United States - 4098 Reviews

You know the park down the street from where you live? You know how occasionally you'll see a deer on the side of the road near there at dusk, and it will quickly run away? Well, that is because it just remembered that it's going to be late for the nightly deer meeting. That's right after everyone heads home from the part, and before the local trouble makers show up, the deer gather in the clearing in the little patch of trees that the little kids call the forest and discuss the news of the day. You know, things like which houses have gardens that aren't fenced off and where the best areas to sleep during the day are. Seriously where do they go? I have been in the woods, and in suburban fields that are the only areas where deer could go to sleep, and I have never come across them. Are they like Einstein and only sleep 15 minutes at a time?

Recently a point of contention at these meetings has been about where they should get their antioxidants. You see one of them came across a health magazine that had been left in the park by some turd and read the benefits of antioxidants. The deer realized they had been missing out on a crucial part of their diet, but none of the fruits mentioned in the article could be found in their area.

Ultimately they decided to ransack a convenience store after it had closed. One of the elders with larger antlers smashed the window and they all stepped right in. They tried a bunch of different beverages, but the majority of them preferred the acai grape flavored one. They thought it was fairly similar to another company called Vitamin Water (yes deer can read when they are from space, oh didn't I mention that part?) The drink was sweet, but light. It mostly tasted like the grapes they found on vines in the fall, but it had a little extra (light) kick to it. The best part was that this beverage wasn't nearly as sweet as the others. It was like fruit and water mixed.

Content, they headed back to the “forest” to get ready for the day of secret, hidden sleep ahead of them. Maybe they just slept in a spaceship since they were space deer.

Children of the 80's rejoice! We have discovered the source of the Glo Worm glow. It was not batteries and light bulbs like we always suspected. In reality the glow from those weird toys was mass quantities of aloe juice concentrated down. Seriously though, what was with those toys? They were stuffed animals that had hard bulky insides, so they weren't cuddly at all. In addition to that they were dolls based on creepy insects that glow. I would water that 95% of all of the children who owned a Glow Worm would have been super grossed out had they come in contact with the real thing.

Aloe Gloe is an organic aloe vera based beverage that aims to help with digestion, the immune system and skin health. It is unlike most other aloe drinks I've tried before because it is not overly sweet (a mixture of cane sugar and stevia leaves it at 4g of sugar), and it does not have any chunks in it. It's a whole different world from the sugary treats I normally associate with the plant. Since it's going for a healthier approach that makes a lot of sense. The white grape flavor that I have come to associate with aloe is barely there, and everything tastes a bit watered down. It is a called “Organic Aloe Water” so that makes perfect sense.

This is an aloe drink for the grown ups who actually take their health into consideration when they eat and drink. I with that either the aloe flavor was a bit stronger, or that the stevia flavor was a bit weaker. Either would improve this beverage in my eyes.

We're getting there. I feel like with this, a larger company in the world of diet and concentrates, using Stevia actively as their sweetener, we are getting off the sucralose, corn syrup, and aspartame train and onto the future Hyperloop. Yeah, I skipped bullet train and went right to Elon Musk's vision of a better, faster, cleaner tomorrow. Is this that much of a jump? No, not really. Other companies have been using Stevia for years but it's just nice to see that it's trickling up into the bigger dudes.

Not only does it have a natural sweetener, but also the taste in itself is pretty good. It's got great lemonade taste and a good, fruity raspberry taste. All together it's not too sweet and not really too much of anything which mixes can tend to be. This is right on mark.

With the proceeds from the sales of this, maybe they'll help build that dream train. I'll ride that thing and take a transcontinental trip at over five hundred miles per hour all day long.

Can we all agree that your everyday energy drinks make you feel like garbage in the aftermath? There is too much sugar and too many weird chemicals in them, and as a result you crash and you either need to drink another one like a junky, or you deal with the “shakes,” or should I call them anti-shakes? For me at least they are a “break glass in case of emergency” type item, or at least they were until we started up Thirsty Dudes. Now I have a civic duty to feel like moose trampled me.

