United States - 4098 Reviews

Well if Dr. Pepper can create Ten, Pepsi can create their own beverage for men. Just for men. It's not so directly pointed towards men, but women love "diet" and they have it in their minds that “diet” is their drink. Men don't "diet." They eat less pizza and have one scoop of ice cream instead of three. Men are sensitive individuals who won't admit they have a weight problem until they start breaking chairs left and right. As soon as it happens, they head to the store to find manly, low calorie drinks. Pepsi Next is that. It's for the workingman. It's hard to work in an office full of men who love things like burgers, steak, potatoes, and the like and not put on a couple pounds. It comes with the territory. If you can change one thing, like your pop intake, you're on to something.

This is my maiden voyage into the Pepsi Next line and I believe Derek described it as something like regular Pepsi mixed with Diet Pepsi and although I can't argue with that, I will say that this new flavor line is pretty good. This cherry vanilla is right where I want it to be. Strong cherry and even stronger vanilla flavor easily mask the corn syrup, aspartame, and sucralose; all of which are in this drink which combined with real sugar, make up the most comprehensive list of sweeteners in one drink I think I have ever seen. That combination of sweeteners leaves you with a sweet, but not too sweet, 100 calorie bottle of a pretty decent flavored cola. The warmer it gets, the more the other sweeteners come out, but the first half of this bottle right out of the cooler were pretty good. If this came in a responsible eight-ounce can or something of that nature, I would love it. That is a not-so-subtle hint, Pepsi. Not everyone needs twelve plus ounces to satisfy themselves.

I'm going to make some enemies with this statement, but I don't care: I don't like cranberries. It's true, I've always hated cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving and most cranberry juice/drinks I've had are just gross. That was until I had this soda.

Now I'm not saying "I LOVE CRANBERRY" now. I'm just saying that this is the best cranberry drink I've ever had. That being said, I'm still not crazy about it. It's nice that it's naturally sweetened (no real or fake sugar), and yet still tastes sweet. The cranberry taste is strong yet not overpowering like straight cranberry juice.

It's summer. According to Yo, Gabba Gabba, summer is when it's hot outside and the grass is long. The first part I couldn't agree with more but the latter? I hardly mow my lawn in the summer. Not because I'm lazy, which I tend to be, but it's because the sun is beating down on my poor lawn, turning it to veritable hay. Pomegranates are like summer gold, though. That's a bad analogy. Pomegranates are like winter hot dogs. Wait...that doesn't work either. Sometimes you want sometime but can't get until it's available and then you don't want it...I suppose I can just say that. It's not as much fun, but it's what's going to happen.

So here we have it, a bottled pomegranate. It's fizzy, unlike the original pomegranate, but it's got that bite you like which is cut by juice provided by apples, grapes, pineapples, and cranberries. All those fruits, regardless of quantity don't really detract from the flavor of the pomegranate, which is great.

No messy hands from extracting dozens of arils. No added sugar. No muss. No full. Pomegranates in the summer that aren't small or gross. Out-of-season fruit is nothing if it isn't terribly disappointing. This is your exception to the rule.

Kristall makes nothing but quality fruit sodas. I have loved every flavor of theirs that I have tried, and this one continues their streak of awesomeness. I was at a backyard going away party today and I drank way more pop than I normally do. I also ate nothing but chips and salsa all day (it's my curse) and now my stomach regrets it. This was my ladyfriend's drink of choice for the day, and she was kind enough to share it with me. We drank it early on in the party, so my taste buds were fresh and my stomach wasn't bloated. Lucky me.

Let's face it, 7Up and Sprite don't really taste anything like lemons or limes. Maybe there is a slight hint, but if you squeezed the juices from those two fruits, added them to some sparkling water and then mixed in a bunch of sugar it would not taste anything like those brands. Just ask Mitch Hedberg. That mixture would taste very similar to what is in this bottle. Kristall was able to capture with essence of those citrus fruits without the sourness. Good job guys.

Dr Pepper has been a part of “big soda” for years. Some would say he ran the soda game in the 70s. I mean you never see anyone wearing shirts that say “I'm Mellow like Yello,” but “I'm a Pepper shirts were everywhere.”

