India - 22 Reviews

Oh man, what have I done to myself? Working on this website has led me to taste some of the most wonderful flavors that have ever crossed my palate. For them I am thankful and the potential of running across others like them keep this site running. Then we come across products such as Sosyo and I want to flush it all away. Wipe my hands twice in the air and just walk away from the Thirsty Dudes empire.

I just knew this was not going to be anything resembling good in my world. Between the packaging that required a knife to cut away and ingredients that give no hint at a flavor (carbonated water, sugar, citric acid, sodium benzoate and caramel) there wasn't much telling me that this would be something I would enjoy.

Let me go on a little tangent and tell you that I have recently been working my way through critics lists of the greatest horror movies of all times. I've already watched most that are on the lists, but I figured I should fill in the gaps and maybe find some gems. While there have been a handful of great movies, most of them that I had not already seen are just terrible to the point of nearly unwatchable, and I love terrible movies. With that being said there is more horror in this bottle than all of those movies combined.

It says it's a mixed fruit flavor, but online I read something comparing it to cola. I thought it might end up being a fruity cola, which I could be into. Instead I received a mouthful of what tasted like how I imagine prison toilet wine would taste. I checked the Wikipedia page on Sosyo to make sure this hadn't gone bad and it says that it's a mixture of grape and apple cider that tastes alcoholic. It was apparently originally called Whisky No because of this. Ugh. No thanks. This is highly offensive to my tastes and I couldn't get more than two sips into the bottle.

If you are a recovering alcoholic, who for some reason misses the taste of the worlds crappiest fruit alcohol, or are a child pretending to be an adult this may be the drink for you. If you're tastes are anything close to mine, I warn you to stay away. It's sad because I had a nice saag meal for lunch that I was hoping would pair nicely with this Indian soda.

Look America, some things just aren't for you and your palate of hamburgers. There is an ever-growing population of people that aren't from "these here parts" and they are integrating into our great country because of the opportunities and potential for greater thing. In doing so, they are bringing their food and culture to our doorstep and although we might not fully understand it, we should embrace it and give it a try. For the most part, we are welcomed with open arms if we're not going to be ignorant about it. Sure, at first glance, some of the clothes, accessories, customs, and beliefs might seem strange, but I'm sure that ours seem that way to them.

No I did not grow up on rice and rose water. I don't have a taste for it, but this site has allows me to try out things that are normal in other cultures. This, for instance, is one of those things.

Given to me by a girl who grew up surrounded by ex-pats of India. She said that she drank this all the time and when she found out about the site, she generously brought this for me. I have sat on it for a long time but I quite literally dusted it off and made a glass tonight to ponder over while listening to Incognito's "Beneath The Surface" which is a work of art in itself.

I've had rose lassi and that simply is not for me. Oh I "get" it but it's just not for me. This, though...this I could get used to. Sipping in those hot summer months while mulling over different fruits and botanicals. It's lightly sweetened and highly concentrated. It has a bit of "rose" to it but there is more going on in this little glass of mine. It's rose, it's fruity, and although it doesn't have any in it, it almost has a taste of cinnamon or something. It is a very complex taste that is rose first but complex if you try to figure out what else is in there.

Now I just made this with water but there are plenty of other applications for this including mixing it with milk to make a creamier drink or put it on ice cream as a topping. I don't know if I would do that here in the States but if I was ever lucky enough to take a trip to India or date an Indian woman who's family made good Indian food, I would try it there all day long.

To further my new quest to find a fantastic spicy chocolate drink to compare to an Aztec Hot Chocolate I had, I splurged and got this. Yeah, I'll admit it. I'm on a real loose, hot tea kick but I like my stuff strong. I'm new to the loose tea game so if you are, too, let me tell you something I learned. If you want a stronger tea, don't think that you can just let it steep for like fifteen minutes because then you'll have a tea that tastes like wood and old, wet leaves.

Cinnamon is a spice but I wouldn't say that it's particularly spicy. This is a chai and although I have had some with bite, this one smells better than it tastes. It's got hunks of solid chocolate, vanilla bean, and coconut pieces. You can actually taste all of it, which is pretty incredible. It tastes good and is decently strong. I steep on the longer side because I do like a stronger, thicker tea. It's not a chai like you might expect but it's still something different that you can enjoy any time of the day. It's faint enough on the chocolate side that you don't feel like a fat turd drinking it at ten in the morning. Yeah, I said it. Don't eat chocolate for breakfast. Sure, chocolate in cereal is fine but whomever is eating a bar of Hershey's in the morning should really re-evaluate your life and choice of chocolate. That's some novice stuff there, son. Wake up and get some quality dark in you. What are you, eight and in summer camp making smores?

