United States - 4098 Reviews

NOS has decided to delve into the world of sports drinks. If you weren't careful, this could easily be mistaken for a bottle of Gatorade or Powerade or Genericade. They all have what plants crave, but this one also has caffeine. I like that companies started to include the amount of caffeine on the label because I can see this bottle has the equivalent of a couple 12oz cups of coffee.

But you didn't come here to learn how to prank your friends who love sports drinks but are sensitive to caffeine. You came here to find out what this tastes like. Well, the flavor description is pretty accurate in this case. It's like a fruit salad that no one would ever make, but is surprisingly not that bad. It's not as refreshing/thirst quenching as normal/non-caffeinated sports drinks though. It tastes like a lot of non-carbonated energy drinks we've had. So in that respect, this really would be a mean prank to pull on someone.

Life is rough when you live like common people. Life is exhausting when you do whatever common people do. When you stay out all night to dance, drink and screw there's nothing else but feel like complete exhausted hungover garbage in the morning. Jarvis Cocker left that out of his little life lesson that he gave with his band Pulp.

Fear not common people of the world, there is help for you and all the rich turds who are slumming it. The answer is the wonderful Coco Cafè. It's a carton of coconut water (to rehydrate you) with a shot of espresso mixed in (to help wake you up when you have a lack of caffeine in your blood stream and a lack…€¦wait wrong English lyricist.) The results are wonderful, and to make things better they have now added chocolate to the mix to improve the flavor to even higher levels. Oh did I mention that it tastes like dark chocolate, because it does and it's wonderful. The drink is a bit bitter because of everything involved, but that doesn't detract from it; it simply makes it seem more adult. Too bad a lot of adults are morons.

I myself am not a common person, nor am I a pretender in such matters. I don't need this drink for the reasons stated above, but I still enjoy the hell out of it.

Not often but sometimes companies contact us to review their drinks. Typically they have drinks that we just haven't seen and we welcome them with open arms. This one, though, just barely made it. We don't usually review hot tea. We have reviewed a few but for the most part, it's not really controlled and everyone brews their tea differently so it's a lot harder than just opening a bottle and drinking it. That being said, I was convinced to review this tea so I did it.

You've got green tea and you like it. It's nicely bitter with a nice, classic tea taste. It's been around for a trillian years. It's loved by most. Along comes good 'ol Texas and changes the game with their own bitter tea. Now we don't need to go overseas to get our beloved bitter leaves. This is right in between a green and a yerba mate in the taste. It's a strong tea but not something that was just found in the desert and turned into something. This feels almost native and recently "discovered" by the white man and sold back to the country. I don't think that's the case but it has such an earthy taste that it would take a push from someone to drink it instead of the previously mentioned teas.

I would say that I want to see more tea, iced, hot, sweet, et cetera made from this because I really like the taste. It's not for everyone because it is strong but to those that want a real tea and not a weak Earl Gray or something can have something now. I'm glad that I was convinced to drink this because it is just as good as advertised.

I should also be the big man and use my powers to let you know that this tea is made by a small company out of Texas and really believes in it. If you are a hot tea person, give this a try. I don't think you will be disappointed.

In the life of a Thirsty Dude one drinks a lot of drinks. I mean a whole lot of drinks. There are gems and there are stinkers. One thing that has happened is that I have found myself drifting away from the old standards, you know the big guys that have been around forever. Instead I drink a lot more boutique beverages, which normally use natural sweeteners. I'm happy to do it, and so is my metabolism.

I couldn't tell you the last time I drank a Cherry Crush (one of the few brands who's flavor precedes their company name when people speak them). I can tell you that when I wore the clothes of an older man when I was a younger man (thrift stores, what can I say?) I really enjoyed this soda pop. Drinking it now, I'm borderline disgusted as to how thick it is. I feel like the syrup they used didn't have enough water added to it. I have no doubt that this is how it always was when I drank it before, but I was ignorant of the other ways soda could be sweetened. Seriously, the thickness paired with the fact that a lot of cold medicines are cherry flavored leaves me feeling as if I should be sick drinking this (Please don't drink this while you're ill, it won't help anything).

After all of that complaining, I have to say this is a textbook cherry pop. It was certainly the first one I ever had as a child. The majority of the populace of the United States would never think anything was wrong with this, as they are used to HFCS sweetened sodas. It's sweet, it's fake fruity, and you get exactly what you would expect from it. It's the standard, but sure the standard could use some updating.

