United States - 4098 Reviews

Touring in a band can be a draining activity. You don't get much sleep, and the small amounts you get are generally uncomfortable. On top of that you generally also eat like garbage. Don't get me wrong, it's my favorite thing in the world to do, but after a while I sometimes find myself getting a severe case of soft brain. It's times like that that I reach for a Moxie. Oh you mean you didn't know that the official beverage of Maine, Moxie, was originally created in 1876 to help fight the completely fictitious ailment known as soft brain? Well now you do, and you also know what to do if you ever find yourself in the grips of this infliction.

While I was in Maine, on the previously mentioned tour, I made my band mates stop at a grocery store so I could pick up a 12 pack of Moxie to bring back home, since it is nowhere to be found in Buffalo. When I went to check out I saw two different flavors of Moxie Energy Drink in the cooler at the register. My mind was reeling as to what these could possibly taste like. Obviously the best-case scenario would be liquefied candy mixed with the classic medicinal Moxie flavor. Unfortunately this was not the case. While the drink does contain it there wasn't a strong gentian root flavor (it's what fights the soft brain), but it also didn't taste totally like a typical energy drink. When I started the beverage had a strange orange flavor, but the more I drank the more it tasted like lime. It didn't have a strong taurine flavor to it either. It had a very distinct taste that I couldn't fully place. I want to say it tastes like Skeleteens soda, minus the burn, but I'm not exactly sure that was right on.

While I was disappointed that it didn't taste like one of my favorite sodas that it is it's namesake, this energy drink tasted better than most, but more importantly it tastes different, which is all one can ask for in the energy drink game these days.

One of the worst things I have ever drunk before was an Asian plum juice. I assure you it tasted like no plum I have ever eaten. I was later told that in Asia prunes are referred to as plums. I thought, “well that explains that,” but then I remembered that it didn't even taste like liquid prunes. It tasted like moldy wood and meat aka the absolute worst.

It's good to see that the fine people in Nantucket know what plums really are and how to juice them. I do have to point out that this is mostly water and pear juice so the plum flavor isn't the strongest, but it is still quite nice, albeit a little sweeter than I would prefer. It really should be called a plum-pear juice though.

My mind has gone off on a tangent. All I can think about now is a 100% plum juice. There would be nothing else in the bottle except the liquid that was squeezed out of what I imagine would be several dozen plums. I think taking a sip of that would be a little slice of heaven. Can you imagine that? Oh man, it would be so tart, yet sweet in just the right ways. I'm sure some cold pressed juice company will end up making it and charge $15 a bottle for it. I'm definitely one of the suckers who would pay it too.

When I was in 4th or 5th grade I got into skateboarding. It started out just skating in front of my friend's house, where we built a launch ramp and later had a quarter pipe. Eventually we grew bored of the scenery and took our adventure on the road. By that I mean we put on our backpacks, and fit our decks between the bag and our back so we could ride our bikes to new exciting places to skate. It seemed like we would ride forever to find a cool new spot. We would always end up at this one spot that had a little vending machine hidden amongst some bushes. It was no ordinary vender though because it only dispensed cartons of juice, well sugar water disguised as juice. They weren't very good, but it was always a spot that we would take a break, since they only cost a quarter.

While I was in Pittsburgh recently I found this carton of iced tea in a corner store. Sure they had the same tea in bottles, but the fact that it was in a carton made me think of all those days 25 years ago filled with riding bikes and skating. Holy crap I don't think I have ever felt as old as I do typing that out. The dust of my bones aside, I paid the 75 cents for the carton (damn inflation) with a smile and walking into the blinding sunlight.

As soon as I took a sip I remembered that some memories are better left in the past. The contents of the carton were the lowest common denominator of tea. The ingredients listed instant tea and powdered lemon juice, what on Earth is powdered lemon juice? It blew my mind that they would spend the money to use real sugar, but then skimp on the other ingredients. Overall it just tasted like overly sweetened tea water. After a couple more tentative sips I asked myself, “why the hell am I still drinking this?” and I dropped it into a conveniently placed garbage can. My childhood is now dead.

