High Fructose Corn Syrup - 485 Reviews

Things have been getting a little Cintron crazy over here at Thirsty Dudes. So far everything has been decent to great. I guess the honeymoon couldn't last forever because this one....not so great.
You see the problem is that I am a fully-grown human. If I were say seven years old I would probably have a completely different view of this drink. You see it has that generic fruit punch flavor that is the basis of every fruit punch from Hawaiian Punch to the gallon of red juice for sale at your local gas station. It's something that kids eat, or rather drink up. As you get older that sugar syrup based flavor just stops being good at some point. If you want a fruit punch you want a bunch of 100% fruit juice all mixed up.

Another this about this drink is that it has that historic fruit punch flavor, but it also has a strange coolness to it that is kind of like how mint feels, not tastes. It might be the lime, but it's strange, and although it does separate this from other fruit punches, it's still not enough to get me to finish this can.

Welcome to 1987. I'm eight years old and my two cousins are sleeping over at my house, and I'll be damned if we're not going to beat The Legend of Zelda! My mom got us stocked up on brownies, Twizzlers and Jolt. She wanted to get us store brand cola, but after a lot of begging I convinced her to shell out the cash to get the Jolt. By begging I mean promising I would do a ton of yard work to make up for it. I'll do it, but it will be half-assed by golly! She thought I wanted it because it looks a lot cooler compared to the store brand, but in reality I knew that we were going to need the extra caffeine punch if we were going to make it to Ganon.

You don't see Jolt soda in stores too much these days. You can still find their cans of energy drink, but the actual soda isn't as common. I had never seen this flavor before until I got it at Village Candy in Sewickley, PA. It differs from modern energy drinks because it doesn't have all the extra chemicals in it, just a butt load of caffeine. I actually enjoyed this way more than I expected. I was expecting this to be a cherry cola, but it's a cherry/orange mix (it actually has orange juice as an ingredient) with no cola. It's slightly candied flavor, but not as much as a lot of sodas. I appreciate that this company still exists and that they explored flavors other than straight cola.

Did we beat the game? Eventually, but not that night. We did stay up obscenely late for 8 year olds (probably 1am). That's what Jolt was to me though. It was for those nights when I needed to stay up for some menial task. It's pretty much the same way I look at energy drinks nowadays.

John Goodman is a man amongst men. I have never seen him in a role that I didn't absolutely love. Keep in mind that I don't think I've seen anything he's done since the early 2000's. He may be the most famous for his roles as Dan Conner and Walter Sobchak (which are both incredible), but for my money there is never a better moment of him on the silver screen than when he states "You just got your asses whipped by a bunch of goddamn nerds.....NERDS!" I think that might be the most commonly said phrase by Editor Dan. Incredible. It's because of that speech that I told the other Thirsty Dudes that I was going to review this drink.

The NERD company stresses that their product is not just an energy drink, it is also a focus drink. On top of your normal energy drink chemical ingredients it also has Vinpocetine, Huperzine-A, Chinese Ginkgo Biloba and DMAE in it, which are cognitive enhancers. I drank this can before I went to band practice today, and I wasn't even thinking about the focus part until I just sat down to write this. I think it actually really works. In hindsight I feel like I was way more focused on what I was playing. So it's got that going for it.

Now on to the fun stuff. As a scientist I can assure you that it is a scientific fact that most energy drinks taste like various melted down types of candy. It's something that I both hate and love about them. Now I know what you're thinking, and yes your dreams have come true. This does in fact remind me of liquefied Nerds candy. It may be a psychosomatic thing, but I had my ladyfriend try it and she also confirmed it. This is one tasty, tasty energy/focus drink. It's one of the best energy based drinks I've ever tasted. Also the company wants to be known as a study aid and avoids being associated with anything extreme or bar/club events. To quote them "Basically, if you want to study drink NERD, if you want party drink a Red Bull. " That is something I can get behind. Hopefully this will get the popularity it deserves. Like the company told us

Now in the eyes of your father, your maker and your coach: go get some NERD!

Before I go into how this pop is pretty tasty I first have to ask; can a soda be considered gourmet if it is sweetened with HFCS and has no actual fruit juice in it (well maybe that's part of the natural flavoring)? I don't think this is a run of the mill store brand soda, but by no means would I call it gourmet. Like I said before it's pretty tasty. It has a fruitiness to it that is something like artificial strawberries and oranges mixed together. I enjoy it, but I refuse to accept it as gourmet.

I don't mean this to come across racist in any way, but I really feel like whoever designed this can did so with the Hispanic market in mind, specifically teenagers and young adults. I'm not saying that everyone who is from that ethnicity is into this sort of design, but that is what television would like me to believe. Stupid racist television. Because of it this can fills my head with visions of low-riders and bandanas.

