United States - 4098 Reviews

Anytime there is a soda that is flavored by a berry that isn't one of the big 4 (straw, blue, black, rasp) I will happily drink it. “Rare' berries are almost always tasty, and so are the sodas that are based off of them. This is a diet drink that is sweetened with cane sugar, agave and stevia., but I will say that if it were solely sweetened with cane sugar it would be ridiculously good (as long as Jones didn't go overboard with the sugar, like they seem to like to do). As it is it is still quite an enjoyable beverage, stevia and all. It has a vague off-diet taste, but the flavor of the huckleberry is nice enough to distract your taste buds. It helps that it's a blend of sweeteners and not only stevia. Jones is doing pretty well for itself.

So tangerines are superior oranges, correct? A little sweeter, with a stronger flavor and they are easier to peel. How about we just accept them as the standard from here on out? A good orange is fantastic, but I feel like I have more bad oranges than good ones, and I've never had an unpleasant tangerine.

I was hoping that the improvement that is tangerines would translate to this soda, but unfortunately this is mostly just generic soda flavor with a sweet hint of a slightly different orange. It's not bad, but it is completely forgettable, which is not something we look for here at Thirsty Dudes. This is certainly not the gourmet soda that it claims to be, but at least it has cane sugar and isn't super thick and syrupy.

Someone make me a proper tangerine soda. I need to taste the superiority…€¦wow that sounded unintentionally fascist.

When I think of “classic” lemonade what comes to mind is an ice cold picture on a sweltering hot day which only contains three ingredients; water, lemon juice, and sugar. It's a simple recipe that can be hard to screw up if you keep it basic. Claire Baie did not keep it basic. They used concentrate and added a handful of other ingredients that do nothing but detract for the simple glory that should be this drink. It doesn't taste like childhood freedom it tastes like plastic and fake lemons.I could have really used a nice lemonade today too. Damn.

I have decided to make some changes and go on an liquid diet. Not the liquid diets that your fat secretary does when they say that they're going to drink the pain of still living at home at 47 away. The kind where you realize that your metabolism just isn't what it used to be. I'm going to do this for as long as I can and will update this review daily so let's get the review out of the way and leave the daily masochism to the people who love reading.

This is chocolate. I wouldn't really accept "fudge" as anything but an extra word that doesn't mean anything. Fudge is thick. This is watery. You mix it with water and it doesn't thicken up. Sure you can mix it with milk or almond milk if you're trying to be healthy, but when you mix with water, it doesn't thicken up. It's fine and I've now tried it iced with admittedly too much water and ice and with the minimum requested amount of water and it tastes the same; watered down chocolate milk. I'm reluctant to even say "chocolate milk" but "chocolate water" makes me want to barf so I didn't type it...until now. I don't foresee any problem drinking/eating only this for the next several days, though. I assume it will become expectant and boring but it is not bad. It doesn't taste "healthy" but it does have a bit of that "Erythritol" taste to it. I don't dislike that, as I have mentioned in my many previous, Erythritol ridden drinks.

Moving forward will be my experience with my first supplement only life. Wish me luck and enjoy my impending sorrow.
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Timeline

Two-ish weeks or until the container is gone. Monday, June 20th to Friday, June 1.



Guidelines

Ingest only this. If I find myself needing food, I will allow raw almonds. Tons of water and unsweetened tea are the only other acceptable things. I have a show this Saturday which I might have to "break" but that's just so people don't think I'm crazy.



Logic

I am a thirty four year old male. I love food. I don't eat like an ignoramus but I don't eat smart a lot. I eat a lot of tacos, chicken, and hot dogs. I love a good meal. I like spending good money and getting a good meal in return. I go to nice restaurants and enjoy them and I go to bad restaurants and enjoy them. Food is food and I am aware of the context of the quality and accept all of it. I have gained weight slowly but surely over the years and need a control. I need discipline. I snack a lot. Not unhealthy stuff; almonds and maybe a dozen M&Ms per day, nothing that's going to welcome diabetes with open arms. I go to the gym rarely because I'm too tired from live, work and raising two kids. Anyone who has kids should never blame anyone for not going to the gym and anyone who doesn't have kids doesn't understand and should not have an opinion whatsoever. My fiancè tells me this is not a good idea and that "this isn't how you do it." I half agree but the other half needs a fixed, strict regimen or I will stray. "This and nothing else." is simple and there is no gray area.
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Day 0