Arizona just keeps expanding their beverage lines. They have come out with at least a dozen new flavors this summer alone. I have a feeling that they may have more drinks available for purchase in the United States than any other company. Okay, I'm sure Coke or Pepsi has more if you count all their subsidiaries, but each of these proudly states that it is an Arizona product. Sure a decent amount of these drinks leave something to be desired, but a good portion of them are straight up pleasant.

After some success with their Jack Nicklaus Golden Bear line of lemonades they decided to expand a little and released this mint lemonade. Mint is a hard game to play. It's so easy to get overzealous and leave the consumer feeling like they are drinking something whilst chewing gum, or shortly after brushing their teeth. No one wants that, especially not the Golden Bear himself. In this formula Arizona decided to take it easy on the mint, so that there is just a hint in each sip. The lemonade itself isn't all that bitter, due to the use of HFCS, but it's something I can get around a lot of the time and in this instance, I can even thoroughly enjoy. This is a nice treat that would cool anyone down on a hot summer day on the greens.

Carlos was a man who knew his juice. He drank it all the time. He never drank pop and probably drank more juice than water. He drank more juice than he ate fruit. He likes the good stuff, though. He didn't drink run of the mill "drink" type juices. He went for the higher end stuff.

One day he was in a lull of drinks. There was nothing new and nothing interesting. All of a sudden he came across a bottle of Body Armor. He was attracted to the nice packaging. He read the ingredients and saw that it was gluten free which was a plus, and it was filled with not only orange and mango juice but also vitamins and minerals turning this into the "Super Drink" it said that it was.

He bought it without hesitation, cracked it open, and took a sip. He was pleased. Not only did he get a good tasting orange juice but also the mango kick was a good pair. There was also a ten percent bonus coconut water in there, too.

He felt good. He didn't feel like it was too sweet and actually the coconut water gave it a little bit of a different dimension with bite. He had found a new drink that made him a happy man.

Someday I will find a hazelnut and eat it. Will it taste like chocolate? Probably not. Will it taste like a nut? Probably. It will probably come in a shell that I cannot crack so I will end up putting it on the ground and stepping on it or hitting it with a rock like some sort of caveman. These actions will most defiantly crush the insides and I will have to climb a tree to get another one. Do they come from trees? Probably, right? I am hordiculturally an idiot.

Does this drink taste like Nutella? You know you're asking because anytime I read "hazelnut" I think of Nutella and why wouldn't I? It's a wonderful thing. So does it? Eh, not really. There is enough coffee taste in there that it's not like a liquefied spread. If you want to think of this as a mocha, you would be pretty much right. I might be able to tell the difference if I had them side by side but since I'm not made of money nor do I feel the need to drink two Frappuccinos back to back like some sort of ignorant college student who's cramming for an eight o'clock economics 101 final. For that reason I will say that this tastes like a chocolaty, caramelly, coffee drink that is very cold. It's like an adult Slurpee. Starbucks, if you want to use that internally, you can. All I ask is that you give me some sort of royalties. A drink a week? You can afford that. I can call the shots here. I'm in the driver seat and I know what I'm doing.

If a company thinks that we might have gotten a bad bottle, or they change their formula, and they want to send us some samples to re-review it, we will. There is no guarantee that our review will improve, but we're willing to give it a shot.

I think Core Power was right to send us more of these. When Mike reviewed this he said that it was nice and chocolaty, but that it had a definite diet undertone. While I do notice the taste of stevia a bit, I feel it is far outshined by the chocolate. This is in fact the most accurately chocolate diet drink that I have ever tried. Even better is that it is a protein drink without the chalkiness. If you search it out you can taste the diet but it's certainly not punching you in the face. I really think this may be as good as it gets with diet.

