United States - 4098 Reviews

If a poll was taken across the islands of Hawaii to determine what the state juice would be I'm pretty sure POG would be announced the winner of the silver medal. If you thought that it would get the gold then you my friend forgot about a little thing called the pineapple. Can anything really compete with the pineapple on Hawaii? If it ran I'm sure it would win the office of governor for the state. It has that much power.

Enough about pineapple, it has no place in this drink. Here the other Hawaiian fruits reign supreme. Passion fruit, orange and guava run this game. Sweet. Fruity. Refreshing. (On a side note I ate a guava straight from a tree yesterday and that was enough to make me want to move my entire life to the islands.) The carton tells a story of the Poflodytes, Furry little creatures that gather the fruit and make the juice. I believe this is a cover up created by the POG company so that people won't realize that all of their labor is provided by the obscene amount of feral cats that wander the islands. If you ever think you see a Poglodyte take a closer look and you will see the zipper on their costumes. Beware though. The chickens are not what they seem.

Ho-lee-crud does this stuff work. Let me tell you a story.

I have a son who is 3 months old. Currently, he is watching TV and is awesome. Yesterday...not so much. Screaming. I work outta-da-home Mondays and Tuesdays and I typically get about 4 or 5 hours worth of work. Yesterday he was a jerk. Yeah, he's three months and he was a three-month-old jerk. I might have gotten two bad hours of work done and he screamed for hours. I just kept saying, "He's only a baby. You can't get mad at him." all day. From about 7 - 9 he was screaming for some reason. I needed to calm down. I went into the stash, saw that little bottle, and knew it was time. Frankie says "Relax".

I drank it in two sips. First sip was a very berry taste with a little bit of diet and the second sip flipped but it was over before it started and we were off to the races. Literally, fifteen minutes later I felt as if I was holding 50-pound dumbbells in each arm. You know when you're sleeping and you don't want to move your arms when you just wake up? That's where I was. You know when your significant other asks you to get a glass of water at 3 in the morning because, apparently, their legs are broken and you respond with something like, "A goose is at the door. Wait...what? Yeah, water, sure." That's where I was, promptly.

I would have slept soundly if it wasn't for that meddling kid, but when I did fall asleep, I don't think that you could have woken me up with a cannon, and this was only the Relax drink. Also, if it needs to be said, I didn't have any strange dreams.

This soda intrigued me because I had no idea what it was going to taste like. I have never drunk a soda with guarana in it before. I know it's a common ingredient in energy drinks, but I've never seen a guarana flavored drink before. Even though the good folks at Real Soda make this in the USA, they make it with the same ingredients as the traditional Brazil soda.

My thoughts? It's alright. I don't think it's anything special. It tastes like ginger ale without any ginger, or maybe a bland lemon-lime soda. It's not bad. It just has no personality to it at all. This is the Ann Veal of sodas. If I could add a caption under the photo, it would say, "not pictured".

I made it to Hawaii alive. I was surprisingly not too miserable after 17 hours of traveling. To help refuel myself I drank a pineapple smoothie that was pretty astounding. Then I hit up a grocery store for rations for the week. I found a couple bottles of this aloe that is made in Hawaii. Pretty great, right? Want to know what's better? I realized there are huge aloe plants everywhere around here, and I'm going to attempt to eat it fresh.

This was very good. Average style chunks, with a strong aroma of honey. The honey flavor was also way stronger than I expected, which was nice. It's always great to find "irregular" flavors of aloe.

Simpson Spring makes a good soda. They have yet to disappoint me. This orange soda was no exception. It's good, but not great. It reminds me a lot of San Pellegrino Aranciata, but with more sugar. It's a good simple orange soda that is definitely better than Crush and Sunkist. Also, I love the shade of orange this had. If I could, I'd give this a 5-bottle rating in the color category.