Today, Father's Day, is the last day I will eat food for a while. In typical Mike fashion, I did not eat terribly well. Breakfast burrito, two hot dogs, slice of pizza. Not all my eating is that bad and American, but today it was. Today I clocked in at 156.7. I am not happy about it but that's why we're doing this.
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Day 1

Success. I didn't think it was going to be bad but towards the end of the day I felt a little spacey. I had band practice and that distracted me from being hungry. Breakfast to lunch was alright. Lunch to dinner was rough. I started getting headaches around four. I'm going to try to not eat lunch until later. I find it strange to not just grab something to eat when I'm hungry. It's clearly a habit and I'm realizing that quickly. I am also seeing food everywhere. In my house. In advertisements. I'm starting to think about restaurants I haven't been to in a long time. I didn't see that coming. I mixed a handful of different percentages. I did a full eight ounces and that was fine. I mixed like five ounces of water with a bunch of ice and that's much better. It takes me longer to drink and that helps.

I weighed in at 153.7. I doubt that I lost three pounds and there has to be some sort of other factor. I don't trust that.
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Day 2

I'm getting irritable. Between personal issues, issues with my brat kid, issues with my car and the fact that I haven't eaten anything in two days I am getting sick of things quickly. I still find myself thinking out of nowhere things like, "I would love to go to Swiss Chalet." which is a normal occurrence but typically not in the middle of nowhere. I'm not exactly "weak" but I am tired. I fight hunger and fight the urge to "just eat an apple" but I'm holding off. I could eat an apple. These are my rules but I'm not. I'm still not sick of the drink and I'm getting a good blend down. I actually look forward to it because I know that my body needs food. It actually makes me happy to know that I can eat soon and don't mind that it's the same thing I've eaten for the past six meals. It's my sustenance and it's all I've got. I weighed in at 152.6.

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Day 3

I was two hours late for dinner due to a busy life and nearly knocked everyone out. I was at my parent's house, filled with food and had to leave. Everything looks good. Everything tastes good. I'm questioning why I am doing this more every day. I love food. I want to eat. I'm hungry and I am coming to the realization that it's alright to be hungry. It't not OK to be starving but it's alright to be hungry. I don't need to instantly quench my hunger. I'm down to 150.8. That's six pounds. That's basically a child's bowling ball in three days. I can't tell where it's going or where it's coming from.

I enjoy the powder much more than the concentrate but this one didn't taste as much like Flintstone vitamins as I would have liked. It was not bad but it was just not what I thought. It was actually like a dark, sweet juice more than a water. I don't know what the line is between water and juice but if you gave this to one hundred people, I would say that everyone would call it a juice.

Karma is good at coming up with new flavors and this is good. It's not anything special. It's not a flavor that you haven't had before but they are always coming out with something new. This, if anything, is a nice, familiar juice that is low in calories and high in probiotics. That's a win, right? What more could you ask for? If you say anything you should not be so greedy. I already told you that Karma comes out with new stuff all the time. Jeez.

Purity is a company that I have grown to know and love. Their juices are of high quality without putting a huge dent in your pocket book. I'm currently in San Francisco recording a couple of songs at Tiny Telephone and I took a walk to the Mission for burritos and refreshments and my guys grew huge when I saw this bottle. I'm talking cartoon wolf ogling an attractive woman huge. In my head even the "ha-wooga" sound happened.

When I got back to the studio I cracked this open and my first thought was "Wow this is kind of week." The mate flavor is hardly there and it kind of tastes like a watery grapefruit juice with a touch of ginger in it. I had expected to be blasted with a strong bitter mate flavor and have the other flavors there to round it out. The more I drank it the more I grew to enjoy it though. It is tame, but every drink doesn't need to be in your face. There is nothing wrong with this beverage at all. The grapefruit and ginger tastes are very authentic, because it is made with organic juice. I do wish the mate was stronger. If it were this would get high marks. As it is it leaves a bit to be desired, but it is still very enjoyable. I'm just a boy with high expectations.

