High Fructose Corn Syrup - 485 Reviews

It seems that every semi-major city in the United States has it's own regional soda. The thing with these sodas is that they are generally nothing spectacular. Most of the time they are on par with store-brand varieties, but sometimes they are something special like Johnnie Ryan or College Club. Day's, the Eastern Pennsylvanian soda, walks the line between generic and special. I feel like they would fall under the run of the mill category if they didn't make more unusual flavors like they do. For today's installment I'm drinking their pineapple soda. Not many companies make pop of this flavor and I really don't know why. Every pineapple pop I've tried has been more than decent. They all generally tend to taste basically the same as well. You know the candied pineapple flavor that vaguely tastes like the fruit, but you don't really care, because it's a great stand-alone flavor. This tastes like Slice, College Club, or Pop Shoppe's pineapple soda. As far as I know they all use the same recipe because I …€˜m guessing 90% of the people out there couldn't tell the difference in a blind taste test.

Will we someday end up trying every flavor of every regional soda? More than likely no, but we can dream big can't we?

This week my bosses were out taking care of business and kids three out of the five days this week. I've spent a lot of time alone here and to celebrate their return, we decided to go to a new restaurant/club called "Sinful." We joked around that it was a swinger's bar or that it was some satanic sanctuary. They opened for lunch and if Satan himself were selling salads and sandwiches, he's already light years nicer than everyone makes him out to be. One of the jokes is that that would only sell chocolate covered strawberries since it's "erotic" even though it's just messy in real life. Napkins and rocking the sheets should not go hand in hand.

We opened the door and this place could be no less sinful. It was a small restaurant area and an ambitious, cavernous dance space for when the sun goes down, the moon comes out, and the place turns into a nightclub. 10% restaurant and 20% bar and 70% open space ready for bumping and grinding. They only sold the most basic of menu items, though, like they didn't know the name of their own bar. I got a turkey pesto sandwich but other people got stuff like caprice sandwiches, chicken salad sandwiches, and the like. Totally simplistic.

All that talk about chocolate covered strawberries made me require something strawberry ASAP. Unfortunately since strawberries decided to grow like two weeks this year, I had no choice but to drink this Big Shot strawberry pop. Served in a gluttonously large container, this sweet treat should not be drunk by any less than half a dozen children. If you are over the age of twelve, you shouldn't be drinking this. It could not taste any more like those strawberry candies that have the strawberry gel in the middle. Using that logic, how many of those could you possibly eat in one setting? Three? Maybe? Please don't tell me that you could eat more because if you could, you've got to have some sort of dental issues. Strawberry's candy counterpart could not be worse for you. That doesn't make it any less delicious, but it does make it only ingestible in very small doses. A shot or two of this pop would have sufficed for me. I don't know if I drank the recommended single serving of a third of the bottle but either way, I've had enough. Thank you, Big Shot. I've had enough.

Do you want to talk about Batman? I can talk about him and the world of Gotham all G.D. day long. What do you want to talk about: The Killing Joke? Year One? The Long Halloween (aka the best story ever put out in comic form…€¦well excluding Sandman)? Perhaps you'd rather keep things up to date and talk about the Knightfall storyline seeing as that is the basis for a good chunk of the upcoming Christopher Nolan movie The Dark Knight Rises. Spoiler alert: Bane is going to “break the bat” so to speak, and I can't wait. You see for the most part I have a complete disinterest in superheroes. I find them boring. In fact I flat out hate Superman. Oh he can do pretty much everything and anything as long as kryptonite isn't around? What a cop out. Batman will have my support every time. He has no supernatural powers just a dude with conviction and a bunch of fun toys. I love the detective. There I said it. I have a giant bat tattooed on my chest (it's not the bat symbol, but it is in homage). I love science and logic and that is the basis for the bat. With all of my love why do I want to see him get the crap beat out of him by Bane? It humanizes him and makes me love him even more. It's also going to be fun to watch Azrael lose his cool.

