Glucose Syrup - 9 Reviews

I saw this peeking out from my fridge yesterday and decided that today would be the day. I think I bought this as an Asian Market with good ol' Jay. It was dark and didn't appear to have cream in it so I thought it would be something nice. Turns out, there is some form of milk, possibly in the line item "Brewed Thai Tea" although it doesn't explicitly say "milk" outside of "Contains: Milk"

Who cares. Enough milk talk. This is great and do you know why it is great? Because it just tastes like Thai Tea. If we have to differentiate between this and traditional Thai tea, this is less creamy. Back to milk again. This may have more of a black tea base which is actually really good. It's strange. This tastes like black tea sweetened with Thai Tea. It's hard to explain. It tastes like sweet tea, like Southern sweet tea but then you get the flavors and spices (?) of Thai tea.

A+. Quick shipping. Would buy from again.

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

For those of you, like myself, who were unimpressed by the original flavor of Lucozade I urge you to try their tropical variety. While the sugar water taste of the original in just there, not offensive or great, this type I would actually go out of my way to drink. It has a nice passionfruit and pineapple combination of a taste to it. I expected it to taste like one of the more flavorful Gatorades, as to be comparable to their flagship flavor, but this is like a completely different product. It's very sweet, but sometimes that is exactly what you're looking for in a drink.

This is marketed as an energy drink, but as far as I can tell the only things in here that would give you energy are sugar and caffeine. In reality it's as much of an energy drink as a can of Coke. I guess that's way healthier than the amount of chemical junk Americans put in their bodies in the name of being a little more awake.

One great thing about this label is that it is made in China, but the text is half in English and half Spanish. A lot of the text is there in both forms, but there is some that is only in one of the languages. It's not a big thing at all, but for some reason it made me laugh.

Did the association of purple/grape things and apes start with the Hanna Barbera character? I mean it makes sense due to rhyming, but I feel like I've seen more than a handful of things with primates tied to the flavor grape that don't use the word “ape” so the whole rhyme thing is out the window. A quick internet search also tells me it's a strain of medical marijuana. Is it possible that this gorilla got so high that it started to mistake grapes as its beloved bananas? It got so into the grapes that the juice dyed it's once glorious coat and gave it a purple hue? I think I'm on to something people. Think about it, when a primate that is wacked out of its gourd gets loose in your grape fields and ends up juicing them all before grape juice season (I say it exists, so it does), what else are you going to do but make soda with it? I mean, sure you're going to have to boil it down to get rid of all of those gorilla germs (great potential band name that I'm allowing you our readers to use), but why not just give it a little marketing twist and call it “Fire-Brewed?”

I think this hippy gorilla has done the world a favor. This is a nice soda that falls on the higher end of the grape line. It's a bit light on the carbonation, which I would like to see more of, but I won't hold that against it…€¦much. As I mentioned it's made with grape juice and not a bunch of artificial flavoring, but it falls in-between a sparkling grape juice and your traditional grape soda. It's a good place for it to be. It also has honey in it, and between that and the fire brew, it gives it a very special flavor that is unique to the Sprecher company. Like all their sodas the only problem with that is that although the flavor is delectable when it's nice and cold, as it gets warmer that flavor starts to take away from the overall greatness of the beverage. It becomes more pronounced and is too distracting. The solution for that is to not dilly dally while you drink this and don't forget to bring some snacks for our primate friend; he's got the muchies like you wouldn't believe.

I saw this in every rest stop and convenience store that I went to while in the UK. Nothing about it looked appealing to me, so I passed it by every single time (take note that this was before Thirsty Dudes, so I had no contractual obligation to drink it). The label looks childish and not appetizing. As my ladyfriend pointed out something about it is reminiscent of Irn Bru, which I am also not a fan of.

I don't know where Mike got this from, but when he handed it to me I sighed and said, “Fine I'll do it.” I really expected this to be bubble gum flavored, which would have been infinitely worse than what it actually tastes like. It really tastes like carbonated sugar water with a little bit of lemon in it. There is that weird Gatorade flavor in there as well. What I expected to be some sort of weird, crazy British energy drink turns out to be a slightly carbonated sports drink. There isn't even any caffeine in it. All of its “energy” seems to come from sugar and lactose acid. Now I have no idea why athletes would want to drink something carbonated immediately before or after crushing it on the field, but I guess that's what people do “across the pond.” Man I hate that phrase.