The main, and classic alternative to energy drinks is to drink coffee. That is also not for me. I can enjoy it if there are tons of chocolate and sugar in the mix, but I just do not like regular coffee. Again, I really don't need all that sugar into my life either.

Runa is giving people another option. It is a sparkling juice beverage that uses the Amazon guayusa as a delivery method for natural caffeine and polyphenols. Each 8.4oz can contains 120mg of caffeine, which is more than in a regular cup of coffee. We're talking more energy per square inch here people. On top of that it actually tastes great. It has a never rainforest berry flavor going on. You know if acai actually tasted the way you wanted it too, and wasn't so intense.

Sure these cans cost more than a gas station coffee, but they are cheaper than you would pay for a coffee shop coffee, so why not go for the switch and drink healthier.

Neil Armstrong went to the moon but what he brought back was not only stories of golf on the moon and moon dust on his cool authentic moon boots. The other thing he brought back was kept secret until after he died. When he was up on the moon with his space cadet friends, he wandered off by himself to find a nice, quiet place to write poetry. When he was out on his own, he heard something whisper to him. He looked around and didn't see anything. Then he felt a tap on his shoulder and noticed that there was a deer wearing a Montreal Expos baseball hat. Neil fell back and the nice deer offered him a hoof to help him up and then invited him back to his house.

They opened up a crater and went down a flight of stairs into the deer's home. Inside he had seen things that he never seen before. The deer had a CD player playing Pet Shop Boys' "Please," and was cooking filet mignon for dinner. He offered some to Neil and he, who had nothing to eat but Tang and dehydrated ice cream had almost no choice but to accept his generous offer. Neil asked the deer where he got all this stuff. The deer said that it was a simple solution. There was a parallel universe "Earth" that was fifty years in the future and he made friends with the astronauts and told them to bring stuff up when they came back to the moon so they brought him food, music, and electronics. Neil was so excited to get a glimpse into the future.

The deer told him he had one more thing that he might be interested in and brought out two bottles of a black liquid and poured it into a glass. Neil asked what it was and the deer just said that it was water. Neil drank it and was speechless. It tasted like really sweet blueberries. He asked why it was black and if all water in the future was going to be black and the deer assured that it wasn't. He said that there was fulvic minerals that turn the water black and then said it was sweet because there was some new sweetener they were trying out and wanted to know that he thought. Both the deer and Neil liked it.

Neil told the nice deer that he had to leave and meet back up with his friends. Neil shook the deer's hoof and thanked him very much and went back to the ship. When he got there, Michael had a giant kiss mark on his face and Buzz was wearing an extra large Matchbox 20 shirt over his spacesuit. They all looked at each other and in unison said, "space deer."

I like that Arizona has been associating their new products with various “celebrities.” I have to be honest, I'm not a big art guy by any means, and I had no idea who Richard Prince was. The can (and Wikipedia) inform me that he was a photographer and painter who created pop culture-inspired art for decades. Apparently he is mostly known for “rephotographing.” If you want to know what that is; you're on a computer and Google is but a click away.

Prince also did a series of nurse paintings, which used the covers of pulp romance novels. This is where I tie in with the artist. Sonic Youth used one of these paintings for the cover of their Sonic Nurse album. It's ridiculous that learning that fact made me feel like I had a connection with the artist. It's not even a record that I like terribly much, but it is from a band that I once held very dearly.

Whatever. This isn't about an artist this is about a beverage. Apparently Prince approached Arizona with a soda he wanted to collaborate with them on, and ended up being apart of the Lemon Fizz release. The artist designed the can himself, so you're essentially buying a Richard Prince print for only 99 cents. What a steal.

Back to the beverage: This is carbonated lemonade, and it is great. I had such low expectations for this, as I expected a lemon lime soda (the most boring of all the pops) minus the lime (making it infinitely more boring). Arizona succeeded in creating a soda that actually tastes like lemonade with bubbles, and what harsh bubbles they are. It's very strong, so unlike most Arizona drinks it's a sipping drink and not a gulper. I don't think it really needs to be in such a large can, but hey that's Arizona's thing, so I'll let them have it.

