Erythritol - 101 Reviews

In space, no one can hear you scream. This is fine because everyone up there is texting all the time anyhow. It's worse than Earth. Everyone up is there is emoticon-ing so much more than down here that they had to invent phones that have an extra row of keys that are just different emoticons. LOL, ROFL, ASL, and WTF, are so last decade up there. No one talks anymore.

That isn't a bad thing for everyone, though. When word gets out about a new product, since everything is digital and instant, everything happens super fast. When the latest shipment of Earth food came up there, there was a case of Zevia strawberry pop. Some of the people split it up and instantly started raving about it. They said that it was sweet and had a real Stevia taste but the taste of actual strawberries was stellar enough that everything blended together wonderfully. Also, like in the movie Wall-E, everyone is disgustingly obese and rolls around in abandoned Lark scooters so the zero calorie thing really helps.

Does anyone else out there find themselves at points in their lives where they just plain need a can of soda? It's not the sugar, or even the flavor that I'm really after. I just sometimes get this itch in the back of my throat and I know the only way I'll be able to appease it is with some carbonation.

At times like these I'm glad that Zevia is around. I usually don't want a sugary drinks at these times, and the stevia they use makes my scratching utensil that much healthier. Unlike most diet sodas they actually taste decent. The diet death taste of sucralose and aspartame are not present, just the cool sting of stevia (as Mike says).

The cola flavor in this leaves something to be desired, but the cherry flavor makes up for it. For a second I forgot that I was drinking diet pop, which I guess is the end game for most diet things. If the cola were a little better this would remind me of Cherry Coke.

In the world of all sodas, this would get a 2 or a 3 bottle rating from me. In the world of diet pop this is a 4 all the way.

NASA has been having some trouble with their astronauts being little piggies. No lie those space commanders have become real porkers. Long gone are the days of the fit and cut astronauts from our youth. Instead they look more like your unemployed uncle on a good day. NASA decided something needed to be done. Not only is it bad for PR, but also the extra weight causes issues with the flights. They decided to launch a two tiered attack. The first thing they did was to start serving healthy vegan food in their cafeterias and on the flights (that is seriously not a lie, I just read about it today). Secondly, they decided that all of the sugar that “Major Tom” was injesting via Tang wasn't helping at all. After half a century the relationship between the two companies was dissolved and our space scientists teamed up with Glaceau. Instead of the uber sugary Tang, astronauts now ingest a stevia sweetened alternative called Rise (get it, because they are rising to space). It really taste exactly like Tang with stevia instead of real sugar, but they do it well because they use less than 1% of the sweetener. It has a slight diet sting, but it's mostly orange, and you can't really ask for more than that. Now they just need to up the treadmill time. How are they supposed to find God (aka any array of Bowie characters) out there if they are too fat to get off the ground?

Mallory, a dedicated woman, was determined to acquire mangos. She loved eating them and what made them better is that there was a large competition to acquire them, as there were limited quantities and a lot of demand.

One day, merchants infiltrated the town Mallory lived in and kidnapped her and made her work in their orange orchard. When working one day, she found a tree of blood oranges on the fringe of the orchard. She then got put in jail while trying to escape during one of her shifts. She wouldn't tell anyone where the blood orange tree was. When released, Mallory immediately ran back to the blood orange tree, harvested as many as she could and escaped to a nearby village where she wasn't in danger of being found.

Thirsty, Mallory juiced some of her precious blood oranges as well as her favorite fruit, mangos. She used a local Stevia plant to sweeten it, a trick she learned in prison. She took a giant sip of it and was ecstatic. She had escaped the kidnappers and made a delicious juice. It tasted like blood orange, followed by a little mango, and then closed out with the sweetness of the sweetener. She settled into the town as a juice maker really solidifying her brand with her initial drink.

She would never forget the terrors that she faced in her past but looks forward to a bright future of juicing.

Jay and I are like brothers. Here are some little known facts about us:

1. We moved in together on someone else's suggestion after about two days of really knowing each other.


2. We wrote a ton of songs about barbecues.


3. We lived together without having a single fight.


4. We've seen each other's girlfriend's naked. Not current ones, but one girlfriend back each.

That's a close list of stuff, right? What more do you need to know you are compatible? Nothing. Jay knows what I like and he saw this Made and knew that it was a drink for me.