A couple of years ago when Sneakz was launched, it was less than stellar. The vegetable taste seeped through too much and when mixed with chocolate it was like someone used Hershey syrup as salad dressing. The company realized the error of their ways and corrected their formula into something that was more than just passable. They also expanded their line to include strawberry and this vanilla.
I'm assuming they used the same basic principles they developed for the new chocolate version and applied them to vanilla because I don't taste vegetables in here at all. This is full of carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach and cauliflower but you would never know it by taking a sip. It's all vanilla, but not in a cheap ice cream kind of way. It tastes like actually vanilla beans were used. You can't ask for much more than that in a drink of this variety. You get ½ a serving of veggies and it tastes great. That's a win all the way around.

Do I love my guts? I think so. I eat yogurt. That's the epitome of loving and taking care of your guts? I feel like living in Buffalo I do my fair share of loving my guts by eating rotten cheese in the form of bleu cheese. Is that enough? Yogurt and bleu cheese? It's not? I've got to do more?! What kind of time do you think I have? Oh, a packet of stuff I can mix into a bottle of water? Great.

Wait...you said this was flavorless. It tastes the way melting plastic smells. That is quite flavorful, actually. I filled up a sixteen ounce bottle and took three giant chugs to finish it. Now my mouth is cold. It tasted like it was numb when I tasted it. Now it's just strange like I just swished with Stevia. Why would I do that? Swishing with sugar or a sugar-like substitute? Do I hate my teeth? No. I take good care of those puppies like I do, or thought I did, of my guts.

I might be getting stronger or at least more resistant to the outside forces with each sip of this and there are nutritional values like a ton of vitamin C and D but is it worth it? Probably. All that bleu cheese might be clogging my blood vessels and pores.

This is the liquid equivalent of walking up to a roulette table placing down most of your stack on 13 black. You watch that wheel spin and the ball is going around and around. It starts slowing down and you can't believe your eyes it looks like you are going to win and win big. At the last moment it pops out and plops into 36 red. Sure you played a safe bet and also put down a little money on the last row of 2:1 odds, but the big money is gone. It's not a horrible loss, you came out okay, but it had such potential to be life changing.

This is simply brewed green tea with matcha and ginger root in it. No sugar and no other extraneous additives. It should be wonderful in its simplicity. It tastes like tea. It tastes like real ginger. It's good. If you brewed this at home you wouldn't think twice about it, but there's something just a little off that makes you question if it is worth purchasing. That thing is it's a little on the watery side, which leads to it being a bit weak. I like my green tea strong and prominent. This is like beginners green tea. It's as if there is extra water in it to act as training wheels for those not used to the wonderfully strong bitterness that it usually has. Metaphors and similes aside, this is enjoyable, but it could be amazing and it just slightly missed that mark.

Many fools out there would consider us experts when it comes to the beverage world. The truth is we are just two dumb guys who like to drink a lot of drinks and write about what we think about them because we are apparently narcissistic and think the world needs to know our opinions, you know like the rest of the internet. Actually this is something that keeps us busy. It's our version of collecting stamps, records, or comics. Whatever our reason for doing what we do, and no matter what people think of us, no one has ever mistook us for authorities when it comes to coffee. We are complete idiots when it comes to this field of beverages and we have no idea what the little things about certain coffees coffee are that make them more desirable than other coffees. Keeping that in mind this is what I have to say about Zingerman's Cold Brew.

This tastes like…€¦coffee. There is nothing extra added to it, just straight up brewed coffee beans. I don't know if that is technically correct since it is cold brewed for 16-24 hours and it doesn't get heated up (I always think of brewing as “cooking.” Am I wrong?). The reason for this is that it reduces the acid and makes the coffee smoother. I can actually acknowledge that this does seem smoother than “iced coffees” that I have had. So it's got that going for it. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I can detect the different notes in the coffee, because my palate isn't that refined. All I can say is that it tastes like coffee with no harshness to it. It's not the kind of drink that is going to win me over and make me a card carrying member of the Loyal Order of Coffee Aficionados , but I do enjoy it more than I have enjoyed other straight coffees that I have tasted, so that's something.

I'm not sure if they were meant to be released together, or if it's just because they have the same parent company but I keep seeing Mountain Dew Black Label and Pepsi 1893 displayed together. I was shocked by how much I am a fan of the 1893. It's a throwback to the way cola was originally made, and there is something about it that is just classy. It's like they took one of the baseline companies for all soda and made it seem like it was upscale. Even though they had already gone back to an original recipe with Dew Shine, I was hoping that Black Label would be another old time soda. The can didn't have a fancy look to it, but it was more visually appealing than Mountain Dew's normal output.