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Old Review:

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Oh she's far down the list, she is, but thar she blows. Stevia. This is very chocolaty. It's just what you want, but with those four little letters, D.I.E.T. it changes the whole game. This tastes diet. It doesn't taste terrible like poison diet, but there is no beating around the bush. This is diet. I am typically on the fence when it comes to protein drinks but I think that it lends itself well to chocolate because chocolate shakes are eternally wonderful. You don't get any of that sandy stuff in this, which is a great thing.

All in all, this is a blatantly diet chocolate protein drink that is actually a tolerable attempt at being both diet and protein. Success? Yes. Success.

New Orleans, I would one day like to be inside of you. The love for Cajun spiced food runs deep in my veins. I also hear that you make fantastic sweet tea. You know what you don't make well? Pineapple pop. This, without any sort of hesitation, is the worst pineapple pop I have ever had. I think I know why you don't make good pineapple pop. It's because you don't know anything about pineapples.

Look, I'm from New York. What do we know about pineapple? Nothing. You can say that right back at me and I have to agree with you. We are in this together, The South.

Now that you know that we know about each other's strong suits, I'm really going to hammer it home. This is awful. It is a dense, thick, syrupy abomination of a drink. I don't know how this left the test bed. It's so bad. Maybe it's the tester's fault. Perhaps all that Cajun spice has dulled your taste buds like when you stupidly use a knife to cut things like rocks and stuff. Dull. Flat. Terrible. Your spices and your crawdads? You've got that nailed, buddy. This though, leave it in the dust. It blows.

Hank went on a cruise. Hank loved cruises. He would go anywhere that the boat told him to go. He was like a lemming when it came to sight seeing. The people at the docks would say, "Sir. Do you want to go to swim with the dolphins?" and he would almost never not do it. The only time he would say no would be when he saw a souvenir shop in a country that he hadn't been to and just needed to get a key chain to add to his collection.

Hank loved going to shore as much as he loved going on the ship but when he was on the ship, he would eat a copious amount of fruit. One day, he came from the shore with a coconut. He knew that he would have to use it before he got back to the States because they couldn't bring it back into the country. He decided to have some fun with it.

He went to the cafeteria at night and got a bowl full of fruit. He got cherries, apples, pineapples, and oranges. He brought them to the kids pool which was now empty as the kids were asleep. He hated getting sticky so he went into the pool with all the fruit. He started mushing up all the fruit into a cup; one fruit at a time into the cup. Finally, when all the fruit was properly mushed up, he put some of the coconut juice into the cup. He took one sip and regretted not doing it sooner. It tastes like a fruit punch that was properly sweetened not with corn syrup but with the natural sugar from the fruit as well as some raw sugar packets from the cafeteria. It was slightly chalky because of the coconut water but still very drinkable.

Just as he finished his drink, some of the deckhands saw him and chased him out of the kid's pool. He ran away holding his cup but dropping a trail of squished fruit and seeds along the way. The security aboard the ship found his room easily and just told him not to make a mess in the pool anymore. He obliged and sat quietly in his room and drank what was left of his concoction.

Sometimes when you're working out in the old cranberry swamp you need to take some snacks with you. It can drive a person crazy to be working around a potential food all day, but it's not in a form that is easily ingested. It's these times you bring along a sack of grapes to help pass the time and sate your hunger. What happens when you become mister butter fingers and you drop all of your grapes into the bushel of cranberries you've just gathered? Well, it obviously doesn't result in you spending the time to separate the grapes out. You're too lazy and they certainly don't pay you enough for that. What happens in reality is that you end up with cran grape juice. That's nothing to complain about.

Grape juice is one of the best juices readily available in any grocery store across America. It's delicious, but it's a little strong and you can't drink much without getting an ache in your guts. It's so strong that it's one of the few juices that can overpower cranberry juice. This mostly tastes like a nice purple grape juice with a cranberry aftertaste. Each juice is normally intense and I couldn't drink more than a glass at a sitting. When they are combined by Ocean Spray I think I could drink a gallon for breakfast.