It's impossible to drink this without singing the well known bossa-nova tune from the sixty's The Girl From Ipanema. I was fine with that. I enjoy that song. More songs today should adapt that sound versus those garage/garbage sounds from a similar era. Not my cup of tea, that stuff. I'm a groove man.

I have had many bottles of this prior to review. Why didn't I review it before? Oh, I don't know. Maybe because I might want to enjoy a drink with a meal without having to remember how it taste to bring it home and write all about it. Sometimes I just enjoy drinking drinks. This though, it's worth drinking three times. It's got a great pomegranate taste and the erythritol does wonders to actually compliment the bitterness of a real pomegranate. It doesn't taste too sweet and the sweetener doesn't junk up the flavor. I really like it, can you tell? It's one of the best Bai drinks and an easy decision when it comes to buying a drink at the store with a meal since it's only ten calories per bottle.

Getting smarter, drink makers. Getting smarter. Keep it up, Bai. You're one of the good ones.

Sometimes your at a time and place in your life where your nutrition needs to come from a shake/liquid. Perhaps you work out a lot and need to replenish what you lost whilst getting ripped. Perhaps things were a bit more sinister and some creep punched you out of nowhere because he thought you were eyeing his lady friend when in face you were trying to watch The Simpsons in closed caption on the television that hung behind her at the bar. Perhaps you are just an idiot and thought, “Hey I saw them try to jump the Springfield Gorge on that episode of the Simpsons I watched at the bar last night in closed caption, I'm going to try to do the same at my local gorge, except I'm going to actually make it.” Of course you didn't make it. You haven't set foot on a skateboard since you were twelve and now you're paunchy and 34, so you no longer have teeth to eat solid foods.

Whatever your reason, If you're into the taste of blueberries and vanilla and the consistency of slightly liquidy yogurt, this drink may be for you. To be honest, I could use a whole lot more vanilla in here. Had they used the same vanilla that is in their straight up vanilla shake and just added some blueberries to this is would be pretty magical. Instead it has a general yogurtness to it, that I kind of disliked at first, but didn't mid after a couple of sips. The blueberry taste is right where I want it to be though, so that is also good. Overall this isn't bad, but it could have easily been made great as I mentioned above.

It is a little known fact that in the offices of Blue Buddha they have a giant statue of the Buddha. I know that probably doesn't sound all that interesting, but I think you will change your tune, when I tell you that the insides of the statue are hollowed out, in order to make room for…€¦get this…€¦an iced tea dispenser. How cool is that? Oh you're offended? Well let me tell you this friend, iced tea is the key to my enlightenment, and I'm sure the Buddha is cool with me achieving it any way that I can. The gross part about all of this is that the only place they could think to have the tea come out of was the nose, everywhere else just made a mess. They are professional people, who entertain clients in their office, and a messy Buddha just wouldn't cut it.

So you're interested in trying their hibiscus raspberry tea, well then you'll step right up to the ole' enlightenment dispenser, place your cup under the nose, and pull the left earlobe. I said left! Great now you've got some raspberry lemon. No problem, I'll drink that one, you can get a new glass. What do you think? It's got a great flavor doesn't it? The hibiscus and raspberry blend in well together to create a slightly floral berry flavor that really isn't all that floral at all. In fact it's nearly perfect. It's really just a green tea, but since hibiscus is in the mix it can be called an herbal tea to make it seem fancier. Whatever you call it, it tastes wonderful.

The one thing that the folks at Blue Buddha wanted to get away from is the idea that you have to be fat like the Buddha in order to achieve enlightenment, so they mix in some stevia with the cane sugar. The result is only 8g of sugar in this whole bottle, and it doesn't taste very diet. If you didn't know, and we're familiar with stevia, you probably wouldn't even guess that there was a zero calorie sweetener involved at all. Low calorie drinks have come a long way since the days of aspartame.

Please don't stick your hand in the Buddha's mouth. It' the ice dispenser and it's very sensitive, we don't need your grimy hands monkeying up the works.

I do get excited when I see new drinks. Not to discredit them at all, but I do get a bit discouraged when they are store brand drinks. Target's Nature Market or whatever it's called has some pretty good stuff but I can't help but feel like it's just rebranded stuff from some other company that was nice enough to sell to Target. Target, you guys are alright. I spend a lot of time inside of you in the least gross way possible but in the most gross way possible, there are always horrifically gigantic turds in your toilet and you should maybe patrol them a bit more. To drinks!

