United States - 4098 Reviews

Last summer at the Pride parade I stopped into a little shop that was on the route that I knew had an ever changing, but always decent soda selection. When I saw they had Cock …€˜n Bull ginger beer I instantly thought they had missed a great opportunity to move some product to the people celebrating right outside their doors. Seriously, just a small sign with the brands name and I bet they could have sold a few cases worth. They didn't realize what they had, and that was the last time I thought about Cock …€˜n Bull until I came across this new variety in a grocery store on the west coast. It's not often you come across a flavored ginger beer, so when you do, you take notice.

Cock …€˜n Bull may not be the craziest, strongest ginger beer on the market, but what they lack in heat they make up with flavor. It's more like an old fashioned ginger ale with a little burn to it that hits in the after taste. It's got a nice afterburner to it, like your favorite bowling alley arcade game. The cherry is nice and subtle, but it still adds a lot to the drink. It's like someone mixed a cherry Slurpee with a ginger beer, and that may sound gross to you, but I mean it in the most endearing way.

Folks, I feel like an idiot. I have never once in my life considered brewing tea with any hot liquid other than water. Actually the more I think about it, it would more than likely be pretty gross. This beverage wasn't created this way, but imagine if they boiled apple juice and brewed some loose leaf tea in it. Would that be gross, or would it be awesome. I think it may depend on the season. In the Fall I bet it would be delicious and fitting, but in the summer it might seem oppressive. Now I want to perform some experiments where I brew tea in apple juice, and also brew the same type of tea in water and then add apple juice after the fact. How different do you think they would taste from each other?

None of that matters because this juice in front of me is a great twist to a modern day classic. I don't really know if the Arnold Palmer should really be described that way, but that's how I feel in my heart of hearts. Red Jacket not only adds their wonderful apple juice to the mix, but they also didn't just use regular old black tea. They stepped up their game and used guayusa in the mix and it's noticeable in the flavor, in a very good way. I will admit that apple is the strongest flavor in here, but you can definitely make out the lemon and the tea separately. It's great, and Red Jacket has done me right once again. I mean it's more of a Third & Third & Third and not so much a Half & Half, but who am I to complain. Now I have to go deal with the two boiling pots on my stove.

Most orange juices taste the same. Just like Jay said for the apple juice review for Positive Energy, they taste the same. This one is different. It's got caffeine in it, which I don't need honestly, but thanks for putting it in. What's different about it is that it has green coffee bean in it. I have grown to like that stuff. It's in the Bai, which I actually really like. It's apparently chocked full of antioxidants that you've got to be a fool to turn down. It's got a nice, slightly bitter taste that's more a different flavor than an actual "bitter" flavor but it's got a solid orange juice taste to it first which is important.

I wonder if antioxidants are going to be the new antibacterial stuff that people are worried about turning bacteria into super-bacteria with adorable little capes. Our bodies are slowly going to be immune to antioxidants and be filled with whatever antioxidants fight, probably oxidants, whatever they are. It's an endless struggle.

I've been burned by Redline before. Well not burned, more like an adrenaline shot to my heart, because I simply do not know how to read directions. It's recommended that you only drink half of the bottle. Being that I'm sensitive to caffeine I probably shouldn't even have drunk that much. I drank an entire bottle last time and I feel like I didn't sleep for a week. I of course forgot all of that and I grabbed a bottle before driving overnight from Kansas City to Chicago, after only sleeping three hours the night before. I got behind the wheel of the van, and downed the entire bottle. As soon as I did, the concentrated “shot” flavor caused the memories of a sleepless night to come flooding back.

I'll tell you what though, I drove like a champ. I went through rain storms, intense fog and a whole lot of darkness and I got us to IL by 10am. I pretty much didn't sleep until like 3am then. These drinks are insane. Sure they taste like energy drink shots that are so very, very diet. Sure there was some berry taste in but I just couldn't concentrate on it through the diet. I'll take that flavor though if it means it will work the way this does. Function over mouth fashion my friends.

Look folks, Mike and I are born and raised in Buffalo, NY. Even though I haven't eaten meat in 18 years wing sauce still runs through my veins. I've eaten my fair share of vegetarian chicken wings all across this country of ours, and yes they are chicken wings, not Buffalo wings, and I am highly critical of the sauce places use. There is a very specific recipe here in Buffalo and if it's not right it can ruin the wings for me. I was fully expecting to be disappointed in this, but not to this extent. This tastes nothing like chicken wing sauce at all. It just tastes like a citrus soda that has some spice to it. It's almost orange. It's almost grapefruit. It tastes like there is a healthy scoop of capsicum in there as well. If you took all that unappealing mixture and then watered it down you would have this soda.