I recently started a new job designing/developing websites. I have been freelancing for a while so getting this job was a nice change. Seeing as I do a lot of reviews in the office, my co-workers have taken an interest in the drinks I bring in. Our project manager Carly mentioned that she liked lychee in the past so I knew she was going to be excited about this drink. Given the track record Rubicon has been having with us lately, I had a good feeling this wouldn't be disappointing.

First thoughts were it had a nice lychee smell to it, but there was something else in there that I couldn't put my finger on. It has a sour after taste, in a good way. Carly said it tasted like grapefruit and I totally agree. It really works well with the lychee, though mysteriously is not present in the ingredients. Keep up the awesome work Rubicon.

Dear Rubicon, I wanted to tell you that you've come a long way, but then I remembered that I actually loved the juices you sold in juice box form. I had expected them to be overly sweetened and watered down versions of the pure fruit, and while they did have extra sugar added to them, they were fairly spectacular. Any slight reservations I had about your juices have been thrown out the window by the addition of a few tiny bubbles. This actually tastes less sweet than the juice version, and I am fine with that. It's guava puree spiced up with a little sugar and some carbonated water. It tastes like real guavas, which makes it automatically better than 90% of the drinks in the world. Rubicon, you have proved yourself yet again and I can't wait to see what you have planned next.

Look at Rubicon stepping up their line and their image. They have given the contents of their juice boxes with some carbonation and packaged them in these fancy little cans. Seriously it's the same juice, just carbonated and it's glorious. For those of us with dreams of passionfruit, mango and guava sodas that actually taste like juice and not some weird bastardization of it, the dream has become a reality. Sure this is pretty sweet, but so is the actual fruit, and it's pop now, so it's supposed to be sweet. Don't complain, just be grateful that they actually did things right and it tastes like you're eating fruit, and not like fake flavoring or seltzer.

I was just thinking of how many times I could write the word "wonderful" before you stopped reading. Then I thought that would be a terrible, albeit factual review. In exchange, I will do a review titled: "Some of the best chocolate drink that has ever passed these lips"

This chocolate drink, for some reason not called chocolate milk, is simply splendid. It is smooth, creamy, and has bits of badam in it. "What is badam?" you ask? Almonds, friend. Almonds. And "bits" is a good way to describe them. They are super tiny and in some sips, non-existent. To further extend the experimentation of what we do here at Thirsty Dudes, a friend of "the dudes" poured a quarter of his half of the drink into the remnants of his coffee making a rather delicious mocha.

I bought this at an Indian market and you should, too. Seriously, you should. Five bottles. You know what that means, right? It means quit your job and go buy some chocolate drink!

Alright, we're all set. All of the presents are wrapped and waiting in the car. We can pick up the ice cream cake on the way. That's everything right? Okay let's get in the car and head over…€¦..oh no! We forgot to make the punch for Sally's birthday party! Her mother was very specific that I was too make the punch. She's going to be so pissed at me. Ugh, the party is going to be ruined…€¦unless...yes that's it! Every down stairs to the deli!

Okay how much fruit do we have laying around? Well that is a lot of variety of fruit (an apple, pineapple, half a lime, a little guava, some mango, orange, a banana, apricot and one passionfruit), but there is not enough of the fruit to make more than a quart of juice. It looks like we're going to have to spread it out with some veggies. Okay grab some cucumber, spinach, carrots, beetroot, green pepper and celery. No Jimmy! Oh man why did you throw in an onion and some sauerkraut! That is going to be completely disgusting! Whatever it's too late now we need to bring this punch to the party. Blend it up!

Wow that really is green isn't it? It looks almost nuclear. It's so bright green. I can't get over it. It also doesn't smell bad at all either. Hopefully the taste is half of what the smell is. That way I think we'll be okay. Wow! This is seriously good. Not like, this is passable good, but this is so good that I wish we had written the quantities down so that I could make it again. You don't really taste the veggies at all. It tastes like apple and orange juice missed together with a pinch of passionfruit and a bit of cucumber. Even though we didn't add any sugar it's very sweet and refreshing. The kids at this party are going to love this, especially because of the color. We are going to be the hit of the party. No one mention what is in it! Jimmy, especially don't mention your blunder!

I want to see the sights, let's rent a scooter. We can travel to Hemmingway's house, maybe see some of his cats cats cats cats cats. Maybe we can see Harry Truman's house. Oh, we can see the US highway 1 start and end, depending on which side you are stranding on. Oh! We can go to see the southern most point of the United States. This island is pretty awesome.

