United States - 4098 Reviews

Congratulations, you my friend have found the golden ticket that entitles you to take a tour of the Wonka candy factory. I'd like to preface this by telling you that this is nothing like the movie. There is no river of chocolate, or crazy experimental gum that will make you float, and I must emphasize that you will not be put into the running to be handed the keys to the entire establishment at the end. Our factory is a factory and nothing else. It's just a bunch of big machinery that pumps out sugary goodness. There is a gift shop at the end where you can buy some of our goods as well. I would also like to add that this will be a long in-depth tour, as I like to explain every little thing in great detail. I am sick of the folks on my tour falling asleep, so here is a complimentary can of Red Bull. I must also urge you to not touch any of the candy as we move through the factory. The movie may have been fictitious, but the accidents it shows can and will be very real if you put your little hands where they don't belong.

Let us start off with the Pixie Stix machine. This machine powderizes the sugar and adds a little flavor...HEY! What are you doing?! Didn't I just tell you not to touch anything? Here you are dumping some of the flavoring extract for the blue Pixie Stix into your Red Bull. Oh great, the sugar caused it to fizz over and now there's a mess on the floor. Do you know how long it's been since we had an accident here at Wonka? Are you trying to ruin my streak? I don't care that it tastes like blueberry Red Bull now. No I really don't care! I am furious with you. Seriously I don't care. I can perfectly envision in my mind what concentrated blue Pixie Stix flavor and Red Bull would taste like together. I admit that it would taste nice, but my anger with you is complete and I will have to wait until after security has led to you to make some myself and sell the recipe to Red Bull. Oh think of it now the merging of two great companies. Mr. Wonka will be so pleased with me. Maybe he'll even hand the company over to me instead of some punk nosed kid. Oh yes I lied earlier; you were going to get the company. Instead you and your con artist of a grandfather can go back to living in squalor. How can a grown man pretend to be in pain and not walk for years and then just jump up and dance suddenly? I'm calling shenanigans!

Cucumber, eh. I'll try it. Zero, eh. Alright. I don't hate Stevia and/or equivalents. Together at last? We'll see about that. After some scientific discovery, I have come up with the following conclusions. This starts off well. It's promising. It smells like cucumber and tastes like cucumber until...oh...there it is, the badness. It's overly sweet. Too sweet, even. It's that fake sweetener "too sweet" where it's sweet and cold at the same time.

Remember when you were in your freshman year of college and there was that adorable little girl that, for some reason, liked you? She was like five foot naught and somehow, without access to a legitimate kitchen, would make you cookies and cupcakes but out of the genuine sweetness of her heart and not because cupcakes are "cool" and a fad. She makes them because she wants to be noticed. She is truly sweet and was probably unfortunately taken by some dirtbag on the lacrosse team who just didn't treat her right. That simile is not like this drink. The simile to this drink is the girl you ended up with for six unfortunate days that loved light beer and was not shy to show a little too much skin and was a bit of a floozy. You knew that you made a mistake. She never made you sweets but she once bought you a cake that she got from a college party that somehow was still in one piece but had a ridiculous amount of the world's worst frosting ever one it. That's this drink. Frat cake. Too sweet. Promising on paper but just too much.

Buffalo used to have a chain of convenient stores called Wilson Farms. They weren't all that incredible, but they were a staple of Western New York. A year ago, 7-11 swooped in and bought the franchise and has converted them all into their homogenized storefronts (as best they could given the various building sizes). A legacy is gone, but now Buffalo has a lot more 24-hour stores, which is great.

I will admit, I did not buy this bottle here in Buffalo. It was actually purchased in a 7-11 in Salt Lake City. But I recently (as in yesterday) moved back to Buffalo and have more to say about 7-11 here than a random one I went into in SLC. I remember I bought this because I hadn't had orange soda in a while and had a craving for it. While this wasn't the best orange soda ever, it definitely satisfied my craving. I would put this in the middle range, where most generic orange sodas lie. They're good, but not amazing.