Are you tired of energy drinks all tasting the same (ie. like some candy Willy Wonka dreamt up)? Well Vemma has a solution for you with their “insanely healthy energy” drink. Now I have qualms with them saying this is actually healthy as I don't think it's helping your health at all by drinking it, but I will say that after perusing the ingredients list and seeing what is in it I will concede that it is a “healthier” version of an energy drink. It may not cure, nor prevent illness, but hey it's an energy drink and it's not supposed to.

The base of the drink is mangosteen juice, and its caffeine comes from green tea and aloe vera. It also has taurine and a bunch of B vitamins in it, but you take your health where you can get it nowadays. When you open the can it has a weird almost bubble gum smell, that I don't understand. I don't think I can actually taste it. I think I can, but I also believe that the smell may be planting subliminal flavors in my brain. Overall this tastes more like a weird juice than it does an energy drink, and that is a great thing.

This is also the more intense energy version of the beverage. I drank this around 1PM as I had to go to a family party, then another party, and then another. I didn't think I would make it through the day. I also knew if I drank this later in the day when I actually needed it I would never sleep. So I drank it early. Around 6PM I started to crash. I made it through, but then by 9PM I was back with a crazy second wind that was anything but natural. I hadn't had anything else caffeinated or anything like that, so I can only hold this drink accountable. I came back with a fury and I felt like I had drunk three Red Bulls. Luckily by the time I was ready for sleep around 2AM it had worn off and I passed right out. Now that's efficiency.

I am currently a denim demon which means...well it means a few things. Thing one is that I side with Canadians in their outfit of choice. Two is that I have a poor sense of fashion. Third and the most related to my point is that fall is upon us. Sure this is my "go to" outfit for Spring, too, but we're not talking about Spring now, are we? We're talking about Fall so pay attention and stop thinking about Spring. They're like the same season. One is getting warmer while raining all the time and the other is getting colder while raining all the time. There, I put it into perspective.

Since fall is clearly upon us, I thought that a good way to go would be the "I'm not done with Summer" route with a lemonade. There are certain things I like about lemonade and one of those things is pulp. I enjoy nice, pulpy lemonade. It makes me feel like a kid and their mom's dirty hands were crushing lemons to make an enjoyable drink. This does not have pulp and although I cannot really penalize them for it, I can still want it in there for cripes sake. There is a good sour taste to it and, as mentioned on the bottle, there is real blackberry juice in it, which you can taste, and tastes good. Made really makes good lemonade. No, this is not as good as the blueberry one, but it doesn't mean that it's not good. It's a great, sweet lemonade that I have unfortunately never seen outside of a discount store which means that either people never "got" Made or that they made too much. I hope it's the latter and not the former because they made a consistently good product.

Can we all agree that Christopher McDonald is one of the greatest character actors of our time? On top of being a great actor, he also has come of the best character names in cinematic history. From Reed Standish to Travis Cole, he has perfect antagonist names. Of course who could forget Shooter McGavin? I could only think about him as I drank this. A man who takes breaks from the golf course to sell his line of misleading juice drinks. Misleading you say? Well the bottle clearly states “No Added Sugar,” yet the ingredients clearly show that it actually contains sucralose. I guess technically sucralose is not sugar, but it still is a sweetener, albeit a zero calorie one.

I'll tell you what, if they weren't a bunch of big fat liars and had omitted the sucralose, this would be a nice little drinks. Sure it has a bunch of added nonsense, but the base of it is a decent tasting juice. Raspberry juice is rare, although I would kill for a nice cold glass of pure raspberry juice to accompany my dream glass of cantaloupe juice. Mixed with the strawberry juice it's nice, and I think kids (who this is marketed toward) would really enjoy this. The reality is there is only 10% juice in here, but I could easily over look that if that pesky sucralose wasn't present. It may not be strong in the taste, but it's still there and annoying.

Stopping at a gas station was difficult for James. He had a bit of a "thing" when it came to using public toilets. It seems that most times when he goes to use a rest stop bathroom, he has to get a key chained to a giant piece of wood and then when he gets into the bathroom it smells and there is almost all times feces on everything. James has had bad luck with bathrooms to say the least.

