United States - 4098 Reviews

Can we take a moment out of our regularly scheduled beverage nonsense to discuss how Whole Foods has gone completely downhill? We don't have them here in Buffalo, but I've visited their stores a decent amount while I'm traveling. While I was never completely onboard with it, mostly due to the price, they were always a mecca of vegetarian prepared foods. I could walk up to the hot bar and have a selection of various delicious meals. While out on the west coast last month I stopped by two separate stores and it was dismal. The prepared foods sections were scaled back a lot more than I remember and other than salad stuff, there really weren't any veggie options other than lasagna. Both times I ended up getting soft pretzels and calling it a day. Of course they are finally opening one in my hometown and it will be essentially useless to me. Without the options what reason do I have to go there over the superior Wegmans, which is way cheaper? Oh yes, it is because of the beverage selection. There is always something new to me in the drink cooler at Whole Foods. This time around it was Alta Palla.

I grabbed this thinking it was a blood orange seltzer water (because it said sparkling). I cracked it open while I ate my pretzel and was nicely surprised to discover it was actually sweetened, but not ridiculously so. During my trip I was doing a lot of hiking, which led to me drinking a lot of water, and eating a whole lot of protein bars and eating trail mix a whole bunch. I didn't realize how much my body wanted this sugar until I drank this. It has an incredible blood orange flavor and it is in the same realm as San Pellegrino, only better. All I can say is that when that Whole Foods opens its doors in Buffalo they better have this in stock, because I want it and I want a lot of it.

This little guy tasted pretty much as I expected it to. It tastes like it serves a more medicinal purpose than a pleasurable one. I'm not saying that it didn't have pleasant taste, but the rest of the ingredients play more of a role in the flavor than the tea does. In fact the tea aspect of it taste more like tea water than the nice strong brew that one expects from a bottled iced tea. The ingredients that make up the chia spice blend are the ones who are running this show. It's almost all cinnamon, ginger, and licorice.

This was made to help with stomach issues and digestion, but if the tea had been stronger I could see this being an instant favorite. Even without the strong tea taste it still left a delicious residue on my lips.

This, my friends, is no joke. You see little old me had a sore tummy like the big baby that I am, but I really, really couldn't pass this up. I figured it was going to be extremely strong/sour and that it would upset my stomach even more. As it turns out it was completely perfect. For the most part this is a mate tea, where the lavender and the lemon are more just a flavoring than leading roles. You may find yourself asking, “What is the point? The flavor should be up front!” For some beverages you may be right, but for this everything sat just where it needed to be. This is nice and earthy with a sweetness that doesn't get too crazy. I love it. It is a bit strange to have a flavor that is known for its calming effect mixed with a stimulant. I will say that it does give it a nice flavor though.

No one in the car? We can get away with something. A milkshake from McDonald's the perfect sneaky treat. I've been cooking fantastic meals from Blue Apron that take me between 45 minutes and an hour to make and I snuck out to get a milkshake. Not just any milkshake but a Shamrock Shake and not just any Shamrock Shake but a chocolate Shamrock Shake. I get it and it looks 50% great. There is a little whipped cream with a cherry and some green, festive, seasonal sparkley sprinkles. Then we get to the meat of the shake...pause for dramatic effect.

Why is this layered? Why is this layered like this? I mean, they came out with a cool straw that was made to drink from two points at a time. What happens if you have a regular straw? It's not a chocolate Shamrock Shake as much as it is a half chocolate and half Shamrock shake. Unless you mix them up yourself, which I didn't, you have to drink through each flavor. I just thought that was strange and wrong. Like when my brother wore seven pairs of underwear at a time so that he could take off the outside pair and not have to put on new underwear for a week. Pause for applause...

I love that Sparkling Ice is taking a step back from sucralose, well at least with their Essence line. I just could not get into the dietness of it all. These new ones though have been mostly pretty great. It's just flavored seltzer water, but the flavors have been good, up until now. This isn't bad per say, but it really teeters on the “tastes like a cleaner” line of things. I feel like everyone involved in the lemon industry should file a class action lawsuit against household cleaners because they have ruined a once great fruit. I feel like the world used to embrace lemon in all its forms, but now folks are reminded of cleaning chemicals and it's a turn off. Big money could be made. Big, big money.

Once you get past the association, this isn't bad. I could do with a tad bit more lime, but I'm always going to want more of that. It's not really a flavor for me, but I wouldn't dump it down the drain.

