United States - 4098 Reviews

Before I continue I'd just like to state that I have not gone completely beverage crazy this morning and been downing drinks left and right. I'm playing a little bit of catch up, as we like to refer to it down at Initech.

Now that I've cleared that up I'd like to announce that I am completely in love with Triple Berry Smoothies from Orange Julius. I know there are much better smoothies out in the world, but something about the frothiness of their Triple Berry really hits me in the right spot. I've also been conditioned to think of that exact flavor whenever I hear the words triple and berry said back to back.

Now you know where my head was when I opened this drink. Unfortunately Hydrive couldn't live up to that glory, but this is in no way a bad drink. It's a non-carbonated "enhanced water energy drink." Like most energy drinks it tastes like some sort of melted down candy. Not a brand name candy, but some sort that you would buy in the bulk section. What is that company? Brachs? I guess that is a brand name. Oh well. It tastes like a melted down hard candy. I'm okay with that. You should be too.

Sometimes it's 90+ degrees out and you suddenly have the undying need to go out walk a creek and search for the worthy opponent General Sherman. For the record General Sherman is a catfish that lives in 18 Mile Creek out in the Derby/Hamburg area of New York. Rumor has it that his belly is filled with gold and the ultimate iced tea. Few people know of his existence and even fewer have lived to tell the tale of their battles with him. That is mainly because I think only three of us ever tried to catch him. I have had two encounters with he and all his glory through the years (last year). Editor Dan and I nearly had him once. He exited the water and we grabbed him, but his hide was just too slippery for us to keep a grasp.

So I returned, I saw the corpses of many catfish (three) but none of them were the General. He was nowhere to be found. Maybe he was laying in wait to build up his armies, or maybe he swam out into the lake. I doubt we'll ever know for sure. One thing that I do know is that I worked up one hell of a thirst on this adventure. I had hoped to quench it with the previously mentioned "ultimate tea" I was going to gather from the gullet of General Sherman, but since I failed I had to resort to POM tea.

To be fair it wasn't really a resorting to it, as POM makes some incredible tea. This flavor has the perfect blend of pomegranate and blackberries. I am a sucker for anything with blackberries in it, they are your money berry. Something strange happens in this tea. There is the great fruit and tea flavors, but there's something else. It almost tastes like mint. It has the same cool crispness, but without the actual mint flavor. I had never experienced this before this week, but this is the second drink I've had with this effect. I have to say I really enjoy it and it makes the drink that much more refreshing.

Somewhere in the sands of the Sahara there is a paradise-esque oasis. It is only 30ft x 30ft, but that 900 square foot patch is considered by many to be heaven. It is extremely treacherous to journey to the area that locals call Gondelavisti, but it is said that anyone who completes the journey never returns the same person. It is in this are that the ever-elusive rain berry grows. A common misconception is that the rain berry grows in tropical rainforests. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is the rain berry is what causes the desert. The plant sucks up all of the moisture from the ground leaving everything for miles around cracked and dusty. Honestly without the rain berry deserts would not exist on this world. Luckily it is not an invasive plant of Earth would be the opposite of Water World.

The other side of this coin is that a single berry contains so much water and electrolytes that it could quench the thirst of an entire village that has withstood a 20-year drought. It seems that Gatorade has made its way to Gondelavisti and returned with a supply of rain berries, which they have used in their line of sports drinks. It is very light and absolutely refreshing. The rain berry tastes like a mix between grapes and strawberries. I appreciate that it isn't as syrupy as the original Gatorade line. I've heard that they only use one rain berry for every ten batches of this stuff that they make. That's how insane those berries actually are.

There is nothing that infuriates Sharon Clarion more than when people make the wrong assumptions about the flavor of her favorite sodas. As you can see by the picture on the bottle her husband, Franklin Mercer, did just that and she promptly shoved him down a staircase.

Now Franklin is no world-renowned rocket scientist, but I can understand where he's coming from. I also thought this was going to be a cola. From the tiny pictures in the background of peppers and candy canes I thought it was going to be a spicy cola with some mint in it. I admit now that it would have been the craziest pop ever and probably disgusting. It's my sworn duty to be honest though and that is what I expected it to be.

