High Fructose Corn Syrup - 485 Reviews

Seriously folks, how many flavors does Arizona have? I feel like more and more pop up all the time, but then I remember them being around briefly years ago, then I'm shocked that we haven't already reviewed them. This is our 29th review of an Arizona product and it also officially makes it the most reviewed company we have (Cintron has 28 reviews). That's a lot of products for one company, and I'm sure there are a couple out there that we have still missed. After 29 reviews I can say one thing with certainty; If they had used cane sugar instead of HFCS in all of their drinks, they would probably be my favorite drink company of all time. Sure they used it in the Black & White Tea, but it's so rare that I can find it now, that it barely counts.

To make this drink you take 8 parts Arizona original green tea and add 2 parts pomegranate flavored concentrate. Even at that low of a ratio the syrupiness of the pomegranate is all I can taste, unless I really concentrate and try to find the green tea in there. Rereading that makes it sound really gross, well I guess it is in theory, but I kind of like the way this tastes. I like the way pomegranate tastes, and while I could do with more tea flavor, for the price you can't really complain.

So many nights. So many nights were spent with Jay and/or my friend RJ skating downtown, sitting on a curb drinking Arizona green tea tall boys just watching the world pass by. Those were good times. We'd be over someone's house and go to a place called "We Never Close" that we called "Weiner Close" because some appropriate lights were out for an extended amount of time and get can after can of this. It was the entry to a world of new drinks. While everyone else was drinking Brisk, you were drinking something with ginseng and honey in it. This was innovative to the drink line. Green tea? I've had black tea before and if you're from the South, you've had sweet tea but sweet green tea? That's just crazy. Arizona killed it with this one and they probably, hopefully still do.

It's held up in it's ability to remind me of a time when I was hanging out with friends having a wonderful time. I've certainly had better teas since those days but I will never dismiss Arizona as being an influence to what different types of tea can be on the market. I now drive past that corner I used to sit on as an early twenty-something and I won't soon forget just sitting there, sitting, talking about music and stuff. It was something I looked forward to. It was when things used to be a little bit slower than they are now. Oh to be back there now. A lot has happened in ten years.

As for a review: You've had it, you know. I was blown away when I saw that we hadn't reviewed this before. I feel that I owe Arizona an apology for not drinking and reviewing this sooner. Everyone loves it. Arizona; You're fine. Keep up the good work. I'm sure there are countless stories like this in different parts of the country all around this epic drink.

Earlier today I was making fun of a friend for drinking Mountain Dew before noon. I'll give them that it was diet Mountain Dew, but it's still soda right after you woke up and it's gross Mountain Dew on top of that. Later in the day I was on my way to a party at a friends house and I grabbed this to drink/help me get through a long week.
It wasn't until after I had took a sip until I realized that this was just the original Amp repackaged. Oh payback, you've gotten me again.

It basically tastes like they took their original Mountain Dew recipe and added some chemicals to give it a little “boost.” If you are a teenager and love Mountain Dew, you'd probably go crazy over this stuff. If you're a grown ass man, like myself, you will have realized that regular Mountain Dew is pretty gross and I would pass this one over.

Captain, we have a problem. We're about to set voyage and we just realized that we only have enough beverages on this ship to last us until tomorrow. I don't know who messed up, but we'll find out and they will be scrubbing the galley in no time.

Sailor, first things first; I am an admiral, not a lowly captain. I control entire fleets of ships, and I eat captains with my morning granola. That's right, cannibalism is okay because I am an admiral. It will do you well not to forget that in the future. As for our little problem, don't sweat it ensign. Being an admiral and all I have the inside line to many things that you lower sailors do not. One of them happens to be a line of teas created for my kind. That's also right; us admirals like to think of ourselves as a different race. We are descended from mermen, but you didn't hear that from me. I can get us as many cases of tea as we'll need for this voyage by 0900 tomorrow.

Have you ever had Arizona and Peace Tea before ensign? Well, tea made for admirals falls somewhere between the two. It tastes more like Razzleberry Peace Tea, but it is sweetened with HFCS, so it has more of the consistency of Arizona. You might ask why they don't use a higher grade of sweetener for the master sea race. The fact of the matter is that our kind really just likes the thickness of corn syrup. It makes us feel like a drink has more substance. Call us crazy, but that is how my kind has always felt and always will feel.

