High Fructose Corn Syrup - 485 Reviews

No. We haven't done this before. Yes. It has been out for a decade. There is no shortage of reviews for Arizona reviews on this site. As a matter of fact, they are one of the most reviewed products that we've done. Sometimes, though, things slip through the cracks. Things we've drank one hundred times we don't remember if we drank for personal pleasure or for the good of the site. Up until now, this was strictly a pleasure drink. Well, not any more, kids. Now it's business.

Look at all the darn fruit on this bottle. Let me count the ways this is a fruit punch: apple, pear, mango, cherry, both green and concord grapes, and strawberry. That's a plethora of fruit. That would make a pretty decent fruit salad. Does it make a decent drink, though? Well, yes, it does. You can't taste everything. I feel like I'm missing out on some mango action, perhaps some cherry, too. Do I hold it against them? No. How fine are people's taste buds that they can distinguish between like ten fruits all while being sweetened by corn syrup? No, that's not a dig. It's just what they use to sweeten it. Sure, I'd like to taste this with real sugar, or even sugarless, but it's not penalizing them. The sweetener is fine because there are a lot of fruit flavors going on in that bottle.

Arizona aren't a bunch of dumb dummies. They've been doing this for years. Remember how we just celebrated their twentieth birthday? They're vets. Pros, even. They did a fine job and you know that because you've been drinking their stuff for years. I'm sure they would thank you if given the opportunity. You should thank them, too. It's the right thing to do.

I went into this expecting it to be a standard grape soda. You know the kind that in reality tastes nothing like s fruit that grows on vines, but more like a weird unnatural flavor that has been pounded into our taste buds under the guise of grape. I was certain that this was a soda pop that I have had before, but after one sip I had to second guess myself. This is not your ordinary generic brand grape soda. I didn't have to look at the ingredients list to know that there was actually grape juice in this. It's not totally just sparkling grape juice (oh how I wish it were). It's more of as hybrid of grape juice and the previously mentioned fake grape flavoring. It may not be the ideal, but it's a lot better than Johnny No-Name soda. From jelly to soda, Welch's you've come a long way.

Every once and then Turkey Hill iced teas used to pop up in Buffalo and I always found them to be a treat. Then Tops Markets started always carrying a few of the flavors and I found that once they were readily available, I hardly ever purchased them. I guess that is always the case with me. It's more about the game than the prize itself. Whoa, things just got a bit deep there...anyways since this stuff is based out of PA there are a bunch of Turkey Hill gas stations where their entire line is available. In the past I would have stocked up on all of them, but I only bought this single, smaller, bottle. The game has officially ended.

This is a heavily sweetened black tea (48g of sugar in 16oz) with some real orange juice mixed in. It tastes like a fairly even ratio. While I appreciate the use of real juice, and it does effect the flavor in a positive way, it seems like if they're going to make that effort, they should have used real sugar instead of corn syrup. The sweetener they chose gives the tea a cheap taste that is just unfortunate.

You may find yourself wondering what my new game is, and I can safely say that it is soft pretzels from Philly/Wawa. The amount of them I eat while there is enough to choke a baboon.

I don't know what these fruits are furious about. Perhaps it's because they are being referred to as tropical, and they are all everyday heart of America fruits, except for the pineapple. Have the rest of the fruits worked themselves up into a tizzy because the pineapple is getting a higher billing than them? Well if it's the apples and grapes that we're talking about, that would be understandable. They are doing all the grunt work (they are the only two fruits mentioned by name on the ingredients list, the rest falls under natural flavors) and they get very little of the credit. Isn't that how it always is, the work of many is exploited by the few?

I really hope that our friend cherry isn't putting up much of a fuss. He may not be at the top of the marquee, but he certainly is the star of the show. Everything else melds together into a generic fruit punch flavor, but it's that small billed cherry whose performance shines through. Isn't that what is most important, to be the name on everyone's lips once the curtain falls?

Now I know we previously reviewed the Bawls G33K B33R, but in the name of beverage science I had to give this a try since they dropped the 1337 speak and simply named this "root beer". Were they confusing people? Did they finally realize talking in numbers was kinda lame? Or did they completely change the formula and make it 100% less geeky?