Luckily for Franklin he got a straw in the bottle before the aforementioned shove, and somehow the bottle landed next to his crumpled body on the floor, and the straw was in reach of his mouth. As soon as he smelled the soda he instantly knew his folly and he couldn't blame Sharon for shoving him. What is a person without passions? Franklin would tell you that it is a person that he wants nothing to do with.

He sucked down a mouthful from the straw and assured himself that his super sniffer was correct this is a Dr. Pepper knock off. Of course it is, thought Franklin. Dr. Cane....duh. Also the peppers in the background now made a whole lot of sense. The thing is that it's way better than Dr. Pepper. It's not just the cane sugar, because we've had Dublin Dr. Pepper and this is superior to that. This is the same basic idea of Dr. Pepper, but it tastes more natural and fruity. Franklin and I agree that we're not big fans of the original, but that this is a pop we can get behind.

Don't worry. Franklin has been healing nicely. He's still trying to get Sharon to switch to his last name, but she's a fiery woman with conviction, and to be honest that is what he likes about her.

Flavored water? No thanks. It usually tastes gross to me unless it's really sugary like vitamin water. You're telling me this has no calories, no sugar, no sweeteners, just water and natural flavors? That sounds like it's going to be really bland and boring. But this "Pure Cool" name is kind of intriguing. Okay, I'll give it a try.

Hmmm, it has a slight berry taste but it's more of an afterthought. Wait, what is this? It suddenly feels like a blizzard in my mouth. It's not like a peppermint cool, it's a smooth cool, and feels like you're breathing in really cold air. It's weird, but a really awesome sensation. I stopped caring that this doesn't taste like berry or pomegranate at all, this after taste is amazing! I hope I can find more flavors to try them all.

Fikes used to be THE ghetto iced tea of choice among my friends for a long time. They were 69 cents for a little jug of it and was only available at a gas station on the corner of Main and Winspear in Buffalo. They changed their label at one point and for the longest time I hung onto an empty jug of it. I wish I still had it.

Anyways, as Jason mentioned in the Mountainberry review, Fikes is now Marburger Farm Dairy. Sure it doesn't have the same classic label, but it's still delicious. I bought this at the same gas station as Jason and I could have sworn I saw Franklin Mercer coming out of the store as I was entering. It sent chills down my spine. Anyways, this flavor is great. It tastes like iced tea mixed with a melted freezie pop. Even for a tea made with high fructose corn syrup, this is great! I just wish I had stocked up on more while I was in Zelienople.

Jay and I recently stopped at a great store in Sewickley, PA called Village Candy. We ended up spending over $80 on pop and talking with the owner for over an hour. It was great and I already can't wait to go back. I had exhausted all the root beer I could find to review in Buffalo so I was happy to see they had a really good selection.

This bottle was among the 12 different bottles of pop I bought. It's a really hearty root beer. It's not super heavy, but it definitely isn't smooth. It has a lot of flavor to it and has a really good bite to it. I can't really taste the molasses but that doesn't mean it's not great. If this is what root beer tastes like in "Olde Rhode Island", I want to go back to that time!

I just realized that I have not had a Vitamin Water since we started this site. That seems insane because there was a long stretch of my life where I got them for free so I drank at least one a day. Since this incarnation of Thirsty Dudes ten months ago I just figured there were other, weirder, drinks that needed my attention. When I was in a gas station and I wanted something that wasn't carbonated I went with a new flavor of an old standby.

As soon as I opened it I remembered how much I actually enjoy Vitamin Water. Glaceau took the traditional sports drink and upped the ante. They add extra vitamins and minerals to make their drinks more functional, but at the same time they take extra care to make sure that all of their products have a strong pleasant flavor. The only thing that could really make these better would be if they actually used the juice from the fruits listed in the flavors. I guess this would fall under a different category if they did though, and it might lose its functionality.

This particular bottle is supposed to be blue agave, passion fruit and citrus flavored. The individual flavors don't stand out at all, but it does taste like a hodgepodge of the flavors combined into something new. Maybe it's just passion fruit and citrus. I've never had straight up agave before, but I've had it as a sweetener and I don't really remember it having a distinct taste. Overall it taste rather great. I would definitely pick this over a Gatorade any day. I don't think I will be waiting nearly as long before I pick up another bottle of this.