Now let's get these people down to Cozumel. They paid decent money for this cruise and we're going to show them the best time we possibly can!

Confession time: I spend way too much time on Tumblr. I spend most of my workday in front of a computer so it's far too easy to keep Tumblr open in one tab and refresh it every 5 minutes. Sure there is a lot of annoying animated gif's and Daniel Tosh apologists on there, but there is also a lot of rad things as well.

Today after I followed someone (http://rotgirlrot.tumblr.com/), they posted the following: "WHOA HEY WAIT A SECOND YOU'RE A THIRSTY DUDE fuck I LOVE YOUR WEBSITE DUDE HELLO /fans self"
This right here made my day. It's really nice to get feedback like this from people who read our ridiculous ramblings about weird drinks.

So since you made my day new friend, this review is dedicated to you! I was surprised that we hadn't reviewed this yet. I even had to check our master list twice because I could have sworn we did it. More often than not we look past the common drinks, but we eventually come back to them. A&W makes a decent (not amazing) root beer, and that's also how I feel about their cream soda. It's thick tasting due to the HFCS, but has a nice vanilla taste to it. The weirdest thing is that it has caffeine in it, which is very unusual for a cream soda.

And for those fellow tumblr addicts, feel free to follow me: http://derekneuland.tumblr.com/

I don't mean to bring up old stuff, but the South lost again. The battle of sweet tea is a battle filled with casualties and here is yet another poor soul that just can't make the cut.

Is it too much to ask that the simplest concoction ever created be made right? Black tea and sugar. Done. If you need to put preservatives in there in increase shelf life, I'm cool with that. Once you start mixing all sorts of other garbage in there it starts to go downhill. Corn syrup will never be an ingredient in a good quality sweet tea. This drink tastes like if you ordered a tea at a restaurant, didn't know that it was unsweetened, and then poured miscellaneous sugar packets into it. One of the final ingredients in this is sucralose and you would think that you would not be able to tell but you can. You know that strange aftertaste? That's the sucralose, detective.

Arizona and Admiral. You know better than that. Why let me, a self-described stupid idiot, teach you how to make a drink? You are drink companies and should know the lay of the land. I'll give you this one for free.

A few years ago Snapple switched over to their “All Natural” line. I was completely stoked because it wasn't that long before then that I discovered that HFCS played a key role in causing the hell that went on in my stomach every night. I probably ingested far more bottles of the new teas than any one human should. It wasn't too much later that I started to see these cans pop up in gas stations. They were about half the price of the glass bottles, so I was understandably interested in them. I quickly realized that while the glass bottles were sweetened with cane sugar, the cans still used HFCS. I never understood why that was. I can't imagine that cane sugar is that much more expensive, since a bunch of other companies use it and keep their prices low. Perhaps some people (I'm looking at the folks from the UK) actually preferred the HFCS version and complained. I will never understand that.

This flavor is what companies want you to think that green tea tastes like. In reality it is reminiscent of green tea you would brew at home in only the most distant of ways. There is so much “sugar” in this that it tastes more sweet than anything. It tastes less like green tea than the Arizona tall boys do. If you're just in the market for an inexpensive sugary drink, perhaps you'll like this. If you're actually a fan of green tea I would probably skip over this one and grab one of the Snapple All Natural teas instead.

My dad won a cruise and he gave it to my ladyfriend and I. I'm guessing there is some catch with this thing, but so far all I've found is that you have to pay the tax, which is about $150 per person. Also, we have to find our way to a port, which not shockingly is going to be the most expensive part. Here I sit looking into it, daydreaming about tropical locations and I decided to pretend I was a kid and drink a Capri Sun. They market these big boys as being for adults, but we all know they are for kids. I'm sitting here sucking on a chilidog, err I mean a Maui Cooler. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be a tropical fruit punch, but the main fruits in it are apple, grape and orange (I guess you could consider that tropical if you really wanted to). The only other juice in it is pineapple, which I would expect in a Maui Cooler, but it's not very present in the flavor. It tastes like a juice box, because that is what it is. It just tastes like a higher quality generic fruit juice. No flavors really stick out. I'm okay with it. It's not my favorite, but I'm sure kids would be stoked to get these in their lunch boxes.

Now, to cruise, or not to cruise?

First, let's get this right out of the way. Jay and I cannot drink this without thinking of this Homestar Runner cartoon.