I do enjoy blood orange and I do enjoy essence waters like Hint and Ayala's so when I saw this and it was colored, I was a bit skeptical. "Essence" implies...well...magic flavors are extracted and injected into the drink. Never have I seen one with color, which just makes me think that it's a "Vitamin Water" type drink. That's fine if it is, but don't call it an "essence" drink. Call it something else. There is an association between words in this language we use and when you call something a specific title, people think it's going to be something. End rant. Begin review again.

This was a good drink. I don't know if I have ever seen let alone eaten a blood orange but this is good in comparison to other blood orange drinks. It was light and was sweetened by both regular old man sugar and new jack Stevia derivative, which Jay scoffed at but I rather enjoyed. You didn't get it until the very end. It wasn't too heavily sweetened even with the team of sweeteners and fruity so I would say that it was a success. Target! Another success!

Is Shaq really that relevant in this day and age that he should be the spokesman for a drink? When was the last time this man made any sort of news? I mean it's been almost a decade since his Shaq Fu album came out and he's retired from basketball. I simply do not understand the reason for handing over a bunch of money to someone who is no longer in the spotlight, especially for a company that is already so established. I can only hope that the owner is just a huge basketball fan and Shaq was his favorite player of all time, so this is a dream come true for him (or her).

Even though I don't understand the endorsement, I was very intrigued by the idea of a blueberry cream soda. I've never tried one before, and it sounded wonderful. With one sip I knew that I had been correct. This was amazing. Then, about four sips later, I changed my mind. While this is great for a couple of sips, it becomes too much very quickly. Shaq is a big man, and this comes in a big can, and it's more than anyone would ever need. Everything was in place for this to be great: It's sweetened with real sugar, it has actual blueberry juice in it, the cream flavoring was from bourbon vanilla extract, and it had honey in it. I normally love honey in drinks, but I think it might have been the downfall this time around. There is something a little off with the taste that is not blueberry or vanilla and the only thing I can think of is the honey.

I let this sit twice and then went back for a couple more sips hours apart and each time I really enjoyed it for the first couple of sips, and then it would go south again. It's a shame. I will say that I do love the artwork on the can. It's goofy and wonderful, and it uses halftones in the best way.

It's over 80 degrees today. For someone like me who hates the heat, it might as well be 110 degrees. I decided to go on a long walk and drank nothing but water so I wouldn't pass out. But i'm back now and this blueberry juice cocktail called my name as I walked in the door. No, not literally. This isn't Wet Hot American Summer. Although maybe after this I will go fondle my sweaters... I mean make fondu with cheddar.......

This can is tiny. It's the cans of juice you get on airplanes or when you donate blood. It's good, but it's very watered down juice. When I think blueberry juice I want it to be full and sweet and a little tart aftertaste. This just feels like someone took a couple tablespoons of pure blueberry juice and mixed it with some water and sugar. I don't know what I was expecting, but this is forgettable.

Inko's is a company that for years has been known for its use of white tea. Well, they decided to branch out into the realm of other types of tea as well as into aluminum cans. I can firmly announce that these folks know what they are doing no matter what the tea medium. Upon opening the can the air in your immediate vicinity instantaneously reeks like Teavana or some other high-end teashop that you would find in the mall. It's a magical scent that is fruity with a strong under base of tea, which I feel other companies should strive for. I've spent way too much money in such shops and I have never been disappointed with the products I received in return. While the contents of this can are not completely up to those standards, it is one of the closest ready to drink teas that I have ever tried. It tastes like mango and passionfruit were dried and mixed into the tea batch pre-brewing and not like it was an added flavoring after the fact. That is the sign of a good tea. My only complaint is that it's a tad sweeter than it needs to be for my liking. There are only 13g of sugar per serving, with two servings per can, but as someone who loves unsweetened tea, it's just not needed and it detracts from the greatness of the natural flavor of the tea and the fruit. Don't let that deter you though, for your average drinker it probably won't seem all that sweet at all. I'm just becoming more and more of a tea snob every day.

I didn't realize yesterday was the first day of summer until someone on Facebook posted about it. Shows you how much I pay attention to stuff like that. I think the only people who know about that kind of stuff are those who work in offices with someone who just loves to bring little factoids like that up because they have nothing else going on in their life and don't know how to have a real conversation that isn't about yesterday's episode of the Maury Povich show (which they record on their programmed VCR because they can't be bothered to upgrade to a DVR like the rest of the world).

So yeah, I didn't know yesterday was the first day of summer. Does it really matter? Not really. It wouldn't have changed my day at all. I would have still gotten crappy news, and I still would have seen one of my favorite bands play at a new venue in town. Most importantly, I would have still drunk this lemonade because it's 1:30am and it's stupidly hot. I've been lying in bed thinking about what to do with my summer while watching The League and unsuccessfully sleeping. I felt parched and remembered I had this jug in the fridge.