Hydrive is slowly becoming my favorite non-carbonated energy drink. For being in a market full of carbonated drinks, they really needed to step up the game to stand out. First, the tall slender bottles are not used often. Plus, they are really good to hold while drinking. Secondly, it's only 30 calories a bottle and this is almost 16 oz! Even though this is a low calorie drink, it doesn't have a diet taste to it at all, which is great.

Speaking of taste, for an energy drink, this is awesome! It has no chemical taste to it at all. It's basically like Vitamin Water with a blend of energy giving ingredients. I'm only half the way through the bottle and I can already tell it works. I was yawning before I opened it up but now I'm wide awake and ready to be productive. Since it's not full of sugar and calories, I actually feel good after drinking this.

Ahhh, big city boy like you coming down to the South, eh? Well we've got a thing or two to teach you about how we do things 'round here. For starters, we only wear overalls. For the women-folk, they wear sundresses. That's the way 'tis and that's the way it's gonna be, now and forever. Number two is that we make our pies with lard, the way that mama made 'em. None of that fancy, low calorie margarine like you city slickers have up there. Lard. If y'ain't got lard, butter. Ol' fashioned butter'll make everything go down smoother. Third, it's hot. Get used to it. Fourth is that we make our sweet tea with two things; tea and sugar. That's it and that's all, now and f'ever.

What's that you got there, boy? Sweet tea?! In a bottle?! That better be a bottle that used to have paint or some sort of gas-o-line in it or I ain't tasting' it. Alright, give her here, I'll take a swig. Ppppttttt!!! What's this, here? Swill is what it is. It's too thick. It's downright syrupy, if you ask me. Not that bad?!? City boy, number five is respect your elders so don't you forget it. Real Southern sweet tea is smooth and sweet. This is smooth and sweet and syrupy. Do you remember me saying that real Southern sweet tea is s'posed to be syrupy? 'Cause I didn't.

Boy, you've got some learnin' to do before you make it down here. It's not all swamps and gators and biscuits and gravy. What'd you say, darlin'? I've got to go, boy. M'wife made gator stew with biscuits and gravy.

Does anyone besides the elderly drink, let actually like instant coffee? My grandfather drank it, but I think he may be the only person I've known that has. I don't like coffee to begin with, so an instant version sounds like pure hell. Why do they even make it if no one buys it, well besides the elderly? When you get to a certain age do you just suddenly develop a taste for it, or did it just have it's time and place and once that generation dies out the "art" of instant coffee will be gone?

For as few people who purchase instant coffee I can only assume that even less buy instant tea. I think every mother buys a huge tub of it once. They make one pitcher of it. It takes one glass to realize it's way gross and then the tub sits in the pantry for years never to be opened again. It turns out that all of that unused instant tea on the shelves of grocery stores ends up in the factories of "ghetto" tea companies. You know the ones that are brands you never really heard of that come in huge jugs for less than a dollar. They all seem to have the names of farms, but I don't know why a farm would make iced tea. I could understand juice or some nice chocolate milk, but tea makes no sense.

Galliker's is one such company. They are based out of Pennsylvania and I believe they are also known as the "in-store" brand for Sheetz gas stations. I love Sheetz. I wish more gas stations were like it. They are clean and have a great selection of drinks as well as the "Made to Order" deli section.

I would probably never have picked this up, except the sugar cubes on the label caught my attention. Sure enough this is corn syrup free. That made up my mind, along with the fact that it says "no lemon." It's cheap sugar tea. That is for certain. The thing is sometimes drinks like that have a certain charm. It's on the higher end of the scale of cheap teas. I would never go out of my way to pick it up, but if I saw it in a gas station and it was between this and a Nestea or a Brisk this product would certainly win out.

Derek and I drove to DC and back in two days in order to be judges for the Clear Choice Awards, which is the glass bottling competition. According to Google Maps the trip should take 7.5 hours each way. Due to the fact that we are men of leisure we took our dandy time getting down there and stopped at a bunch of places to pick up some yet to be reviewed drinks. We ended up spending 14 hours getting down to our nation's capital. We got to our hotel at around 1:30am and I finally got to sleep at 3. After that long of travel you want to get a good nights sleep. Especially when you're sleeping in a comfortable hotel bed like I was. Unfortunately we were on a schedule and at 8am my alarm went off and I was up getting ready. Completely groggy I scarfed down a bagel and pounded this juice.

