High Fructose Corn Syrup - 485 Reviews

I'm surprised that it took me as long as it did to have a half and half. I mean, it's lemonade and tea. Two liquids that are pretty good together. I think it takes a whole new level. Even cruddy iced tea and cruddy lemonade makes a pretty good half and half. Somehow, two average things put together can make something great. I'm not saying this drinks two protagonists are cruddy but we can all admit that they're not the finest. Together, though, you get a good amount of lemonade and iced tea that battle it out for your love. It's not often that you people fight over your mouth. It's not like you are a pretty girl and everyone wants to kiss you. You have a beard and haven't showered in a week. Easily a week. You have been wearing the same t-shirts for a decade and have awful taste in music. In real life no one is fighting for your mouth. This is your chance to see what it's like.

In 2011 I came across a can of Havoc Energy Drink in a Big Lots in Lansing, MI. Our friend Christian was filling in on drums for my band for a tour and we were there teaching him the songs. As you can see from the review I gave it below, it was garbage. It also had been out of production since 2008, as I learned when I received an email from the gentleman who had recently purchased the company and was planning on reformulating it. Way to have expired goods Big Lots. Anyways, cut to early 2013 and here I sit with a slim can of the reformulated Havoc. I can happily say that it is much better. Luckily it no longer tastes like cough syrup. Instead it tastes like a mixture of raspberry and cherry sodas with a general energy drink taste mixed in. It's a flavor that doesn't normally exist in the energy drink universe, and I appreciate the change of pace.

While this isn't really anything groundbreaking, it is worlds better than the old version. I really have nothing bad to say about this, it just kind of blends in with most of the other energy drinks on the shelves, even though it is not a usual flavor. Actually, you know what? I think I would be more likely to grab one of these from a gas station than the usual suspects in the cooler if I was in need of a little boost on a late night. Havoc, you just bumped yourself up to four bottles.


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Old Product Review:

To quote the ever-clever Tony Flaminio, "This drink played 'havoc' on my taste buds." When an energy drink is marked down to $.60, there's probably a good reason, and that reason is probably because it's pretty gross. It tastes like someone took a bottle of cherry cough syrup and combined it with a two liter of sweetened seltzer water. Who wants that? My guess is no one, and that leads me back to the price drop. You may be tempted to buy it because it's cheap, but I say save that change, buy an apple or something with it. You'll be much happier.

EDIT (2011):
I was just emailed and informed that this product has not been in production since 2008. That means this was old and more than likely expired. Thanks Big Lots. The Havoc company has been bought out since then and is going to start producing new drinks soon. So basically if you see this out there check those expiration dates so you don't have a situation like we did.

It's been a while since I've had a bottle of Ramune. I had forgotten how hard it is sometimes to push that marble down. Or perhaps I'm just getting weak/old. I bought this bottle on our last trip to the Asian market because I love the little face on the bottle. It looks happy because of the smile, but it's almost a mischievous look. It's as if he's saying, "go ahead, drink this... I DARE you." Maybe I've been watching too much of The Office, but he kind of reminds me of Dwight.

Actually, that is the perfect analogy to this drink. Lychee is great so you think this soda is going to be great. Then you see the mischievous character on the label and you start to second guess yourself. Then you turn it around and notice there is high fructose corn syrup in it and you think to yourself "I thought only Americans used that awful sweetener?" Then the marble is really difficult and gives you a really hard time. So by the time you finally taste it, it's delicious but you're really scared that it might actually be poison.

This drink is Dwight K. Schrute. If only it was beet flavored.

Did you know that Mountain Dew has a new CEO? That may or may not be shocking to you, but what you will say “wait whhhhhhaaaaa?” to is that fact that the new man in charge is no one other than Motley Crue bass player, Nikki Sixx. In a press release he assured stockholders that his crucial rocking will not interfere with the running of the business. He was quoted as saying, “If I can get our sound guy to teach me how to use Photoshop on the bus, that I can certainly run a multinational company from that very same home on wheels.” This left many people in the business and soda world shaking their heads until Mr. Sixx announced the release of a new line of Mountain Dew drinks called “Kick Start.” The newly appointed head of the company then told the world that the product tag line would be “Kick Start your heart from another overdose.” This left shareholders even more bewildered.