Most people probably think of apples/apple cider when they hear the name Mayer Bros, but let me tell you they make a hell of a lemonade. Granted this is the first lemonade I've had this summer so far, but it's going to be hard to beat. It's tart and crisp and the perfect sweetness. Most importantly, it has that indefinable "pink" flavor that is just so good. Do yourself a favor and pick up a jug of this lemonade during the summer heat. You'll thank me later.

Update:
Hawiian Ola has updated their formula a bit by adding some pineapple juice in to the mix and it makes a world of a difference. Say “So long” to the harsh bitterness and cuddle up with some tropical fruit flavors. It's a shot, but I would have no problem drinking a full glass of this, well minus the dumb amount of energy I would receive with no outlet for it. Even though I'm sure it's not in any way true I will choose to believe that Mike's review of the original formulation, which can be read below, was directly responsible for the update. We have that kind of pull here at Thirsty Dudes, right?

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Jeez Louise. I have drunk some strong drinks in my day but this might push some unlucky contender out of the top five. Note to the weak tongued, this is one bitter drink. It's like a concentrate of yerba mate and green tea but tastes between a really bitter tea and, for reasons unbeknownst to me, an old coffee taste.

After a while when your amazement and tears subside, you get a little bit of a concentrated fruit taste. There is nothing you want in this drink but because it's a shot, it's like they just want to make it easier for you to get everything you need. I think if you took this tiny bottle and poured it into a proper pint glass and just filled it with water, this might be a pretty good drink. Alone it's pretty gnarly. Not bad, just overpowering of all good things.

To those who say "You can't have too much of a good thing." should drink this and will presumably say, "You know what? Fruit is good but they could have cut back a little bit. These good things were properly too much'd."

Cheribundi has expanded their line and is stepping up their game. First off that is one great looking packaging. Sure the bottle itself is really nothing too crazy, but everything from the colors to the typeface to the tasteful picture of cherries is absolutely perfect. It's so simple and esthetically pleasing. Lucky for us the taste of the liquid it contains is also just as pleasing.

The jasmine tea base in here is not as floral as others I've tried, and I think that is for the best. Don't get me wrong, I love a nice floral jasmine, if that is all that it is, but once you add other flavors to that, a toned down version works much better. Since this is a company who is known for their cherry juice, I had expected this to be exploding with cherry flavor. A lot of companies overdo things that way, but just like with the design, they knew that less would be more with this. There is a nice cherry flavor that is a little tart, but overall it's pretty subtle in the mix, and it intermingles nice with the tea. The one thing I would change about this is that it is a little sweeter than it needs to be. I personally enjoy my jasmine tea unsweetened, but I understand that the tartness of the cherry also has to be taken into consideration. It is my opinion that if the amount of added sugar were cut in half the drink would have greatly benefited and would have earned a full five bottles. Hey, four bottles on Thirsty Dudes is nothing to scoff at, but I always hope drinks will win the whole pot.

How to the people at Brisk sleep at night, knowing the damage they have wrought to the world of iced tea? Brisk is to iced tea what sour apple flavoring is to apples. They are about as far removed as you can be from the original and still share a base name. It just gives iced tea a bad name for those out there who haven't (for some reason or another) tasted real, decent tea.

While I disagree with this line, I have to admit that this flavor is a little bit of alright. It is not amazing, it's not even really all that good, but I did have a one liter bottle of it, and over two sittings I drank the entire thing. None of it got dumped down the drain, like I had expected. White it definitely has their classic “iced tea” in there, the lemonade makes up for it. It gives it a nice balance, and on a nice hot day like today I will begrudgingly say it hits the spot.

I am concerned that the ingredient list reads: water, high fructose corn syrup…€¦. Seriously, the sweetener so high on the list? That's just kind of disgusting. Shockingly there are only 44g of sugar in this entire bottle. I expected it to be in the 60s, but that is still a lot.

Come along with me, if you will. Travel with me back in time to an hour ago when I ordered this drink. I says to the lady I say, "I'll have a strawberry iced tea." to which she responds with, "It's unsweetened." and I responded with, "That's even better."

Cut to five minutes later and I'm sitting down and I take my first sip and think to myself, "What the heck just happened to this iced tea?" I take another sip and see what's going on. What they did is take the unsweetened tea and pour an allocated amount of strawberry puree into it. It is actually very good. The strawberry takes a bit out of the tea, if I'm being honest. I enjoy the taste of unsweetened tea so if they cut it down on the amount of puree and let the tea shine through a little bit more, this would absolutely be something I come back to time and time again.