Sometimes you date a girl who lives across the country and you go visit every other month. Sometimes things don't work out and you end up splitting up right before you leave from a visit. Sometimes your flight gets delayed and you turn around and said person is standing there asking if you want to get food. On top of that sometimes pizza and great soda can mend the relationship (for a couple more months at least).

Portland, OR's Hot Lips is a diamond in the rough. Well, not a diamond in a sea of bad food, as that city has obscene amounts of awesome veggie food (Vita Cafè I'm looking in your direction). It's a special place because it is a place where you can get a decent slice of pizza on the west coast. For the most part I don't even tough pizza past Wisconsin and even that is really pushing it. Hot Lips was great for its pizza, but even better for it's soda. They take local fruit and add sparkling water and a little cane sugar. If you've ever read Tom Robbins' “Still Life With Woodpecker” you know that blackberries run rampant in those parts. This is so simple and so wonderful. It tastes light lightly sugared blackberries, because that is exactly what it is. Why anyone would mess with a recipe like this boggles my mind. Okay, I understand that they want to save money, but they end up with a product that is not even close to this in quality, those big dummies.

I was always under the impression that this soda was only available in Portland, but my ladyfriend (of three years, not the previous ladyfriend which I mentioned above) found it in a health food store in North Carolina. I really hope Hot Lips expands their reach and takes over the country with their quality soda.

Fuze went a bit overboard and tried to mix ten million flavors together, and by ten million I mean six. There is a lot of text in this ingredients list and since most of it is fruit juice concentrate one would think that this would be a decent drink. Then you look at a different spot on the label and realize that there is only 5% juice in here. That's a lot of different juices to use to make a drink that is 95% other junk. It shows in the flavor too. It tastes thin and cheap. It tastes like generic fruit drink. These are not things that I look for in a beverage. This could have been in a giant gallon jug at a gas station and I would not have batted an eye. Okay, I would have because it isn't as thick as those beverages, but you get the idea. Sorry Fuze, you have not won me over with this one.

I worked at Fun Fun Fun Fest again this year and one of the big sponsors was Red Bull. Big as in you couldn't walk 5 feet without being handed a can of Red Bull. It was 80 degrees in Austin all weekend long so instead of hot coffee I drank cold Red Bull.

Just as I was getting sick of the taste of Red Bull, I came across this can in a cooler. It's as if they really wanted to keep to the "limited edition" of the flavor and only brought one can for every 10,000 because this was the first time I saw it all weekend. Regardless of it being new, I was excited for something different in taste.

And it's definitely different, in a great way. It's lemon lime flavored! It's not as if they poured 7UP into Red Bull, it tastes nothing like regular Red Bull and everything like a delicious lemon-lime soda. If this were a regular Red Bull flavor, people would buy this in stampedes and leave the old cans in the dust.

Blech. Oh you like sweet pop? Consider me your number one researcher because I have found some sugary stuff for you. This is cream soda but it is more sugar than cream. I've got two sips invested into this guy so far and I can just hear the blood rushing towards the loins of dentists due to the amount of sweetness just degrading my poor teeth. Otherwise unaroused, middle aged men who secretly but not-so secretly love their quasi-attractive, semi-overweight receptionists and not-so secretly hate their wildy attractive wives just losing their mind at the thought of tending to my dental work due to the unfortunate run in with this pop. Dentists who expensive cars they hate but drive regardless because of the looks they get from girls. Dentists who have personalized license places that say things like "N1CETEEF" and " NYDENT15T" and "BR4CE584." They all want me.

I stopped by Aldi today to pick up some more bottles of that Pumpkin Cider before the season ended, and they were gone. Bummer. I did find this iced coffee while I was there. I recently read a handful of books that take place in New Orleans, so the French name Beaumont stuck out to me. I was hoping that this was a product from Louisiana so that it would have chicory in it. I've never had it in coffee, but the way everyone I know who was tried it has talked about it that coffee seems like something I need try it. Unfortunately Beaumont is just a name and this is made in Illinois.