The cranberry of this drink is the number one flavor. It's prevalent and very strong and bites you the whole way through this euphonious ride. The lemon comes and goes. It's there but it goes and you don't miss it. The green tea does the same, but the cranberry easily trumps the bitterness of it. There is an odd but very Made flavor and it might be the final ingredient, Sucralose. It's not a deal breaker, ladies. It's fine. If I saw this again, I would drink it. I would recommend it to a friend. That means a lot because I drink a lot.

Jay and I like Made. Jay and I like each other. Jay and I like cooking on a grill with friends. We're great to be around. Find us. We'll entertain you.

Do you know how coffee is produced? I certainly had no idea until about a year ago when I visited a coffee plantation. Okay, I had an inkling when we got those Bai drinks to review that are made with coffee fruit. The point is that it grows on bushes and there are these little green berries. Once the berries ripen they turn red, and are harvested. Inside the berries are the coffee seeds or beans, which are dried and roasted to brew the coffee that you drink for your get up and go.

When the coffee berries are still green they still contain a decent amount of caffeine, so Starbucks, amongst other companies, have started using them to make alternative energy drinks. These drinks aren't quite coffee and they certainly aren't traditional energy drinks, but they still give you a nice little boost without any added chemicals.

This little guy right here is quite aromatic. As soon as I cracked it open my car was greeted with the scent of strawberries. It's one of their weird two tier flavored drinks. While it's in your mouth it tastes like a nice watered down, carbonated strawberry lemonade. It's not tart at all, but it still has that lemonade flavor. Then when you swallow the slight bitterness of the coffee berry kicks in, and the berry flavor fades away. When I was at that coffee plantation I tried a green coffee berry and it was incredibly bitter on it's own. The sweetener in here takes care of that a bit, but it lingers some in the aftertaste.

I do wish this was stronger on the lemonade side of things, but for an energy drink that doesn't taste like your run of the mill toxic garbage, I can handle what they give me.

I think it's safe to say that 95% of the people in America wished they were in better shape. From the slob couch potatoes whose idea of exercise is reaching for the remote to folks who spend a good deal of their time at the gym, everyone would like to improve themselves. It's natural. People are supposed to be active. Companies know this is how people feel and they play to it. Why do you think there are so many “diet' drinks out on the market? So L'eau took it a step further. They didn't settle for a drink that had less calories and fake sugar. They went out and created a natural body supplement (I have no idea what it is) that actually aids in weight loss. The bottle says they ran studies with this supplement and the woman who took it lost significantly more weight than those who did not. After that success they produced their supplement in drink form. It basically tastes like Vitamin Water Zero, as both are flavored waters that use Erythritol as a sweetener. This bottle is supposed to be mixed berry, and it has a subtle berry flavor to it, but unfortunately the main flavor is the zero calorie sweetener, and it just gets stronger with each sip. You might think, “Well that's not that bad, I'll deal with the flavor if it will help me lose weight.” The rub is that in their study the woman who used the supplement had enough to equal three bottles of this daily for 8-weeks and still did a bunch of exercise. It's not a magical cure all, but it apparently does help a little. You just have to drink a buttload of it.

Jeremy had a very limited space at his farm but since farming was in his blood, he never gave it up. He harvested only strawberries and herded one thing, which oddly enough, were dragons. Yes, sure the strawberries encroached into the dragon pen but the dragons never cared about having to eat them. Jeremy didn't mind either. It was a lot cheaper than feeding the dragons their usual diet of giant rats, mice, and Raisin Bran.

Once a week, Jeremy would milk the dragons to harvest their juice. Yes, dragons lactate juice. Where did you think that dragonfruit flavored drinks get their taste from, an actual fruit? That's crazy. He would get all the juice, put it inside a giant containment unit and then hand squish strawberries into it and make his own juice. This juice was nothing short of awesome, too. It was sweet and still left room to taste like both strawberries and dragonfruit. Jeremy was concerned about health and was also on the forefront of sweeteners so he used natural alternative sweeteners like Stevia.

One day, a giant tour bus drove up to Jeremy's farm. The door opened and loud rock music and smoke emerged. Three men in black suits came out. Two were some of the largest men he'd ever seen. The one in the middle carried a suitcase. He explained that he worked for Sobe and was prepared to offer him "a large sum of money" for his secret. Jeremy, having done this for about fifteen years, thought that it might be time to start something new like becoming a honeydipper or used car salesman. He shook the smaller mans tiny, frail, uncalloused hands, and said goodbye to the two behemoths who gave him a nod but didn't actually say anything which Jeremy thought was rude.

Jeremy was rich. His hard work had paid off and now he could spend time riding the dragons and eating strawberries rather than making juice out of them.