It's been a hard day is New Jersey. Your wife has been nagging you to quit your job at the pizza place, your kids have been getting in trouble at school and your Honda CRX needs new tires. I know!! Sure they're $30 a piece and you know a guy who can get them cheaper than that because they fell off a truck. Honestly, that guy must just drive behind trucks all day, ready to jump out at a moment's notice in case something falls off. I've never been behind a truck that dropped anything. My friend Ian once drove behind a truck and a rocking chair came out of the back and within a week, a sheet a drywall fell out and he said that it exploded. That must have been awesome. So you've had a hard day. You come home and...oh seriously...the cable is out? You thought you paid it? Yeah, they probably messed up, not you. So what's a boy to do? Open up that fridge baby and grab out some officially licensed product from your and my dad's favorite show, The Sopranos. It hits so close to home. You drove the same streets as those glorious gangsters. They've got family and you've got a family. You love the movie "The Godfather" and they do, too. Same wavelength.

This HBO created show which has won so many awards has created an equally award winning drink, and I wouldn't use that phrase lightly. Myself, not being one who drinks, doesn't know what actual Chianti tastes like, really enjoyed it. It's a light, fruity flavor and actually has less bite than most Italian soda. It was calm and cool, just like you when your spinning those pies. That's when you're at your best. Throwing pizza in the air with the greatest of ease is what makes you happy. You're good at it and you know it. Don't let your nagging wife or dumb kids let you forget it.

Given that the company who makes this soda is based out of Wyoming, they're really going after that "olde time western" feel. Judging by the label, I feel like I should be watching an old Clint Eastwood movie as I drink this. Sadly, I don't have a copy of The Outlaw Josey Wales (which is my favorite western of all time) so I'll have to do without it for this bottle.

By now, I've tried enough different ginger beers to be able to smell it and know how spicy it's going to be. This has a light ginger smell, so I knew it wasn't going to be too intense. With little sips, there's barely any burn. Big sips you get a nice burn, but it's not overwhelming. This would be a perfect entry-level ginger beer for someone who doesn't want to burn their throat just yet. What makes this ginger beer unique is the sweet after taste. It's not in the ingredients, but a brown sugar sweetness lingers a little after some sips. It's a really nice contrast to the ginger.

Jason is on his way to Hawaii right now. I mention this because this drink is made in Hawaii, but I found it in a local Asian super market. I'm sure he'll be coming across all sorts of flavors of this brand.

It's been a while since I've drunk juice. I decided to forgo my usual morning coffee today, and instead drink this. Usually when I see the word nectar, I think "thick". I was pleasantly surprised that this was a light juice. It has a really great taste as well. The pineapple and orange are mixed really well. But at the end of the day, this juice isn't amazing. Can you really call something that is only 20% juice, juice?

While I can't be in Hawaii with Jason, I feel like this juice brings me a little closer.

If I was an expert on such things, and being a scientist I would say I am an expert on all things, I would say that jasmine tea is the cleanest of all teas. Per capita I bet jasmine has less dirt and filth on it than any other tea. Do a study on it I dare you! You can tell by the taste. It's a tea made for germaphobes.

This in particular is one of the best jasmine iced teas I've ever tasted. Most that I've come by have been unsweetened, which is all well and good. Honest decided to sweeten it ever so slightly with agave, my hats off to them for that. It's just a little, but it evens out the bitterness to a perfect degree. With every sip the floweriness of jasmine hits you first and then it passes the torch onto the bitterness of the green tea. If they ran a relay race they would surely win the gold.

The flavor is called "Jasmine Green Energy Tea" not only because of the caffeine in the teas used (to be honest this whole bottle has the amount of caffeine as half a cup of coffee), but also because the company donates money towards renewable "green" energy. I missed Earth Day by 19 hours with this, but I will pretend it's still going on.