Now this is much better than a classic Mountain Dew, but this is not the high end soda that it is posing as. Words/phrases like “crafted” and “black label” are a buzz these days and lead a person to believe that this is something that was prepared with more care and in smaller batches. The truth is that this is just soda created with slightly better ingredients than the company would normally use. Sure there is sugar instead of HFCS and there is grape juice involved, but this really just falls somewhere extremely close to their Dark Berry and Pitch Black flavors. It's like someone took their flagship flavor and added berry and grape juice to it.

I really wanted this to be better than it is, but to be fair it is one of the better Mountain Dew flavors. It's an improvement, but they still have a ways to go to create something (besides Voltage) that I would go out of my way to purchase for pleasure and not review.

When you see that something only has 15% of an ingredient in it that seems kind of laughable. 15% is such a small amount, and one would think that it might not even register much in the way of taste. The thing is that 15% of juice in an energy drink is on the high side of things and somehow it makes all of the difference. Phyzix does not taste like a traditional energy drink, and it actually tastes like juice. This actually tastes more like pomegranate than acai to me, but the two are fairly similar and I'm not complaining. I drank this faster than expected as it didn't taste fake and chemical.

A nice thing about this is that the energy doesn't hit you all at once and give you the jitters. It has a nice pace to it that kept me going for hours. It wasn't as crazy a burst, but I prefer it this way. I mean I'm not taking speed here; I am just looking for a little boost. This is the direction that I would like to see the future of energy drinks heading.

I can't believe that the big day is finally here. All of our closest friends are here; Dr. Frankenstein, his wife Elizabeth…€¦well that's it. Everyone else wants us dead. They are all we need though. Oh there is the caterer with the grape soda. It's weird that it is the only thing my bride to be requested. Oh no, my lovely is coming out, I'm not supposed to see her before the ceremony, I need to hide! Ahhh! Oh crap. I scared the caterer and he has spilled the soda everywhere. Oh no, it's all over my bride. Hey wait, it has stained the white streaks in her hair purple. That looks kind of cool and modern. Hmm, I'll play it off like I didn't see it and pretend I think she dyed her hair. “Honey! You look beautiful. I love what you've done to your hair, very chic. Are you wearing grape perfume? It smells wonderful . it reminds me of this grape soda I had once. It fell somewhere between a generic grape soda and a sparkling grape juice. It really was the best of both worlds. I bet you would have loved it honey. Now, let's get married!” Phew, I narrowly escaped catastrophe there.

I feel like out of all of the soda flavors out there root beer is the one that can have the most nuances. Even though all of the varieties fall under a specific umbrella the differences between them can be vast. Baumeister falls on the good side of those differences and produces a dark, crisp root beer that is heavy on the wintergreen. To me that makes this stand out amongst a sea of what I like to call “store brand root beer” flavored drinks. As a general rule, the earthier a root beer tastes, the more I'll like it. This doesn't really taste that way at all, but something about it is really hitting all of the right buttons right now and I love it. It's definitely very sweet, but it's in a good way, and not a root beer barrel way. Does anyone actually like those candies for more than like 30 seconds?

It always seems that the drinks that we are lukewarm about, especially the diet ones, are what companies send us the most flavors of. There has been so much Claire Baie in our lives over the past few months and I'm afraid the sheer quantity is effecting our reviews. As I've said before these drinks were not created with me as their target audience. It's true that I watch my sugar intake sometimes, but I have never been on a diet, and I am not a fan of zero calorie sweeteners, especially sucralose. There is a world of people out there who are on diets though and rely on beverages such as this to help curb their craving for sweet carbonated drinks. I think those people would be happy with this. If you drink sucralose on a regular basis you have to get acclimated to it and that weird taste probably doesn't even register to you anymore. That taste is what is holding this drink back in my eyes, but if take that out of the equation and you have a decent kiwi strawberry drink. I've had a lot of kiwi strawberry stuff in my life, but I don't think I've ever had a fresh juice where those were the ingredients. Man, I bet that would be the best. Compared to that this would be a pale imitation, but since 99.9% of the population has probably never drunk such a thing this is very passable.