To combat this unholy terror, the Coca-Cola company released Peppo in the early 70's. The Doctor was having none of that blaspheme of his name and a lawsuit soon followed. It was then that Mr. Pibb was born. One might ask, “How can just a man compete with a doctor?” The answer to that question is to have slightly more cherry in your flavor.

After decades of living in the shadows of Herr Doctor, Pibb decided to step up his game and add some cinnamon into the mix (or so Wikipedia tells me). It was this mixture that became known as Pibb Xtra, and it was labeled as a spicy cherry soda. In reality I can't taste much, if any, cinnamon in this soda. It really tastes like someone mixed a Dr. Pepper and a regular cherry soda together. I must say that I prefer it to the Pepper, but it's not something I would drink on a regular basis. I do know a bunch of people who love it and drink it religiously. I'm not kidding they have a Pibb alter and have ceremonies and everything. You would think they were drinking the blood of Christ or something.

Last night I participated in the 4th annual Portland 24 Hour Zine Challenge. From 10am on Saturday to 10am today, a bunch of nerdy zine kids went to the Independent Publishing Resource Center and each made a 24-page zine within the 24 hours. I wrote mine about every house/apartment I have ever lived in (there has been many) and I finished with 5 hours to spare.

This wonderful drink definitely helped a lot. In recent times I have significantly cut back my energy drink intake in fear of making my heart explode. When I was getting snacks and drinks for the challenge, I was excited to find this because I had never seen this rehab flavor before. All the ones I've had thus far were delicious, and this was no different. It has a slight energy drink aftertaste, but for the most part it tastes like iced tea and Sunny D. Some might recoil at the sound of that, but I love the flavor of Sunny D. There's real orange juice in it so maybe it was just in my head.

So next time you need to make a zine in 24 hours, this will definitely do the trick.

If you've ever found yourself at a backyard party, staring into a cooler full of pop and you chose the orange flavored one; you know what this soda tastes like. It's completely standard orange pop. Nothing fancy. Nothing gross. If you've never found yourself in that situation then you my friend must be attending some fancy parties. Did you drink a caviar soda? If so, that's gross and I want no part of those parties.

I tried to drink a chocolate soda that completed disgusted me, so I decided to settle for an only slightly better vanilla one. When cream soda is done right, it can be one of the best pops out there. It can be so incredibly smooth and flavorful. Unfortunately Red Ribbon missed their mark with this one. It tastes a little too sweet than it should, and the vanilla tastes more like vanilla extract that it also should. It's a unique tasting soda, but it's not unique in a way that I like. I really just wanted to sit back and relax with a nice soda this evening, unfortunately the two that I opened both left me unsatisfied, and were left unfinished. Sorry guys, I'll drink your almond cream soda all day long, but I'll leave the vanilla cream on the shelf.

There were two things that Mario loved in life. Those two things were chocolate and soda pop. What can you really expect from a six year old? Seriously though, Mario had terrible parents, or so his bedroom would have you believe. It was littered with empty pop cans and chocolate bar wrappers. They said it didn't matter because he ate it all of the time and he was still “skinny like a bean.” Mario's parents were idiots. A. All of that garbage would catch up to him weight-wise as he got older. B. I'm sure all of that sugar gave your poor child diabetes or some other disease.

One morning Mario woke up and found that there was not a drop of cola left in the house. On top of that he was out of chocolate bars. He felt like garbage. He now understood why his dad was so irritable on the mornings when he didn't have coffee. The boy was going through withdrawal. It was as he was writhing in pain on the kitchen floor that he came up with an idea. He took one of his mom's seltzer waters from the fridge and dumped a whole mess of cocoa powder into it. He grabbed a bunch of sugar packets and pours them into the mixture as well. It's unfortunate for Mario that he didn't realize that they weren't actual sugar, but his mom's “diet sugar” packets. Mario then took out an oversized spoon and mixed it until it was just a liquid with no powder on top.He took a whiff and it smelled like his mom's chocolate scented lotion. Pleased with himself he took a big gulp and immediately spit it all over the kitchen. His concoction was utterly disgusting. It tasted like a three day old, melted chocolate float that had aspartame in it for some reason. Even though the ice cream had melted, the carbonation remained. Ugh…€¦so gross. Being the scumbag child that he was Mario didn't even clean up his mess. He just took a five from his mom's purse and walked down to the corner store to get his provisions. That little bastard.