As you may know from reading thirsty Dudes (You don't, because you don't. I mean, why would you?) I have a sensitivity to caffeine and energy drinks can really screw with me. I don't drink them very often because of this. The thing is that I actually kind of like the weird energy drink taste that exists nowhere else in the beverage world. On top of that there are situations where I have to be up until nearly dawn and the chances of me staying awake that late on my own are slim. Friday was one of those nights. I knew I needed some help and figured I might as well cross another drink off the Thirsty Dudes list, so I stood way longer than any human should in front of the beverage cooler checking each of the energy drinks to our master list to see what we hadn't reviewed yet. Shockingly there were very few that we hadn't written about. I'm a fan of citrus, and the green of the can made me think it would be heavier on the lime side of things, so I chose this can of Rockstar Revolt.

This most definitely did not taste like I had anticipated. I had expected a lime version of a classic energy drink. That weird part bubblegum part citrus taste mixed with a whole lot of lime. Instead, this tastes like 7 Up or Sprite with a little something extra in it. That something is kind of like this was made from a powder and it wasn't missed up enough. There isn't an actual gritty texture to this, but it tastes like there should be. I don't understand where that is coming from. There is no trace of the “energy drink taste” that I mentioned earlier, this is its one thing. There is also no real taste of the orange juice that is listed in the ingredietns.

I personally think that lemon lime is the most boring of soda flavors, but I know there are people out there who love it, or it wouldn't be such a staple. This is going to make some people very happy.

Ahh ginger beer. Always a welcome guest in my house. Gosling's, Goya and now Trader Joe's. Sure, there are other ones. What? Do you want me to make a list? Well it's not going to happen. Alright, fine. Here. Happy?

This is good. It's sweet. I could put this in the category of "entry level" since it's not going to burn the skin off your mouth. Tame. Could you give it to kids? Sure if the kids you are giving it to aren't wimps and if their parents aren't around. If I saw you giving my kids pop, I might say something. If I saw you giving my kids ginger beer, I might say something after I saw the look on their dumb, wimp faces as their tiny, young mouths are on fire.

This is sweeter than I like my ginger beer but makes up for in earthy, ginger flavor. It's like losing a game only to come up a couple points short in the fourth quarter. Everything was against you and you are still going home a loser just not as much of a loser.

Back to basics. I can't tell you how refreshing seltzer is after some of the crap we drink. Look, nothing we drink is literal crap or figurative crap. Everyone puts their hearts into the products they put out but come one, after 4600 reviews, we have earned the right to start calling things "crap."

This is great. It's pure simplicity. Water, bubbles and peach. I assume they have some sort of vat of peaches just stewing all their Georgia essence into some tube mechanism that sucks up the scent, injects it into water by way of science/witchcraft and then stores the vapors for someone lucky enough to drink it.

If you like seltzer, this is just seltzer. They can call it whatever fancy name they want. It's sparkling water with flavor. La Croix? Polar? The other one? Same deal, bro. Same deal. It's all great seltzer.

Companies have been flavoring their colas with various things for decades and we no longer bat an eye at cherry, vanilla, or even lime cola, this may be the first berry cola I've come across. More than likely I have and it's slipped my brain. I mean I do get dumber by the day and find myself forgetting normal words I use all the time. I will choose to believe that my brain is not malfunctioning this time and say that it is my first cola of this variety. I have to say, I'm into it. I do wish it had a stronger cola flavor, but what is there pairs great with the berry. It's similar to a cherry cola, but with a little twist. Is it better? I can't say. It is different though and that makes it stand out to me, and that is a hard thing to do these days.

While this isn't what I think of when I think of seltzer (They are right. I am wrong.), this still has possibly the smallest ingredients list I have come across for a soda. It's simply carbonated water, cane sugar, citrus acid, and natural flavors. It's simple, it's clean and it's delicious.

Just like that we have come to the last submission of the 2017 Shake it Off Challenge. So far the contestants have been decently chocolatey and mostly enjoyable. For this final installment we will visit the shake whose packaging looks the most medicinal. With a name like Medifast and the Caduceus logo how can one not think of a doctor's office while drinking this? I understand that they are trying to show how healthy this beverage is and show that it is recommended by physicians, but the symbolism has me expecting this to taste like garbage medicine. Sometimes you hate when your expectations are met. This is clearly my least favorite of the three shakes we reviewed for the challenge. The chocolate tastes fake and chalky (yes I shook it up for as long as recommended). While the other shakes let you feel like you're cheating and drinking some sort of desert, this never lets you forget that it has a function and that is to help you lose weight, which will not be enjoyable. With 14g of protein and 100 calories, it's pretty close to the others in that regard. Unfortunately the taste does not match up.