We recently received samples of this new line, and everyone at Mountain Dew can calm themselves down as no such tagline exists anywhere on the packaging. In fact it looks rather tasteful and one would never expect that a person capable of such debauchery had anything to do with its creation. The flavor of the Fruit Punch version isn't all that bad either. Even though it is sweetened primarily by high fructose corn syrup, it's not as think as you would expect, especially for being a fruit punch. It has 5% juice in it, all of which seems to be grape juice for some reason. If I had to break it down for you, which I do, I would say it tastes like someone mixed two parts of mild fruit punch in with one part regular Mountain Dew. It's not mind-blowing, or anything all that new, but it tastes pleasant enough.

It has 92mg of caffeine in it, which is slightly more than regular Mountain Dew and about half of the amount in a comparable sized coffee. I know they are trying to push this as a morning drink, but I really have no interest in drinking anything carbonated within the first couple hours that I'm awake. Mountain Dew obviously is always marketed towards younger folks, but man even in college I wouldn't have drank this until the afternoon. Rumor has it that Mr Sixx has been on a steady diet of nothing and Kick Start for the past month. He has overdosed a half dozen times in that time period.

You've come a long way baby…€¦is what I would tell myself if I was a complete creep. It wasn't all that long ago that I would drink “mainstream” soda all the time. I didn't know that there was more out there. Now that it's years later and I have drunk more of a variety than 95% of the population it's hard going back to these types of sodas aka basically anything that also comes in a 2lt bottle.

I don't even remember when the last time I had Cherry 7Up was. I do remember that I used to enjoy it a decent amount. Now I would never refer to it as “Crisp. Clean. Refreshing,” as the bottle does. It's so thick and syrupy to me now. I loved drinking Shirley Temples when I would go bowling as a kid, so when I was able to get it on the regular in this form I was stoked. I remember thinking it tasted exactly the same. Oh how our palates grow to be more sophisticated. This tastes nothing like a Shirley Temple, which I will be enjoying tonight as I actually have a bowling date. As an adult the cherry flavor tastes cheap to me. It's too bad because I was actually looking forward to drinking this, hoping that it would be as good as I remember.

Since I do not have the same tastes as the general public, and because I remember how much I did enjoy this pop at one point in my life, I will give it three bottles. If this was something new, it would probably get two, but nostalgia runs high.

Apparently this is supposed to be a morning drink so you can 'kick start your day'. So it's competing against coffee and energy drinks essentially, two things I love and definitely drink a lot. When I first heard about this new drink from Mountain Dew, I thought it was just going to either be a repackaging of their energy drink Amp, or a slightly modified version of Mountain Dew Livewire. At least that was what I was expecting when I tried it.

Those who hate energy drinks will be pleased to hear that this is nothing like them taste wise. And despite high fructose corn syrup being the second ingredient, it's not syrupy like a soda. It has a consistency closer to sparkling juice, but with much more sugar (and caffeine). It's not quite as refreshing as most sparkling juices I've had, but it's definitely easier to drink than soda. As far as the orange taste goes, it's closer to orange soda than orange juice.

So will this drink replace coffee and energy drinks? Maybe for some people but it's not a groundbreaking drink. But that is also coming from someone who loves coffee and energy drinks so I'm probably not their target demographic.

Mountain Dew Code Red used to be my go-to soda. I probably bought a bottle every day I went to high school for a couple years. The problem was I over did it and I got sick of something I used to love. They don't make it obvious anymore, but Pepsi/Mountain Dew makes AMP Energy. It really shows with this flavor because it tastes like someone pour an energy drink into a bottle of Code Red. For those who have never had Code Red before: a. what is your problem? and b. it tastes like a really syrupy cherry soda with a citrus kick in the aftertaste. With the energy drink component in this, the kick is extra strong.


While writing this review I realized I hadn't seen an Amp Energy commercial in a while so I went to youtube to see if I could find any. While I found one featuring Buffalo Sabres goalie Ryan Miller hurling insults at another goalie in some weird underground insult competition, the majority of the videos were of 8-12 year old kids chugging AMP Energy drinks. I knew there were some dark corners of youtube that didn't have funny cat videos or Rebecca Black parodies, but I didn't think there would be adolescent boys in their backyard shotgunning energy drinks in hopes that the video will become viral/impress their friends.