It's no secret that the three of us here at Thirsty Dudes do not partake in alcoholic beverages. We're not jerks about it, it's just not for us. To paraphrase, “You're fun is not our fun.” When RESQWATER sent us some samples, we contemplated what to do. In the past we have had some friends get wasted and drink the product and give us a review of how it worked with us touching base about the flavor. It was a fun exercise, but to be honest it took a long time to come to fruition. People are busy, and our friends are older and not getting wasted all the time, we get it.

For this review we decided to take it another way. If I understand things correctly, a big part of what makes a hangover is dehydration. To mimic this, I ate obscene amounts of salsa with chips that were far to salty to be anything close to healthy, but tasted so darn good. In the past this combination has led me to feeling like crap the following morning, and I was told that I had the same symptoms of a hangover. So I did what I had to in order to replicate the scenario, you know like a reenactment on some crime show that is always on the TV. Yes, I know this is not exactly the same, but it's what we did, so deal with it.

I can tell you, my experiment worked. After being a complete glutton last night, I woke up feeling like cold diarrhea on a paper plate. Ugh. I got up sat around for a short while and then downed a bottle of RESQWATER.

First off, this does not smell pleasant. Actually maybe it's not all that unpleasant of a scent, but it's not what I want to smell when I'm about to drink something. It's something like a combination of fruit, vitamins, some sort of marinade and possibly meat. It's a weird smell that I was not expecting at all. The smell vaguely translates into the taste, but luckily it's not in a vomit inducing way. Mostly it tastes like a Vitamin Water version of prickly pear, but with a slightly stronger flavor. There is a bit of an adult vitamin taste to it as well, but it's sweet enough to mostly bury it.

This could be much worse, but overall it's nothing that I would drink for pleasure, which I assume wouldn't be the healthiest decision anyways. I would certainly drink it again if I ever woke up feeling like I did today. It didn't take all that long for my body to start feeling normal again after downing this. For all of you prone to hangovers due to your late night decisions, I suggest you keep a supply of this on hand.

Deep in the Hollywood Hills children need to step up their game with roadside stands. Kids grow up fast these days, and growing up and being popular requires money that they don't have. The days of the standard lemonade stand are long gone; the profits just weren't enough. These days the kids need to up the ante, or they will just have to kiss those new premium apps goodbye. As a result a new wave of suburban roadside beverages has risen.

It all started when some daring eight year old used her mother's seltzer water instead of the Evian that was customarily used (hey this is Hollywood, land of the yuppies). People were abuzz about this new development and there was a line around the block. From that point the children kept trying to outdo each other. They would flavor their lemonades in various ways to lure customers away from other stands. Some say there were a lot of backroom dealing and sabotage going on during this time, but there is no definitive documentation.

Then came the day that the Earth stood still. One little dreamer changed everything. That day a 100% Organic sparkling lemonade hit the streets. Since then the street stand game has never been the same. People came from miles just to sample this child's creation, and to feel good about themselves whilst doing so.

Limonitz attempts to recreate that greatness with their products. They use filtered sparkling water, organic lemon juice concentrate and organic sugar to make the finest carbonated lemonades this world has ever seen. On it's own it would be quite a product, but the company took it a step further with this drink and added organic ginger extract. The results are mind blowing. Here we have a sparkling lemonade, that not only tastes like real lemons without a hint of cleaning fluid, but also that actually has a real ginger flavor to it. It has a mind ginger burn to it, it's very mild to me, but my ladyfriend said that it had a decent bearable burn. Every ingredient is present in the taste, and there for a specific reason. It's simple, it's organic, and it's delicious. Needless to say this is going to put all of those dumb kids stands out of business before they can buy whatever it is kids “need” to have these days.

I lived in an apartment with my girlfriend and we had downstairs neighbors. We lived adjacent each other for about a year before we said as much as one word to each other. Why? Well I can't tell you for sure but it didn't hurt that the dude downstairs always went to work wearing a nice shirt, slacks, and was always smiling. That in itself is enough to turn me off because, as you might guess, I am a salty jerk off.