I'm not exactly sure what this beverage is supposed to be. It's not really a juice, but it's also not a sports drink. The bottle says it is an “organic fruit infused beverage,” and according to the ingredients list it's kind of a mix of everything. It is composed of coconut water, 4% juice, white tea, and a whole mess of organic, zero calorie sweeteners. The result just tastes a bit generic, like some random “juice” box you'd get as a kid, expect now it tastes overly diet. This sort of tastes a modern version of Kool Aid. The orange/clementine flavor is there, but it tastes a bit powdery. I appreciate what they are trying to do with this, but the arrow is hitting just outside of the target. It's almost good, but it just doesn't mess right.

Chai. I got into it too late. It's good and I love a nice spicy, hot tea. This isn't half bad, either. Should I think less of it because it is an Aldi brand? No. It's probably something else branded to look like an Aldi brand, actually.

This had a good, strong anise taste to it mixed with whatever other magic was in here. I promptly drank it and, presumably ruined it, adding a packet of sugar. It was the morning and daddy needed a little pick-me-up.

To whomever I stole this from that works in my office, thanks. I'll pay you back in whatever the equivalent of one bag of tea is. Pretty sure that's a wet T-shirt car wash.

Round two of the 2017 Shake It Off Challenge has begun, and I have to say I think we have a contender on our hands. Nutrisystem is a long running company and they have had that time to perfect the “diet' shake powder. This is downright delicious. This is the kind of thing that would make dieting easy. I'm not even on a diet and I want to drink these all of the time because it tastes great and there is no guilt in consuming it. What other chocolate beverage can say that?

It is ridiculously creamy and it tastes like decent chocolate, not like garbage chocolate that you would swear is actually more plastic than food. There is some stevia and monk fruit extract in here as well as fructose to sweeten it, but none of them interfere with the chocolate taste. That is a feat onto itself. The numbers for this are less than the Wonderslim. It has 13g of sugar with 150 calories, but with this you will recognize the names of more of the ingredients, and you can't argue with that flavor. I personally feel much better drinking this than the competitor.

We have one more contestant in this game. Will Nutrisystem remain on top, or will they be ousted? Only time will tell.

I'm complained on here, a stupid amount of times, that companies should just lower the amount of sugar they use instead of using zero calorie sweeteners. Sure, they save you calories, but it's at the cost of the taste of the beverage. Dry does exactly what I have suggested. To be fair they have been doing it since before I vocalized my thoughts. This can of soda has less than half the sugar that a “normal” soda would. For a lot of their flavors this practice really works wonderfully. Unfortunately this one just does not taste right to me. There is a natural sweetness in cherries, and it's lost in tis translation. It's one of the few soda flavors that I like being really sweet. Actually a middle ground would be perfect. This tastes more like actual cherries than most sodas, but I could use more of the sweetness from a typical cherry pop. Taking all of that into consideration if I had a six pack of these I'm pretty sure by the end I would become acclimated with it and would have no issues once my brain/taste buds adjusted.

If I were to substitute all of the cans of seltzer water that I drink with La Croix brand, I would have to be a rich man. Perhaps that is just because the amount I drink is so obscene, but these cans are at least double the price of the 12-packs of Polar I normally purchase. Do you know what though? It's totally worth it. I love Polar, but La Croix put out the most flavorful seltzers I have ever tried. They have figured out a way for high quality fruit flavors to shine though without any sweeteners, which makes it zero calories. You could drink case after case of this stuff and not feel terrible about yourself. I bet you would have the most righteous burps too.

There is no mistaking this, it is most certainly a sparkling berry beverage. As long as you are not some sort of savage that needs your drinks to be more sugar than liquid, it is incredibly enjoyable.

I'm going to change an old adage and instead of “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link” I'm going to start saying “An Arnold Palmer is only as strong as its weak lemonade.” This could have been the world's best iced tea (it's not it pretty average), but since the lemonade aspect of it is fairly unremarkable the whole thing just kind of falls apart. I don't understand what the problem is. Everything in here is organic and they use real lemon juice, but that part of this concoction tastes weak and fake. Actually, it tastes more like someone brewed a bag of black tea, mixed in a squirt of lemon and then put it in the fridge. It tastes like the tea my grandma used to drink, but cold. It's more of a lemon tea than a 50/50.
It's not horrible, but I just had higher hopes for this and it ended up being average. Sure, it's better than Lipton garbage, but I feel it could have been out of this world good.

