High Fructose Corn Syrup - 485 Reviews

I came across this while looking for drinks to gift to Engineer Jay Zubricky at GCR audio while my band was working on our new record. I saw it and though, “Awesome, a green melon cream soda. Jay loves honeydew and while I'm sure it will be super sweet, it will probably also be tasty.” Little did I know at the time instead of it being a typical vanilla cream soda, it was actually a “creamy soda” meaning that it is soda with milk in it. Now that is strange. It certainly tastes like a regular, cheap, cream soda that has some melon flavoring added to it, but the milk adds another dimension to it, that I can't 100% get behind. It leaves a weird taste in my mouth and it also changes the viscosity of the beverage and makes it a little thicker than I was expecting. I was able to drink a few sips. Jay drank more than I did and seemed to enjoy it more as well. I guess all drinks are not for everyone.

So everyone thinks that most energy drinks taste like Wonka candy right? You know the candy company that came into reality from a fictional company in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. From Nerds, to Spree, to Runts, and most commonly SweeTarts energy drinks are mimicking the flavor of these candies. At some horrible point in a dystopian future Wonka is going to just give in and release their own line of energy drinks with a “if you can't beat them, join them” mentality. I mean if sugar gives kids crazy energy and makes them go nuts why not go all in? Perhaps it has already happened and Rip It is really Wonka under a pseudonym because this really tastes like Spree. It's crazy how much these things taste like candy from my youth. Let's make that an internet rumor. Spread the word, delicious candy is now delicious energy drinks. I'm sure it will end with someone getting sued.

For some reason I decided to give Mountain Dew Kickstart another chance. Oh yeah, that reason is that it's my job of sorts. Well, I pretty much feel exactly the same about this product as I did with the first handful of flavors when they were released; it's pretty meh. The combination of high fructose corn syrup and sucralose leaves it too diet tasting to care about the calories it's saving you, but also it has too many calories too deal with the chemical taste. Also, the juice content is still very minimal (5%). If this were a regular or a full fledge diet blood orange Mountain Dew I could enjoy it more, but the way it is presented now just feels like the company is trying to pull a fast one on consumers. I know they aren't and I get where they are going, but it's just not working out.

I need to ask, who green lit this product? This product really has nothing to do with the Mountain Dew line, and it just tastes like any other lemon lime soda. Is this PepsiCo's attempt to bring back what is perhaps the most boring soda flavor after 7Up went to the Dr Pepper Snapple Group? Wasn't that Sierra Mist/Mist Twist's job? Were they really missing out on all of those lemon lime soda sales that they needed to create a new one, and brand it under one of their most popular flavors? I don't know if I have ever witnessed a single person purchase a 7Up. I mean I've seen it at parties and such, but I've never witnessed its acquisition and I worked at a grocery store for years.

The only thing novel about this is that it's a lemon lime soda that has caffeine in it. I suppose that's where the Mountain Dew aspect of it comes in, but that is a real stretch. Nothing about this kept my attention to even drink even half of this 20oz bottle. I but they are surely regretting the obscene amount of money they must have spent on the Super Bowl ad for this. I'm pretty sure this is going to turn into a limited edition without them intending it to.

I really want the mango flavor in here to come from actual mango juice. It really tastes like it does, but it is simply not listed on the ingredients. If I were asked in a blind taste test, I would reply, with conviction, that this is mango juice mixed with an energy drink. At the point an alarm would sound announcing that I had lost. Did I not mention that I was on a game show in this scenario? Well, I was and I did not win any of the fabulous prizes. I went home with a belly full of artificial flavoring and corn syrup. Oh yeah, and nitrogenated water. I don't really know what that has to do with an energy drink, and the internet (aka the NOS website) was no help. I suspiciously think they did it just because of the company name and not for any performance reasons.