I may have been left with a chicory free coffee, but what I did have in front of me was one that was nicely flavored with Dutch cocoa. Let it be known that anyone who is a serious coffee drinker would probably think this was gross, but I liked it. Sure it had way too much milk in it and was overly sweetened, but when you're not 100% on board with coffee it's a nice gateway. The cocoa also gave it a nice chocolate taste, which didn't hurt. The more I drank, the more I realized exactly how much milk was in this, and I would say “Hey Beaumont, cut it out with the dairy!”

A few months ago when Dr. B's emailed us to tell us about their microbrewed teas I was very excited. It's no secret that Mike and I love a good tea, and if microbrewing could do to iced tea what it did for root beer, then everyone was in for a good time.

Dr B's obviously cares about the quality of their tea. They took the effort to use quality ingredients and brew them in a special way. By all means this should have been one heck of a beverage. The thing is the company had a lapse in their judgment. They wanted a healthy tea, so they went with a zero calorie sweetener. In that instant all of their hard work went out the window. I understand wanting to have a healthy drink available, but I wish they would have taken it the other way and not added a sweetener at all. There is monk fruit in all their teas and that would have given them a slight sweetness, which is all it would need. Unfortunately they went the Xylitol route and that cold sweetness is the most prevalent flavor in the mix. I really have nothing against natural zero calorie sweeteners, I just think that when companies decide to use them, they should use a smaller amount so it's not so overpowering. This could have been great, but instead it's hard to finish.

It seemed like everyone was either out of town or had plans yesterday so I started my winter ritual of wasting my time playing video games a bit early. Since my ladyfriend was one of the people that were out of town, the cats and I had the apartment to ourselves. I played far too many hours of Final Fantasy, until I got a call that Mike was available and he wanted me to come over and play even more video games. I swear outside of a couple of winter months I rarely if ever play these things. We ended up playing Home Run All Stars Derby for far too long and laughed way too much.

Since the day was filled with electronic fun I decided I needed to imbibe an appropriate beverage. My good friend Kevyn gave me this soda and this seemed to be the perfect time for it. The description of the can proclaims it to be a “citrus wired cherry soda” aka cherry soda with caffeine in it. I suspected it to taste like Mountain Dew Code Red, which it did, but much better. The base is like a cherry soda with a light Mountain Dew taste to it, but the kicker is that there is also orange in there as well. That's what sets the drink off, and gives you these weird orange burps afterwards. I was just struck by the vision of actually being able to see burps exiting someone's mouth and them having an orange tint to them. Strange times.

You would think that a drink that has little slimy chia seeds in it would have a lot to say about itself, but when I put my ear to this bottle all I hear is faint murmurs. The flavors in this line are tame at best. I guess there is nothing wrong with that. Some people want something that is only lightly flavored and this is a drink for them. Hell, I love lightly flavored unsweetened tea; it's one of my favorites. I just can't seem to get behind this. It's like you got a glass of water at a restaurant and they squeezed lemon slices instead of one, but instead of lemon it was equal amounts of strawberry and orange juice. That's about the extent of the flavor. If you take that and dump in a couple hundred chia seeds (that are essentially flavorless) you get this drink.

Would you look at that bottle? Seriously, just look at it. It's a work of art. This is the type of bottle that draws me into the fancy beer section even though I don't drink. Now Mike hands me a sparkling cider (that is pumpkin flavored no less) and tells me that it's safe for consumption. Well I am one happy camper. My letters home to mom won't be full of tears this time around. The kicker is that Mike found this in the most unlikely of places: Aldi. That's right, a budget, cost effective store has the fanciest bottle of cider I have ever set my eyes on.