I was afraid that maybe I was being too critical of it, so I had my friend Ruben try it and all he said was “I absolutely hate this” and then walked out of the room. The verdict is in, this is gross, and not appropriately flavored at all.

Now I am a person who lives a sober life. I haven't touched a drop of alcohol in twenty years, and I don't partake in any drugs. I understand the allure and I know they are fun, but they just aren't for me. That being said, when I was just in Denver I went to a weed dispensary, or a “Weedery” as I like to call it. It was amazing watching my friends in there. It was like watching them in a THC filled candy store. Actually, that's exactly what it was as they bought gummies suckers and all sorts of treats. I like seeing people genuinely excited and happy, even if it's not my thing. A couple of days later I came across this energy drink and I thought it was my turn to get in on the fun, as we had a dumb overnight drive, and that is where I shine.

I really hope for everyone else's sake that their candies tasted better than this beverage, because it was pretty gross. Other hemp drinks I have tried tasted like rope, but this just tasted like candied poison, in a very different way than most energy drinks do. It had this horrible aftertaste that almost tasted like Vemma, if it had spoiled. I couldn't even make it through the can, even though it was 4am and I was driving from Portland to San Francisco. Now that's bad.

Spindrift has expanded their company with a seltzer line. If you are a fan of their sodas, which are just juice and cane juice added to sparkling water, but think it's a bit too sweet then this is the drink for you. It's the same idea as their sodas, except without the sugar. In this case it's sparkling water that is flavored by small quantities of tangerine and lemon juices. The result is possibly the best seltzer I've ever tasted. It's very mild, meaning lightly flavored, but without being overly seltzer. This is the answer to less sugar in your life for those who are soda junkies. Actually it's probably not enough for the junkies, but I certainly like it.

If you've been anywhere near a pop radio station in the past five years you've probably hear Katy Perry sing about her “Teenage Dream.” Yes, I sometimes find myself a sucker for homogenated radio pop and I have no qualms with that. The reason I bring this up is because when I found this bottle of juice in a Whole Foods in Salt Lake City I thought I was going to get to know my middle-aged dream. I don't know any teenager who would be this excited about drinking a juice, but I know my fair share of people over 35 who would be pretty stoked. This juice combines kale, pineapple, cucumber, spinach, oranges, lemons and matcha green tea. I am a fan of greens (minus celery) and I'm not an complete idiot, so I absolutely love pineapples. On top of that I have never met a matcha drink (or food ) that I did not develop an instant crush on. In my mind I was going to take some long night drives to some beautiful overview and just spend some quality time with this juice.

Like a pop stat that did not live up to their record labels expectations, this juice failed to rise to the top of the charts of my taste buds. There are watered down pop songs, and then there are juices like this that rely too heavily on the greens side of their ingredients in a general way and not showcasing the pineapple aka the hook of the song. It just tastes like sweetened greens with a hint of citrus to it. It's hard to make out the individual fruits and vegetables, which is rare in the cold pressed game. This drink is the juice equivalent of Destiny's Child without Beyonce.

Even after all of that it's still a great juice, it's just unfortunate that it didn't go where I wanted and as a result it will probably slip through the cracks and not make it to anyone's top ten lists.

"They can't all be winners" is a perfect phrase for this drink. Based off the other ones that I reviewed, this is at the bottom of the totem pole. Also, I mean no offence to anyone who may find fault in my zero knowledge of totem poles. Are the best guys on top? I mean, I guess he's the most protected but he's also the guy who has to fall the furthest and would receive the most damage from falling. I guess no one wants to be the guy on the bottom because he's kind of an open target. Everyone else is on his shoulders and can't go very fast to defend the weapons that are slicing his innards up. But I digress.

Mixed fruits? Eh, it kind of tastes like a spicy candle. It's slightly plasticy tasting. Sure, it might be good for me but I don't get a lot of cheerful fruitiness out of it. According to the all-knowing label, it's got pineapple, grape and apple juice in it. That is a mixed variety of fruit but the turmeric is strong in this one. It does not taste like a spicy fruit punch but now that I think about it, I don't know if I would have wanted it.

I would be fine skipping this one for the other ones and I do not want to be anywhere near this guy's position wherever it may be on the proverbial totem pole. I feel like there are better roles than that in war.

There have been many reviews on this site where Mike or I have proclaimed that apple juice is one of the hardest drinks to write about. Unless it solely from a specialty apple, most apple juices taste pretty much the same, with various degrees of being watered down.

I can unfortunately say that this is not the case with Positive Energy. Sure it has a general apple base, but the addition of caffeine from green coffee beans leaves it tasting like the juice is going bad. We've been sent a jug of straight caffeine in the past, so I know what it tastes like all on its own, and I'm sad to say that the caffeine taste is stronger than the apple taste in this beverage. That is too bad because it only has the same amount of caffeine as one cup of coffee. The loss of flavor hardly seems worth it.