To celebrate the release of the movie (and my birthday for those keeping track) Mountain Dew released a limited edition flavor called Dark Berry. In reality it could have just been called berry Mountain Dew, but maybe they were going for the dark, brooding that is Batman, or maybe they were just playing off The Dark Knight…€¦yeah that's probably it. It's one of the better Mountain Dew flavors. It's very sweet, and has a quasi energy drink taste to it, but not too much. It mostly tastes like Bruce Wayne was chilling, bored out of his mind after Bane broke his back and started mixing things together. He had some Pixie Stix, Kool Aid packets and Mountain Dew left over from Tim's stay at the manor so he threw them all together in a glass. He is a detective and a scientist in his own right, so that all makes sense to me.

Remember midnight on July 19th (well the 20th) the movie comes out, so spend all day celebrating my birthday and then end your day with the best movie of the year.

You know how in Canada they use a sound frequency that only young people can hear to keep kids from congregating in certain areas (at least I think it's Canada)? Well I think a similar thing goes on with Mountain Dew. When I was a teenager my friends and I loved it, but now that I'm older I takes some effort to choke down a bottle. I think there is something in the flavor that is only enjoyable to those under the age of 21. Perhaps it's a conspiracy. Or perhaps the Mountain Dew company made a deal with the devil in order to make kids crave their product. If so, I think they found a loophole in their contract with the Dark Lord and started producing other flavors. I know tons of adults that love the flavored Dew, but hardly any that like the original anymore.

Personally Voltage is the only flavor I am really a fan of, but I really love it. I actually started drinking far too much of it a few years ago, and I had to start limiting my intake. It tastes like a raspberry flavored energy drink, minus the chemical garbage that is found in actual energy drinks. If you are weary of trying the other flavors of Mountain Dew because you think the original is garbage, put your prejudice on hold and give this a try. It's candy like in the best possible way.

In my world this is a classic standard in Western Pennsylvania. Whenever I'm heading down to Pittsburgh, like I am now, I always pick up a few bottles. In my younger years I definitely liked it a lot more than I do now. I will always have a soft spot for it in my heart, but to be honest it's really nothing special. It's made with instant tea powder instead of brewed tea, and it's sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. That on it's own makes it fairly standard fare for cheap local gas station "tea." What gives Marburgers a little bit of an edge is that they flavor it with raspberry juice solids. I don't know why they would cheap out on the tea in order to use real juice, but it does improve the flavor. It tastes like "ghetto" tea with a highly potent (nearly harsh) natural raspberry flavor. It's a strange combination, but that's probably what keeps me coming back for more.

Okay we've got O.J., purple stuff, some soda, Sunny Delight…€¦…€¦oh wait that's not Sunny D at all. Actually it's called Big Burst, but it looks pretty similar. Is that okay? Well it might as well be Sunny D. It tastes pretty much exactly the same, except that the consistency is much thinner. I see that as a positive thing. Sunny D tasted okay, but the syrupiness of it destroyed me. Oh and for the record it is no substitution or orange juice when you're sick.

This is nothing I would ever purchase myself, but I'm not a kid so why would I be drinking fake juice? If I want juice I'll get the real thing, not a sugar water version of it. The same company that puts out Little Hug Barrels and Guzzlers makes this, so 98% of their demographic is kids under ten. I may be well over the age of ten, but I have to say it tastes much better than I expected. It's definitely a superior option to Sunny D. Big Burst just needs an iconic commercial now.

There is something about sodas from Mexico. All of the fruit flavored pop I've ever tried from that southern nation all have a similar taste to them. I don't really know what it is, but it is not present in other fruit flavored pops I've had. It's this certain sweetness that I just can't put into words. If you've tries Barrilitos, Jarritos or Goya you may know what I speak of.

So this has that specific Mexican sweetness, but it also has a fake tangerine flavor. This is to tangerines what Crush is to oranges. They don't really taste like the fruit, but we like them anyways. If tangerine sodas were in the everyday spectrum of sodas in your grocery store, this wouldn't stand out at all, but since it's rare that you get to taste a pop of this flavor I am a fan of it.