Up until this pop touched my taste buds I had completely forgotten that Faygo used to make a chocolate cream pie soda. I remember convincing my grandfather to buy me a bottle. I took one sip and thought it was completely revolting, and I felt bad for wasting it. I pretty much had the exact same reaction with this similar tasting pop, except this time I wasted my own money instead of someone else's.

As you may or may not know, the Thirsty Dudes love tacos. You know what I ate today on a little motorcycle excursion? A chorizo burrito. Oh man. Wonderful. Best three dollar taco I have had in a long time. Now I'm home, relaxing with a drink and a movie. What drink? Something fruity and something that will help me pay attention to this movie.

Editor Dan keeps us in mind when he goes out of town doing non-stop, awesome photography. He sends us pictures of drinks asking if we have reviewed them. Wherever he went last time was good to us. This was one of the drinks he brought back. I've got to say, "red berries" is a bit vague. It's kind of like a guessing game when it doesn't actually list the actual berries in question. Strawberries, cranberries, or raspberries; who knows? All, some, more less. Who knows? Honestly, who cares? This is a good drink. I should also preface that this drink is not for everyone. Why? Erythritol. I quite like it but I know a lot of people don't. It's pretty unarguably better than aspartame, Splenda, or stuff like that. Sorry, guys. You're old news. It's not your fault. Things get outdated. You had a good run.

Sweetener aside, it's good. It's a good berry flavor. I like it. We don't have it around here in Buffalo but if I saw it somewhere else, I might be willing to buy it. It's light, too. Not like a juice. More like a flavored water.

We've covered a lot of topics here, ladies and gentlemen. Tacos, sweeteners, berries, local city drink distribution, and so on. We also covered an otherwise good drink that you could enjoy if you can find the stuff.

Mt. Angel is a local brewing company that makes one of my favorite root beers of all time. When I found out they have expanded into other flavors, I couldn't have been more excited. At first I could only find them in an expensive 6 pack sampler, but then I was able to find this single bottle for sale at New Seasons today.

Is it as good as the root beer? I can't say because that would be like comparing a milkshake to a burrito. They're both delicious, but in different ways. I've never had a marion berry drink before and I didn't know what to expect. It's almost like a slightly tart blackberry, which I really enjoy. I probably wouldn't go out of my way to drink this again but it's definitely worth trying. I could see this being someone who loves fruit, especially berries, really loving this soda.

I would like to think that a doctor created this after being up in arms with the amount of soda Americans drink on a daily basis. I like the idea of a doctor creating a healthier soda that actually tastes good, but as it turns out this 12oz bottle actually has 45g of sugar in it. This doctor isn't in it for the health, but maybe that's the whole point. Perhaps the dear doctor decided he had had it with medicine, and he decided to go the way of Pepper and Brown. Perhaps the doctor realized that he wasn't good enough of a doctor to be a world renowned surgeon, and thought that he would have a better chance at fame in the soda game. Unfortunately no one will ever really know what was on the doctor's mind when he made his line of sodas. You see poor story telling and uninteresting plot lines tragically killed him. The doctor and this review have much in common.

Let us not wallow in his death, but instead celebrate his soda. In essence this is a cherry soda, which leans a little bit on the medicinal taste. It doesn't cross the line into full-blown cough syrup flavor, but it hints at it. The thing that saves the drink, and in fact makes it great is the slight herbal undertones. They make the cherry flavor seem less medicinal and makes it very interesting. It is very sweet, but sometimes you just crave a soda like that. Today just happened to be one of those days, so things worked out nicely.

The drink has caffeine, guarana and ginseng in it, which make it quasi energy drink. I guess if you would consider Jolt an energy drink, than this would fall in the same category for you.

I am a vegan iced coffee drinker. Sure it's easy to go to most coffee shops and get an iced coffee with soy milk, but what about at the grocery store? Coffee drinks have been having more of a presence lately in the coolers at stores recently. At first it was just the Starbucks Frappicino's, but as you can tell by our ever-growing coffee section many more companies have stepped up to the plate.

