Natural Sugar - 16 Reviews

I really don't know what to think of this soda. Part of me thinks it is gross because it's like drinking unflavored soda while chewing mint gum. Another part of me finds it strangely refreshing. Yet another part of me enjoys that I very may be freshening my breath by drinking a soda. One thing that is for certain is that this is a soda that has a very strong spearmint taste. It's not in the way that some mints burn your mouth, but it's more than just a subtle flavoring. I feel like people's opinions on this are going to be all over the board. Where will you land?

The best way for me to describe this beverage is to have you perform a little experiment. Go to your local corner store and pick up a pack of Extra peppermint gum as well as a pack of either Hubba Bubba or Bubbaliscious strawberry gum (whichever one is still in business). Now jam a piece of each in your mouth and just start chomping away. Once it's good and masticated take a swig of some bubbly water. Oh, I didn't mention you'd need that at the store; well you better head back, in the name of science. It's a good thing you have a bunch of gum left. Okay, water acquired. Now chew up some more gum, equal pieces mint and strawberry, and then take a big sip of that recently purchased bubbly water. There, now you know what this soda tastes like. It's really weird at first, but once you become acclimated with the strange flavor combo, it's fairly enjoyable.

I, like Jason, was in a band. We were in different bands although we did sit around and sing songs about barbecues when we lived together. We both played bass and weren't about to form a Ned's Atomic Dustbin or Freebass cover band. Anyhow, when I was in said band, we would always have Swedish Fish at the merch table. We went through many more boxes of candy than we did shirts, buttons, or CDs. People love candy. Fact. They love it.

Taking that into consideration, Jarritos was nice enough to make a drink that tastes pretty darn close to Swedish Fish. I guess Swedish Fish taste like fruit punch. That's a thought I never had. I always thought that they tasted like themselves and everything else tasted like them. No, my mind has done a 180 and I can put a name to a face and call that face "fruit punch."

This is a deliciously sweet and fruity pop. I can't believe that we haven't done it before. I've seen it at a couple places but just assumed it was already reviewed. I don't really like fruit pop but this might be my exception to the rule. It doesn't have a lingering flavor and it's nicely sweetened. Success!

While stuck in a desert, you reach your hand in your pocket. You pull out a pocket full of sand. You don't know what you should have expected. You've been out here with your camel for going on four days. Four long, hot, sweaty, sandy days. You have already lost ten pounds putting yourself at your "target weight" but it doesn't really matter because working out is what you wanted to do to lose the weight, not starve yourself. Sure, you ate that bird, but it wasn't great and you didn't have the proper spices and herbs to really make it a nice meal. You look at your camel and you see a rib eye steak with your camel's head in the hole, like in cartoons. You would never eat Jerome, but you would think about it, a lot.

You just endlessly climb hills of sand only to uncover more hills of sand. All of a sudden, you reach the peak of another sand hill and look down to see someone else. "Help!" you exclaim as you tumble and slide down the side of the hill. On closer inspection, that dude is fat. He tells you that he is just looking for a nice, flat place for a picnic for one. You walk with him, confused as to why someone would travel all this way for a picnic for yourself when you know for a fact that the country you are in has picnic tables and out here blows. The fat man sits down, lays out a blanket, takes out a three tier candlestick, four sandwiches, two bottles of Jarritos lime pop, a box of Nutter Butters, and half a watermelon. He takes several bites out of the first sandwich and looks at you, looking like garbage, and he says that you may sit down and join him. You sit; grab a sandwich, slice of watermelon, and bottle of pop. Why no Nutter Butters? Because it's 122 degrees in the desert and that chocolate has long melted.

You take a sip of the pop and are almost instantly relieved. All those days in the desert were erased and your camel finally doesn't look like a piece of meat anymore. Good old Jerome. You've have lime pop before, but this is so subtle, that it's actually quenching and not overly sour or bold like you were frightened it would have been. Just because you were starving, doesn't mean that you don't have taste buds.

You finish up, help the man clean up, and he offers to walk you back to the city. You walk over one hill and notice that you've just been going around in circles for four days. You feel stupid but now you can feel good about losing all that weight and having a sensible lunch.