$35 for this scooter seems awesome, but man, the speed limits are withholding to the power, or lack there of, in this lil' scooter. Wait, what? The cruise line said that we shouldn't rent these? Woops, we're cruising now and there's nothing than can stop us, except, of course, literally everything on the road. I'm thirsty. Let's stop at a corner store.

What's this? A juice box of jasmine tea? Well that sounds good so early in the day. Oh, wow. This tea is actually quite good. It's more of a perfume of Jasmine since it's so strong. It's refreshing and I feel like I'm spending time with an old Indian woman. Yes, she's nice.

Alright, let's take this baby out one more time and see what it can do. We can go buy some crap made out of seashells or made to look like seashells.

Come on. Please take this blindfold off. Why did you throw me in the back of an unmarked van, destination unknown? I didn't do anything. I don't have any money but we can come up with some sort of agreement, right? Let me explain myself. I was minding my own business on my only day off in India on a work trip and I was sitting by the water, drinking some juice.

What do you mean, "that's why you're here?" I don't understand. The water? I won't go back if that's what's wrong. What? The juice? What was wrong with that? Really? That's why? It's because it wasn't 100% juice? Seriously? What are you doing? Are you poisoning me? Then why are you making me drink stuff with a blindfold on and screaming at me to drink?

Fine, fine, I'll drink. Can I hold the cup? You guys are spilling whatever I'm drinking all over my Hard Rock India t-shirt. Thank you. What is this, it's familiar. Pomegranate juice? That's what I was drinking before this whole incident. You kidnapped me because I was drinking cheap juice and you wanted me to describe a better picture of India when I went home? Well I've got to say that this whole situation isn't helping but this juice is pretty great. It just tastes like a pomegranate. Really, just pomegranate and water is in that? It's good.

What are you doing back there? Oh, thanks for taking that cloth off my face. Huh? All girls. No offense, but you are all very attractive and I am honesty surprised that you disguised your voices so well. Ha ha. Really? A Talkboy? Good, classic trick, Caulkin. We'll I will absolutely drink more of this until I leave on Thursday. I should take this as a message to not only drink better quality juice but to go to the gym. None of you ladies are over 120 pounds.

This is something that we don't normally do over here at Thirsty Dudes; explain the origin of a drink. Not history as much as the story of how we got it.

About a month ago I was contacted by Krish from India. He introduced this drink to us. I was honestly about to write it off because I though the guy was trying to give us coconuts, but it turns out that I can't read and he was telling me about a drink that is pure coconut.

I apologized for being a stupid idiot, gave him the address and he shipped it out. About a week later, a package came, and what a package:




I have never seen a package like this. It was woven in some sort of cloth. Hand stitched closed and it was done well. This guy was a pro. As I opened it, I thought to myself, "There could very easily be a finger in here. I hope there's not a finger in here." Once I got the woven layer off, there was a paper cover. I removed that to find that there was a box a Christmas lights. I found that odd, but promptly opened it up. There were paper shavings and inside was a small bottle of coconut water. "Pfew", I thought to myself. Now that this isn't a finger or any other sort of appendage, I decided to put it in the fridge and wait for the right time.

A few days later and with no real rhyme or reason, I thought that now would be a good time. I pried off the cap to reveal a little divot where a straw would be perfect but since I didn't think of that, I put a knife in it, opened it up, and started drinking.

There is nothing in this but coconut and "bio-preservatives" which I can only assume are natural preservatives that will allow the coconut water to keep longer than two days. It's good, too. It's exactly like what I would think cracking a coconut open and pouring it into an adorable container would taste like. The super light, inherent, natural sweetness of coconut mixed with its dry flavor is actually pretty good.

Now obviously if you find this stuff, it's not going to come inside an adventure of a container and I was lucky enough to have Kirsh take the time to send it to me, but you will get the same great drink inside. Want to take a trip to an island but don't have the money? Find this stuff, go to a home improvement store and buy some sand, and don't forget the umbrella toothpicks. I hope that you can get it at some sort of Indian market. Perhaps I can get Kirsh to comment and let you know where in the States and abroad you can get it.

This was our thousandth review. We needed to do something fun/gross/different for you and we decided to incorporate some significant others, pets, and babies. Watch the video and learn what we thought about Rogers Fizzy Amla with Jeera Masala.

Thank you very much for following us along this partially disgusting, partially delicious, mostly mediocre trip. Now, for your viewing pleasure, have a video review.

I made some Indian food for dinner. What I believed to be a nice spinach and mustard curry. Drinking an Indian soda with it just seemed like the right thing to do. As it turns out my meal was insanely spicy. I love spicy food, but it was to such an extent that I ate little more than a dozen bites. Okay that sounds like a decent amount, but if you could see the amount that I made, it was only a fraction.
My food may not have been totally satisfying, but the soda was fairly decent. Lehar is made by Pepsi India. Miranda is an orange soda. It tastes like something between Slice and Crush. It's nothing special, but something I would enjoy if I ever found myself wandering around the streets of India with the thirst of a camel.