Root beer is kids beer. Whenever parents are around drinking beer, the kids get root beer. "No, son. You can't have a beer but you can have a root beer." It has the "beer" in the title so they're fine. I think that I would like to meet a person who things that root beer doesn't taste better than beer, though. I mean beer is an acquired taste since it is bitter. Root beer? Sweet, bold, dark, and has fun ingredients that can rival "good" beers. Some have licorice, honey, and vanilla just like their alcoholic cousin "real beer."

One step beyond is this. It's got vanilla like A&W has but this is low calorie version of the regular one that you have grown up to love. It doesn't have a diet taste, which is the best part about it. I mean, if I had the calorie-full one next to the calorie-less one, I could probably tell but who's doing that? Not me, and I consider myself a professional. It's a self-appointed position that involves no perks, benefits, or fancy badges. It's nice to have a diet that doesn't taste gross and with the primary demo being a man, this rules. Men, you're fine. I've done the extensive research of drinking something for you so you don't have to. You're welcome. I do accept paper checks although hot, sweaty cash is better, as long as it's not actually sweaty. I worked in retail and it happens. Women coming in with money in their boobular area and hand it to me to buy belly button rings. Grozz. Please stop doing that, women. It's totally grozz.

Men. We're tough. We don't cry. We wipe our noses with sandpaper. We eat rocks and we eat animals. One thing we don't do is diet. We're fine with our weight and don't have any issues with our shape. Shows like "The Biggest Loser" include "guys" but they are really just holograms. No guy is at the gym, either. Every guy you see at the gym is a woman in a man's suit.

Often we do want to go up and down the stairs without having to stop half way and catch our breath. A diet of chicken wings, hamburgers, and triple thick chocolate milkshakes do not lead to a particularly healthy lifestyle. As I said, guys don't diet, but they do cut back a little. That's where the "Ten" line comes in. Flat gray can and a marketing message do a lot. It's only one step away from black, gray is. If you spend your days chugging fruity pop and need to "cut back," you've got another choice. This would be all well and good if this didn't taste so "diet." Yeah, part of disguising a diet drink as "manly" is to keep it from tasting like a diet drink and reminding these brutes that they are, in fact, on a diet. It's got a good, classic Sunkist orange taste but is promptly washed over by a sea of artificial sweeteners. If you can take your "cutting back" with a grain of salt and have grown to expect a different taste with your diet drinks, you'll be fine, but it just makes this drink feel like a Diet Sunkist rather than some new, rebranded line of beverage.

Men, you're awesome. You're arrogant, tough, aggressive, opinionated, and use hand tools. This drink has been specially tailored for you but it feels like more of an insult than a compliment. It just tastes like a diet drink and doesn't taste tailored.

I'm in the process of dealing with what I can only describe as week-long carsickness that other people are telling me is vertigo. Whatever it is, it sucks and is unwelcome in my head. I've got constant spinning and slight nausea, which is enough to make me just sick enough in the head and stomach that my days totally suck. In order to combat this, I decided to recruit good old ginger ale to help me. Is it helping? No, unfortunately not.

For a ginger ale, this is as average as they come. "It's a mixer." you are wishing you could tell me but in reality, it's a drink all to itself and it is average. It's sweet and tastes like ginger ale. Ever since I've found ginger ale that has an essence of actual ginger, everything else is "just" ginger ale. Basic ginger ale is becoming increasingly difficult to review, as like orange juice, it really tastes the same.

I don't know what I'm going to do about this barrage of nausea, as it's exhausting. This ginger ale isn't helping. Sleep isn't helping. I might just have to taco it out. Honestly, it couldn't hurt at this point and sounds like the best treatment at this juncture.

Do you think that Nu South was inspired by Nu Metal? I certainly hope so. Look, joke about nu metal all you want but seriously, some of those southern dudes can shred. Finger blistering solos, just destroying the neck. Calluses that could hold hot irons for an extended period of time. I wonder if the dudes from Slipknot, even though they are not from the South but are nu metal, blow the crowd away with an awesome set and then go backstage, sit on a couch together, all eight or nine of them, it's a sectional with a couple additional sections. What? It's in their rider. Anyhow, they sit down and the stagehand hands them a case of of Nu South?

On a hot summer day in the South, a cool glass of this would probably be pretty good. A lukewarm bottle on a nineteen-degree day after doing nothing in the North East doesn't do this drink justice. It's got that strange "is it carbonated or is some garbage ingredients just tickling my throat?" Slipknot doesn't care. They are all sweating from thrashing and wearing masks and jump suits in the hot, Southern sun. They just want to chug lemonade, I'm sure. It's not terrible lemonade. It's got the makings of something great and tastes good except for the questionable, sharp taste.