Unfortunately a representative for Bawls could not be reached to comment on this matter. Ok, to be honest I didn't try. But I can comment on the last question: the taste. Is it different? Not at all. It's still delicious. Am I glad they changed the name on the bottle? Meh. I could care less really. I wasn't bothered by the 12 year old gamer talk on the bottle. What I would have loved to been a fly on the wall for is the meeting(s) where they discussed whether to keep the bottles as "G33K B33R" or change them to the traditional and less annoying "root beer". Maybe someday companies like Bawls will conference us in for our "expert" opinions.

Jack Nicklaus is a man who likes to talk trash with his beverages. He saw that his rival Mr. Palmer was getting all this attention for his love of mixing iced tea and lemonade. Jack scoffed at that bastardization of two fine drinks. He believed that both of those beverages are perfectly fine on their own and there was no need to mix them. “Listen folks, there is a time for lemonade and a time for tea, and it will be a cold day in hell when you see them mixed in my home,” is a direct quote of his to the press. He then went on to tell the press that he will be releasing a line of drinks that will leave Mr. Palmer quaking in his golf cleats.

The world has yet to see any tea drinks bearing Mr Nicklaus' name, but his lemonades are a force to be reckoned with. Sure he sweetens them with high fructose corn sweetener, and many people take offense to that, but I believe it was the correct choice for these drinks. It makes them smoother and takes away some of the bite. With this particular version the lemonade perfectly accentuates the mango of the flavor. It seems more like a mangoade with lemon flavoring to it, than vice versa. The use of mango puree makes the flavor wonderful and authentic. Jack Nicklaus really has something going on here and his partnership with Arizona is truly a hole in one.

-Steve Brummerberg
Associated Press

Orange pop out of the gate is not on the top of my list. I've had decent ones but I've never had great ones. I've had one or two blood orange drinks that have been good but as a whole, orange pop, and most "fruit" pop should be limited to backyard barbecues. This though, this was not only the epitome of mediocre it was downright boring. Flat flavor and a rather candy-esque orange flavor all together. It actually was so non-impressive, it doesn't warrant any more of my time.

Blech. Oh you like sweet pop? Consider me your number one researcher because I have found some sugary stuff for you. This is cream soda but it is more sugar than cream. I've got two sips invested into this guy so far and I can just hear the blood rushing towards the loins of dentists due to the amount of sweetness just degrading my poor teeth. Otherwise unaroused, middle aged men who secretly but not-so secretly love their quasi-attractive, semi-overweight receptionists and not-so secretly hate their wildy attractive wives just losing their mind at the thought of tending to my dental work due to the unfortunate run in with this pop. Dentists who expensive cars they hate but drive regardless because of the looks they get from girls. Dentists who have personalized license places that say things like "N1CETEEF" and " NYDENT15T" and "BR4CE584." They all want me.

It seemed like everyone was either out of town or had plans yesterday so I started my winter ritual of wasting my time playing video games a bit early. Since my ladyfriend was one of the people that were out of town, the cats and I had the apartment to ourselves. I played far too many hours of Final Fantasy, until I got a call that Mike was available and he wanted me to come over and play even more video games. I swear outside of a couple of winter months I rarely if ever play these things. We ended up playing Home Run All Stars Derby for far too long and laughed way too much.

Since the day was filled with electronic fun I decided I needed to imbibe an appropriate beverage. My good friend Kevyn gave me this soda and this seemed to be the perfect time for it. The description of the can proclaims it to be a “citrus wired cherry soda” aka cherry soda with caffeine in it. I suspected it to taste like Mountain Dew Code Red, which it did, but much better. The base is like a cherry soda with a light Mountain Dew taste to it, but the kicker is that there is also orange in there as well. That's what sets the drink off, and gives you these weird orange burps afterwards. I was just struck by the vision of actually being able to see burps exiting someone's mouth and them having an orange tint to them. Strange times.