Would you call me a hater? Friends and fans, would you call me a hater? Now, granted, I don't exactly know what a hater is, but I wouldn't define myself as a hater. I dislike a lot of things but I would say that is because I'm terribly cynical and apathetic. That is a mixture that will destroy you from the inside out. It's exhausting. I enjoy Stevia and it's subsidiaries. I have not been happy with Zevia. I've got a diabetic friend with great Morrissey hair that loves the stuff but for me, it's bland. Yeah, that's the world. Bland. If you could water Dr. Pepper down with carbonated water and sweeten it with Stevia rather than sucralose or something, you would have this drink. You actually have to search for the flavor. Knowing this was supposed to be Dr. Pepper, I've got to say, this drink is 12% of what Dr. Pepper is. As described by Dan, a copywriter who loves soccer, Dr. Pepper is supposed to be dark. Zack, half of my boss entity who enjoys Dr. Pepper, said that it tastes like cherry Fresca, and that to me sounds like an insult.

Didn't hit the nail on the head with this one, Zevia. It's alright. You'll do better. Stop mocking other drinks though because people have preconceptions and you will not deliver.

Sometimes we get to a point where we have just reviewed far too many flavors of the same product line. What's left to say? That you're stuck in a desert and your hallucinating from the heat and lack of fluids, so you follow a lizard, and the lizard talks to you and tells you the secrets of the universe, and informs you specifically what the secret behind pi is. Finally he reaches into his stomach and pulls out a bottle of mango melon flavored Lifewater. The bottle is dripping with viscera and such, but as I said you've been wandering this godforsaken desert for what feels like 40 days and nights and you're wondering how the Jews did it in the bible, so you open the bottle and even though lizard guts are touching your lips you chug that bottle of refreshment. It tastes like someone dissolved a mango and melon flavored powder in a bottle of water and didn't quite shake it up well enough. It also tastes very diet, but in the erythritol way and not the sucralose way, you know the way that is tolerable. As soon as you swallow that last drop that tastes somehow grainy even though it doesn't in texture, you turn to look at the lizard, but you realize that you're not in the desert at all. You are actually in the middle of math class and you've drooled all over your protractor. There is an empty bottle on the floor next to your desk and you have a vague recollection of buying it from the pop machine in the cafeteria. For some reason there is still lizard guts on your lips. Is that what's left to say? If so, strange times indeed.

Jay isn't the only rock star in Thirsty Dudes. It's true. At one time, I used to play bass for a math, indie rock band. It was awesome and I had a lot of fun the entire time we were a band. We were all great friends and loved practicing. The drummer and I, making up the rhythm section were called "The Rhythm Section" and the singer and two guitar players were known as "The Turds," for no reason. It just came to be and that's how it always was. There was no rivalry or anything, it was just a name and it stuck.

This drink is called "Rhythm" and I like it. There is no food called "rhythm" but there is a starfruit and citrus flavored fruits, which make up this drink. I've got to say, it's pretty spot on. I've only had a starfruit once or twice in my life, but I've had enough "citric" fruits to be able to pick them out of a lineup. Those two mixed with the erythritol is a nice, cool, citric sweet treat that I somehow just destroyed a bottle in like ten minutes of casual drinking. I normally don't drink that fast so I'm either dehydrated or it's that good. I'll give those boys over at Vitamin Water the benefit of the doubt and call it a great drink.

Dear old friend. I've missed you. You've grown up a lot since I've last seen you. Dare I say you've become a man while we've been apart? I might just say that. You have made new friends, I see. I don't blame you. I wouldn't have expected you to wait around for me after all these years. You've also lost a ton of weight. Good for you on that venture. You weren't fat before, but you had some extra chunk and bad skin.

So what have you been doing with yourself? You joined a gym and started eating better? That's awesome. Oh, you've replaced your regular sugar with Stevia? Good for you. Forward thinking. I wasn't introduced to your friend. Hello, my name is Mike. Oh, Acai? Interesting name. Is that Scandinavian? You don't know? Well, nice to meet you all the same. What else besides the gym, dude? It's been so long. Oh, you taste the same? Normally that would not be a big deal except that you have met your new friend Acai here and are using Erythritol and you kept your priorities in check. Everyone always loved you. Now you're even better!

Well here's my number. Don't let this happen again, Fruit Punch.

When I was a youth, I used to drink a lot of the non-Lean Sobe honey green tea. It was awesome. Later on in life I realized that it was one of the worst drinks for you on the shelves. I don't eat particularly well, but anything I can do to ensure that I don't become a chunk helps, so I dropped it.