In a blind taste test I don't know if I could tell this and Arizona's raspberry tea apart. Both are sweet and syrupy with that not quite natural raspberry flavor. It's not terrible, but with the current selection of iced teas that are on the market this certainly doesn't stand out.

You know what's not easy? Cutting a watermelon. I don't care if you have an 1100 square foot kitchen with ample counter space, with the amount of liquid and rind in a watermelon, you're better off doing it in a swimming pool because you're going to get both wet and sticky. I was sticky up to my elbows when I was manhandling and trying to chop a watermelon yesterday. It got cut, and looks great, but was no easy task. I was probably doing something wrong.

Strawberries don't grow in my garden. It keeps stretching out and it's almost into my roses, but nothing but leaves are growing and I don't eat strawberry leaves, I eat strawberries.

Due to my recent difficulty with these actual fruits, I thank Cintron for putting them in a can and making the only work I need to do open the can.

Enough about me, let's talk about this drink because it deserves being talked about. Typically with watermelon drinks, they are vile. We, these three Thirsty Dudes, dislike watermelon drinks because they never taste like watermelon and it seems that would be one of the easiest fruits to get juice from. We're men of authenticity, so if you can use actual watermelon juice, wicked. If you can't, you probably have no business making something watermelon flavored. Think about it. This drink does a pretty good job of doing watermelon justice. I would say that it's about 60/40 watermelon to strawberry. It's really sweet and kids would love the stuff but it's also a pretty good summer drink and cold, this is pretty drinkable. There is also no corn syrup sting, which I was actually afraid of.

If you take it as face value, you could be a huge fan of this drink. Don't be worried. Just do it.

Many years ago, Franklin Mercer took a vacation by himself to Las Vegas. His wife Sharon wanted to come along, but he needed a break from her so he told her it was a business trip. So she stayed behind in their home of Zelienople, PA while he went to have fun in Sin City.

The problem is, Franklin Mercer doesn't really know how to interact with other humans well. And he doesn't really know how the world works sometimes. For instance, when he checked into his hotel room, he decided to go down and do some gambling because that's what he heard people do in Vegas. He always liked the way the ball rolled around the roulette wheel on television so that was his first stop. I think he must have seen some spy movie where the villain replaces the ball with one of his own. He couldn't find one of those white marbles so he brought a green bouncy ball. He walked right up to the wheel and in mid spin he put his ball in it.

Obviously, the ball went flying. The game had to be cancelled and since the money was on the table all the players lost their bets (some weird rule this casino had). This in turn made all the players really mad at Franklin so they chased him out. Even though Franklin has been getting chased his whole life, he's not a good runner. He could have really used this Vegas Fuel. He probably would have liked the fruit punch taste it has. He likes sweet things so this would have really made him happy.

Also it would have gave him the energy to avoid being beaten up in the back alley of a casino in Vegas. Oh Franklin Mercer... when will you learn?

This is a drink for girls. It's pink and has a light taste of peach and watermelon. There is no bite or surprises, just a soft, mellow drink. It's been a long time since I've drunk something like this. It's really flat and kind of plain. Don't get me wrong, the flavors are present, but there's nothing special. It's a blend of two things put together to form one generic pink juice.

Apathetic ladies of the world, found it!

Great, they did it again! Here I am, just a run-of-the-mill tactical armored robotic pontoon (everyone calls me TARP), sitting in the water. 2:00pm rolls around, which is my refueling time. It's easily the highlight of my day since I have never seen battle. Everyone knows i get 3 quarts of premium grade fuel. It's in my manual, on the sign on the dock, and I've even made sure everyone in the troop gets a twitter update about it at 1:30pm everyday. The guys who have been on base for a few years, they know better. They are aware of what I'm capable of. It's these new recruits, these "hot shots" fresh out of the academy that love to pull pranks on me.

The latest prank they like to pull is giving me this energy drink, Troop Fuel, instead of my request premium grade stuff. Don't get me wrong; this stuff isn't bad at all. It tastes a lot like Red Bull, but not as bitter tasting. Why do I know what Red Bull tastes like? Another prank. See, these guys know energy drinks get me going crazy. I'm used to sitting still in this water all day, so an energy drink gets me all wired. This Troop Fuel is definitely doing the trick. If I weren't chained to this dock, I'd be zipping around this lagoon.

As Jay mentioned, Marburger was previously known as "Fike's" and drinking this brings me back to simpler times. When I had my first helping of this, it was probably around two in the morning and I was waiting in line to get pizza after my break from "metal night" only to finish said pizza and then go back to "metal night" until four in the morning and then have to drive forty minutes home.