Now, 'tis the reviewing hour. Much south of the eerie midnight that would be the appropriate time to drink pop from a company called "Witch's Brew" from Salem, Massachusetts. I feel like I should be listening to the band "Salem" and watching Bram Stoker's "Dracula" and doing something like sharpening stakes and/or doing something with garlic not related to making pasta. I wonder what Italian food vampires can eat. Do they touch that topic in the Twilight series? See, these are the questions that people have. They don't care if they can love. They care if they can use toothpicks which are really tiny wooden stakes.

In broad daylight, a time that vampires hate but witches probably don't mind, I am drinking this pop with my coworkers. Some like it. Some don't. Do you know what that means? That means that some people simply are riding along with Jay's bandwagon of not liking black cherry. Simply put, this pop is just another black cherry pop. It's not bad but it's nothing exceptional. I don't know if I've ever had an exceptional black cherry pop. I don't know if one exists. It would be nice if one did because I'm bored with this monotonous other stuff. You'd think witches could put something in there, like the ever popular "eye of newt" or perhaps something as simple as cinnamon to spice this up. Eh, witches have plenty of other things up their giant sleeves. Pop is probably pretty far down on their list, well below trying not to get burned at the stake and finding pointy hats.

Apparently Pepsi is using their 'Next' line to try out new flavors. First was the Cherry Vanilla that Mike reviewed last week. Now I've come across this 'Paradise Mango' flavor. This is definitely a first for me, as I've never seen mango in a cola before.

Upon opening the bottle, a waft of mouth-watering mango hit my nose. I'm not joking, my mouth literally started to water when I smelled it. I don't eat mango that often, but I love mango flavored drinks. As soon as I took my first sip, my skepticism went away. This is incredible! It's got that classic crisp Pepsi cola taste, with a wave of mango right after. I keep catching myself smelling the bottle before each sip because I don't know if I've had a drink that has smelled this good in a while.

I hope Pepsi decides to expand this flavor into its normal line. I would love to see what this tastes like without all the fake sugar in it.

Sometimes we really just can't believe that we haven't reviewed some drinks. On a drink shopping spree the other day Mike and myself were completely dumbfounded to realize that we have not reviewed Arizona's green tea and sweet tea. It really seems like they should have been some of the first reviews we did for how often we see them/used to drink them (well the green tea).

I have to say I was probably better off not reviewing this. It's a fake version of sweet tea, meaning that it doesn't taste like sweet tea at all, but instead a over-sweetened tea. To me one of the main things in sweet tea is the cane sugar. It always has a slightly grainy quality to it, that lets you know it was made with real sugar. This was made with HFCS, so it wasn't grainy, but rather syrupy. It tastes like they took a regular sweetened black tea and doubled the HFCS. I couldn't make it through an entire can over a couple of hours. I don't recommend you to see if you can.

I bought one of these while I was in Vegas. I had planned on drinking it on our last day, on a trip to Red Rock Canyon, but the temperature was so high that by the time I opened it the drink was almost hot. Bummer. I took a couple of sips and then dumped the rest, as we were flying out in a few hours and I had no way to cool it down. Cut to a couple of days ago when Mike and I found a bunch of Admiral teas in Buffalo. I was excited to try it while actually cold. Hansen's makes it, so my hopes were high. I did find it odd that they sweetened it with HFCS since their sodas all have cane sugar in them. Tall boys of iced tea are usually an exception for me for HFCS. There are a lot of them out there that have it that are still tasty. This wasn't bad, but it wasn't great like it could have been. The sweetener made it a little syrupy and the mango flavor tasted like some other product that is very specific, but I just can't put my finger on what it is. It's driving me crazy. I liked it, but a tall boy was too much of it for me (and I'm a drink glutton). If it had come in a 16oz can I think I would have enjoyed it more, but I was over it by the time I was getting to the bottom of this big fella.

Dad! I knew you would find someway to ruin my 13th birthday party! I kept you in the dark about most of it, because even though I know you have the best of intentions, you always mess everything up. I had mom take care of the cake, the clown, the decorations and all of the food. Not surprisingly all of that is perfect. You had one responsibility and that was to buy pop for everyone and you somehow messed that up! I even made you a list and told you specifically where you could get it! What, you don't know many 13 year olds who know exactly what stores to buy specific sodas at? Well I'm a new breed, okay?