Look, Slipknot is good. Kids love them. I like them a lot. Honestly, their first LP was great, Iowa, not their best, but Volume 3 is incredible. Like them or don't like them. They are good. Just deal with it. Slipknot members zero through eight, any time you guys want to do a guest review, you know where to find us. Keep up the good work.

When people make a blanket statement and call all soda "sugar water", I immediately want to cry out and tell them about all the amazing sodas I have had that are far from sugar water.

Then I had this soda, and understood what they meant. There is barely any raspberry flavor in this Windex looking soda. Liquid Jolly Ranchers at it's worst. I thought this was going to be a sweet treat for myself, but I was sadly disappointed.

This isn't Brisk, it's not PureLeaf and it certainly isn't their 100% natural line. What we have here is just plain old Lipton lemon iced tea. I actually don't think I have ever even seen this before until this bottle made its way into my grubby little hands (okay my hands are actually quite large, which is awkward since my ladyfriend's hands are tiny. I don't suggest this combo).

This doesn't taste all that different from their Brisk line. If anything it tastes like it's homemade from some powdered tea mix. Man, I haven't had that stuff in at least 15 years. I used to get it and make insanely strong/sweet tea that I would always have in my backpack. I bet I couldn't even get a gulp of that stuff down nowadays. This tastes like what that tea would have tasted like had I followed the directions. It's not bad. It's just average. It's like what you would expect to get if they had tea on tap at Applebees or some garbage place like that. Ugh, those restaurants are the worst.

Down in North Carolina natural streams careen down from the peaks of the Appalachian Mountains. Arcadia Farms uses that fresh water to make their personal take on southern sweet tea. It's too bad that they use the water directly from the streams and don't take any measures to “clean it up.” There is just a pump that sucks the water directly from the stream out back on the Arcadia land into the vat that they make their tea in. Don't they know that squirrels, coyotes and various other fauna do their business in that water? Maybe I can't prove that they actual do that, but I think I might believe someone if they told me that after having tasted this tea. It doesn't really taste like tea at all. It tastes more like extremely heavily sugared dirty water. I can get by the insane sugar taste since it is sweet tea after all. I cannot get past the fact that it doesn't taste like tea; you know the main ingredient in “tea.” The strange thing is that the ingredients list …€˜brewed tea,” which generally means that you're in for a good beverage. Somehow the Farm got it all wrong.

I will be the first to admit that I am a complete snob when it comes to ginger ale/beer. When done properly it can be one of the finest beverages to ever grace your mouth. When done improperly it's just a bubbly sea of mediocrity (yet I've never tasted one that I would call bad). Due to this snobbery I tend to stay away from the “big names” of soda for this flavor. I get real annoyed, real fast when a ginger drink doesn't even have any real ginger in it. Luckily Canada Dry still uses ginger in their mix, so I decided to take it for a little test ride. Sure I've had it before, but it's been over five years, and in actuality it has probably been closer to ten. Seriously, since I had a real ginger beer I hardly ever go back to the light stuff, well except on flight. I always drink ginger ale and apple juice on planes for some reason.

With the exception of their choice of sweetener, Canada Dry makes a ginger ale the way it should be made. It's bubbly and crisp. You can taste the ginger in it, but it's not enough to have any sort of burn. This is a dry ginger ale after all. (For those of you not in the know, pale or dry in reference to a ginger drink means that it doesn't have any kick.) This is of higher quality than most big name sodas. I appreciate that they took a little bit of time with this one instead of just cranking out generic soda.

Whenever I think of peach nectar a very specific idea is floating around my skull. I think of a very thick, sweetly perfect juice that tastes like I have shrunk down a million peaches so that I could fit them all in my mouth at once. That is what Looza peach nectar tastes like, and it's what I think that all drinks that bear this name should as well. Unfortunately Kerns does not share my belief. First off this is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, which can be okay in sodas but is a big no-no when it comes to juice. The result is that instead of tasting like glorious fruit, it's a bit on the candied side. The consistency of this is fairly thick, but it's the wrong kind of thickness that you get from a syrup and not from blending the fruit for a shorter time. At least they used real peach puree in this. It's not horrible by any means. I would happily drink a can of this, but when you're beverage is being compared to the big guns you have to reach for the stars. Kerns apparently though that reaching for the lowest branches would be enough.