The time is 9:03 AM. A half hour ago I drank Mountain Dew. If someone wants to drive me to an insane institution, I will happy enter myself into the system for a solid week. I could use it. This, friends, is a dumb product. It's Code Red with a "holiday blend." This tastes like a weaker Code Red. Maybe with more citrus. Nothing specifically "holiday" or "festive" about it, though. No cinnamon or nutmeg or bits of leaves or anything reminiscent of any sort of holiday flavors. What is the point of this? At least Pepsi Christmas or Holiday or Festive or whatever that is called has some sort of "holiday spice" to it. This is basically just Code Red "watered down" with 7-Up or something. Dumb. Way to go, America. You've been poisoned again by Mountain (Mitten) Dew.

Well well. Look at this little guy. Sitting here all full of cucumber. What a nice surprise to see something Arizona put out that I was unaware of. Sure, I might not have my ear as close to the ground as I used to but I was caught off guard and didn't think for a second that I wasn't going to get it.

Let's get down to brass tacks. How is she? She's a lot less sweet than Arizona tried and true green tea. That's for truth. There is a very strong scent of cucumber and an equally strong taste. I'm not going to say overpowering but if you're on the fence about cucumbers, this is not the drink for you. There is a commitment issueless amount of cucumber flavor going on within the confides of this can and I know something about commitment issues. I dated my live-in girlfriend for eight years before I ask her to marry me.

I might have drank half of this can. The whole thing is far too much for me. There isn't anything wrong with it but the whole can I feel is a bit gluttonous. You've done a fine thing here, Arizona. Don't take the half I'm going to dump into the sink as an insult. I'm a little under the weather and cannot share the remainder of this.

When you see a beverage that is called Fire, you expect some heat behind it. The first thought in my head was that this was going to be Pepsi with capsaicin (aka what makes peppers burn your guts). Half of a second of reading told me that it was really just Pepsi with cinnamon in it. Why the masochist in me was hoping for a drink that would cause me to sweat and leak tears everywhere, I was actually intrigued by the idea of cinnamon cola. I mean sure, I'd rather have the option to have a drink on hand that I could use to play pranks on friends and watch their mouths burn off, but I mean I guess I'll take this.

To be honest, as I took my first sip, I thought that it really didn't taste all that different from regular Pepsi and I thought I had bought myself a one way ticket to bummer city. Then the after taste kicked in. Oh what a wonderful aftertaste it is. It's all cinnamon and spice and even a little heat. I can thankfully say that the soda lived up to its name.
With subsequent sips I learned that if you swished it around your mouth a bit, it opened up the flavor of the cinnamon. It makes you feel like a wine aficionado, except without all of the…€¦you know…€¦.taste of rot and decay.
I surprisingly really enjoyed this. I do have to mention that after drinking an entire bottle over about a half hour I did get quite the stomach ache and by ache I mean burn. I guess it really does meet its nomenclature. I would also like to point out that if this would have been part of the 1893 line and made with that base, it would have been through the roof fantastic. I'm talking like life changing good.

This is an old favorite from my pre-Thirsty Dudes days. Man those were different times. I drank so much sugar back then and never thought twice about it. How was I not gigantic? I would easily drink at least three Arizona tall boys a day, not counting the other garbage I consumed. This wasn't a constant back then, but that was only because it didn't come in a 99 cent can and I only splurged on the extra half dollar when I was feeling special. It was a treat that I gave myself.

Most of my favorite drinks from that time period don't really hold up for me anymore, because my body has changed and so much sugar makes me feel like garbage. Taking one sip of this brought me right back though. It was the early 2000s. All I did was play music and hang out with my friends. I was in my 20's it was allowed. Hell, it's still kind of what I do now. I had terribly dyed black hair and for some reason I tucked my t-shirts in. I was a catch I tell ya. I also existed on seemingly nothing but pizza and tacos, yet I never gained a pound. I wouldn't say it was a better time, but it was a different time and I had my fun. I drank my teas and didn't think twice about it. It's no longer the cost that makes this a treat, but the amount of sugar (45g/bottle). It tastes sweet, but not to an extent that it hurts my teeth. It has that classic Arizona green tea flavor, that isn't quite what other green tea tastes like, but it's wonderful. On top of that the Asia plum adds just the right amount of flavor. I've had other Asian beverages that said they were plum and they tasted like moldy meat. This is the opposite of that. Wait, would that be fresh veggies? It's not that, but it is delicious. I hope this flavor makes a comeback because you don't see it much these days.

