but as soon as it does, you've got yourself a little sweet and spicy treat. The flavor is great, too. A real good, smooth mango taste and it's just sweet enough that you could probably grab another if you wanted. If you didn't know, you would have no idea that it's going to take your throat for a vicious trip down a lemon juice rain, razor blade hallway. I all of a sudden want to draw what that looks like. Could someone create a flash game where you have to walk through a razor blade hallway with lemon juice raining down through the sprinkler system? If you make it to the end, you win. You lose by incurring a certain amount of pain. When your pain bar reaches full, you have to go to a fat nurse like the one you had in your high school, and she's got a terribly short skirt and you think you can see "it" but you can't be sure.

Well, well, well. What do we have here, a (semi) quenching drink from Prometheus Springs? Half of your mouth will love you. What is it about Gatorade that makes it so you can chug like 15 gallons before you need to breathe? Seriously, nothing goes down smoother than Gatorade and I don't know why. Don't give those electrolytes any more credit than they deserve. Man, I want a hot dog. So, look. I'm from Buffalo. We three Thirsty Dudes all are and soon we will be together again. I can speak from certainty when I say that I probably go through a gallon of Franks Hot Sauce annually. That's a lot. It might be more, I don't know. It's hard to be sure. Anyhow, once I heard that Prometheus Springs was releasing a cayenne pepper flavored drink, I knew I had to do it.

So I did it, and I was surprised. When I took my first sip, I was surprised at how "drinkable" it was. It was a really good orange taste. I don't know why they didn't call it "orange cayenne". I didn't get lemon or lime, but a lot of orange and it was good, truthful orange, like a mandarin orange or something. The orange flavor was easily drinkable, like Gatorade, hence my previous mentioning of said company. As anyone who has had a Prometheus drink before chugging is not only stupid, it is also dangerous. As expected, with any Prometheus Springs drink, there's going to be a burn somewhere along the lines, and at about 2 seconds it kicks in and you're hit with the pepper juice.

It's a great contrast and I would drink it again and again. It is not reminiscent of Franks Hot Sauce, but it may have been a bit gross if it was. I gave a sip to my girlfriend and told her to take a sip. She did, it burned her, she yelled at me, I called her a wimp, and we went to bed. That means it's a good drink and I'm a terrible boyfriend. The latter you already should know.

I'm backup up on drinks to review. Seriously backed up, like over 100 drinks sitting in my fridge/back hall waiting to be tasted and sub-sequentially have prose written about it. It's getting to the point where it's overwhelming. Even though I have enough drinks to last me for a couple of months, when a package from Prometheus Springs arrived on my front porch I let out a squeaky noise of pure excitement. I tore apart the packaging and this drink shot to the number one spot on my "to drink" queue.

My friend Pat Bolger stopped by to work on artwork for his band's 7". He is one of the most wonderfully insane/brilliant pieces of human meat I have ever come across. Life is always interesting when he is around. Today was his birthday (also the date of the end of the world according to Terminator legend). To celebrate I decided to share this beverage with him.

At first smell it smells like pear juice, but as you pull it away a burning sensation fills your nostrils. I have a problem in that whenever I first try a new drink I take a huge sip. I thought I was fine. It had a mild pear taste while it was in my mouth. I'm not the world's biggest pear supporter (I feel like they are apples with genetic problems), but it's a quick flavor in this drink. It doesn't linger around long and I can enjoy that. The issue was that as it started flowing down my throat the burning started. It's not as strong as the older flavors I had tried from this company, but it definitely burns. I passed it off to Pat, and although he knew it would have a kick I don't think he was prepared for its fury. His face was pretty priceless, and he said he thought it was eating a hole in his stomach. He couldn't get down more than one sip.

The burn from the capsaicin in this is something that can be quite a shock if you're not ready for it. When I first tried Prometheus Springs drinks I thought of it more of a novelty and wasn't a big fan. The more I drink them the more I appreciate it. I now look forward to the burn. It's not a drink that you can chug down, but if you slowly sip it over a few hours it can be really enjoyable.

Mike and I both got bottles of Prometheus Springs on a dare. With flavors like "Lychee Wasabi" and "Pomegranate and Black Pepper" they just had such a high expectation for failure. I wussed out and went for what I thought to be the safer choice, "Lemon Ginger." I will admit it was the most intense beverage I have ever tried, but it also wasn't all that bad. Not only did it have an intense ginger burn, but also the capsaicin added made it even more insane. I drank about a third of the bottle, and had to put it away for a while. No one else who tried it got passed one sip. When I decided it was too much on its own I mixed it with some juice, and the results were pretty great. It dulled the burn a bit, but it still made for a nice kick. If you really love ginger or spicy foods, this may be the drink for you.

***********************UPDATE******************************

Yesterday was one of my best friend's bachelor party. Mike and I put together a basket (box) of strange drinks for the raffle. I picked up a bottle of this to put is said basket. At the last minute I pulled this bottle from the basket, because I figured that anyone who won it would take one sip and probably throw it out. I also really wanted to give it another chance. After about six months of doing this site and drinking more out of the ordinary beverages I had a very different outlook on it this time. Maybe it was because I knew what I was getting into, but I really enjoyed it. It's not something you can pop open and drink with dinner, but it's something nice to take a pull off of every so often during a long hang out. The burn that turned me off in the past was something that I now looked forward to. I really loved this drink this time around. I think I have officially become a drink snob.

This was my first try at a spiced elixir, as Prometheus Springs like to call it. I can describe it like this:

Remember hot Warheads? The candy that you had as a kid that was hot and you thought you were awesome because you could eat a whole one without spitting it out? This is that, but in a drink. It's not terribly refreshing, even chilled, but they are nice enough to give you pairings like "Serve neat for maximum spice" and "Serve warm and get well soon", so I give them credit for being witty and not so stuffy. It's a completely organic drink, so you can feel good about drinking it, and it's so spicy you have to feel like it's doing something good to your body besides ravaging your taste buds.

If they come out with another flavor, I'll buy it, but I will not be surprised if I just copy and paste this review for that flavor, too.

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EDIT

As Jay previously mentioned in his re-review for the Lemon Ginger, we were new to the game and didn't know what to expect. Now that this review is in retrospect, it is one of the more outstanding drinks. Is taste all that matters in a drink review? No. Not anymore. The Hey Song Shaking Jelly Soda Drink was tasty, but it was also a load of fun to have people try. Also, we reviewed a lot of ginger beers since this and it turns out we like and prefer the ones with burn. This was not a bad drink. It was just hot. It's a sipping drink, not a chugging juice like we may have previously expected. For that, I am re-editing this review and adding two points to its previous score of 2. Congratulations, Prometheus Springs, you've earned it.

Fun. I don't know how else to describe it. It's not refreshing, but it's not, not refreshing. It tastes good, but burns. See, it's got capsaicin in it, the stuff that makes spicy things spicy, so it's...spicy. I had the Pomegranate and Black Pepper flavor and it was around the same deal. It took me about three days to drink it as I had more fun sharing it and seeing other people's reaction than actually drinking it.