I would also like to state that I am proud of myself for not being a glutton. In the past I would have downed this 24oz bottle of soda in 10-15 minutes. It's now 5 hours later and I still have half a bottle. It's the little things, you know?

There is something you need to know about Buffalo. It's vital to understand why we, Buffalonians, are the way that we are. It has to do with vitamin D and the sun. You see, it's crappy here. A lot. It's probably a solid six months of gray skies whether it is our seemingly endless winters or just overcast days. It's quite tolling on our psyche and depression takes its toll on us. It's out of our hands, you know? It's ecological and cyclical. Sure, everyone just takes medicine, turning them into drones and they wonder why they're in such a bad mood come February and March and then they are in a great mood when the weather is nice.

Last week and the week before were teases. It's spring. We all know it, but sometimes you get that fluke week that is picturesque and you just want it to be like that forever. You know the next three weeks are going to be rainy or at very least, moderately cold, but you just want to soak it in as much as possible. This week is slated to be wet and gray; a terrible combination. That's where this drink comes in.

Kiwi strawberry and strawberry kiwi, two separate animals, are summer delicacies. It's nice that it's always summertime in the eyes of Capri Sun. Just drinking it makes me see through the endless fog, rain, sleet, and potential hail into the sun. I would like to take my hoodie off when drinking this, but I know I would instantly regret it. It's a good juice and even though it has the dreaded corn syrup inside of it, you don't care because it's all you've got to keep you from going to the tanning beds to just feel the suns artificial touch on your pasty, almost translucent skin. You can't really taste it anyhow, so don't let it discourage you from getting "The big pack" next time you're shopping for nutrition food.

I know, I know. A couple more weeks of this and then it's jackets off, short pants, and sunglasses until mid-August when it's time to bundle back up and ready yourself for another doozy of a winter. Maybe you should stockpile some of this for the harder, colder months.

Here in the dungeon we make one thing and that is root beer. No cola or grape or pineapple pop, just root beer. We do it in the dungeon down underground because the humidity is just right. Unfortunately we don't get the best products to make our root beer so it tastes a bit basic but it's not bad. It's just something we have the prisoners do when they are waiting to be set free. They like it, too because it's a fun process that bides their time while they are serving it. Get it? They serve their time while serving root beer. That doesn't sound that bad to me but I'm happy that I get to see the sun every once in a while.

One time, we got the wrong shipment and they sent us cream soda by mistake. We don't get a lot of shipments so we had to make due with what we had. Ever since then, we have had root beer that tastes a little like cream soda. The dungeon masters seem to like it a lot, which is good because the more they like you, the sooner you will get out.

It's not all torture and starvation down here. Sometimes we make root beer and have a good time. Next time you drink Big Shot root beer, think of the fun a prisoner had while making it.

Memorial Day weekend just wrapped up. It was three days filled with hangouts and barbeques, as those are the perfect ways to remember things. The last party of the weekend was a pool party at some friends' house. I think only one person actually ended going into the pool but the rest of us ate more than our fair share of food, including my new favorite thing “Cowboy Caviar.” Just look it up, it's delicious.

I brought this bottle of tea to share at the party, because I didn't want to end up drinking it all myself. As it turns out I think I am the only one who drank any of it, and it was only one glass. It doesn't really taste like a half and half. It's more of a lemon tea, and cheap tea at that. It actually has lemon juice concentrate in it, but the lemon flavoring doesn't taste real at all. The lemon taste is also far too overpowering. Had it actually tasted like lemonade I would have been okay with that, but the way things are it was too much. I drank my one glass, and when I went up for a refill I noticed that someone else had brought Arizona's Arnold Palmer and I ended up drinking that the rest of the night.

Alright. I'll admit it. I'm no child anymore. Sure, mentally, I am as dumb as your average eight year old. I still enjoy when things blow up, I'm not opposed to sleeping in awkward positions or in the trunks of cars and have no concept of "clean" and "dirty." I eat chicken fingers, hamburgers, and hot dogs and love ice cream. I ride bikes, play video games, and still enjoy cartoons. That being said, regardless of my past times and eating habits, I turned thirty this week so I should at least think about becoming a full fledged adult.