Would I have made it through the day without this juice? Probably. Would I have been as happy? No way. It's delicious. It's grape, pear, apple and peach juice all mixed together. The grape and peach juice is all you really taste though, and their flavors are strong and smooth.

As I said before if a juice is made properly it doesn't need added sugar. Fruit is sweet enough as it is. Welch's is wise. They understand these things and they make a good mass produced juice.

I like a lot of Honest Tea's tea. Is that redundant? I don't care. I like a lot of it, which is good because there is a lot of it to like. They definitely crank out flavor after flavor and never look back. I look at the shelves more than one should and I'm not even surprised when I can't keep up to what they come out with; this, CocoNova, Ade, and so on and so forth.

I think that this is a tricky one. If you make a cup of tea, and add one sugar packet, you're pretty set. It's a good ratio. This tastes like a gallon of black tea with one sugar packet. It's in there, but it's so lightly in there that you almost wish it was not there at all. It's not a bad tea, but for my money, this is too "Just a tad sweet" for me. I do, on the other hand, appreciate the maple syrup as an additional sweetener and flavoring. It's light in the mix, but it's there and you like it. It's bitter, almost like a green tea, but it's black tea.

I like this tea, but there are other teas out there that do what this tea does better. I am sure that this will sell like hotcakes, just not to me.

When you read the following please pretend that the guy who announces movie previews is reading it to you. That is the way the artist meant for it to be absorbed.

In a world of plastic bottle sodas, one pop had the courage to climb the top of the mountain. She wasn't a normal birch beer. A pigment disorder rendered her clear, but she wasn't about to let that stop her from reaching the top of FROZEN RUN!

FROZEN RUN is the tale of a young girl who fought the prejudice against her to stand out amongst the plastic bottle sodas. She fought long and hard to shrug off her roots of cheap discount store sodas to climb a mountain in the Pennsylvanian countryside to proclaim to the world that she had a voice and it would be heard.

FROZEN RUN is a tale about love, life, loss and the crispest birch beer you will ever taste. It has the crispness of mint with out the actual mint flavor.

FROZEN RUN. Coming soon to a gas station and mini mart near you. That is if you live in central PA.

About a decade ago Mike, a couple of other friends and myself would go to this crappy bar for "Metal Night." We weren't/aren't super into metal but our friends DJed it and it was something to do. Every week we went and every week about an hour or so in we would get bored and go get pizza and iced tea. Not any iced tea mind you but Fikes tea. It was a really cheap jug of tea that was actually really tasty. We would just kind of disappear from the bar every week and not tell anyone. When people would ask we would jokingly reply that we had a meeting of "Team Cool." That's really a pretty boring story, but it was fun times. The reason I tell you is that I believe Marburger Farms and Fikes to be the same company. The only places I ever found Fikes was in one gas station in Buffalo and one in Zelienople, PA (A terrifying town that is home to the Mercer Family). I'm sure you'll hear all about them at some point. The reason I think they are the same is that I would always stop at that gas station on my way to Pittsburgh to pick some up. When I went a couple of days ago Fikes was nowhere to be found but Marburger Farms was there in the same style bottles, with the same flavors. I don't know if there was a hostile takeover and to be honest I don't care. What I do care about is that this iced tea still exists.

There are a lot of "ghetto" iced teas out there. Most of them aren't fit to feed to swine. This tea is cheap and should be terrible, but it somehow turned out great. It's definitely more sugar water than tea, but it still has a somewhat tea flavor. They use instant tea powder instead of brewing it, which is normally a big no-no in my book, but again they somehow make it work. I think it helps that they actually use fruit juice in their flavoring instead of some weird chemicals. In case you were wondering "mountainberry" is Pennsylvanian for blackberry.

Cherries. Red gold. It is currently summer, also knows as the summer of sticker shock when you put a pound of delicious cherries in a bag, weigh them and get presented with a $32 price tag. I don't know why. Reason number 1 is because I don't work in the cherry industry, and two because I feel like I have seen like a trillion cherries on a tree and I just can't justify that absurd price. I'm cheap, that also doesn't help.