That's all great, except 99% of them are made with dairy milk. Every once in a while there will be a black iced coffee drink but I'd rather drink battery acid than black coffee. Then my dream came true when I found this bottle at the co-op. Not only was it made with almond milk, but it actually says VEGAN in bold letters across the front. Dr. Chao gets points with me because a lot of companies are scared of using the word vegan sometimes in fear of scaring away those who aren't (because you know, all vegan food is bland and gross).

As I expected, this drink is awesome. This was free of the gross chalky taste a lot of vegan milk drinks have. It is very comparable to an iced vanilla latte you would get at a coffee shop (in taste and price since this was only $2.99). I don't know how it compares to a dairy based drink, but I feel like even non-vegans would really enjoy this because almond milk is delicious. I'm really looking forward to checking out the rest of the drinks by Dr. Chao, especially the coconut milk based coffee drinks.

Scared out of my mind. Fast Twitch? Really? That's not something I want. Ever. I don't want any speed of twitching. Really? That's what the round table discussion ended up with? I would have loved to hear the bad titles of this line of drinks. One other thing before it's time to travel over the bridge to Reviewtown is that the flavor of this drink is "purple" and not grape. Oh, it tastes like grape, but it's not titled grape. Does grape have a trademark on its name? If so, that's wack.

Bridge...

This tastes like grape and is not at all as absolutely revolting as I had anticipated. With a title like Fast Twitch and with promises of "explosive strength performance" I thought this was going to be wildly sweet and have that "Oh dude. There is protein in this and now has an undesirable viscosity and texture" thing that I don't like. Turns out it just tastes like a grape Fla-vor-ice. Sorry, purple Fla-vor-ice. Lawsuit avoided.

Tommy goes to the tropics often. Ever since he saw that scene in Dumb and Dumber where the Hawaiian Tropics girls drive by in the bus, he knew that's where he wanted to visit. The "lady count" wasn't as high as he liked it but the weather and scenery was gorgeous so he doesn't complain. He travels there a few times a month and the locals have begun to recognize him and charge him a non-tourist rate on things like groceries and essentials.

Graduating from tourist to pre-local, he decided to celebrate by going to a local, non-franchise coffee shop that advertises that they harvest all their own stuff down to having a nearby coffee orchard, and roasting and brewing their own coffee beans. Tommy walked in and being the non-coffee drinker he was, he ordered a Very Berry Hibiscus juice. A couple minutes later he got an ice-cold glass with a sweet smelling nectar inside. He knew he had gone to the right place. He took one sip and loved it. It was lightly berry but still had a solid hibiscus flavor. It was advertised as sweetened with cane sugar and a Stevia sweetener.

He asked the waitress if they made it there and she leaned down and whispered in his ear that it was just a Starbucks powdered drink and that she told him because she knew he wasn't a local anymore. He lost a little bit of respect since they apparently are not all locally made items but he still went back since they didn't treat him like a filthy tourist.

Today I turn 33. I really couldn't care less about my birthday. As Patton Oswalt so wisely pointed out there are only 20 birthdays that really count, and I have 7 more years until I get to celebrate again. So logic would show that today is a day like no other. Logic would be flawed today. Sure my birthday doesn't matter, but more important than that, and just about anything else, is that the new Batman movie comes out tonight. Any celebrations that I may have, or any gifts I receive are not because of my birthday, they are because of Batman Day aka the best holiday of all.

Since my birthday doesn't matter, I worked today. I woke up and printed a buttload of shirts in my shop, which gets way to hot this time of year. It really is exhausting and since I am going to see The Dark Knight Rises at midnight (and I'm sure it will be three hours long) I decided to give this Monster Java a try. I like it. It tastes like any other prepackaged chocolate-coffee drink. I always thought that taurine was what gave energy drinks that weird chemical taste, but there is just as much in this can as there is in other energy drinks, and this just tastes like over-sweetened coffee with chocolate mixed in. I am grateful for that. If it had that energy drink taste this would be puke sauce in a can. If you are someone who likes your coffee black, you probably think this is far too sweet. Actually, you probably would be the type of person that wouldn't bother with any sort of fancy coffee at all. This is very sweet. It's actually sweeter than even I, who doesn't really like coffee much, would want it to be. I do enjoy it though, and I'm sure it will help to keep me up and alert to watch the “breaking of the bat.” Seriously, you have no idea how pumped I am to see Bane wreak havoc on Gotham. It's going to be so sweet!