One day I helped the girl downstairs get a mouse out of her bathroom and we made friends. Later that week was Halloween and we were outside with our dog dressed up as a lobster and they came out and sat on the porch. We instantly hit it off. I judged a book by its cover and missed out on a solid year of potential friendship. This drink is much like my relationship with my neighbors. I thought this was going to suck because it's in a tall can, has corn syrup, and just looks like it's going to suck. It is quite the opposite. It is a very good juice that doesn't at all reflect its outsides. It's sweet, not oversweet, and tastes like a good strawberry kiwi juice. Yeah, it's got a little bit of an aftertaste of something but it's easily masked by another sip.

No I am only on the surface comparing this can of juice to the solid friendship that I didn't know I had one story below me but now I've got a juice that I've judged wrongly and a friend that I have scammed, schemed and hinted at having sexuals with each other's partners for the past five years that I wouldn't trade for the world. I would push this can into a bus to save him and I would not do the opposite. This drink is better than I thought. I could have started and ended with that but now you learned a valuable lesson about life and friendship. Make a friend and share a tallboy with them. You won't regret it.

I believe there is a flaw in the basic nature of this beverage. How I see it is that you would want to drink an energy drink prior to doing strenuous activity that would require hydration. Wouldn't you want that extra boost to help you push through whatever it is that you're doing? Does added hydration do anything previous to any sort of workout? I suppose you could sip this while you are in the process of whatever it is that you are doing. Would the energy boost hit you in time though? I certainly don't get it.

Another thing that I don't get is the flavor. Grape has got to be one of the easiest flavors ever (right along side orange), yet they have somehow messed it up with this. What little non-diet/energy flavor that is present almost tastes more berry than grape. Whatever it is, it's not very pleasant. It's certainly doesn't taste good enough to denote a 24oz can.

I'm going to stick to the one serving out of the three that are in this can, and introduce the rest to the drainage system in my house. It has no place in my person.

Earl loved celebrating…€¦too much. He was the guy at work that would somehow always find a reason for cake whether it be Sheryl in accounting, Sharon in accounts receivable, or Shannon in customer service. Cakes, assorted pies, and trays of cookies always seemed to be in tow when it came to Earl. On Halloween he came in and was very sad. Most of the people in the office were wearing at least some sort of hackneyed cat ears or devil horns. Sheila Larson from the front desk asked what was wrong and he told his sad story.

He was on his way to his car dressed to the nines in a zombie outfit. Full makeup, ripped shirt and shorts, colors contacts, and a well rehearsed limp. He was ten feet from the car and a car drove by and completely splashed him. It totally ruined his getup. His makeup was running, he was cold and wet, and genuinely was not in the mood to have any sort of party.

Lunchtime had come and everyone made their way to the company picnic where the office had decided to have a little Halloween party. Earl walked in and sat down and started to eat his sandwich. Just then, a handful of the women from the office brought him a cupcake with a Jack-o-lantern on it and a tiny can of pop. He looked up and smiled and said thanks. He ate the cupcake and was in a better mood but it wasn't until he drank that pop that he was back to his normal self. The pop they gave him was a Halloween exclusive flavored like a caramel apple. He had never seen anything like it. He loved to bring in candy and caramel apples to the girls at the office throughout fall so this little can was a treat. He took a couple sips and decided it tasted more like non-alcoholic apple cider with some caramel in it. That was close enough for him. He went outside and no one saw him for about ten minutes. Then, he came back in dressed as a janitor. All the ladies thought it was a great costume and wondered where he got it. Just then, Sam the janitor walked in wearing Earl's clothes that he just had on. It was a Halloween that Consolidated Cardboard won't soon forget.

Roberta Smith was new to town. She always dressed in black and her schoolmates used to call her “Wednesday Addams” because she wore black, collared dress almost every day. Her hair also looked like she had always freshly put something into a light socket. She always had her headphones on listening to the blackest of metal. When people would ask her what she was listening to, she would say that she was listening to “blood metal” which is not a real genre, but something to get the point across that it was very dark and often morbid. She had patches on her backpack for bands like Danzig, Type-O Negative, Necrophagist, and Cannibal Corpse and many more.