Cut to today's review and it's the Big Pouch of Capri Sun. It's the loveliness of the old pack but...bigger. I grew up with the taste of this fruit punch so this is like a review I would have done when I was appropriately aged to drink them. Look, juice is juice. You can put an age restriction on alcohol, but not juice. If I, a grown idiotic man, want to drink fruit punch out of a metallic pack like a G.D. astronaut or fourth grader, I'm going to do it. You know why? I'm an adult and can do what I want when it comes to juice.

I've got to say, it's a good thing this guy is resealable because that is a lot of juice clocking in at just shy over 11 ounces. It's not bad, though. It's sweet fruit punch. No bite and all fruit. Sweet fruit. Drinkable but I am responsible and know my artificial juice limits. If I didn't, I would have tons of pimples all over my face and we would revert my complexion back fifteen years. I can't keep going back in time to all my different "eras" so I'm going to stop drinking this pack of juice.

Mom? Here's what I want to do for my eighth birthday. I want to go to the zoo. I love the lizard room. You know me, mommy. I love the chameleons. Then, after that let's go to McDonalds. I would like a ten pack of McNuggets with both sweet and sour and barbeque sauces. It's my birthday. I love nuggets. Then I would like to go to the candy store and I want some Warheads. I enjoy putting two or three in my mouth and seeing if I can take it. This one time, at school, Michael K. said that he ate five of them and threw up. What? That's not gross. It's awesome.

What do you mean that the candy store is closed on Sunday? Who told you to have me on a Sunday?! My birthday doesn't happen on a Sunday every year? I guess I never thought of that. What am I going to do about my Warheads? You what?! You bought me a Warheads drink?! Mom! You are the coolest. I can't wait. Can I have one now? Thanks mom. You're the best. You're OK, too, dad.

This isn't bad. It's not like the candy, but it is a little sour. It tastes like a sweeter, more syrupy green apple Freeze-e-pop. I suppose since I'm seven I should like that sort of thing. I like playing in the dirt, baseball, hot dogs, and candy. That's my life.

Mom. I can't wait for my birthday. It's going to be so great except that I don't get the candy that I want. I do get other stuff and that I look forward to. Thank you in advance. You guys are alright.

One of the many things that I love about Canada is that their cream soda is red. I don't know if it was a ruling made by Parliament (speaking of which, why is their a unicorn sticking it's tongue out on the front of their Parliament building?) or if it was just a coincidence. Either way I love it. It has a very average cream soda flavor (you know subtly vanilla) mixed with a little bit of berry. The extra flavor does nothing but enhance the cream soda. This tastes very similar to the Crush soda mousse.

I have no idea why I found this Canadian made soda at a Big Lots in Western Pennsylvania, but who am I to question the universe? I'm simply a man who enjoys the beverages from the country to the north of him.

At that point in your life when you inevitably find yourself lost in the desert, don't fret. You may not know it but refreshment is but a plant away. If you crack an “arm off of a cactus soda will pour out. I don't know why no one who has been lost has ever realized it before. They must all be a bunch of dummies.

In all seriousness when I first saw this soda I was praying that it was sweetened with agave, which is a desert plant that I thought was a cactus, but apparently it's not. Once I learned that it was no shock that it wasn't made with agave. It was made with HFCS. No biggie. It is still orange pineapple flavored, and that has to be good right? Wrong! This is a fairly gross soda that tastes nothing like actual oranges or pineapple. I actually am having a hard time saying that it tastes like the fake candy version of either of those fruits. It tastes like generic sugar water with some vague citrus element to it. I honestly think I might rather suck on a cactus than drink this.

I've had Day's stuff before. It's good. It's basic, but it's good. I wanted a root beer so I went through my stash, picked one out, went to put it in the fridge, and noticed that this was queued up all ready to go. Awesome.