One time he went to a gas station in Maryland and needed to go to the bathroom. He knew what he was in for but knew that he had to go through it all the same. He talked to the attendant to get the key and the attendant was a kind, attractive young woman who said, "Oh, I'm sorry sir but our public bathroom is out of commission." James really had to go and the woman noticed and said, "Sir? If you'd like, you can use the employee bathroom. It's right through here." James light up like a Christmas tree. He was so happy that he was getting treated with respect and that someone was helping him out at a gas station for once. The bathroom was in immaculate condition and he couldn't be happier. He left the bathroom and thanked the woman.

Thirsty, James scoured the drink cooler and found a bottle of a lime iced tea. He thought that he had grown tired of lemon and regular iced tea and it was time for a change. He thanked the lady for the use of the bathroom and her sunny attitude and then left.

In his car, he took a sip and was once again pleasantly surprised. It was a naturally sweetened iced tea with a good but not overpowering lime flavor. James' bad gas station streak was over. He put his keys in the ignition, started the car, put the car in drive and began to drive off when he heard a loud sound. He stopped the car and looked around but didn't see anything. He continued to drive and as soon as he took his foot off the brake it made the same loud sound. He stopped the car and got out only to discover that his wheels had been stolen. His best gas station experience had promptly turned into his worst.

This is such an odd drink to review. I drank about ¾ of the bottle Monday evening, and I decided I was not in the right state of mind to properly convey what this is all about. Here I am two days later, and I still really don't have a clue. Every time I open the fridge this bottle is staring me right in the eye, daring me to write something about it. I'm at the point where I can't take it anymore, and it's now or never.

The main construct of the contents of this bottle is coconut water. The thing is that with the added fruit and extracts, it barely tastes like what you would expect. I even had to double check to make sure this was coconut water, like the other flavor I had reviewed a few months ago. It is, but it has such an odd, yet interesting taste. Papaya, a fruit that smells like vomit, but tastes delicious, is present. I do believe that it is the camu camu extract that is running the show here. According to the internet it tastes like a mixture of hibiscus, berry and citrus. I can't pin down a great reference to the way this beverage tastes, but I would say that is a appropriate enough description of this odd flavor. I don't know if I have ever tasted anything like this before, and that is exciting, because it is new, and doesn't make me want to blow chunks.

In addition to tasting strange this drink is actually healthy. It is antioxidant rich, it has zero fat or cholesterol, there are only two grams of sugar in the entire bottle, and it's chock full of a ton of vitamins. It's a wild ride that you don't have to feel guilty about, so you can keep getting back in line and ride it over and over, until you are the one who blows the previously mentioned chunks.

I'm on tour right now and the band I'm with just played at Slo Brew in San Luis Obispo, CA with Titus Andronicus. People got us excited about this venue because it's also a restaurant and they feed all bands that play here. All the band members were asked what they wanted but they didn't think to ask me, the merch guy.

Then my good friend Max Gregor came to the rescue and bought me a slice of pizza and this huge bottle of root beer. I was totally surprised and it made my night. The pizza was as good as I was going to get in California, but the root beer was pretty decent. It's a local brewing company and you can tell this isn't their first batch of root beer. It has a nice sweetness, but not too sweet. It's a very "safe" root beer and would be a good introductory to someone new to root beer outside of Barqs and Dad's.

Sometimes you decide that you're going to hike an 18 mile creek. You decide to do it in parts. Before you know it summer is almost over and you still have a bit of it you haven't explored. So you go out and hike it on an unseasonably nice day. The thing is that the area you have left to hike is much longer than you had anticipated. Eventually you get to where the creek ends on the map, and you find a pretty neat waterfall. Being the scientist you are you deduce that the water must be coming from somewhere so you climb up, almost falling numerous times. At the top you see that the creek goes on even further than you had thought. Being the dummy that you are you forgot your water in the car. You decide you reached your goal and your dehydrated and fed up with walking on uneven rocks, so you make your way through the woods to the road. The road back to your car is long (over four miles) and there are no stores on the way. You feel like you're going to die, and have convinced yourself that you need to go up to a house and knock to ask for a glass of water. At that moment you catch the scent of grapes in the air. Across the street there are rows and rows of grape vines, so you go steal a few handfuls, and hydrate yourself with their sour juice. The thing is you eat too many, and it starts to corrode your tongue. Eventually you make it back to the car, and of course your water is too hot to be refreshing, so you hightail it to a 711 and pick yourself up a bottle of lemonade.