It's common knowledge at this point (at least amongst us that read comics) that Bill Finger got screwed on getting credit for his work in the DC universe. The man helped create some of the most well-known comic characters of all time, but Bob Kane got the bi-lines. In recent years he has finally started to get the credit he deserves. I can only hope that if his estate is not responsible for these energy drinks that they give some sort of credit, because there is absolutely no way the image on this can is not based on his character The Joker. I'm not a litigious man, but if credit is not being given, perhaps a trip to the courthouse is in order.

As for the taste of this beverage, I can only assume its creation went something like this: Harleen comes over to her boyfriend Joe's apartment after picking up some mangos from the grocery store and plans on making them some smoothies with the orange juice that she saw in his fridge. Upon arriving to the apartment she discovers that the orange juice has actually been sitting in there for several years and the inside of the carton looks like some sort of hate crime. The pipes in the apartment are so gross and rusted that the water comes out tinted brown, and there is no way she is going to consume that. She really wants that smoothie though and the only other liquid Joe has in the house is some generic Red Bull type energy drink. With a shrug and a sigh she pulls out the blender and mixes away. The result is this drink. It has a general energy drink taste underneath a very strong mango flavor that tastes authentic, even though I'm sure there's no way in Gotham that it is.

So here we are. We have finally completely the trifecta of drinks. When we first started Thirsty Dudes we stated that there were three drinks that were no longer in production that we wished we could get our hands on to review; Orbits (which we found be sold in Canada 14 years expired), Ecto Cooler (which got a re-release with the new movie being out), and now Crystal Pepsi is in our hands. Nostalgia for the 90's is high right now. I mean I snuck into an En Vogue concert last week in Michigan and alternative bands are on the rise once again. Pepsi knew that if there was ever going to be a time to bring this back it was now, and let me tell you, people are talking. Well, there is a slight murmur on the internet about it.

We shot a video of us drinking a bottle and discussing our thoughts on it. The conclusion is that is tastes like re-carbonated flat Pepsi with a hint of 7Up mixed in. It's odd, but still enjoyable. Sure the video cuts off after 5 minutes, and sure we probably kept rambling nonsense for five more without realizing it, but do you really need to hear more of us pretending we aren't awkward by pretending to be awkward?

I'm beat, dude. Worked until 2, home at 2:30, asleep by quarter to 3, up at 6:30. I need a pick-me-up. I've been disappointed by Dunkin' Donuts inability to make a consistent drink. So what do I choose? I guess this Mountain Dew Kickstart from a bodega I rarely go to but needed to take a walk outside.

How is it? It's fine. I don't know to what caliber this is of a juice and an energy drink but it's got caffeine in it so I guess it will eventually do something. It's not bad. It's pretty sweet and very fruity but I think it tastes better than your run-of-the-mill energy drink. I don't know if I specifically taste blueberry or pomegranate but I'm not complaining. With a drink like this, I don't hold them to their word like I would a "real" juice. Sorry. I'm not trying to be offensive. It's like it's a sparkling juice first and everything else just peeks their little heads in and out to say hello.

I don't know if it's "helping" because I'm fading fast but I've made it to 3:30 and wasn't late for work today. Somewhere there is an accomplishment but I'm too tired to see it. Maybe...if I just close my eyes...for just a second.....

It's been a long time old friend. When we first met I was merely 10 years old and even though I didn't understand most of the jokes, I loved all things Ghostbusters. I don't remember if I saw the movie or the cartoon first (The Real Ghostbusters, not that other garbage one) and I don't care. All I need to know if that I was hooked. I was also hooked on “juice,” and when Hi-C combined both things it was a match made in heaven. Normally my mom would pack me a Ssips juice box in my lunch, but the times I could get her to splurge it was always for Ecto Cooler. I had no idea that this was actually a rebranding of their “Citrus Cooler” flavor and I still don't care. It was delicious and it had the cartoon version of Slimer on it. What 10 year old suburban white boy wouldn't love that?