She came to school one day and say alone to eat lunch. She had a turkey sandwich, apple, Star Crunch, and a small can of pop. One of the bullies in the school came over and took the can from Wednesday. She demanded that he give it back to her. He refused and asked her what it was. She told him it was blood orange. He squealed like pig and practically threw the can back at her thinking it was made with real blood. Fed up with the abuse that she had taken, she chased the kid through the lunchroom and tackled him. She opened up the can of pop and started to pour some into his mouth. A teacher came in and broke up the scuffle and the students went on their way. The bully got up as Wednesday went back to the table with an arm full of sticky pop. He said, “This isn't blood! It just tastes like orange pop and grapefruit pop mixed together! It's actually pretty good. Thanks, Wednesday!” She smiled for the first time in front of her classmates.

After class, some students came up to her and told her that it was cool that she stood up to the bully and asked if she wanted to come over to their houses and play with dolls. She said, “Sure! Do you want to come over to my house, listen to Slayer and pull the wings off butterflies.” When the kids backed up in disgust, she would tell them, “Just kidding. We aren't going to be mean to butterflies but we are still listening to Slayer.”

Dear Trick or Treaters of the world,
When you are traversing the back streets of your town, begging for sugary confections I have on request for you. Actually it's not a request; it's a demand. You can keep all of your chocolates and suckers, your Wonkas and your Hersheys. I must request that you save all of your licorice and send it to me directly at the Thirsty Dudes offices (aka my apartment). I have no need of Sweet Tarts or Tootsie Rolls, I only need the sweet, sweet goodness of licorice. Let me be more specific, red licorice. You can keep any and all black licorice trash for yourself. Bring me your Twizzlers, your Red Vines and your Australian soft eating varieties. Red licorice is the ultimate candy, and when it comes to ingesting it, I have no willpower. I will inhale an entire package before I know what happened.

The folks at Jones certainly had me in mind when they made this soda pop, as it legitimately tastes like licorice. Sure the flavor isn't as overpoweringly strong as I wish it was, but it is more than just a hint. The flavor is more along the lines of Red Vines than anything else, and while it's not my absolute favorite, I can't really complain.

It's lucky for me that these are available for a limited time only, as I don't need this temptation on a yearly basis. Also, anything more than 8oz of this would probably be too much. This candy liquefied and stored in a can with wonderful bubbles soaring through it is as close to a dream come true as any man could ask.

So on November first while you're sorting through your night's haul, dump all of your licorice into a box and mail it to Thirsty Dudes International Headquarters. The postmaster will make sure it gets to where it needs to be.

The tale of Jin and Ja is as timeless as Disney would like you to believe Beauty and the Beast is. Two star-crossed lovers doomed because of their families…€¦wait that's not it. Is it something about a monkey and a talking car? Hmm. Whatever the tale we here at Thirsty Dudes are constantly on the prowl for the perfect ginger beer. The kicker is that I think I now hold it in my hands, but it's not a soda at all, due to its lack of carbonation. The perfect version of ginger ended up being some sort of weird tea type drink. I say that because it doesn't taste like tea at all.

Jin + Ja is a healthy elixir that combines ginger, cayenne, mint, green tea and lemon. It has one of the craziest burns I have ever experienced with a beverage in my life. It burns as soon as it hits your mouth, and it has an incredibly strong cayenne/ginger after burn. It's so strong that I can only drink the tiniest of all glasses at one sitting. I've actually been sipping on about 8oz of liquid for the past hour. I'm savoring every sip, which is how this should be enjoyed.

In-between the initial and post burn you get a nice sweet lemon flavor, with a very light hint of mint. The “heat” overpowers most of the tea flavor, but I'm not complaining. I just poured myself a little more, and the little that I poured makes me feel like I'm sitting here pouring shots for myself. Speaking of which, this would probably be a great mixer for some liquors.