From the name I thought this was going to be a heavily caffeinated version of cherry Pepsi. Then I saw that it had zero calories and I thought that it was just a rebranding of Diet Pepsi, since the D-word is the new four letter word. Well, it turns out that both were right. This is Pepsi's new diet soda that has about 3x as much caffeine as the old Diet Pepsi. Diet caffeine to the Max bro.
Seriously though, this isn't that bad. I enjoyed it much more than the old version. I don't know how much of a difference there is to the actual formula, but it tastes more cherry than diet, and that is a very good thing. It's a less syrupy Cherry Pepsi with a slight diet aftertaste. It was a pleasant surprise that I might actually visit again.

Remember in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when the Nazi lets the woman choose the grail and she chooses poorly and when he drinks it he instantly ages, rots, and turns to dust? That was pretty sweet wasn't it? I mean not as sweet as when they open the Ark of the Covenant, but still really sweet. What they didn't show in the movie was that if Indy had filled the proper wooden grail up with the water it would have turned into turmeric golden milk aka the elixir of life. That is actually the backstory of this company. The movie is actually a documentary that was shot in real time. What they didn't catch on film was that the grail was eventually stolen by an unknown person. What is known is that this company got their hands on it and now everyone has the key to eternal life in the form of hemp milk.

Eternal life has a nice thickness to it. It also tastes like it has a very close familial relationship with chai latte. It's not like a brother or sister, but more of the cool cousin that lives out of state and who only makes it home one a year for Xmas or Thanksgiving. At that time they marvel the rest of the family with their tales of an exotic bohemian life. You would think that they were being a jerk, but that have such charisma that everyone loves them. That's exactly what this drink is. The combination of hemp milk, coconut cream, honey, turmeric, ginger, cardamom, chia, sea salt, vanilla bean, and cassia leaves you with an overall sense of well being. Not only that, but it taste delicious. That is hard to achieve, but I guess the Holy Grail helps.

Dark green tea. Sometimes the title says it all. When it doesn't, it can be co-labeled as a bottle of lies. This is a dark green tea. It's nicely bitter but bold and flavorful. It's unsweetened so all you babies can go cry in the corner like you hit your brother and mom caught you in the act because this is not taking any crap. Green tea isn't for everyone but should be. It's a wonderful drink that is better for you than even the dietest of pops. That's right. Dietest. You know what I mean. Long live Ito En. Long live green tea. Long live Jethro Tull.

I was recently out on tour working for Beach Slang on their tour with Cursive. My responsibilities run the gambit, and one of them is selling merch. Now most bands have tip jars at the merch table that allude to the fact that the tips will be used for drugs and alcohol At our table I have a jar with a sign that reads “Tips for (Root) Beer.” It makes people laugh, and in the instance of our Salt Lake City show it struck up a conversation with a local who hipped me to the fact that Wasatch, a local brewery, made a fantastic root beer. I was told that a nearby grocery store sold it, so as soon as the show was over I hoofed it over to the store and purchased two bottles.

Now it's a well-known fact that Utah has a high Mormon population. It's also pretty widely known that there is a cap to the percentage of alcohol that can be in beer. The people I was on tour with all agreed that it was a terrible thing; the beer tasted different and you just got overly full and felt gross drinking it. Due to these facts I am surprised that there aren't more sodas coming out of the area. Also, speaking of Mormons, this root beer is named after Brigham Young, the second prophet of the religion. That's a whole bunch of weirdness to me. That would be like having a Jesus cola. Actually, I would drink that all day long. Someone get on that. I'm looking in your direction Danny and Real Soda.

Now the laws may forbid the sale of beer that people actually like, but they say nothing about delicious root beer and this is the result. The flavor is full and creamy. The use of honey is always celebrated in my book, and it's inclusion is duly noted by me. I wish it were a bit stronger, but my rule is if you're using honey, go big. Most people probably don't think the same way. Overall the ingredients blend together nicely and the notes of vanilla and wintergreen are distinguishable, and not lost as they are in a generic root beer mix.

At the end of the day two bottles, simply wasn't enough, especially since I was sharing in the van. It's a wonder none of us got sick with all the soda bottles we were passing around all tour. That little box on wheels must have been a germ factory.

Over the past two years or so, cold brewed coffee has been all the rage. From your local coffee shop, to overly priced bottle at the grocery store the young, disenfranchised, too cool for school youth has been keeping a handful of companies afloat. Being as that I am a coffee drinker I cannot vouch that this brewing method really tastes all that different or, if people have just been drinking it because it's what they are told they should like. This was my first encounter with a cold brewed tea, and I was excited to see what all the hubbub was about and taste the rainbow so to speak.