Ecto Cooler was always such a specific flavor to me that as a youngster I could never quite put my finger on. It wasn't until the company yet again rebranded the flavor as “Shoutin' Orange Tangerine“ that I slapped my forehead and felt very dumb for not placing the flavor. At the time I had outgrown such drinks and with the lack of Slimer on the packaging it held little interest to someone in their early 20s. I later learned that in 2006 it was once again rebranded as “Crazy Citrus Cooler” and a year later it was completely discontinued.

There's something about your thirties that feeds off of nostalgia. I had never grown tired of the Ghostbusters movies and still watched them at least once a year. I longed for times when life was simpler and I missed things from my childhood that were no longer available. When we started thiersty Dudes, we named our “Trifecta” of discontinued drinks that we longed for. They were Crystal Pepsi, Orbits and or course Ecto Cooler. We bought a 14 years expired bottle of Orbits and it tasted like salad dressing. The other day a mysterious package showed up at my door and inside was a cardboard Muon Trap that contained Ecto Cooler. I knew it was returning to shelves along with the release of the new movie (which is the most hated movie that no one has seen yet), but I really have no recollection of giving anyone from Hi-C my address. It was a complete surprise and it made my day wonderful.

I'm sitting here now, sitting in the warm shining sun and I'm sipping on a juice box. If this were 25 years ago I would be sitting on a skateboard with my best friends planning what we would do when school ended for the summer in a few weeks. Instead I am taking a break between printing shirts and working on my deck. I wish I could say that I was talking about the deck of my skateboard, but I mean the deck of my house. I'm an adult with responsibilities, but for a few short minutes it's 1989 again and I'm drinking a tangerine/orange drink that I believe to be juice, but which only contains 10% juice. It's mostly citrus sugar water and I don't care. It tastes exactly like I remember and that's all that matters. If this drink were a new product now, I would care very little about it, but since it's something from my childhood I'm loving it. I'm not expecting this to stick around for very long. There will be a large nostalgia burst as soon as it hits shelves and then people will remember they are adults and these are the kinds of drinks you leave behind as you grow up. Who knows though? Maybe the new movie will resonate with a younger generation and they will eat (drink) it up. I may never buy it again, but I will smile every time I see it.

My last two reviews have been for Pepsi, that new/old/throwback stuff. This stuff came out before, though, right? This is more of a redo than something new or even throwback. It's just like they came in one day and decide that they are going to fulfill all of the comment cards and letters that have been asking for it back. I like it, though. I like cola and vanilla. Some might call that vanilla cola but you can also call it cola and vanilla.

This is good. I don't normally drink "regular" cola but this is decent. Corn syrup and all. I like cherry cola, too. It reminds me of a simpler time where I would go to punk shows and walk and get a taco and cherry Pepsi but this time with the soothing, calming flavor of vanilla to round it out.

2016 is shaping out to be the year of Pepsi for me. You're doing alright so far. If I stay away from the typical garbage, we might have a pretty good year together.

These “Ten” sodas are a game changer for those watching their calorie intake without going overboard. They are a middle ground between diet and regular soda; meaning that there is a mixture of HFCS and sucralose used to sweeten them. This tastes like someone took a can of regular RC and a can of diet RC and mixed half of each together in a separate can. There are hints of a diet flavor, but it's not as overpowering as most diet sodas. I hate sucralose sweetened diet pop, but this is something that I did not mind at all. Sure it lost a bit of the bite of the regular cola, but tradeoffs must be made for the sake of lower calories.

Back in March I heard about this new limited edition Sprite flavor, but search as I might I could not find it around Buffalo at all. In fact, due to its limited nature I thought that I had missed my opportunity all together. So much time had gone by with no luck that I had given up. Next thing I know it's September and I somehow found myself in a liquor store in Lansing, MI looking through a cooler and you know who's soda catches my eye. I'll admit it, I squealed in public over a flavor of Sprite. I'm not proud of it, or the looks that a 36 year old man receives when making such a noise in a liquor store full of the downtrodden of all places, but I like to be open and honest you all of you. I don't get excited often, but when I do it's about the dumbest things.