Black can. I have never seen it before. It caught both Jay and I off guard when we went to the store once again looking for new stuff. I don't know how Arizona keeps churning out new products. They've got to push out a new product every month or so and only two or three per year I know about. My brother loves Arnold Palmer so much. I don't know how he drinks it. I don't particularly enjoy it. It's a little too diet but that could just be the "Lite" flavor. I know a couple kids like that. I always seem them drinking either the regular or the "Lite" but never these new flavors. Why? It's the same base that you love with some more flavors. Safe flavors, too. Strawberry? Who doesn't like a strawberry iced tea or strawberry lemonade? I say "or" because I don't know which side the strawberry lies on. It's good. Maybe it's like 75% half and half and then 25% strawberry Arizona. You know they're just mixing tubes down there in the factory. It's like a bunch of dudes saying, "Alright bring me the green tea tube and mix it with this pomegranate tube and why don't you bring me over that watermelon tube and we'll see what we can concoct." It's like the Mexican restaurant of drink companies where they only have seven ingredients and somehow manage to make a four page menu.

This is good, though. It still retains a little bit of tea, a little more lemonade, and a decent strawberry taste. Maybe Arnold Palmer was upset that Jack Nicklaus got a strawberry lemonade and he wanted some of the action on that. Those golfers. Always competing. Lay off each other, gents. You guys did pretty well for yourselves in your prime. You've each got a closet of green jackets you can be proud of.

I thought we had tried every flavor of Arnold Palmer. Then I saw this bottle, in a Fox News store, in the Houston Airport. Ironically just past this store was a PGA tour shop. This isn't my favorite, but the pomegranate is a nice change of pace to be mixed into the classic drink recipe. I wish this didn't have HFCS in it because it makes in unnecessarily thick tasting.

Well. What a disappointment. If this wasn't in a fun bottle, it would have gotten a two but I gave it the benefit of the doubt and gave it a three. Flavor alone, two. Undoubtedly. Not because it was bad but because it was one of the most boring colas I've ever had. In the everlasting quest for the world's greatest cola, this is at the bottom of the list. I have had generic, supermarket cola that is better than this. It's just cola. No depth, body, or anything. Oh you want cola flavored pop? Here is some cola flavoring. Done. Corn syrup knocks it down. Just boring. Plain and simple. It's times like this when I really wish that I had that octopus flavored Ramune.

About a decade ago my friends and I had a tradition of doing a scavenger hunt every Halloween. A friend who had moved out of town would make up a list of about 25 things we needed to get/do that were all fairly ridiculous. Thirsty Mike participated the one year and he can vouch for how much fun it was. The list changed yearly with things on it like: take a picture of yourself nipple deep in Lake Erie (you can't comprehend how cold that is), steal a table pager from a specific restaurant, break into a pet cemetery and find the name of the gorilla buried there, video tape two teammates dumping a gallon of milk down each others pants, have two team members kiss with tongue (yeah my mom walked in on me kissing Jerid “The Hammer”…€¦awkward), drink BBQ sauce out of a condom and various other dumb things. One thing that was on the list every year was to get a single can of Mello Yello. You see these were the times when Mellow Yello was scarce. Coke had replaced it with Surge and that had gone the way of the Dodo. No one ever got points for that one. My team went so far as to drive to Canada (okay it's only 15 minutes away) because someone said a store up there had it. They were wrong.

Since I haven't been in Buffalo for Halloween since 2005, and my mother was the “Mistress of Ceremonies” the hunt was called off. Every year no matter where I end up being I always wish I were back in Buffalo doing dumb things with my friends. I found this can of Mello Yello a few weeks ago, and I knew I had to save it for today. That's right, my team would have won if the game were still on.

I can't even remember the last time I had a taste of this soda. I can tell you that it doesn't taste like I remember it at all. In my mind it was just Coke's version of Mountain Dew and that's not it at all. It tastes like orange and lime sodas were mixed together. You know what that's what citrus soda should be, screw lemon. Who needs lemon-lime soda when you can have orange-lime? I mean this isn't mind blowing or anything, but I do enjoy it. Of course I also have that stupid song stuck in my head as well, “I'm just mad about Saffron…€¦”

Who needs seedless watermelons? I mean seriously. You're eating watermelon outside and you are almost encouraged to spit the seeds. I don't think I've ever eaten sliced watermelon inside. Sure, cubed watermelon as part of a fruit salad I've eaten inside, but the kind that looks like fruit pizza I think I've only eaten outside. I love the stuff. I love the seeds. There is something therapeutic about filling your mouth with seeds and machine gunning them out. Not at someone as that would be sticky, disrespectful, and pretty disgusting. Just shoot them for distance and for fun.