Now I will admit that I've become a bit of a drink snob since I've been doing the website. It happens since I drink so much. I have to pick favorites and you really get to hone down what you really want in a specific drink. Teas I like a little bitey. Root beer I like dark with a lot of licorice. Sweet tea I like with real sugar and as little ingredients as I can get. When I come across a can of root beer with high fructose corn syrup, I almost instantly don't care. I will still drink it with an open mind, but my brain tells me that I already know what it's going to taste like. This was different.

There is a little bite to this and the ingredients don't really do the drink itself justice, I feel. This is a medium to dark root beer with a strong root beer taste. It tastes less sweet than a standard root beer would taste. The fact that I'm still explaining how this tastes is extra credit to them. What's great is this is good enough to get again and I don't think it's hard to find.

Day's; I'm sorry for not having faith in you. You have most certainly earned it.

All morning for no reason in particular we were talking about The Chapelle Show and how great it was. It seriously came out of nowhere and we talked about it for an hour. It was a wonderful three seasons that ended too soon.

I knew I had some "purple drink" down in my pile so I picked it out, refrigerated it, and here we are. I know the "purple drink" he's referring to and that is not great. It's like that age-old discussion that you have with friends about if Skittles taste different because it's like 49% water, 50% sugar, and 1% flavoring. I never, not even as a kid, like "_________ Flavored Drink" because it's a bad imitation of an imitation. This drink is only one tier deep so it's closer to what an actual grape tastes like but still, not what grapes taste like. It sweet, it's juice, it's purple. That seems to be all it takes to pass the grape exam. This isn't terrible, though. It's absolutely drinkable and after a nice long lunch walk with "work dudes," it's just what I needed.

I don't know if you've noticed but the weather has been getting increasingly better out there. By "out there" I mean outside not "out there in whatever location Call Of Duty" is in. I was like you, indoor kids. I loved playing video games and I still do. If I could do whatever I wanted, I might take a week off of work, pay for all my friends to take a week off of work, and just play video games for a week straight. Inside. No sun. Since this is the real world and I'm not what you consider "privileged," I do not have that luxury so I have things like "work" and "a kid" and "previous obligations" that I need to take care of. Here's what I'm getting at. When the weather gets nice, lemonade tastes better. Sure, you can drink it year 'round but in the summer lemonade is a thing that is earned.

This lemonade, fresh and new to shelves (almost) everywhere, isn't bad. Oh you see that there is honey and ginseng on the can, the two ingredients that made Arizona what it is today if you ask me, but you wouldn't know it by drinking this. It just tastes like lemonade. If I had an Arizona lemonade, a product that does not exist, and this lemonade with it's additional ingredients, I might say that this has less of an edge. That might be where the honey comes in but you can't taste it as a flavor, only as an effect. Ginseng, well let's face it. You didn't taste it in the green tea, either. It's great that it's there. Probably not noticeable that it's not there.

I'm happy that this exists because it's a nice change and a better product than the Arnold Palmer. Yeah, I said it. That in itself should be worth a thousand words.

Mark was a magician. He loved what he did. He went to kid's parties and made kids float, did card tricks, and made birds and bunnies come out of everything. He was pretty good and was always interested in something bigger and better. Sure, he idolized David Copperfield, who didn't in the industry, but he was realistic. David Copperfield is the Michael Jordan of magic. At the end of every kid's party, he always plays 52 Pickup. The kids love it because all the cards are in the air and they yell and they scream. Magic takes a lot out of a man. He's got to clean up all that bird poop, rabbit poop, cards, and smoke powder. After a show, he likes to go to the store and get something to drink. He went to a corner store and grabbed some random cola. He looked at the bottle and smiled because the "Big Shot" guy was chewing on a cigar and he could just hear his voice. He laughed and opened the door and bumped into someone. He looked up to apologize and it was David Blaine. He was speechless. He didn't know what to say. He put his hand out to shake his hand while muttering, "My name is Mark. I'm a magician and a huge fan." David thanked him and asked him for some of his pop because he left his wallet in the RV. Mark gave him the whole, unopened bottle and told him to keep it. David opened it and took a big chug. Then he made a face. He told Mark that it was some of the worst cola he had ever had. It just tasted bland and generic. No body and nothing special. He said he could have bought a Pepsi and been more satisfied. Then he made the bottle disappear with a poof of smoke and went back to the RV.