This was always impressive to me. I know, I know, it's got corn syrup in it, but when you drink it then and there, right out of the cooler, it's not that bad and it doesn't have that cheap, corn syrup sting. There isn't a bad, gas station iced tea. It's actually not too bad at all, and for the price, you can't really beat it. Taste is not anything like an instant tea and I don't know why they even advertise it as such. Yeah, I know it's technically an ingredient, but it seems like something they would at least want to skim over. I could go to the store, buy iced tea mix, and make it myself. It just seems strange that there are still these other ingredients aside from "iced tea mix" but I guess even the mix is made of something.

Marburger, you're alright with me.

A couple weeks ago I tried to sneak into an Insane Clown Posse show here in Buffalo. You are probably asking yourself "Why?" Well, I thought it would be an incredible people watching experience. Sadly I couldn't get in, but a few friends and I hung out in the lobby/bar area of the show. Let me tell you it was quite a show in itself; From the 60 different shirt designs they were selling to the guy dressed in a full jester costume. Incredible!

The best part was once the show started, they played it on the big screen in the bar area. I was surprised how minimal their stage set up was. The only things on stage were three big barrels full of 2 liter bottles of, you guessed it, Faygo. In the 10 minutes we watched the show before we were kicked out for not having a ticket, they must have sprayed the crowd with over 60 liters of pop.

I'm sure among all those liters there was a few bottles of cherry cola. Do juggalos drink the Faygo as it's sprayed onto them? That's something I've always wondered. Anyways, this tastes like your run-of-the-mill cherry cola. There is a good mix of cherry and cola, but it's nothing special. I'm sure it's really good at smearing face paint when it's shot out of a
Supersoaker though. It probably doesn't taste as good mixed with the face paint though.

First things first; why on Earth is this drink blue? It's pineapple, orange, grapefruit and lemon juice. All of which fall in the yellow to orange spectrum. Not a blue fruit in sight. For some reason Everfresh decided to add some blue dye to it. I don't get it. I don't know if they wanted it to appeal to kids more, but there it is as blue and windshield washer fluid.

Lucky for everyone involved it doesn't taste like windshield washer fluid. Actually I can't say that for certain, as I've never actually tasted it. What if that blue spray you use to clean your windshield is actually delicious and fruity. That could be problematic as I'm pretty sure it doubles as poison. I'm going to just assume it tastes like gross sauce. This beverage on the other hand tastes pretty tropical. It's a pretty accurate mix of all of the fruits I previously mentioned. It's tart, but there's sweetness in there that keeps it in check. It actually does remotely taste like Sweet Tarts. Wait does windshield washer fluid taste like Sweet Tarts. Children will die by the millions if this news gets out.

Fikes used to be THE ghetto iced tea of choice among my friends for a long time. They were 69 cents for a little jug of it and was only available at a gas station on the corner of Main and Winspear in Buffalo. They changed their label at one point and for the longest time I hung onto an empty jug of it. I wish I still had it.

Anyways, as Jason mentioned in the Mountainberry review, Fikes is now Marburger Farm Dairy. Sure it doesn't have the same classic label, but it's still delicious. I bought this at the same gas station as Jason and I could have sworn I saw Franklin Mercer coming out of the store as I was entering. It sent chills down my spine. Anyways, this flavor is great. It tastes like iced tea mixed with a melted freezie pop. Even for a tea made with high fructose corn syrup, this is great! I just wish I had stocked up on more while I was in Zelienople.

Lime. That is what I 100% expected from this soda. From that statement you can probably gather that I was wrong. This actually ended up being one of the least likely flavors I could imagine; bubble gum.

Let's start this off by saying I normally think bubble gum pop is fairly disgusting. It reminds me too much of the fluoride the dentist used to use on me when I had braces. On first sip I was shocked and put off by the flavor. Seeing as it's a million degrees out and I was dying of thirst I took another swig and I tasted something familiar. This tastes 100% exactly like Bazooka Joe gum. It's like someone took a ray gun to the gum and it became carbonated liquid. It's so strange, but I can't help but like it. I feel like I should buy a bottle for any and all ten year olds in my life.

I just have two questions. 1. Why is it green? 2. Where is my comic strip?

Dad, can you hand me a root beer? What, how are you out of root beer? I guess you got a point there. It's kind of hard not to drink Dad's Root Beer when you are the dad. You made something besides root beer? A cream soda? I wasn't expecting that. I could see Dad's Birch Beer or Dad's Sarsaparilla, but I never thought you'd make Dad's Cream Soda. Sure, I'll try one.

Wait, why is this blue? Who ever heard of Blue Cream Soda? It looks like windshield washer fluid. Hmmm, it doesn't smell like chemicals. Bottoms up! Oooh, that's a nice smooth cream soda. Good work Dad! It reminds me a lot of the Crush Soda Mousse. It has a nice cotton candy and vanilla taste to it.