Cut to today, I've got a bottle of the Lean and I'm excited to see what zero calories versus 240 tastes like. Different? A little sweeter and just as oddly minty as it's fully fattened predecessor. Do you know what that means? Awesome. It means awesome. It means that for one of the limited times, you can get a good tasting diet version of the non-diet version of a drink you love. It has Erythritol and tastes like it but I don't hate it as an alternative sweetener so I won't count it against them.

Science and diet drinks have come a long way since Sweet & Low. Diet drinks don't all suck. Re-give them a chance.

Impatience. We've learned to treat this as anything but a virtue. Like that time that Mitch Hedberg told the wino who he saw eating grapes “Dude, you have to wait!” Apparently the folks at Starbucks never got that memo and they harvested their coffee beans too early. You see the little buggers were still green. They were in no shape to be roasted and eventually brewed into a $4 cup of coffee at one of their stores. The thing is that unlike everydayman the Starbucks head honchos are an industrious type. They knew that the green coffee still has high caffeine content. They didn't want their crop to go to waste, so armed with this knowledge they decided to make a chilled energy drink. They took some sparkling water, mixed in some orange, apple, grape and watermelon juice, and then put in the extract from the green coffee and some other ingredients to help create energy (physicists be damned). For an afterthought due to impatience it is crazy how good these drinks ended up tasting. It almost tastes like a mellow Orangina, with a little bit of a watermelon kick. Unlike almost every other energy drink in the world, this one tastes like you're really just drinking some sparkling juice. It also has a low calorie sweetener in it, but the taste of it is nicely hidden. It's only really noticeable slightly in the aftertaste. Well played Starbucks. It's shocking that a drink in one of your shops costs about as much as three of these did in the supermarket, and these taste way better.

A punch in the face: that's what I'm going to give you. You hit my brand new, 2001 Hyundai Accent and now I've got to get insurance involved...man. I just got out of the dealership. I know it's 2012, but it's new to me. Sure it's got 104,000 but that's just broken in. It's Korean and they make a quality product. So, to reiterate, I am going to make you black and blue.

No, you don't understand. I paid $800 for this car and sure it was a smoker's car and sure the transmission was a little wonky and sure it had a "Hatchet Man" vinyl graphic on the back hatch, but it was in great shape and the lady who sold it to me was so nice.

I'm sorry. Who did you say you were? You work for Sobe? Oh, your green tea is pretty sweet but a guilty pleasure of mine. Oh, that's right. You do make Lifewater. I've had some good ones of those. Black and Blue? No, I'm going to make you black and blue. Oh, you're going to give me a case of black and blue so that I don't punch your lights out. Alright, that's a fair trade. All this talking calmed me down anyway. Let's give it a go.

Well that's interesting. It's like blueberry when you sip it and when you swallow it tastes like a blackberry. That is real science there, Sobe man. There is a slight artificial sweetener taste, but it's just additional sweetness, not gross.

You know, this crash might have been the best thing that ever happened to me. Well, I do have a pretty great kid and wife, and I've accomplished a great deal. This was going to be a field car anyhow so I guess I didn't need it. Well, don't worry about anything. We'll let our insurance take care of it. Have a nice day, Sobe man. Next time, remember to stop at stop signs.

James, it's great to see you. How was space? Great? Did you play golf in space? Man, I would have driven the ball all the way to earth and then, somehow, watch it burn up on re-entry. Oh, the thought of that gets me so pumped. So, space. That must have been awesome. Really? No cheese. Well, the pamphlets they are handing out down here on earth are telling me otherwise. It's Swiss, but it's space cheese nonetheless.

Woah! What is this? Really? Gifts, from space? Oh, gifts from NASA. Cool, but honestly, space gifts sounds a lot better. I guess NASA gifts would be of better quality since there is nothing in space, apparently, except space rocks. Really though? Not one moon rock? You brought me official NASA dried fruit. That's cool. What am I supposed to do with this? Oh, mix it in with this space water you gave me? What are these, strawberries and apricots? Awesome. Let me mix it here. Oh, this is delicious. You know what, though? It just tastes like Sobe Lifewater. It's better the more I drink it. No one uses apricots and I cannot appreciate these space dried ones more. Strawberries? I have had these and they are delicious, but I've had them. I appreciate them, but I've had them. I enjoy the erythritol sweetness and the fifty-fifty strawberry/apricot mix. This is good, dude. Thanks. I can buy it mostly anywhere as, like I said, Sobe Lifewater, but this being space juice makes it so much better. Thank you very much.