My warning is that this drink is not for everyone. I seek out spicy ginger drinks, and this is almost too much for me to handle. My ladyfriend had the tiniest of sips, under duress, and she was writhing in pain yelling about the burn afterwards. Perhaps it will become the new” Cinnamon Challenge” or the “100 Warhead Challenge.” How much Jin + Ja can you drink before your head explodes like in Scanners?

I purchased this on a trip that I was sure was ultimately going to result in my death. On our last tour we played a last minute show at a coffee shop in Western Mass. We didn't know anyone at town, and didn't have a place to stay. Suddenly this 20 something year old gentleman approached us and told us he had been couch surfing and living out of his van, be he had a place we could crash, as long as we were okay with having a bonfire. We agree, follow him to a 7-11, where I purchased this soda, and then drove for what seemed like forever into the heart of nothingness. It seemed like we were nowhere near any sort of town, and even streetlights were nonexistent. The words of a bonfire got me to thinking that we were certainly going to be sacrificed. Most of my body was telling me to turn around and head the other direction, but we are poor and cheap and didn't want to spring for a hotel. Finally we turned into a driveway of a creepy old farmhouse. A single motion detector light came on and it didn't help our feelings of dread. The area was dead silent. There was no trace of any other human life for miles. We ascended the stairs to enter the house and I took a breath waiting for murder and mutilation. As he flipped the light switch I was sure a family of crazy hillbillies would be waiting for me, but instead I was greeted with construction equipment. You see at the show our host was vague about everything, but he quickly explained that this was his grandmother's house and she had passed away the year before. His parents were remodeling the whole thing, and it was to be their retirement home in the country. He showed us to some nice new mattresses for us to sleep on and then we went out to enjoy a nice fire on a chilly night. It ended up being one of my favorite nights of tour, and great conversations were had. In the morning light we saw that the place was probably one of the most relaxing places I had ever been. There were hundreds of cows in a field next door, pear trees and even a little waterfall in the stream behind the house. We were dumb dumb heads and we watch too many horror movies.

You didn't come here to hear about my potential demise though. You're here for sarsaparilla, and it's a fine place to be. Due to the caps I was expecting this too be the same mix that College Club and Avery uses, but this has a much darker licorice taste to it. I was very surprised at how bold the flavor was. When companies use the same labels for all their sodas and the only denotation of the flavor is on the cap, I expect something on the higher level of good, but not great. What was that something about books and covers? This is an exceptional sarsaparilla that Massachusetts is lucky to have readily available.

“Let's make Plan Tea plan A.” You're welcome for your new slogan. I'm sure the higher ups at Plan Tea have already thought of it, but come on it's great. Actually it's almost as great as the tea itself, almost. If this were only Darjeeling black tea it would be an excellent tea that would get a great rating on this website. The addition of the flavoring puts it through the roof and makes it one of the best ready to drink teas I have ever tasted.

Vanilla is an odd enough choice for a flavoring for iced tea. I've had it a few other times, but it's not common by any means. Whoever suggested using basil is a goddamn saint. They must have had a direct line to some sort of god who spoke to them in a dream and hinted at the use of basil. It's simply heavenly.

Both flavors are on the light side, but that it exactly how they should be. It's also mostly unsweetened. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but the only sweetener in it is a single drop of honey. It doesn't make it taste sweet by any means. It simply smoothes out the edges just a little bit.

I cannot exalt the greatness of this tea enough. Since the only place I have found this for purchase is over six hours away from me, I took my time and sipped it slowly. The next time I find myself in Brooklyn I'm going to have to stock up. If you or anyone you know are a fan of unsweetened iced teas I strongly urge you to give this a go.