When I think about bamboo I don't think about leaves. I only think about the stalks and building structures out of them. In my early adolescence we would build some pretty rad forts our of bamboo stalks that were hidden in patches of the plant. They were great and we really felt like we weren't only a couple of hundred yards from my friend's back yard. Now that I think about it they did have leaves, but they grew so high that we didn't really have to deal with them. I certainly never thought about brewing them into tea. To be fair I thought Nestea was what tea was at that time so I was more than a little ignorant.

This is surprisingly good though. You could most definitely pass it off as a light green tea, and then snicker because your guests have no idea they are drinking bamboo, and they would have probably passed had you called it bamboo tea. The hibiscus really shines more than the bamboo, and that will never earn a complaint from me. The blackberry taste is very light, but it complements the hibiscus nicely. The label says this is “light, crisp, & refreshing” and it certainly is not lying. I just spent hours painting a fence in 90+ degree weather and this is hitting the spot perfectly. This bamboo stuff really has something going for it.

Apparently flavorless is code for this tastes the way a dentist office smells; sterile and chalky. It's all calcium citrate malate, malta dextrin, dimagnesium malate, silica and cholecalsiferal and no fun. At least it serves the purpose of helping with bone and joint health.

Jalapeno: A green pepper that is hot.
Citrus: A zesty, floral flavor that I cannot define without using the word of the fruit it comes from.
Margarita: A sour or citrus based alcoholic drink with tequila and salt as well as a strange classification of pizza.
This: Not really anything mentioned above.

This is spicy but my palate and I cannot decide whether it's the sparkles or jalapeno. It was a lot lighter in citrus than any of the other flavors they have. The margarita...I am not the best judge of what a margarita tastes like as I haven't had a drop of alcohol since 1998. I can tell you that it wasn't salty, though. This was just kind of confusing and weak. I love Polar but this probably took the backseat to whomever invented the allusive "Unicorn Kiss" that will probably be unfindable at this point. Trust me. We've contacted Polar who sent us this and said they don't have any more in stock. What an April Fools prank, taunting us with a fantastical beverage that will never exist again.

Without looking it up on the internet, someone tell me what percentage of American suffer from stomach/digestive issues. I'm not going to look it up but I'll throw a number out there. I'll say 72%. That's a lot of the population with problems, and those are problems that this beverage can help alleviate. This bottle is jam packed with probiotics, which are live bacteria and yeasts of the positive variety that do a bunch to make you feel better.

You grab this and think, “Oh good this is going to make my guts feel better.” Then you realize that it's an interactive drink and things are even better. You get to peel off the label from the top and then push all of the vitamins, minerals and probiotics that exist in powder form into the water waiting below. Then you shake it like a paint machine mixing up a gallon of paint that you bought to paint your fence, but it just sits there for far too long because you're procrastinating. Oh, is my real life seeping into this review? That will happen.

So this is fun, it is functional and on top of that it tastes good. I'm wary of apple cinnamon beverages that are not cider, because normally things just do not turn out the way you want them to. Karma has figured it out though. I don't know if it's because it stays in a powder form until right before you drink it, but this tastes so much like real cinnamon sprinkled onto dried apples that it's ridiculous. This is made with stevia as well as cane sugar, and I would have no idea that a zero calorie sweetener was in here if I hadn't read the label. It's mostly a light apple water with a heavy cinnamon overtone. It's great. I could see myself drinking this even if my guts didn't need the help that 72% of American need.

I think I speak for all people when I say that prickly pear is a wonderful fruit. Pears blow but add some spikes and thorns and nails and it flips it right around. Make a pear dangerous to eat and it makes it better than its soft, smooth brother. Or cousin. They're related but maybe just through marriage. It counts but barely.

This is wonderful. The green tea isn't powerful but you can taste a little bite. The prickly pear, though, she shines through with beams of light as bright as the G.D. sun. It's a soft flavored drink. Real sugar and a little bit of Stevia come together and really round this little guy out.

This rarely happens, but I finished the drink before I finished writing this review. I'm on the top of the third paragraph and it's gone. I've polished off twelve ounces in like 100 words. This is great. It's not terrible for you, either. At fifty calories per can, I'd easily take a tallboy of this any day of the week. You hear me, Steaz? Tallboys. I'm inventing the demand as I type. Everyone who reads my words is seeing it in my head wondering if it exists. Make it exist. Do the right thing, Steaz. Do the right thing.