When I popped the top, oh and how the top popped, I took a big sniff and was concerned to note that it smelled of Worchester sauce with some spices in it. My expectations fell through the floor. I had a friend smell it as well and he said he had a similar reaction. Oh well, down the hatch it went. I felt weird drinking this from the bottle, as I felt like I should pour it into a fancy glass, but you do what you have to do, and I had to try this instantly. Luckily the scent had nothing to do with the flavor at all. It's labeled as a pumpkin cider, but it's really just a nicely spiced apple cider with a tiny bit of pumpkin flavor mixed in. It's probably for the best, as I could see too much pumpkin being over powering. The best part of the flavor is that cinnamon isn't the prime spice like it normally is in cider. It's there, but it's not the all-powerful Oz or anything like that. If I had to pick a prominent “spice” it would have to be ginger. There's no burn to it (oh god that would have been the best. Simply the best. Better than all the rest.) but the flavor of ginger is there and I love Nature's Nectar for it. I also love them because I would expect this to be around the $4/$5 mark, but I looked online and it's only $2. I'm going to have to pick a couple up before the season is over.

I hate to always bring reviews of drink such as this back to this company, but this tastes like a diet Vitamin Water. Sure there are dozens of other companies I could compare it too, but I think most people are more familiar with Vitamin Water than those other companies, so it gives them a better base for comparison. Well that was completely unnecessary and boring.

I will say that while this is a fruit punch, it's not the type of drink I think of when I hear the words fruit punch. I think companies should avoid that phrase because it makes me think of Hawiian Punch and the like, which no one really needs to drink. This is not just a bog bottle of red syrup. This is pretty light and has a more adult fruit punch flavor. I think it's interesting that they still sweeten this with cane sugar, just not as much. They make up the difference with sucralose. The mixture doesn't give it that deadly 80's diet flavor that I dread. It tastes diet, but not like poison.

The thing that differentiates Agua Enerviva from Vitamin Water is that their drinks have guarana in them, which is a natural source of caffeine. There's not enough in here to make you crazy and jittery, but it's a nice slight push to get you through your day.

Black can. I have never seen it before. It caught both Jay and I off guard when we went to the store once again looking for new stuff. I don't know how Arizona keeps churning out new products. They've got to push out a new product every month or so and only two or three per year I know about. My brother loves Arnold Palmer so much. I don't know how he drinks it. I don't particularly enjoy it. It's a little too diet but that could just be the "Lite" flavor. I know a couple kids like that. I always seem them drinking either the regular or the "Lite" but never these new flavors. Why? It's the same base that you love with some more flavors. Safe flavors, too. Strawberry? Who doesn't like a strawberry iced tea or strawberry lemonade? I say "or" because I don't know which side the strawberry lies on. It's good. Maybe it's like 75% half and half and then 25% strawberry Arizona. You know they're just mixing tubes down there in the factory. It's like a bunch of dudes saying, "Alright bring me the green tea tube and mix it with this pomegranate tube and why don't you bring me over that watermelon tube and we'll see what we can concoct." It's like the Mexican restaurant of drink companies where they only have seven ingredients and somehow manage to make a four page menu.

This is good, though. It still retains a little bit of tea, a little more lemonade, and a decent strawberry taste. Maybe Arnold Palmer was upset that Jack Nicklaus got a strawberry lemonade and he wanted some of the action on that. Those golfers. Always competing. Lay off each other, gents. You guys did pretty well for yourselves in your prime. You've each got a closet of green jackets you can be proud of.

I'm not the mix guy here at Thirsty Dudes. The person you would want to talk to about that is Mike. He loves being a participant in the completion of a beverage. Personally I just want the finished beverage handed to me. Proof of that is that it has more than likely been over a year since Oregon Chai sent us this concentrate and I have yet to try it. Tonight the drink gods decided to shine on the northwestern company because my apartment is freezing and I'm a stubborn so and so that refuses to turn on the heat yet.

The carton tells me to just mix this and milk (almond milk in my case) in equal amounts. I did so and decided to give it a try cold. It's really sweet. So much that the sweetness overpowers the chai-ness and I think I even put in too much concentrate. Every Chai beverage I've ever had has had an overpowering spice to it, but not this. The spiced flavor is there, but it's pretty mellow. After I heated it up the sweetness subsided a bit and it was more balanced out with the spice. The more I drink it the more I realize how much I appreciate the lighthandedness of it. Now I'm a bit warmer and I can sit around reading feeling nicely terrible due to the amount of Indian food Mike and I downed at dinner.