We were contacted to participate in the 2017 “Shake it Off” challenge, where the company sent us three different shake mix products and we are to write about them and compare them. While they are a couple years too late for the name of the challenge to be timely, I'm always up for a challenge, especially when chocolate is involved. Do you think Taylor Swift's legal team is going to get involved? They are quite litigious, right? Did I make that up?

For my first tasting I'm going with the WonderSlim Chocolate Cream. This is a meal replacement powder that can be made into a shake, or pudding. The outcome just depends on how much water you add to the powder. Whichever way you choose to consume this it has 15g of protein, 24 vitamins and minerals and comes in at only 100 calories. There are A LOT of ingredients in here. Most of which I have never heard of before. I'm sure they all serve some sort of dietary purpose, but I still get wary when there are so many hard to pronounce things in my food.

Flavorwise this has a nice chocolate taste to it, but unfortunately there is an undertone of diet-ness due to the sucralose used as one of the sweeteners. While you're drinking it, you don't really notice it too much, but a little while after you swallow that unmistakable flavor starts taking over your mouth. If the sucralose were not present this would be downright delicious. It is slightly chalky, but nothing too terrible and it's easy to look past that.

Overall this is better than I would have expected from a company named WonderSlim.

This soda falls under the category of so obvious that we missed it all of this time. How has the whole of humanity existed for so long without someone saying, “Hey let's mix grapefruit with cream soda?” Even as I type that out it seems strange, but how many of us love the combination of orange and vanilla? The creamsicle taste is a standard. If one citrus fruit can provide such great results, why have we never tried another? Well, that is until now.

This is a knock your socks off flavor. It's so familiar, with just enough of a twist that makes you truly appreciate each sip. The base is a fantastic cream soda that would get rave reviews on its own. Adding the grapefruit is just icing on the cake. It's not overly sour, but it is certainly different than an orange cream. Actually, after tasting this I don't know if I see a need for orange cream to exist anymore, at least not in the spotlight. This should be the go to flavor.

I'm not sure what the “Hopped” is all about, as I don't taste anything other than the cream and grapefruit in here. That's fine. I didn't want anything else anyways. This is perfection.

This drink is an example of the type of coffee I do not like. Even though it is cold brewed and has coconut cream in it, it still tastes bitter and kind of harsh. Sure the cream is smooth, but the coffee taste itself reminds me of garbage, burnt gas station coffee. How can something cold brewed taste burnt? Freezer burn? In addition to that the use of erythritol/stevia as a sweetener leaves another off putting taste in the mix. I really wanted to like this because I've been at least moderately on board with their other products, but this just falls short for me.

This is an old favorite from my pre-Thirsty Dudes days. Man those were different times. I drank so much sugar back then and never thought twice about it. How was I not gigantic? I would easily drink at least three Arizona tall boys a day, not counting the other garbage I consumed. This wasn't a constant back then, but that was only because it didn't come in a 99 cent can and I only splurged on the extra half dollar when I was feeling special. It was a treat that I gave myself.

Most of my favorite drinks from that time period don't really hold up for me anymore, because my body has changed and so much sugar makes me feel like garbage. Taking one sip of this brought me right back though. It was the early 2000s. All I did was play music and hang out with my friends. I was in my 20's it was allowed. Hell, it's still kind of what I do now. I had terribly dyed black hair and for some reason I tucked my t-shirts in. I was a catch I tell ya. I also existed on seemingly nothing but pizza and tacos, yet I never gained a pound. I wouldn't say it was a better time, but it was a different time and I had my fun. I drank my teas and didn't think twice about it. It's no longer the cost that makes this a treat, but the amount of sugar (45g/bottle). It tastes sweet, but not to an extent that it hurts my teeth. It has that classic Arizona green tea flavor, that isn't quite what other green tea tastes like, but it's wonderful. On top of that the Asia plum adds just the right amount of flavor. I've had other Asian beverages that said they were plum and they tasted like moldy meat. This is the opposite of that. Wait, would that be fresh veggies? It's not that, but it is delicious. I hope this flavor makes a comeback because you don't see it much these days.