I love when I go into what appears to be a run down corner store and it ends up being a beverage Mecca. At first I walked in and saw one lone cooler filled with the usual suspects of crappy soda. Then I noticed they inexplicably had five rows of Hansen's pomegranate. Strange. I turned the corner and the store opened up fairly large with two full walls of coolers. Excellent.

They had the largest selection of Jarritos I had ever seen. Who can say no to pineapple? Not me, that's who. Unfortunately it wasn't a strong flavor. It had a general sweet soda flavor with a hint of pineapple citrus flavor. I like my pineapple strong and Jarritos didn't follow through for me. Shame on you!

I saw Jimmy Eat World play last night. I've been a fan of them for many years, but had never seen them live. Being the music nerd I am, I found their set lists for this tour so I knew what to expect. It was a good mixture of Bleed American, Clarity and Futures, with a splash of Chase This Light and Invented.

They started the set with "Bleed American" followed by "A Praise Chorus", which was their standard opening on this tour. What came next, I wasn't expecting at all. "Today is the 10th anniversary of the release of Bleed American so we're going to play the whole album". The show I already knew was going to be good, just became amazing!

What does this have to do with this pop? That is exactly how I feel about this orange cream. Jason has given two other flavors by Vintage Soda great reviews, so when Mike gifted me this can (because he doesn't like orange cream soda. Crazy, huh?) I knew I was in for a treat. The first sip was good, tasted like a standard orange cream. It wasn't until the 2nd or 3rd sip that it hit me: this has a tangerine taste to it! Sure enough, tangerine extract is in the ingredients after orange extract.

Call me crazy, but I love tangerines more than oranges. In addition to the citrus medley, it has a really nice vanilla taste. It's not the smoothest orange cream, but it compliments the tangerine/orange flavor so well. To top it off, this soda is clear and is made with real sugar which is great seeing as they actually live by their "100% Natural" label, unlike some drinks.

Dear friends from the "Great White North,"
My intentions are not to offend you, but what do you really know about rodeos? I understand that a good portion of your police force rides horses, but I don't think the words "rodeo" and "Canada" have ever appeared in the same train of thought before. Hockey, now that's something that makes me think about Canada. You were in the right to use that on your cans of cola. The site of maple leaves and a buckin' bronco together just doesn't sit well with me. It's like when someone who obviously has never looked at any print design in his or her life decides to make a flyer for a show. Not only is each band's name in a different wacky font, but so are all the crucial info for the show. Oh and it's all typed over a way pixilated picture of train tracks, or something just as tacky. Maybe that's going a bit overboard. Your general layout isn't bad, I just can't get over that rodeo thing.....Oh wait never mind. I just took a sip and it made me forget about any flaws to the packaging. This is one hell of a root beer. This is in fact a root beer that cowboys would drink...if it were in a glass bottle. A cowboy would loose all of his cred if he were seen drinking out of a can. Did they have cans in the wild west? I think not! Seriously though, this is top notch. It has chicory root, vanilla, coriander and clove in it. I can get into any root beer where all of the spices and ingredients are all boiled down into wonderful syrup. It gives it such a rugged flavor, as if it should be drank out on the prairie while riding your dusty horse down the trail.

I am serious about the glass bottles though. If Vintage Soda packaged their pop in glass bottles I would give them five bottles all around. They make a serious soda.

I was told about Jarritos cola several months ago. Ever since I heard about its existence, I have looked for it in every taco and burrito establishment. Sadly, I couldn't find in anywhere. When I went to Pop Culture, I was really excited to see it in the cooler. Finally, I could taste what everyone has been raving about!

I must say, this definitely deserved the hype! It is a really good cola, and has a nice cola bite to it without the syrup taste HFCS gives other colas. It's not as refreshing as other Jarritos flavors (obviously), and I was unable to give it the burrito test. But unlike other Jarritos flavors, this stands on its own without a burrito. If I could find this more often, I'd drink this over Pepsi/Coca Cola any day.

Look, I'm not a resort guy. I got in a tiff with my girlfriend about going to Mexico and staying on a resort. What's the fun in that? If I go to a foreign land, I want to go to that foreign land. I want to eat what they eat, see what they see, and do what they do. What fun is going to a new place if you only get some faux luxury? No nitty-gritty. Slavery-esque waiting on you hand and foot is probably great for some people but what's more fun, getting waited on or getting dirty in the streets with the people. I want to eat real tacos and I don't want sushi if I go to Mexico. Who goes to Mexico and gets sushi? You go to Mexico to get tacos, and boss sugar skulls with your name on them, and delicious indigenous Jarritos pop.