I'm pretty sure that the whole "If you eat the seeds you will grow a watermelon in your stomach." I think that anyone who has ever believed that was true has never had a garden a day in their lives. I would say that twenty-five percent of my annual garden just doesn't come to fruition due to poor soil, water, drainage, dogs, space, etc. It's hard to grow some things and you need optimal environment to grow a lot of things. You really think that a watermelon could germinate inside your acidic stomach filled with hamburger grease, pop, sugars, no sunlight, and no real nutrients. I mean, you could argue that it was like a composter but it's still far too dangerous for anything to sprout. So that's that.

So if you still aren't convinced that you don't not need seeds, this drink is for you. It's watermelon flavors, as it should be since it claims it is, but it's right in the middle of "real" watermelon and "candy" watermelon flavored. It's a tallboy and should be shared. No one should drink this in one sitting unless they love 300 garbage calories dedicated to a drink that doesn't fully taste like the fruit it represents. I think you could probably eat a whole watermelon for under 300 calories. I wouldn't recommend it as you body would have to go into some sort of fruit shock. That might just be called diarrhea, actually. Don't get me wrong, it's a good drink and is nice on overcast days like this to bring you back to a childhood summer, but for almost twenty-four ounces, this is gluttonous.

Frankenstorm. Is that what they're calling it? Frankenstorm? All of the Thirsty Dudes are from Buffalo and we know a thing or two about storms. "The October Storm" is a storm that locals refer to as "The October Storm" but in actuality happened like six or seven years ago. We still call it that. I know there was "The Blizzard Of '77" but that has a year attached to it. "The October Storm" hit like nothing anyone has ever seen with warm, then melt, then flash freeze and then it just rained branches and snow simultaneously.

Canada felt a little bit, too, I bet, being so close an I know that some people were stuck in their homes. One thing that can survive without a fridge is Canada Dry. I don't know why, but it's always carbonated. Industry secrets. I guess if I was hunkered down in some iced over bomb shelter Canada Dry as the refreshment wouldn't be too bad. One step better would be this cranberry variety. It's a nice blend of the classic taste and a new, fruity twist. It's not too sweet so when you're in your temporary concrete, windowless retreat, you aren't bugging out with too much sugar. I'm not sure why, but I'm thinking that the shelter is set up like one of those church rec rooms with all old, used furniture, dark, wood paneling, and just decks of pinochle cards and not a "regular" deck of cards at all. That decor mixed with cranberry Canada Dry is defiantly better than some have it, but it's only half ideal. It makes you wish you took that winter vacation to the Florida Keys like you were planning. Hindsight is twenty twenty my friend.

Sometimes you find yourself on tour with a bunch of your friends. You (they) play a bunch of shows and it's fun and awesome and everyone has a good time. Sometimes you don't have as place to stay at the end of the night and that is a bummer. Sometimes while you're standing around trying to figure out what you're going to do you get a call that friends are playing a show down the street, so you go to check it out. Sometimes you wind up on Lagwagon's tour bus at two in the morning. Sometimes you get handed a drink and you would normally turn it down because you don't drink, but then you look at it and you realize it's a ginger ale that you haven't reviewed on your dumb drink review website.

It was a fun night, and even though I don't particularly care about the band, everyone who was around was really nice and we had a good time. The ginger ale was fairly standard. It tasted like pretty much every no name ginger ale out there. If you've had a ginger ale in a restaurant or at a family party you know what this tastes like. The can is graphically appealing though. It's got a nice logo and a pleasant color scheme.

I just spent four days traveling across Canada searching bodegas high and low for new drinks. It wasn't until days later in a pizza shop in Philadelphia that I came across some bottles of Canadian Dry Vanilla Cream. I had never heard of such a flavor existing, and I would never have expected top find it in as sea of cheesecakes and peanut chews. Myself and everyone I was with, were super pumped for a vanilla ginger ale. Think about that for a second. How incredibly awesome of a soda would that be? Unfortunately Canadian Dry didn't have the vision to make such a drink. This is nothing more than a cream soda. It's on of the best HFCS sweetened cream sodas I've ever tasted, but it's still just a cream soda and the lack of ginger is a disappointment.