As you may or may not know Sprecher has a team of various animals working for them that help gather the ingredients for their different sodas. They have foxes, cows, bears and even a penguin on the payroll. What many people don't know is that not only is the crow is not only employed, but he is actually the CEO of the company. The man in the suit in all of their commercials (that are on constantly during sporting events) is nothing more than a corporate puppet. The crow knows that America is not ready for a company run by a bird. I'm sorry for blowing up his spot, but the world needs to know and learn to accept that some species of birds have a more sophisticated taste palate. Learn and love America.

On a recent secret business trip to the UK Sprecher Crow stumbled across the Tango soda line. The orange flavor was in every gas station, but he found a single can of their apple soda and upon trying it he knew that he had to try and replicate it's flavor. Once he was back stateside he quickly got to work in "The Nest" to perfect it. When he was completed he realized that he hadn't quite got the flavor right, but what he did create was something that was fairly wonderful. Basically it tastes like a non-alcoholic British sweet apple cider. While it's in your mouth it has the classic Sprecher "fire brewed" taste. After you swallow the apple hits you fast and it hits you hard. It's definitely a red apple taste and not green, which I fully support. If you're an American it's closer to an apple juice than an American cider, but I certainly am not complaining. Perhaps Sprecher Crow should consider making this a staple flavor and not just available seasonally.

It's such a nice day out. I'm glad we came out to the old farm to pick some berries. It's a bummer that the strawberries aren't ready yet, but there sure is a ridiculous amount of raspberries out here. Man it's getting hot out and this bucket is getting pretty full. Let's take a break. Why don't we bust open that bubbly water you brought. The cap is stuck? Stop being such a baby and give it here. Oh man that is on their tight. I think it's giving.....oh jeeze I spilled it all over the berries, and dropped the bottle on top of them. Now all the berries are crushed. Why did you have your soda water in a lead bottle anyways? Haven't you ever heard of lead poisoning? Do you like eating paint chips? Well I'm still parched so I'm going to pour some of it from the bucket back into that bottle of yours. It's obviously going to be the death of me. Oh wow the raspberries flavored the soda water. It's pretty awesome. Give me a couple of packets of sugar you have in your pocket. Don't play dumb with me. I saw you take them at the diner. You're going to have so many cavities eating all that sugar. I was right, that was just what this needed. We should probably bottle and sell this stuff. I know it'll only be seasonal, but it's really great. I could drink it all the time. It's much better than those other pops we made. They always seemed to have a weird aftertaste. Oh no! Here comes farmer Johnson with his shotgun. I told you we should have stolen his fruit at night. Run!

We here at Thirsty Dudes love root beer. It's possibly our favorite beverage, and that is saying a lot. I've maybe tried a hundred different types of root beer and I've enjoyed almost all of them. I found this in a local specialty shop today. I was pretty pumped because their Puma Cola is fairly spectacular. On top of that, look at that combination of the crow and monkey creature on the label. It kind of reminds me of the racist crows from the old Loony Tunes cartoons. I'm going to assume it was not meant to be an homage.

So we've talked enough about the label, let's discuss the taste. I'm really not into it. When it first hits your taste buds it has a great classic root beer taste, then suddenly everything changes. Mike says it tastes like oak and that it's woody tasting. To me it tastes like someone spilled some cleaning solution into the vat of root beer. I kept on drinking, but I just can't get over that secondary flavor. Sorry Sprecher, you didn't do it for me this time.

I can't really go more in depth than just saying, "I don't like it". It's got very earthy taste. It's like a woody ginger ale but not like a Vernor's. They say that there is a hint of oak, and I will give that to them. Between the wooden taste and the fire brew, I can't help but make a bad face during every sip. I wanted to like it. I like that this company clearly carefully crafted (4 C's in a row) this ginger ale but to me, it's not terribly refreshing. Small sip to big sip, it's all the same. Bold, overpowering, and not my cup of tea...or ginger ale.