This drink brings the delightful taste of bing cherries to your fridge year round...kind of. The initial taste, like four seconds, is a lovely cherry taste. I'm not the master of cherries, and I don't claim to be, but it does taste like cherries, no doubt. Then Xylitol and Stevia kick in and ruin the party. They're like that duo of jerks that come to your party, bring beer, and somehow rip one of the couch cushions, getting you in trouble with your parents. You don't need that. I typically like what Stevia does for drinks, but this one doesn't make the cut.

Cherry lovers, this is still a drink for you. People who like cherries, "Cherry likers", give it a whirl. People apathetic about cherries; move on to something else, like therapy because cherries are pretty delicious.

This is my 2nd time around with this energy shot. The first time I was testing it out to see if it was actually an "All Day" energy. Verdict: nope. About three hours after I drank it I was feeling a little tired. It worked well for a short period, but definitely not 'all day'.

Now the taste; kind of reminds me of sour berry cough syrup. It's not the worst energy shot I've had, but certainly not the best. Good thing it's small and the taste doesn't linger for too long.

I was pretty skeptical at first when I saw this bottle. I don't think I've ever seen a watermelon drink, let alone any juice that is completely clear. Then I took a look at the ingredients, the first two are purified water and organic cane sugar. When the first sign of juice is #3 on the ingredients list, I am weary, and rightfully so. This tastes like sugar water with a hint of watermelon flavor. I suppose this is good for people who want a light watermelon juice, but I'm not one of them. When I think juice, I want tons of flavor. This is like watermelon sugar water. No thank you.

Fighting dragons is hard work. I've been up until sunrise everyday this week protecting my village from them. My chain mail is starting to chafe my body. Have you ever worn chain mail for 5 days straight without changing? Let me tell you, it's not comfortable. I'd rather bathe myself down river from the latrine than have to wear chain mail this long. I'm out here all alone because no one else is willing to stand up to these dragons. Hold on, here comes another one now...

*20 minutes later*

Oh god, did see the size of those spikes? Brutal! He got my arm pretty good, pieced right through my armor. Oh man this smarts! You don't have any healing potion on you do you? Jones Potion of Healing? Hmmm, never heard of that brand. Is that the stuff that made William of Norwood go blind? Okay good, because I need my sight to fight dragons.

*Pours a little on his wound and then takes a sip*

Mmmm, not bad. Much better than the last healing potion I had. It tasted like dragon pee. How do I know what dragon pee tastes like? We'll leave that story for another time. This is much better than expected. It has a nice, but light, black cherry taste. What? It's sugar free too? I can taste that a little, but it's definitely better than most sugar free healing potions I've had before. Aside from the taste, I'm not sure how good of a healing potion this is. My arm is still bleeding pretty badly. I think I need to lie down for a minute. Wake me up if any more dragons come.

Welcome to the annual American Academy of Taste championship race. We have five strong energy drink competitors but only one can take home the gold. And we're off! Red Bull takes an early lead with Monster trailing behind and Rockstar in third. Red Bull's legs are already getting weak and Monster sneaks into first. Oooooh! Rockstar trips around the 2nd bend and is down and out which gives Amp the 3rd place spot. Monster has a big lead coming into the third turn, but what's this? Go Fast Sports is quickly catching up to the pack. He was in 4th place the whole race so far we almost forgot he was racing. He over takes Amp and Red Bull on the 3rd turn and is on the heels of Monster. This is going to be close. They are neck and neck! The crowd is going wild, who's it going to be!? Wow! That was too close to call. We have to go to the instant replay. And the judges say.....Go Fast Sports is the winner!!!! What a surprising turn of events seeing as no one had heard of Go Fast Sports at the beginning of this race.

I have never heard of the American Academy of Taste, but apparently they awarded this drink a Gold Metal in Superior Taste. I don't really understand what their criterion is or why they would do such a thing. Don't get me wrong this is much better than a lot of energy drinks. It has that melted sugary candy taste (this time it's sweet tarts) that I've come to love in energy drinks. Other than that, it's nothing special. It still has that usual energy drink aftertaste. As far as the energy portion goes, it definitely works. I was feeling a little sleepy before I opened the can and now I'm awake and ready to celebrate Thirsty Tuesday.