I'm a stupid idiot. I don't like painted wood. Why did you install wood with it's nice grains if you were just going to paint it. I can't imagine how awesome my house would look if all the wood was stained instead of lazily painted white. So, since I don't like painted wood, and I own my own house, I took all of the doors off the hinges to strip them. Here's a question for the general public; Did you know that stripping wood is exhausting and tedious work and nothing about it is easy? I tried using stripping chemicals and they just kind of melted the paint. I am currently using a heat gun and it's working, but about two inches at a time. It's tiring and when I got done today, I looked through my stock of drinks and knew that I needed something refreshing. Water? Or juice? I saw that red bottle looking at me and I grabbed it. It was nice. A little sweet and a little flavored. More than a lot of the Hint stuff but still less than a juice that would be too sweet. This was good. It's super low in calories and you can slam it until your heart is content, or until it's time to go back out and scrape more wood. Me? I've got three full doors and one half of another one. I'm closer to starting than to finishing and that blows. Once again, I'm an idiot, but a quenched idiot.

It is over 60 degrees today in Portland and it feels great! The things I love about warm weather are all the delicious cool drinks there are for me to drink to help 'beat the heat'. One of my favorites is lemonade. Now I have had my fair share of lemonades over the years, and Natucket Nectar ranks up near the top. It had been a few years since I had drank a bottle so finding this at the Alberta Co-op today was a treat.

If I had to describe this in three words, it would be 'smooth, tart, and refreshing.' I can't find anything wrong with this. It's the perfect summer time lemonade. The lemon tart is perfect too, not over or underwhelming. Just perfect.

In about 14 hours I will be boarding a plane for a trip to Hawaii. Do you think I'm going to shut up about it in my reviews for the next week? I wouldn't hold your breath. In order to prepare myself for my adventures in the sun I'm drinking some nice lemonade (I really should have drank the pineapple one, but I think I'm going to be overdosing on that fruit very shortly).
The first thing I'm doing when I get to the island is to go hang out at the waterfall that is featured in Raiders of the Lost Ark. That's right I'm starting a bitchin' vacation with some Indiana Jones action.
As I drink this I'm closing my eyes and envisioning standing at the foot of the waterfall snapping a revolver out of someone's hand with a whip. Much like the lemonade itself, it's a pretty amazing vision. This is lemonade that tastes homemade. It's insanely tart almost to the point of drinking straight lemon juice. Luckily there's a decent amount of natural sugar in it to even that out. I never would have considered mixing orange juice in with lemonade, but luckily the fine folks at Calypso have a more open mind. The orange creates a nice accent. They were smart enough to put just a little in so that lemon is still the main flavor, with just a hint of its citrus brethren.

Yes I did just put the movie on after I wrote this. I'm getting way to excited. If there is really a cave by the falls my head is going to explode, and I will probably only be in Hawaii for an hour before I die from spiders, spike, pits or a giant boulder.

Dear Self,
I hate to be the one to break this to us, but we really just don't like the way ginseng tastes. Sure it's fine as a minor player in some drinks, but as soon as it steps into the limelight it all goes downhill. I know you're going to say it's not its fault. It's a root; of course it tastes like dirt. Then what about ginger? It's also a root and it's completely delicious. Ginseng is just a bad seed and I don't think we should hang out with it anymore.

Look what it did to this drink. It took a completely mediocre raspberry ginger ale and it made is associate (aka less than). It tastes like a run of the mill 2 liter of fruity ginger ale was strained through some dirt. What were they using it to pan for gold? Good luck with that.

Since Buffalo has apparently skipped three seasons and gone directly back into winter I thought it would be fitting to review a Xmas themed beverage. When I showed people this soda I was surprised that no one mentioned anything about it causing the drinker to go on a kissing spree. For that I'd like to thank my friends for not being as idiotic as myself, or at least to have the restraint to not say stupid things aloud.