I found this drink once before and did not buy it because it was two years expired. It sought me out and demanded I drink it. Now, I found this and my heart dropped because I thought this was going to be the drink to "do it." What do I mean by "do it?" Why, throw up, of course. I put this in the fridge today in anticipation of possibly doing it, but I'm a Thirsty Dude, I have to drink everything. This is part of everything, ergo I have to drink it.

First sip was a tiny sip. If this were going to make me sick, the sip I took would have warned my body that terror was about to strike. It was prefacing my body to prepare for the onslaught that was about to come. My poor body. It probably hates me. I throw absolute garbage at it every day and it does me pretty well.

I was surprised, though. It was not poison but an almost drinkable beverage. If you can imagine a green olive inside a lemonade, that would be this. A kid martini. It tasted a lot less like a green olive than I was expecting. I'm not drinking more than 10% of this as I still fear it but I conquered it nonetheless.

In closing I will tell you what it says on the front and you can determine for yourself if what I said matches the companies statement on said drink:
"A wonderful gift bestowed by nature with a distinctive flavor"

Black tea is the old man. White tea is the young buck. Green tea is the grandpa. Red tea is the teenager, confused on what to do with life. Bad haircuts, ill fitting clothes, questionable taste in music, and so much more. It's like a midlife crisis but done as a young kid so it's like a quarter life crisis. You date people younger than you and people are starting to talk. You started to see this strawberry and that's not a traditional thing for tea to do. It's a kid flavor and you should be on your way to become an adult tea. You should be seeing other red teas but you aren't a conformist. You do what you want. You are your own tea. You are going to date that strawberry because she's got a great shape and is fun to be around. Together, you make a decent tea. You are sweetened but aren't done the right way because you, like always, cut corners and went the corn syrup route. It's alright because people that are just like you are fine with it. It smells good thanks to your younger girlfriend but you're really letting her do all the work. You're just sitting back, like you always do. You know, as I think about it, I agree with your black tea father. Use real sugar and don't mess with no fruits. That's how to let a man shine.

Children, gather around the fire and I shall tell you a tale. It is the story of fruit tea. It is a tale as old as time and this is how it goes: some people were thirsty so they decided to brew some tea. They wanted to make it a bit more exciting than their normal afternoon beverage so them juiced some passionfruit into it. The end. I know it is a short story and not exciting in the least bit. There were no lions, or robots, or robots that turned into lions and breathed fire out of their butt, but it is a story nonetheless. If you have a problem with my story, then I shall offer you a sip of my tea and that will shut you right up. It is sweet and flavorsome. If you've ever had passionfruit bubble tea than you know exactly how this tastes. Green tea used in bubble tea has a specific taste and that is exactly what is in this bottle. If you're not a fool then you got it with passionfruit, because it is the king of fruits, or at least is in a Game of Thrones type war for the crown. How on Earth did a television show written explicitly for nerds gain such a normal audience? I think it's the promise of dragons and zombies. Perhaps there will even be an undead dragon. Or an undead robotic lion that shoots fire out of its butt. I would watch that and drink a gallon of this tea as I did so.

I have been duped. I walked into my local convenience store today and saw this 2 liter of Faygo in the cooler. While there were lots of flavors to choose from that we haven't reviewed yet, this one caught my eye because it has holiday packaging so I assumed it was a limited edition flavor. Limited edition flavors are what we love to find because: a. they are usually a weird flavor a company is trying out and b. they aren't around for a long time so it's best to review them ASAP.

When I saw this I immediately thought of Pepsi Spice. Sadly they stopped making Pepsi Spice before we started Thirsty Dudes, but it was basically Pepsi with nutmeg in it. They didn't have any small bottles of this St. Nick's Cola. I really didn't want a whole 2 liter, but I needed to try it in hopes it was like Pepsi Spice.

Boy was I disappointed when I tried it. It tastes exactly like the normal Faygo Cola. After a quick search and reading the bottle, it turns out Faygo makes "St. Nick" versions of some of their sodas and money from the sales goes to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. On one hand I'm sad this didn't taste like Pepsi Spice, but on the other I'm glad it's going to a good cause.