As my hand touched this can at the store, an associate who appeared out of nowhere told me that she loved it. Now I buy a lot of drinks and most times I can get in and out without someone's opinion. That's not to say that I don't want it. Why would I do this if I didn't want to hear what people think about drinks? Now I've got an opinion of a drink and, come on, fruit punch? It's all the same unless it's from an exception company. Tradewinds is on the top-end of average companies. Their sweet tea is pretty good but I haven't had any of their "Tropicals" line. Now I have and can tell you that this fruit punch blows.

As I said, most fruit punch is the same. This is not and not in a good way. Reading the ingredients, it's all natural stuff except for the sucralose which you can taste even though it's way down on the list of ingredients and isn't the primary sweetener. It tastes like you mixed a bad fruit punch in with some sort of cherry juice. If you want a diet, fruity, cherry drink, I've got some left over in this can that is split with someone else because I couldn't take any more of it. You can get it from me for a limited time since I will be tossing it, unfinished, into the bin. Like that? It's very British of me to call it a "bin." I'm classier than you can imagine. Too classy to drink this swill.

I decided to continue my mind trip to our neighbors to the south with this beverage. No, I'm not drinking apple soda and this back to back, I'm just writing the reviews at the same time.

For those of you who are not familiar with horchata (I'm expecting that to be the majority of you reading this), turn off your computer, make your way to the closest authentic Mexican restaurant to you (of course Chipotle doesn't count!) and order yourself the biggest glass possible. You don't even need to know what it is. You have the assurance of the Thirsty Dudes that you will love it. Actually if you are lactose intolerant or vegan ignore that order because you will either get really sick or the vegan police will come after you. If that is the case, we assure you that you will not love the way you feel after drinking it.

Horchata is rice, milk and spices (mostly cinnamon) in Mexican culture. Other countries have their own varieties, but the Mexican version is the only one I have ever tried. I admit, it doesn't sound too appealing, but something happens when those ingredients are mixed together that is magical. It still has a slight rice flavor, but nothing horrible. Actually none of the flavors are too overbearing. They all mix together and live in food racial food harmony.

I've only ever had one prepackaged horchata before, and it was a bit on the gross side. If it's not coming from one of those constantly churning drink machines that used to always be in restaurants, but that you don't see too often anymore…€¦well then I would tend to avoid it. My friend Ian bought me this when we were on tour together, and I'm glad he did, because it's one of the best horchatas I've had. It tastes like it came right from the machine. Everything is in perfect balance (unlike my last prepackaged one). Now I really want to eat a burrito. Too bad it's so late and I'm too lazy to make one.

As if the 10 calories in Sugar Free Red Bull were too many, they recently came out with TOTAL ZERO. Imagine those words being emitted by an ominous voice and it makes the drink sound more intimidating. Sadly, it's not really that much different (taste wise) from Sugar Free Red Bull. I was hoping they were going to shake up the Red Bull recipe a little for this, but they stuck with what they know.

I currently have a sore throat and I was hoping that by drinking this it would help. I remembered last time I had a chia seed drink, it felt like it was massaging my throat as the slimy little things slid down. While it does indeed still do this, it didn't give the desired relief from pain that I was expecting.

Drinking this is weird because since there are so many seeds, you feel like you have to chew on them before swallowing. I have been trying for 5 minutes now and they just slide out from under my teeth anytime I try to chew. Now I'm thinking about all these seeds I'm ingesting and irrational worrying about that urban legend about swallowing seeds and plants growing inside you.

"We did an x-ray and we found a full size Chia Pet in your stomach". That would probably get me on the cover of Weekly World News, or at least #4 on a blog article titled "10 of the weirdest things found inside a person's stomach".

I was expecting this to have more of a mint taste. Maybe they forgot to mix it in, because all I taste is pomegranate. I love pomegranate, but I was excited to see what pomegranate mint would taste like. Maybe I should drop a 'wint-o-green' Lifesaver inside to see. Rats, I don't have any.