Due to it being a season drink I expected this to have a bunch of spices in it, or to be minty for some reason (I blame the leaves on the label). Neither of those things were true at all. In fact it tastes more like it should be a summer beverage. It has a flavor that is similar to lemonade. It's like someone made a lemon lime soda but actually used lemonade and limeade. Then they decided to put in just a dash of berry for good measure. It's not bad by any means. In fact it's a damn good alternative to 7Up or Sprite. I just don't understand why it's marketed the way it is.

Hosmer Mountain has two different cola's, red and blue. The red is their take on Coca-Cola and the blue is supposed to be like Pepsi. Seeing as I am a bigger fan of Pepsi than Coca-Cola, I opted for the Cola-Blue.

Imagine Pepsi, without the harsh bite and less syrupy. That's pretty close to what this taste like. It's really a no-frills cola. I don't know if I like it better or worse than Pepsi, but it's definitely different. I don't think they were aiming to clone the Pepsi flavor, but use that as a starting point to make this cola.

If you like basic colas, this is a really good one. I think this would be really great with some spices in it like nutmeg or anise.

This is a light entry-level ginger beer. Hey, are you new to the world of spicy pop? Try this on for size. It's got a burn but is masked with that earthy, wet dirt ginger flavor that is more prominent in this than any other ginger related drink I've ever had. The flavor is good, though; bold and sweet. I was surprised to see that it wasn't a cane sugar drink as I thought that all Sioux City drinks were as such. That was wrong of me and I will be the first to admit it. The burn doesn't hit you until the drink hits the back of your little throat where it just stings you a bit, like a trick ginger ale.

One thing I will say is that this label design rules pretty hard. Nothing says America like an eagle and this one is coming right at your face. It reminds me of some awful band T-Shirt but on a bottle it's acceptable.

Looks (and preconceived notions) can be deceiving. Thus far, Simpson Spring has output mostly mediocre soda. So when I found this in my box to review I had a feeling it was going to be a very generic root beer. While this isn't the most complex ever, it's far from bland.

The smell threw me off because it didn't smell like run-of-the-mill root beer. It was a familiar smell, but I couldn't put my finger on it. As soon as I took my first sip, it hit me: birch beer. This starts off as a normal root beer, but has a really nice crisp birch beer aftertaste. It's a really good 1-2 combo with a really good bite. Much like the combination of root beer and sarsaparilla, I would have never thought of this pairing but it makes sense. I love it! Now I challenge a company to make a Root Beer-Sarsaparilla-Birch Beer. If there has to be a holy trinity, my vote goes to them!

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

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

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

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

I don't like oranges. Oh, I like the taste of an orange, but I don't like oranges. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I love orange juice with as much pulp as you can get. Does that make sense? Does it make sense that it drives me crazy when people love pickles but don't like relish? Nope-ahh. I don't care. I have my preferences. There is no iron fist making decisions for me.

This drink has pulp and it's big, too. No wuss pulp for Calypso. I like a drink with some substance. Look, we know where some drinks come from, but you know what hammers it home? Seeing some chunks of the actual fruits that were used still in there. Tune down your filters and leave some goodness in there.

As usual, this drink is good. It's actually two servings and the flavor is really good. I enjoy that it's two servings because I know that I have another round of flavor town when I get home. There is a good strawberry taste with a cheek puckering lemonade taste. Every sip is like a flavor explosion. I can see where it might be too sweet or too fruity for some, but if you want a drink with some flavor, here you go.

When you've got a good company, hold on to it. I don't know how they could do wrong.

I love the classic look of this bottle. It has the short and stout shape of a 12 oz bottle, instead of the traditional taller shape. Some may see this label and think it's old and boring, I think it's classic and really fits the taste of this soda. As the label suggests, this has a very rich vanilla flavor and I love it. It's a traditional cream soda taste that really makes my mouth happy.

I just got excited/confused on the last sip I took. I thought I was getting a taste of a campfire and it threw me off. But then I realized it was the smell of a grill outside that wafted through my window and into my nose. Now I'm disappointed and want to find a drink that has a campfire aftertaste.