This goes to show you just because a company is known for one kind of pop, doesn't mean they can't make other quality flavors/varieties.

Welcome back to the World Series of Soda Pop. We've had an exciting game thus far and we're now in the bottom of the ninth and team Ginger Beer winning against Root Beer 14 to 11.

First up to bat we have Stewarts. Oh he just barely makes it to first on a bunt. Who on Earth bunts when no one is on base? I guess that's Stewarts. Now approaching the plate is Virgils. It's a fly ball out into left field! Virgils brings it in with a double. We now have Stewarts on third and Virgils on second and Barqs is up to bat. Strike One! He seems a little rattled, but let's see how he does on this next pitch. Oh it's a ground ball right to the third baseman. Virgil's not going anywhere, but at least the bases are now loaded. Cooperstown is stepping up to the plate and he's pointing to the stands. This is a root beer that talks a big game and he's looking for a grand slam to win this game for Root Beer. Here's the first pitch. Strike One! Oh man he didn't even swing at it. He's literally shrugging it off. He looks totally bored out there. The pitcher is winding up. Strike Two! Cooperstown was actually leaning back on his bat for that one. The nerve of this guy! It all boils down to this pitch. The runners seem pretty confident and are taking fairly decent leads off the bases. The pitch is thrown and Cooperstown makes contact, although the ball looked like it got hit by a 6 year old. It was a fly ball that went directly into the second baseman's mitt. He then tagged Virgil's out at third. It seems like Stewarts didn't realize that the ball was caught and before he could get back to third the ball was thrown to Goya and that's three outs ladies and gentleman. Ginger Beer Wins the Pennant! Ginger Beer Wins the Pennant! Cooperstown really screwed the pooch on this one ladies and gentleman. He was cocky because he was named after the baseball hall of fame. The thing he didn't realize was that he actually tastes like watered down store brand root beer. Acidic and lacking much flavor. Ladies and gentleman not only did he cause Root Beer to lose the World Series, but he also may be the worst root beer I have ever tasted.

When I told Mike and Jay I found this can for 60 cents at Big Lots, they wished me lucked. Unbeknownst to me, Jay had previously reviewed a mango drink from the same company and it wasn't anything to write home about. I was hoping since this was an iced tea it might be better, but nope, not at all. This is pretty generic tasting lemon iced tea. There is nothing special about this except for the can. For cheap iced tea, I'll be sticking with Arizona tall boys.

I must be weird. Okay, I know I'm weird for a lot of reasons. I more meant in reference to the face that I love sodas that taste like bubble gum. I handed this can to 3 other people and all of them thought it was disgusting. While it's not the best bubble gum soda I've had, it still tasted good to me. I don't think it's an acquired taste because I liked cola champagne the first time I tried it. I guess it just goes back to the fact that I'm weird. Oh well.

Thanks goes to Jessica Pizza for being my lovely hand model for this drink. I was having the hardest time finding a good place in the sunlight to take a picture of the can and she stepped up and helped me out.

My ladyfriend bought this a while ago and I have been patiently waiting for her to decide the time was right to drink it. Yesterday that time finally arrived during a BBQ at a friend's house (which I nearly helped burned down via a box of fireworks and a stray spark).

While the soda was very tasty it did not actually taste like guava. It has a very familiar deliciously fruity taste that I could not place, but it definitely wasn't guava. Tropical? Yes. That specific tropical flavor? No.

I really wish this had been made with cane sugar. I believe that would have been the little push this soda needed to make it spectacular.

Look, if Jay can review McDonald's Shamrock Shake I can review this, right? Right. I saw that they had it, it was something new, I thought it would accompany my standard "Number 6" spicy chicken nicely. Was I right? Well that all depends. Did I want tea? Yes. Did I get tea? Kind of. Did I enjoy what I got? I don't think what I asked for was what I got. Allow me to explain.

You know what tea is, right? Sure you do. You're not some sort of dummy. Tea is great. Sweetened or unsweetened, tea is great. I know for a fact that Wendy's knows what tea is, too, because I typically get an unsweetened tea from them. This didn't taste like a tea at all, but a watered down wild berry nectar. I didn't get any tea flavor. The berry was strong but it tasted like real berry. It wasn't too sweet, although initially it was because whatever they used as flavor lingered at the bottom like a leaves at the bottom of a pool. It created a sort of gradient where it just wasn't stirred enough so I made sure to stir it up a lot more. It was a titch syrupy, and that's why if they left it that thick, left some seeds in there, and sold it as a wild berry nectar, this would have gotten a higher review.

Taking this into consideration, if you want light nectar with a decent wild berry taste, get this. If you want a wild berry tea, you're going to be disappointed.