I am not grapefruit's number one fan, let it be known, but maybe it's just because I don't like raw grapefruit and Squirt isn't the greatest. After trying DG's Ting, I might be a convert. This was very refreshing. It was very citric to start. Not too grapefruit until the very end where you get a nice zap of it. It's good. Chuggable good. I know that's a poor classification of drink, but honestly, some drinks are sipping drinks and some are not. This is anything you want it to be. Your dream drink, if you will.

If I went to Mexico, you know darn well that I would learn more Spanish than I ever learned in all my years of taking a foreign language in both high school and college. I would hope that after a while, they would see my love for burritos and welcome me in with open arms.

I tried something new with this bottle of Jarritos. I didn't drink it while eating a burrito. I did this because I don't have any burritos at the moment. I also wanted to find out if my theory is true about burritos and Jarritos being a perfect match.

Well I think my theory was correct. It may be because I don't like strawberries that much, or don't usually go crazy over strawberry flavored drinks, but I'm going to blame it on the lack of burrito that I'm not that into this soda. It smells, and tastes, like strawberry, and it's really light and fruity with the perfect amount of sweetness. But something is missing, and that something is a burrito.

Lesson learned.

Once again, my theory has been proven true. Burritos + Jarritos= perfect combination. This one was enjoyed at Don Pancho Taquería with a delicious veggie burrito. I love how flavorful this soda was. When they say mango flavor, they mean it! It was definitely the best mango soda I've ever had. It was sweet and refreshing. What more could you ask for a drink with a burrito?

It should be a law that Jarritos and burritos should be consumed together, because they compliment each other so well. I had a delicious (and giant) soy curl burrito with habanero sauce from Los Gorditos while drinking this. It helped extinguish the spicy burrito very well.

I ordered this flavor because I had never seen it before. I also made an ass out of myself when I asked for it because I didn't know it wasn't pronounced like the country. After doing some research, I now know Jamaica (pronounced ha-mayka) is made from a mixture of hibiscus flower and fruit juices. It had a really good sweet flavor to it. It was hard to decipher the flavors though the burning in my mouth, but it had a great cranberry and ginger aftertaste. I'm really excited to try this drink again when my mouth isn't on fire from an awesome burrito.

This is my second go at a tamarind drink. I have to say I'm not really a fan. After a quick internet search I learned that it's used in the following; pickling, jam, worcestershire sauce, chutney and as a natural laxative. It's pretty all over the map. It's been described as a sweet and sour taste. I think it's a plant that just doesn't know what it wants to do with its life. I can't think of anything to compare it to. Unfortunately this is the first Jarritos drink that I just can't get in to.

Jarritos, where have you gone? Why can I no longer find you around Buffalo? Your tasty sodas were everywhere down in FL. I understand you're made in Mexico, but c'mon. C'mon!
Every other guava drink I've ever had has been super thick. Most would even be classified as nectar. This has a thinner consistency, but not in a way that it seems watered down. Normal guava juice is always ridiculously sweet, but this has a very specific cane sugar sweetness to it. It's always awesome to find a nontraditional fruit flavor in soda, especially one that I don't want to pour in the toilet.

This was pleasant. I can't believe that we (Buffalo) don't have this. It was the perfect blend of sweet and apple that it was never too much. Everyone in the office agrees, this is an exceptional drink. You get a real apple taste the entire time and there is no artificial taste ever, whether the drink is in your mouth or in an aftertaste. They claim that "the flavor comes from the apple" and they're right. There are no artificial flavor or sweeteners in this drink. I can't say enough good things. This is a re-purchase and I thank Jay for picking it up from wherever he got it from.

I used to be able to find these around Buffalo, but I haven't seen them for quite some time. I just grabbed one at a store in Richmond. Great story, isn't it?
It's a nice orange pop. You can definitely taste mandarin as being the specific type of orange used.
This also came in a special bicentennial package. A company that has stayed in business for 200 years has obviously been doing something right.