A nice walk back to the office with a little of the ice melted cut down on the sweetness and turned the once good drink into a really good drink. Wendy and your squad of workers, you have done good by me today.

Purple stuff. We've all seen the Sunny D commercial so you all know what I'm talking about when I say that. Purple drink is a little more kind to say, as it is drinkable. This energy drink reminds me of purple drink. It has a purple/grape taste that is hard to mistake. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's just nothing to write home about. As far as energy drinks as a whole go, this is definitely in the top 50 percentile.

I still think I would like it more if there was a cartoon bee on the can. But sadly it probably wouldn't be the bee that is in my head with a Rambo headband/armbands, bulging muscles, wounds, etc... Now that I'm typing this out, it sounds like a horrible idea. Don't listen to my can design suggestions Killer Buzz.

It's a beautiful day out, so you decide to lay out in the back yard, while listening to a little Air Supply and get your self a tan. Oops, you almost forgot two crucial items before you walked out the door; your tanning oil and a nice refreshing glass of pomegranate juice. As you sit down in your weird plastic tube lawn chair that has existed since the same year you bought that Air Supply cassette, you start lathering up. It's been so rainy and cloudy lately that you haven't been able to work on your tan as much as you wanted. You were so excited that you didn't even notice that a huge glob of your coconut scented tanning oil fell right into your cool refreshing beverage.

There you go. Now you have a vivid image of what my ladyfriend told me this drink tasted like. I can't argue with her. I had high hopes for this, but unfortunately the coconut in here falls too close to the toasted coconut taste that I despise, which leaves it tasting like your at the beach and you licked your lips after the tanning oil you slathered on your face dripped down a bit. I really wanted this to taste more like classic coconut water, but it wasn't meant to be. At least it has a great tasting pomegranate base.

Coffee fans in the unreachable corners of the world rejoice! Now you can turn up your nose at the rest of the world like regular, fancy, city folk in the privacy of your own home. Go ahead. Grab all your computers and books and put them in one room and pretend to work while you sip your coffee and milk Starbucks iced coffee just like if you were in a real Starbucks. Listen to the latest Vampire Weekend out of your laptop speakers too loud while you blog about the people around you and how "lame" they are. While you drink this nicely sweetened, nicely flavored coffee drink, you can pretend you can close your eyes and imagine that you've got something better to do that what you're doing right now. You drink this cafe quality drink and shake your head at all your relatives that come in the door because what they are wearing is so last season.

As soon as the bottle is done, you can take one more coffee scented sigh and return to the life that you were living before that bottle of downtown life came into your possession. Maybe next time the boat drops off supplied to your tiny village they will have another case of them to fight over. In the mean time there is no shortage of coconuts and playing cards. Have fun.

Seriously, how many flavors does Gatorade have? Every time I think I know them all I turn around at a store and an unfamiliar face is staring up at me, just taunting. I think there were less than five varieties when I was a kid, and I was okay with that. Then they expanded their line and things got a little lighter, and I thought to myself, well that actually is much better. Now there are so many that I can't even keep track, and the thing is that unless I drink them side by side, a lot of them taste very similar.

A little research told me that as of now the Fit line is no longer in production, but that it should be back next year, after some reformulating/repackaging. With this line they were trying to ensnare gym rats into their empire. The entire line included a pre-workout protein bar, a fruit based protein drink for while you work out and these low calorie versions of their normal drinks for post gym time. For me that is far too much to worry about. I'll drink water when I work out, and occasionally a protein drink afterwards. Then again I'm not fanatical about the gym. I'm not trying to get ripped, just to stay in some moderate form of health.

So yeah, this line didn't quite catch on, but it tastes okay to me. It's low calorie, but they get there by mixing sucrose and stevia, so it doesn't have an overly diet taste. The stevia is there a little, but it's easily ignored. The beverage is clear, which is strange for Gatorade, but I understand they are trying to give the illusion of it being a better alternative to water while working out, and any sort of coloring in a drink would take away from that notion. The flavor is the lightest I've ever tasted in a Gatorade flavor. It's hard to distinguish the mango or passion fruit, since they are normally such prominent flavors. By dialing them back it gives the beverage a general tropical flavor that hints at each, but doesn't go overboard.

It's too bad that this line didn't catch on, well at least these post workout drinks. They make for a decent low calorie beverage that doesn't taste like poison.