All of you guys have your fancy coffees in your fancy tiny cups. Ohhhhh you're soooo cool. Tiny cups for tiny cups of coffee. When is it my turn? Oh, it's my turn now? What do you mean they've had iced tea and regular tea for as long as they've had coffee? Why didn't anyone tell me? Yes, I do feel entitled to know these sorts of facts. I love tea and you guys should have told me. Yeah, I guess you are bad friends. Seriously, if I would have known about these options I would have gone a lot softer on you guys about the whole "tiny cups" thing. I guess it wasn't that hard on you guys. So what do I think? I like it. Even though it's not the primary sweetener, you can tell that there is something diety in there. What's in there? Uhhh...aspartame. Great. It's got a good lemon tea flavor but I would far rather have a bottle of this exact same tea from the store. I just think that it's better, that's why. You know, you're coming on pretty strong about this whole "tiny cups" thing. Are you really that offended? Yes? Really? Really. Well in that case maybe we shouldn't be friends any more. If things like that are going to break us apart than this friendship doesn't stand a chance. Good day, shopkeep.

Tiny jugs: my least favorite in both sexual and beverage terms. Sure, they're adorable, but sometimes it just doesn't cut it. In beverage terms, which I will speak of from here on out, jugs of any kind rarely imply a quality beverage. Glass is king. Plastic jugs both large and small often contain milk, orange juice, or borderline swill. This is a step above the latter but nothing you should drink more than once a month.

This is pure sugar and you can taste it. Append that to the fact that it's not real sugar and is corn syrup and has that sting that crap juice carries along with it. Flavor wise it is that of a tropical Starburst but in liquid form so you get too much of what you love. Yes, it is true. If you ate ten strawberry banana Starbursts, you might get the sensation of each sip of this drink; highly concentrated fruit juice.

If you drink this on the regular, expect a knock on the door after the large population of the CPS reads this post. I don't know why, but those guys love this website. Probably because it's a simple way to track the sales of specific drinks to bad parents. I like to think I'm helping some people out there. In this case, it's CPS and the kids who have teeth hanging on by a theoretical thread.

Despite what Derek says I will always believe, and spread the word, that the name of this here website is derived from a Mitch Hedberg joke. “You don't have to be sweating and holding a basketball to enjoy a Gatorade. You can just be a thirsty dude. Gatorade forgets about this demographic. I'm thirsty for absolutely no reason, other than that liquid has not touched my lips for some time.” Funny? Yes. Truthful? Also, yes. Many times in my life I have drank a Gatorade or similar drink, while not in the throes of some physical activity. I was thirsty, it was a beverage that would solve my thirst, and on top of that it tastes pretty good.

With all of the above being said, I don't think I could ever see myself drinking one of these bottles of Cytomax for pleasure. It is a beverage with a specific function, and I think I will save it for that. Sure it's basically the same sort of beverage as Gatorade, but the difference is that along with crystalline fructose, stevia is also used as a sweetener in here. That just throws the whole thing off. It's citrus flavored in the way that popsicles are, but with the stevia it's like a natural diet popsicle. There is something inherently wrong with the idea of such a product existing. Since this is a performance beverage and not a frozen summertime treat, it is acceptable, but I wouldn't drink it just for enjoyment. I would drink it after spending some time on the court with that previously mentioned basketball though. That is it's intended purpose, so I suppose Cytomax has produced what it was aiming for.

This is so close to being amazing that it is so very frustrating. It hits your lips and you think to yourself, “this is one serious soda.” Not only does it not taste like those little strawberry candies whose wrappers look like the fruit, it actual tastes like berries. It has a wonderful adult berry flavor. I don't mean alcoholic, I mean that it's not overly sweetened to the liking of a child. It's still sweet, but not in a way that makes you fear tooth decay. It tastes like a soda you would sip at the end of a long day as you sit out in our hypothetical backyard and have a nice little fire. Oddly enough, it's the fire that I believe ruins this drink. Just when the going it getting good, the drink makes a left hand turn and the “Sprecher flavor” comes out to greet your taste buds. Since this is the only company that I can relate this flavor to, and this is also the only company I know that fire brews their soda, I blame the fire. I don't know how to explain the flavor exactly, but it is the thing that always keeps me from giving their sodas perfect marks. It's unfortunate, because I could see this quickly becoming a favorite of mine if it weren't for that weird after taste.