You completely ignored my list, and obviously went to a discount store. Don't try denying it; you left the price tags on the bottles. Not only did you go the cheap route, but you also only bought one flavor. I know you bought it because you thought it was cute that it's called Dad's and you're my dad. On top of that it's “Big Daddy Size.” I have to tell you, now that I'm a teenager that just sounds creepy and gross. Don't ever say that phrase again! So here we are with a bunch of bottles of Dad's Old Fashioned Red Cream Soda. At first I gave you the benefit of the doubt because cream soda is delicious, and I loved that can of red cream soda mom brought me back from Toronto. The thing is this stuff is garbage. It tastes like someone took 3 parts bubble gum flavored soda and mixed in 1 part cream soda. It's basically champagne cola and cream. It's gross! I hate it! You've ruined my birthday! I'm never speaking to you again!

Well if Dr. Pepper can create Ten, Pepsi can create their own beverage for men. Just for men. It's not so directly pointed towards men, but women love "diet" and they have it in their minds that “diet” is their drink. Men don't "diet." They eat less pizza and have one scoop of ice cream instead of three. Men are sensitive individuals who won't admit they have a weight problem until they start breaking chairs left and right. As soon as it happens, they head to the store to find manly, low calorie drinks. Pepsi Next is that. It's for the workingman. It's hard to work in an office full of men who love things like burgers, steak, potatoes, and the like and not put on a couple pounds. It comes with the territory. If you can change one thing, like your pop intake, you're on to something.

This is my maiden voyage into the Pepsi Next line and I believe Derek described it as something like regular Pepsi mixed with Diet Pepsi and although I can't argue with that, I will say that this new flavor line is pretty good. This cherry vanilla is right where I want it to be. Strong cherry and even stronger vanilla flavor easily mask the corn syrup, aspartame, and sucralose; all of which are in this drink which combined with real sugar, make up the most comprehensive list of sweeteners in one drink I think I have ever seen. That combination of sweeteners leaves you with a sweet, but not too sweet, 100 calorie bottle of a pretty decent flavored cola. The warmer it gets, the more the other sweeteners come out, but the first half of this bottle right out of the cooler were pretty good. If this came in a responsible eight-ounce can or something of that nature, I would love it. That is a not-so-subtle hint, Pepsi. Not everyone needs twelve plus ounces to satisfy themselves.

Dr Pepper has been a part of “big soda” for years. Some would say he ran the soda game in the 70s. I mean you never see anyone wearing shirts that say “I'm Mellow like Yello,” but “I'm a Pepper shirts were everywhere.”

To combat this unholy terror, the Coca-Cola company released Peppo in the early 70's. The Doctor was having none of that blaspheme of his name and a lawsuit soon followed. It was then that Mr. Pibb was born. One might ask, “How can just a man compete with a doctor?” The answer to that question is to have slightly more cherry in your flavor.

After decades of living in the shadows of Herr Doctor, Pibb decided to step up his game and add some cinnamon into the mix (or so Wikipedia tells me). It was this mixture that became known as Pibb Xtra, and it was labeled as a spicy cherry soda. In reality I can't taste much, if any, cinnamon in this soda. It really tastes like someone mixed a Dr. Pepper and a regular cherry soda together. I must say that I prefer it to the Pepper, but it's not something I would drink on a regular basis. I do know a bunch of people who love it and drink it religiously. I'm not kidding they have a Pibb alter and have ceremonies and everything. You would think they were drinking the blood of Christ or something.

If you've ever found yourself at a backyard party, staring into a cooler full of pop and you chose the orange flavored one; you know what this soda tastes like. It's completely standard orange pop. Nothing fancy. Nothing gross. If you've never found yourself in that situation then you my friend must be attending some fancy parties. Did you drink a caviar soda? If so, that's gross and I want no part of those parties.

I used to eat a lot of candy when I was a kid but now I don't eat as much. I don't like candy flavored like fruits I don't like. Why would I? Why would I dislike a product made by a product that I like? That doesn't make sense. Sure, there are people who don't like pickles and love relish or people that don't like guacamole but love avocados. That's poppycock if you ask me. I can't think of anything like that for myself. Peaches are a fruit that I don't really care about in its entirety. Candy peaches, sliced peaches, whole peaches, peach juice are all in my "I'm fine with not eating that" category. I don't know why. The taste isn't too bad. It's not like I don't drink a bunch of peach stuff and rate it objectively, but I just don't really like them. Which brings me to this drink.