My first thought was that this doesn't really taste like jasmine tea. I got no floral after taste in it, which is a bummer, because that is a flavor I love. Perhaps the floral aspect was lost with the addition of lemon. It's not often that you see a lemon jasmine tea. Actually, I think this may be the only instance in the history of time, and space. You can't forget space. I can tell you why no one has done it before. The reason is that lemon flowers are weird and no one wants them. On the other side of the flavor coin, the pomegranate was very present, so at least they weren't too far off in their naming of the flavor.

The bottle tells me that the benefits of cold brewing tea are that it extends the shelf life and maintains vitamins, minerals, and enzimes. Those are all good things, but I have to be honest, I did not taste anything special in the flavor. If someone handed me a glass of this I would assume it was regularly brewed tea, and never in a million years question otherwise. That is perfectly fine. I love normal tea. Sure I wish the jasmine taste was stronger, but overall this is a decent tea that I would happily drink again.

The best way for me to describe this beverage is to have you perform a little experiment. Go to your local corner store and pick up a pack of Extra peppermint gum as well as a pack of either Hubba Bubba or Bubbaliscious strawberry gum (whichever one is still in business). Now jam a piece of each in your mouth and just start chomping away. Once it's good and masticated take a swig of some bubbly water. Oh, I didn't mention you'd need that at the store; well you better head back, in the name of science. It's a good thing you have a bunch of gum left. Okay, water acquired. Now chew up some more gum, equal pieces mint and strawberry, and then take a big sip of that recently purchased bubbly water. There, now you know what this soda tastes like. It's really weird at first, but once you become acclimated with the strange flavor combo, it's fairly enjoyable.

Folks, Denver has come a long way in the last ten years. I remember the first couple times I visited there that I was not impressed. I had high expectations for the “Mile High” city, and they simply were not met. I recently made a return visit and I am singing a very different tune. I had amazing vegetarian food, I got to hang out at a barcade, I hung out with some old friends, and most importantly I got to skate one of the best skate parks I have ever come across. Keep in mind I haven't skated, other than for transportation in years until that day, but I got into it. The temperature was negative zero in Buffalo and I was outdoors in the sun skating and sipping on some juice. The juice that I chose was a perfect pairing for the day I had. To be fair this juice would pair well with most days in my life, because I can't think of a time when I wouldn't want a ginger beverage.

The ingredient that were combined to make this juice were apples, water, ginger and lemongrass. While the great natural ginger flavor could have saved most any apple juice, the one they chose to use could have easily stood on its own. It had a great flavor that bordered on cider territory. That is a good place to set up camp, right on the edge of cidertown. While I couldn't taste the lemongrass (I am more than okay with that) the ginger was on point with a mild to medium burn. Overall this was just fantastic and now that I am sitting back in cold Buffalo writing this from my notes I long to be back in higher altitudes just crushing the Galaga machine and getting the little bit of air that I am capable of achieving.

Take everything you know about protein drinks and throw it right out the window. Now just concentrate on what you know about chocolate milk, and make it a little creamier. That's what you have right here. The protein that is added to normal drinks of this variety, generally make them thicker and a lot of the time gritty. It's adding dairy onto dairy and the results can be a bit much. With this product the base is the thinner coconut water, so adding the milk protein gives puts it in the ballpark of regular milk, but creamier as I said. The Dutch cocoa powder that they add is great. If this were called a chocolate milk I might claim it to be the best I've ever tasted. Since it's not I will say that it is quite a tasty protein drink that goes down nice and smooth.

Tim Kasher is the front-man for both Cursive and The Good Life, as well as a solo artist. Jason was recently on tour with Cursive and Tim was kind enough to review Fitz's Coffee Cola for us.

Cursive just reissued a 10-year anniversary edition of their album "The Ugly Organ."
The Good Life has a new full length coming out this spring.
Tim also has a split 7" coming out with Chris Farren.

"Here. Come try this," my boss says to me. Since I am rarely on the other side of that statement, I had no choice but to accept the request. I thought it was going to be a bad invitation but it was actually a "Here. Come try this. It's good." not "Here. Come try this. It's gross." which is the route I enjoy taking.

Did it taste like smores? Yes, sir or ma'am. Well, I should say that it tasted like the ingredients of smores. Think of a deconstructed smore. You initially get the coffee from the Frappuccino itself followed by a split second of chocolate, then a lot of marshmallow and then some graham cracker. They're all there but at different times. It's fine by me. It was a nice jolt of flavor to wake up my day and feed my recent childish addiction to smores. Never lose your inner child. Smores are a gift and a treat and a treasure.