I always knew "classic" soda companies such as Coke and Pepsi sold their drinks in other parts of the world. Until recently I never even considered that they had separate product lines for different countries.
Nimbooz is a beverage that 7Up manufactures for India. It says on the packaging that it is carbonated, but this bottle is not. I don't know what could have caused that to happen. Perhaps the nutritional facts sticker that was put on it (so that it could be sold in the U.S.) is wrong. Maybe something happened in the importation process that caused it to go flat. I'd like to go along with the theory that an irate crewman on board the ocean liner (that this was undoubtedly brought over on) had a vendetta against the soft drink industry. It's my guess that he carefully removed the caps from all of the bottles and let them sit for the duration of the trip. Just before they reached U.S. soil, he snuck below deck and returned the caps to the bottles, thus ruining, what could have been a wonderful treat for U.S. customers.
If it were carbonated this would taste like a fizzy lemonade. Since it was not, it was pretty much just lemonade in a neat little bottle.

This drink had no smell at all. It also tasted like nothing, until a slight bitter seltzer water aftertaste set it. Mike's response was "who cares about this? It tastes like nothing." I certainly don't care.

On voyage to the Indian market I came across this lil' dude. I must have missed it last time. It's called Limca and, you guessed it, it tastes like lime pop. It's pretty self explanatory, but in a good way. It's made from Coca-Cola as a subsidiary, but between the retro glass bottle and the vintage screen-printed label, you would never guess. You would think that you just stumbled upon some old bottle of pop from the 70's.

Taste? It's more like a candied real lime. It's not like a candy lime flavor. Get it? It tastes more like a real lime than some chemically manufactured lime flavor syrup. I don't know what it's actually made with, but I give it all the credit for not being neon green like most lime related products.

Also, for those health nuts out there, this has half the calories as a can of pop. I read it twice to ensure that I was getting my information correct.

I liked it and if anyone likes the taste of lime water, they might want to try this. It leaves a lime water aftertaste that keeps you wanting more.

America. Why don't you embrace the flavors of melons: honeydew, cantaloupe, watermelon, and so on? They're good guys. Why would you leave them out of your lineups? Did they do something wrong? It's not like we, Americans, don't buy these fruits. So why would you assume that we don't want the same fruits in juice form? India knows what their people want and created this little guy.

That being said, it was kind of a poor execution. It tastes like someone got a hold of those Monin flavor concentrates and just put it in a glass of water. It tastes very syrupy, even though it's real sugar. Even still, there was like 26% juice, which was actually surprising. It did taste like watermelon in small sips, but in big sips it got quite gross fast.

If you're feeling melon-y, get one of these. They come in a three pack and might be $1.50 at your local Indian grocer. It's worth that, but not a penny more.

Smell? Eh, not too desirable. Taste? Eh, not too desira...wait...good. Let's try that again. Smell? Weird. It's really not good. Downright bad. The initial taste is also not that good. The tail end and aftertaste are good though, which is why you keep coming back for another sip, all the while, enduring 50% bad for the 50% good.

It's hard to get a hold of because it's all over the place. You know the payoff will be worth it, but at what cost? It almost doesn't want you to come back because it's so uninviting.

Honey, thanks for going to the grocery store and picking up the stuff for taco night. Did you get the iced tea mix while you were there? You did? You're the best. Now I will continue talking to you while I reach into the bag without looking and grab the iced tea mix to make myself a glass. I am still paying no attention to what I am doing while I pour myself a glass of water open the package and mix it in. Say, this iced tea tastes weird. Oh well, bottoms up! *chug.spit.gag* How the hell did I not realize that I used taco seasoning instead of iced tea mix!
Mix a packet of taco seasoning into a glass of sparkling water and you have the worst drink ever. I think that's what they did here. I should have been tipped off that it has both salt and black salt in it. I couldn't even swallow my first sip.
My condolences to India, I just do not understand the allure of this beverage at all. Gaaaaaaarrrooooooooosssss!

Firstly this made my girlfriend gag and nearly throw up. Not a good start. Me personally, I didn't gag but from scent to taste it was not good. It has a familiar but unidentifiable taste. It was like a salty and sweet, spiced juice. I wish that I could be more descriptive and if anyone else can point me in the right direction please do. It was a complex flavor that I just couldn't do but is a regular drink in India and Pakistan.

I apologize to our Middle Eastern friends but I did not like this drink. I hope to redeem myself with some of the other drinks I have in my possession and Jay in his.