It has quite a strong vanilla smell that reminds me of vanilla extract. The flavor is about the same, but it is pretty thick and syrupy. If this was sweetened with cane sugar it would probably be through the roof good. Dear Canada, America has stolen your company and used inferior sweeteners. You should stand up for yourself.

I have never seen X Factor. I know what it's about. Do I need to watch that to review this? I hope not. I don't hate Simon Cowell. I think that his role in television in unnecessary because the people who aren't good enough to be on television shouldn't be on television. I think, yes, he tells people what they need to hear but his role was created to solve a problem that didn't exist. That man is a heck of a driver, though, brother. Skills. He's good. So, for the wheelman Mr. Cowell, I will review your drink.

Simon, this is a nice drink. It's the first I've seen a major corporation utilize such a unique product as dragonfruit. I couldn't drink this entire bottle because I enjoy my teeth, current weight, and don't have dental insurance to fix them. I know you always sit on television with the world's largest glasses of pop but you and I both know that it's not pop in there all the time and that it's merely an advertising piece. You are a true Englishman and are probably drinking tea. It's in your blood. That's not to say that you can't drink pop, but your body craves a nice Earl Gray. That's not me creepily telling you that "I know what you want, Simon." but it's just a broad, blanket assumption.

Simon, I don't know what role you played in the planning of this drink but you didn't a good job and should take credit for it if you did. It's better than lemon Pepsi was. Vanilla was pretty good but this is a completely separate animal as far as I am concerned. This is Pepsi with a fruity taste. I'm going to get in trouble for saying that it's good because companies that more properly utilize dragonfruit are very passionate about it and get upset when companies much smaller and less influential misuse their precious, favorite fruit. They've got their own market and you've got yours. "You" in that previous sentence was you, Mr. Cowell and Pepsi.

I hope/trust you have a good season on the X Factor this year. I hope that it allows you to buy wonderful new cars. That's sincere, from one gear head to another.

Here's what I want you to do. Put me in a room and take all my clothes off. No, this is not a sexual thing. Now put a clean white shirt and a clean white pair of pants on me. Now put a pair of goggles on me. Now fill T-Shirt cannons with de-pitted cherries and an assortment of berries. Take aim and fire. That is a literal "cherry berry blast." It's fun. It's messy. It's unsuspecting. This drink, though, has a lot of the fun taken out of it. Allow me to explain.

This drink is not bad but it's too flat. It has a good berry flavor but not a real strong cherry flavor and almost no bite. If I have to judge by way of percentage, I would say that there is 9% bite in this drink. I don't get the sense that this was ever derived from real fruit. The main ingredients, as with most juices, is apple and grape juice. It's juices way of watering down juice. That's fine, but it really just tastes like berry flavoring more than anywhere in the creation of this drink did it ever encounter real fruit. It's simple. Kids will love it. Idiot adults will love it. People who care about fruit or want something a bit more natural will think this is boring. I didn't even say "organic," just natural. Corn syrup and artificial flavors could do anything poorly. It's a recipe for mediocrity.

I've always had a great dislike of Powerade. No, that's not right. I have always had a great disinterest in Powerade. When it first hit the market in Western New York I was in high school and I remember getting one and thinking that it tasted like Gatorade, with even less flavor. Back then there weren't many varieties of Gatorade and I wasn't a huge fan of it to begin with, as it lacked in bursting flavor that my teenage taste buds craved. I curbed that craving by making my own iced tea at home with a mix and about seven times the recommended amount of sugar. I should have a giant hole in my head where my teeth should be. Back to the point though, I had Powerade once, wasn't impressed and this may be the first time since then that I've had it. You know what? I was wrong. This tastes pretty much exactly like blue Gatorade. It's a watery berry drink with a bunch of sugar in it, but not enough to think that it's insanely sweetened. I can assure you that there is probably 1/20 the amount of sugar in this than what I put in my high school tea. God, I'm so disgusted with myself for that. Ugh. I'm lucky I don't have diabetes.