Coconut: -2 points. Red Tea: +1 point. Xylitol: +1 point. Knowledge of the previous one I drank: -3 points. It took me some psyching to actually try this. I thought it was going to blow. The math just doesn't add up to something that is good. Now there is a lot to take into consideration when drinking this. Issue one is that the Xylitol in this drink runs rampant like lava flow through the ancient city of Pompeii. If you don't like this new blend of artificial sweeteners, just steer clear of this entire line because it is quite overbearing. That being said, it did a great job of covering up the taste of coconut. It's a little coconutty but not too bad. If you like coconuts, you might not like this because it's not as coconutty as you would like, I can assure you. It does manage to squeak in a little bit of a decent tea taste in between the violent tongue lashings from the Xylitol.

I hardly gave this drink a proper review but as soon as they get their mix straight and can serve me a proper flavor that doesn't taste like artificial sweetener with a hint of whatever flavor they're calling it, they'll get a decent review. For now, I work with what I have and that's not much.

I thought we had tried every flavor of Arnold Palmer. Then I saw this bottle, in a Fox News store, in the Houston Airport. Ironically just past this store was a PGA tour shop. This isn't my favorite, but the pomegranate is a nice change of pace to be mixed into the classic drink recipe. I wish this didn't have HFCS in it because it makes in unnecessarily thick tasting.

In my travels to the wonderful town of Austin, Texas, I found this bottle left in a co-op by Saint Arnold himself. It was an unexpected gift, but it was much appreciated for I hadn't had a new root beer in quite some time. Given that it is "old fashioned", I expected it to have a strong bite and rooty taste to it. On the contrary, it had a nice smooth vanilla taste to it. Saint Arnold brews a hell of a root beer and maybe some day he will leave a bottle somewhere else I'll be traveling.

Last night was the US Presidential Election, and Barack Obama will be our president again for the next four years. I was half-heartedly watching the election coverage on my laptop as I read last night. Watching states turn blue was a treat. I was waiting for the swing states to switch over (mostly Ohio, Florida and Virginia). I had decided that when Florida went blue I would celebrate with a nice orange soda to pay my respects to the people in that state who made the right decision. Time went by and Florida stayed grey. I got to thinking about that orange pop and I really wanted it. In my head I justified that by drinking it I would help usher on the counting of the votes. I think I messed things up guys. Luckily other parts of the country picked up the slack and the blue won, but I'm pretty sure the fact that I picked such a lack luster soda was what delayed the count (it's 11am now and it still isn't done).

Blue sky was one of the first organic sodas that I remember seeing on the market. In 2000 or so I remember going to the local health food store to get a nice seitan sandwich and I grabbed my first can of Blue Sky (not Orange Divine). I remember thinking it was good, but nothing spectacular. That's fine, not everything needs to be over the top. I thought I knew what I was getting into with this can. It has natural orange flavor in it, so I was expecting it to be a lesser tasting/more sweetened Orangina. I ended up getting something that was between a sparkling orange juice and your everyday orange soda, except it had been filtered through the general taste of a health food store. Something was definitely off about it. It tasted as if it had been lightly spiced for some unknown reason. There is nothing listed in the ingredient list that should give it such a flavor, so I'm stumped.

Again, I apologize to the folks of Florida for delaying the count of their votes. If I had chosen a better orange soda I bet this would be all wrapped up.

So I says to Dan I says, "Dan, remember how you were complaining about there not being enough oxygen in your water? Welp, here you go. Together we drink and together we are energized." I don't know why I went a little "80's Russian bad guy" there but I did.

It's water with more oxygen. No one asked for it but if you're going to further perfect and enhance water with no drawbacks, please, you are doing a good thing. Keep doing miniscule, minute changes/fixes to make the best beverage even better.