Summer may be ending, but it's still hot for the time being, so why not sneak in one last bottle of the official beverage of the season? Snapple did it right with their Lemon Daze line. It has a ton of sugar in it, but that is the way lemonade is supposed to be. It's made with real lemon juice and it has a nice tartness to it. Unfortunately that tartness felt like hell on my grape corroded tongue, but I still enjoyed the drink. It cooled me down and refreshed me just the way I needed it to. Oh I also drank like a gallon of water, but it didn't taste nearly as appropriate as this. Oh, I seem to have slipped into the first person. That's just poor writing, but that's what you get with Thirsty Dudes.

Hey Gus, as we have learned through the last couple of years you have some very good fruit sodas, but as soon as you venture into the world of “brown” pop that all goes out the window. You have found your niche in the soda world, and there is no need to be greedy and make every flavor. Stick with the fruits and you will have a prosperous future.

Speaking of which, I recently had a bottle of your Star Ruby Grapefruit, and I must say kudos. No, not those fake granola bar treats from the 90s, I mean job well done. As a fan of grapefruit, and pop of the flavor, I will admit that a lot of the time the “big” brands take it a bit too far. The vision of the fruit is lost. You stayed pretty true. You took some grapefruit juice, cut it minimally with orange juice to get rid of that overly bitter edge, then added some sparkling water and a bit of cane sugar. 22g out of 12oz isn't bad at all. It is nearly half of what is in a can of Coke, or more fittingly Squirt. The end result is a soda that actually tastes like pink grapefruit, but doesn't give you that sour face look.

Gus, you're a good guy, and you have a great little company going. I just wish the world would realize what I have so this could be more readily available.

Body Armor is back with a couple new flavors and a few old ones reworked a little. The release of the new “mixed berry” flavor is an update to their Raspberry, Blueberry Goji beverage. The packaging is basically the same as the old version, and the flavor isn't that far off as well. It tastes of many berries, antioxidants and coconut water, which is good because that is exactly what it is.

It's nice that there are so many options out there in a world that for years was Gatorade or nothing. I would say that 8 out of 10 times I would choose this over a classic sports drink. As an added bonus to the flavor with each bottle you get 2.5 times the electrolytes as a bottle of Gatorade and 2 times the vitamins that are in Vitamin Water. You're getting flavor and more functionality. It looks like this is a win-win.

I should start by saying that what I wanted to drink today and review was a milk tea that Jay and I picked up with Editor Dan on some random trip to Toronto. What in the world were we doing there? Nothing? Just getting drinks? There had to be a reason why we went. Well anyway, that was last year and that milk tea expired in January of this year. Yes, January. We are now in September and this drink, containing milk, expired eight months ago. I thought it best to play it save, chalk it up as a loss, and drink something a little safer.

Which brings us to this drink. Once again, the lovable and beardable Editor Dan bought us a handful of drinks, this being one. I am an enormous fan of the Hint, Ayala, and infused waters. This, though, was different. What was different? Well, if you couldn't guess, it was carbonated. If you have ever drank a sparkling water, AKA "seltzer" you know that there is a strange almost bitterness to it. This contained that oddity. It's strange that if you add carbonation to regular water it tastes like you've carbonated water that has been sitting in a cup for a week at room temperature. This tastes like regular old seltzer water with watermelon flavoring. It's not as strong as say a Polar or Seagram's seltzer, which makes it "worse." "Worse" is a relative term but it's simply not as good.

If you're going to want infused water, get a regular Hint because they are pretty wonderful. If you want a sparkling Hint, stop wanting that and just get real seltzer water.