Mark sat in the car for at least ten minutes just pondering what had just happened. He met David Blaine, but gave him the worst cola he had ever had. He didn't know whether to mark that as an accomplishment or not. Either way, he continued to do magic at kids parties and had one spectacular story to tell people in the Magician's Guild gatherings at Denny's.

For most of my life if I were asked whom my favorite Simpsons' character was I would answer Kirk Van Houten without skipping a beat. Milhouse's dad is absolutely hilarious in his desperation and defeat. Very few things are funnier to me that “weekend dad” who got fired from a cracker factory. Okay scratch that, I just thought of something funnier and that would be Kirk wanting to know the school cafeteria's menus in advance because he doesn't like the idea of Milhouse eating two spaghetti meals in one day. Now that is genius humor.

Last year that all changed when I decided to rewatch every episode (basically) in order. While I still love Kirk, I realized that Moe Syzlak is the shining star of the show. As the seasons rolled by he went from being a surly bartender to one of the most despicable pieces of human garbage to ever grace the animated screen and I love him for it. From trafficking black market whales to trying to steal “Midge” away from Homer, nothing but hysterics come from his performances. Over the months of rewatching the show my love of Moe grew and grew.

Last week friend of Thirsty Dudes, Tony Flaminio went down to Florida for his grandfather's 90th birthday. He took a break in being day-drunk to head to Universal Studios and go on the Simpsons' ride where he bought me this energy drink. When he finally got back to Buffalo and gave it to me I couldn't stop giggling for a while. For those of you who are not aware The Flaming Moe is a drink that Senior Syzlak ripped off of Homer that is composed of a mix of every type of leftover liquor and some kids cough syrup (hysterical in it's own right). It's a great episode and the fact that someone made a drink with its name is just plain great.

I shot a video review for it, but decided not to put it up, because it was dumb and a let down. You see in the show the secret to the Flaming Moe is that it's a decent drink, but once you light it on fire it becomes amazing. Obviously I needed to see if the same was true for this drink. I took a sip, instantly remarked how it didn't taste like Red Bull at all, like most memorabilia energy drinks do, and that instead it tasted like berries. I later found out that it is supposed to be bubble gum flavored, but I didn't taste that for even a second. So I took my sip, then poured it into a glass and tried to ignite it. Not only did it not light, but also whenever the flame got close to it (not touching it) it went out. It was expected, but it was also a let down. I really wanted it to go up in flames and then acquire a different flavor. I guess not containing alcohol or cough syrup will suppress the flammability of a fluid. The drink did taste better than I expected it to, but since it's a “special” energy drink the price tag was a bit hefty, so I wouldn't drink it on the regular even if we did have it available in Buffalo. Still, the idea is hilarious.

Remember he was born a snake handler and he'll die a snake handler.

On the ship, there is a nightclub called "Rex." Since there is only one club, everyone who doesn't want to sleep is there and the joint is jumpin'. It's like a club for everyone because all sorts of people go; fat, white, black, latin, skinny, and everything in between. A few people who go are there to dance and have fun but some people are there to hunt. It's that animal instinct that brings me to this drink.

Only one of the guys we're with out of the eight of us is single and he is the epitome of single. Now I'm no stupid idiot. I know that drinks like this don't "work" like an ignoramus would think. No one that has their head on correctly would actually think that drinking one can of this stuff will make you a dynamo in the sack. Yeah, sure if you feel you need help in that department it might not sound like it could hurt and you'll try anything.

Regardless of your sexual prowess, you will be disappointed because this just tastes like Red Bull. Horny goat weed is something you buy at truck stops to stay awake while laying down night miles in your truck, not something you use for stimulation.

At the end of the night, our single friend and I split a can of this and didn't talk about it because there was nothing to talk about. We had something to look forward to because it's a drink called "Sex Drive," but not good enough to talk about. After that drink, singing karaoke, and watching a good comedian, we called it a night without even going to Rex. Maybe tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow. It's fun in there.