I only know one thing about LaBron James, and that is that he is a basketball player. I don't know what position he plays. I don't know what team he plays for. He could walk up to me and punch me in my dumb face for taking so long to find and review his soda and I would have no idea who just socked me in the nose. I did learn something new about him today though; he knows how to take a boring soda like Sprite and make it interesting. I'm guessing he really had nothing to do with the development of the flavor, but it's still a step up from the original. Basically this is Sprite with cherry and orange mixed in. To me it tastes a bit like a Shirley Temple that you would get at a bowling alley (I don't know if they can legally serve them anywhere else). There is also part of it that tastes like what Mike calls the “Laser Tag Special” aka hitting all of the flavors on a fountain machine. It's sweet but it's tasty. I can't see myself drinking it very often, but I can see many other people downing it by the 2 liter.

I wonder if it's possible that Mr. James will Google his name, read this review and somehow learn more about me than I do about him. I'm certainly not going to look into his life, but he's welcome to take a glance at mine.

Regular lake monsters can't make pop. Lake monsters with sunglasses can. It must be something with the glare. Monsters might have sensitive corneas or something because this pop, which is made by monsters, is actually pretty good. Sure it tastes like a slightly modified grape Freez-e-pop but it's still good. It might be more fruity and less...I don't know...chemical? This drink also benefits from the corn syrup because it's a decent fruit taste and it sticks to your lips and makes it seem like you're eating black raspberry flavored candy.

You would think that a lake monster wouldn't be able to operate heavy machinery with those claws but they are a surprising create, believe you me.

You know what, Stuart, I LIKE YOU. You're not like the other people, here, in the trailer park. Oh, don't go get me wrong. They're fine people, they're good Americans. But they're content to sit back, maybe
watch a little Mork and Mindy on channel 57, maybe kick back a cool, Coors 16-ouncer. They're good, fine people, Stuart. But they don't know ... Wait, this isn't a Dead Milkmen song. The titular character doesn't even spell his name the same as this soda company. They really have nothing to do with each other, and to be frank, I am a bit disappointed. I wanted to tie in some humorous music from my high school years into a review about a soda from Sarasota Springs, NY.

If I'm going to continue to be honest with you I have to admit that I think the song that is currently playing in my head is better than the soda. It has humor and wit (and a bit of homophobia, but it's from a character and not the author). The soda is only delivering me a very syrupy, bubbly vanilla flavor. It tastes like too much caramel got put into the mix and it made it even thicker than the corn syrup did on its own. It's a serviceable soda, but it's not something I would ever crave, or even purchase myself. I have a certain standard for cream soda and this simply does not reach it.

In other news remember in Stuart when he references the “Johnny Wurster boy?” Yeah, it's that John Wurster of Superchunk, Best Show, Bob Mould, and Mountain Goats fame. Life is strange sometimes.

Goya is fantastic at making ginger beer. Goya is absolutely horrible for producing Malta Goya. For everything else they fall into the average and not so great categories. This soda unfortunately falls under not so great.
There are two general types of orange soda, ones they are carbonated orange juice and those that are the generic fake orange flavor that is produced by every store brand ever. I am strangely a fan of both for some reason. I knew this wasn't going to be carbonated juice, but I had high expectations that it would be a different form of the fake orange flavor. Mandarin's are a higher quality orange, so I wanted it to be a higher quality of soda. Unfortunately, it was not. It tastes like someone took that slightly different fake orange soda and mixed it with too much unflavored soda water. This is mostly generic sweet, soda water flavored, with an orange flavor in the background. If it were a beverage with low sugar content I would understand and accept it, but this has 44g of sugar in it and that is more than anyone needs. I should probably stop drinking this, as I'm not enjoying it and I don't need all this sugar.

It's been a long time since I've had root beer. This one is strange though. It makes quick visits to your tongue and promptly vanishes. In and out, just like when you visited your ex-girlfriend's smelly uncle's house; in and out. Split second flavor. How is that flavor, though? It's actually pretty good. It's more on the candy side of root beer. Not really dark or deep or anything special but it's right in the middle of the root beer spectrum.

If you didn't like it, you wouldn't know because before you had to decide if you liked it or not, you would be half way through the bottle and you would just assume you liked it because you drank so much, not because you didn't have time to justify one way or the other.