This drink was reviewed better by a co-worker than myself very simplistically, "It tastes like melted down peach Dum-Dums." I couldn't agree more. It tastes like candy peaches more than a real peach but even this drink is overly sugar'd. I don't hate peach tea too much because it's inherently light in flavor and sometimes just gives a nice flavor to a regular tea. This is unfinishable in my opinion. Likewise, if you can drink the whole thing, you've got to be kidding me because it's way too much. You drink it and instantly learn a lesson in sweeteners and tooth decay. I'd rather not learn a lesson through some kid pop so I will stop while I am ahead.

Energy drinks are a dime a dozen. There is one vat of that crud that all of the other energy drink companies suckle off of like a mama pig and her lil' piglets. They take the same stuff, add one ingredient, put it in a can with their logo on it, and sell it as their own stuff. Someone, probably a secret conglomerate company, is making a killing off of these little guys, but not Amp. They decided to take their business elsewhere. They are the rebels, the vigilantes. They do things their own way. They somehow managed to create an energy drink that doesn't taste like an energy drink. If you drank this and didn't know it was an energy drink, you would wonder why a half hour later you were bouncing off the walls.

This drink just tastes like grape pop. If you like grape pop and need a pick-me-up, this is it. It doesn't taste too syrupy regardless of the corn syrup. It just tastes like grape pop. Did I say that? It's just grape pop, in case I didn't.

There is an entire new line of these and now I'm not as disinterested in reviewing them because they don't taste like what "the man" thinks an energy drink should taste like. All of a sudden, Amp is like a cool dude that just came to your high school who might be 25, has a full beard, and somehow rides a motorcycle and keeps his hair looking sharp. How does he do it? You'll never know. You'll never be as cool as him and man, is that bike loud. The teachers hate it but even they think he's cool.

There was a time in my life where I had to do the “weekend dad” thing. No I wasn't the dad myself, I had to go and stay with my father every other Friday and for the full weekend on the opposite weeks. That was a long time ago. As soon as I was old enough to ride my bike places I was hardly ever at his apartment, except to sleep. I think I was 16 when I stopped going at all. It just seemed pointless and his place was one big cloud of smoke that made me feel like butt soup. There's no real point to tell you that except that in the center of that smoke hole is where I first encountered Arizona tea. MY stepmother became obsessed with it and I remember waking up early one Sunday and drinking one of them. Being as I was probably 15 at the time it blew my mind. Before that the only iced teas I had tasted were Nestea and powder mixes. Arizona opened up a whole new world to me and I quickly became obsessed with iced tea. That obsession lasts to this day, and while Arizona is no longer my favorite, I still have a soft spot for it in my heart.

The other day I went to the store to stock up on “normal drinks” that we hadn't reviewed yet, and I was shocked to discover that we had yet to review this classic Arizona flavor. It used to be the flavor I would treat myself with. I always went for the cans because of their lower price, but to this day I have never seen this flavor in a tallboy. I'm pretty sure it never existed. So sometimes I would cough up the extra sixty cents and go to flavor town. This bottle holds 3oz of tea less than the tall boy cans, but for some reason it seems enormous. That's really what you go to Arizona for; the quantity of tea plus it's slightly above average quality.

There are two things that make this tea stand out amongst the others: they use white tea to make it and it has actual blueberry juice in it. Both of those things step up the game. The white tea makes it taste softer while you can really taste the blueberries. If they had made it with cane sugar instead of HFCS this would be a complete slam-dunk. Unfortunately they don't and the taste suffers a little from the overly sweet syrupiness.

To think if it weren't for bizarre furniture that folded out into a sleeping compartment I wouldn't have had the pleasure of meeting Arizona until a few years later. Where would I even be now in my life?

For those of you who are wondering like I was Wishniak is Polish for cherry. Some soda companies from around the Philadelphia area started using it to describe their black cheery soda after the creator of Franks soda started using it. See the internet is a useful tool to find interesting information.

As far as black cherry sodas go this is better than most. It's not as dark tasting as your everyday store brand. It's still very distinctly different from plain cherry soda, but it falls somewhere between the two. As someone who is not a huge fan of black cherry, I was pumped when my ladyfriend bought this so I could try it. If black cherry always tasted like this I would choose it out of the herd more often.