Woah! You brought me a Fisher Space Pen from NASA, too? This is the pen that writes upside down! Awesome. I'm sorry that I gave you such a hard time about that moon rock and space cheese stuff. This is a great gift.

I had a flavor of Steaz awhile back and I've been turned off by it since I had one kind that wasn't good. It was a bad first impression and for that, I have taken a Steaz-free vacation. I don't recall what flavor it was, but I want to say that it had something to do with Acai.

This is completely different and actually good on top of the fact that there are no calories. It's like a crazy, alternate universe has emerged from the can. What an ignorant statement if I were actually serious. Like nothing that's good for you is good. Have you ever had corn? How about apples? Tacos grow on trees and guacamole doesn't, that's why guac is always extra.

It's been quite some time since I've had a solid and not something in liquid form, but for what I remember, the flavor is pretty good and honest. You get a sweet erythritol taste, but I've grown to like it so this entire can wasn't even shared by me.

Now all I can think of is a taco tree. I have a feeling that the window of opportunity between ripe and not ripe is very small.

You've got your best suit on and you're ready to go. It's your big day. You've got an interview at a publishing house and this is your opportunity to get out of this town. You board the train into the city and when the snack cart rolls by, you are feeling thirsty and decide to grab something to drink. You scramble through your briefcase, which you bought just for this interview because, you know, big city people carry a suitcase. You scrounge enough money to buy a Sobe Lifewater and since you're aggressively trying to get a job, you decided on the black cherry dragonfruit. Dragons don't ask questions. Dragons are closers. Who gets to drink coffee? Coffee is for closers. A.B.C. Alec Baldwin is your new spirit guide for the rest of the long train ride into the city.

You drink this drink and it's good. It's light and has a bit of a bitter erytritol taste, but you're on your way to be an adult and you can deal with a little bitterness. For the first time with a dragonfruit drink, you can actually taste it, and that pleases you because you've only had one once at an exotic fruit taste test party at a rich friend's house. What a night. Kumquat, dragonfruit, pomegranate, and the like. A night you will not soon forget.

You take the last sip and when you throw the bottle in the garbage can, the cap comes loose and spills purple juice on your crisp white shirt. You can cover most of it in your suit coat so you decide that is all you can do and you go into the interview. You talk to the CEO of the company for over an hour and things are going great. As you stand to leave, you shake his hand and he takes one last look at you and sees the newly acquired stain. He asks you what it is and since you don't want to start off on a bad foot by lying to your potential boss, you tell him that you were enjoying a Sobe Lifewater and when you threw it out, the cap flew off, spilling some on your shirt. He laughed and took his jacket off. Under the jacket lied over a dozen stains. "This is mustard and this one is ketchup. Over here we've got both black and blue ink. On the back, you've got chocolate and here on my arm is pizza. You're going to fit in great. I'll see you next Monday. Congratulations."

An open letter to pears everywhere:

Dear pears,
I'm sorry that I crap on you all the time. No, not literally. That would be a sight to see, though, wouldn't it? Me sitting over a bushel of pears, letting them have it. No, I am sorry that I call you "crappy apples" all the time. I complain, but it's really my way of saying that I want you to be better. Creative criticism, if you will. I have just tried your collaboration with the apples of Fuji and now I've got to say, you two are great together. A dynamic duo, like Batman and Robin or any other superhero and sidekick. This drink is sweet and apple come out and pear comes out and everyone plays together in the flowered plains called my mouth. It's not too sweet and although this is technically a "diet" drink, the Erythritol isn't overpowering and leaves me with a cool sweetness, as it often does.

In closing, you have done a great job with your friend, Dr. Fuji Appleton. I am sorry for all the guff I give you. You do have many appreciative friends who enjoy you, and it's one of those "you can't win them all." scenarios. I am one man and am clearly outnumbered. I just wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt with this drink because you truly are amazing.

The packaging makes this drink look like it's going to be ice cold. Like when mints have that weird coldness to it. I didn't expect it to be minty, but I hoped it would have the same freezing effect. It ended up just tasting like a regular diet energy drink. When Dan first opened it and took a sip he said it was pretty gross. I expected the worst, but it tasted fairly average to me. Underneath all of that chemical energy it took a second for my taste buds to register that it was even diet.

In the end this is one of the best diet energy drinks that I've tried. With no sugar or calories it's also probably one of the "healthiest" I've ever had as well. To be fair neither of those are really that crazy of achievements.