Pure Cane Sugar - 220 Reviews

Finally, I say. Finally I have found a black currant drink that doesn't taste like a foot. I don't know what other people were doing but seriously everyone. Are you still mushing up fruit with your feet and are you also not washing your feet? Classic. Classic.

In the modern day, we've got machines and...I don't know...steamrollers...that mush up fruits to make juice. Clean things. This company is pretty spot on with everything we've had. This tea is a good, naturally sweetened black tea with a very nice and fruity black currant drink. It is a good split between the flavor and the base that I could drink again and again.

Look, if you've got a small, intimate company that still makes juice with your feet; I would love to drink it as long as you have some sort of FDA related clearance. I don't often care about the FDA but when potentially skuzzy body parts are involved, I might like a little bit of interference of a third party agency.

I don't mean to bum everyone out, but I currently have no grandmothers, as mine have both passed on. It happened a long time ago and I have moved on and learned to live in a grandmotherless world. Now that I've tasted my fourth bottle of this brand of tea I realize I was wrong and this is a plea for Granny Squibb to adopt me as her own so that I can get my fill of her tea any time I so wish. You see it's not available in Buffalo, and waiting for her new flavors to come out so that we can get samples is simply not acceptable.

This tastes like a nice black tea that one of my past grandmothers might have brewed up, except they never would have iced it. It was hot tea or nothing with them. This is chilled and sweetened. If it were just black tea I would have loved it, but the addition of raspberry made it perfect. This may in fact be the best raspberry iced tea I have ever tasted. When a tea actually tastes like it was sweetened with real fruit, you know the company has done well.

So what do you think Madam Squibb, will you be my new grandmamma?

A high quality tea is not hard to make but rather hard to come by. It seems this day everyone is a wimp and a half. The teas that are readily available are pretty mediocre at best and the good stuff, the top shelf iced teas, are few and far between. The difference between the two is typically that the high quality teas use less and real sugar and have a bit of complexity to them. I don't know what the general public is scared of. Adult flavors? Dude, if you put a can of Brisk next to a bottle of this, or any Argo tea, you would never drink that swill again. I mean it. That tea stings and no tea is supposed to sting. High fructose, overly sweetened garbage. I'm not saying that only Brisk is and sometimes Brisk is good but as far as "good" iced tea is concerned, anything in a can should stay in the can.

This tea is bold and bitter. It's a red tea so it's not as smooth as a black tea and actually tastes a little bit like a mate. The pomegranate is a nice, fruity taste that is with you the whole time but is no overshadowed or overshadowing. It's the well-behaved dog that we all want that knows what "heel" means. Red tea and pomegranate; neck and neck the whole time. No bad aftertaste and just a whole lot of loud flavor. There are four ingredients in this tea, too. It couldn't be simpler: water, red tea, cane sugar, and pomegranate juice. That's all it takes. That's all it takes to shelve literally dozens of gross teas to never be drank again.

Argo is not setting out to destroy the competition, but they could easily do it if they used cheaper bottles and lowered their price. The great bottles house great tea and they know it. It also sets them apart so keep those bottles. You're modest, Argo and you deserve it.

Charitea…€¦get it? Charity. Cherry Tea. It's wacky word play that comes around full circle. This is a cherry hibiscus tea and a percentage of its proceeds are donated to different charities. Those are two things that I can get behind.

I love that Argo chose to use hibiscus as their tea. It's not the obvious choice and it makes the drink that much more enjoyable. Also, unlike most companies they actually use real fruit juice to flavor their teas. So to clarify this is hibiscus mixed with straight up cherry juice. Could this get any better? Well self, I'm glad you asked. You see on top of the cherry and hibiscus there is also vanilla in the mix. For those of you not in the know, cherry and vanilla makes one heck of a combo. It also makes Mike's favorite pop of all time. This is a strong flavorful beverage, and even though it's a tad on the pricey side, it is well worth every penny. It's one of the most unique teas I've enjoyed in a long time, and I'd like to share this experience with you. So, you know you should probably dish out the cash and buy a couple of bottles and come over to hang out. I swear I won't just be reading Batman comics and drinking the tea while you sit there uncomfortably.

When climbing to the peak of some mountain or another there is only one clear choice for hydration and that is Owater. Wait what do you mean that the contents of this bottle would freeze in those temperatures? No one is looking to get their electrolytes and antioxidants from popsicles, while they may be tasty, they wouldn't be refreshing at all, and that is what we want at high altitudes and low temperatures. I suppose one could pour the contents of a bottle of Owater into a container that would keep it from freezing, but then how would that work for promotions? No one would recognize the bottles in the ads. They would just see some guy on a mountain drinking from a canteen. I guess we could slap a sticker onto it, but that doesn't help people recognize the product in the stores. Maybe we should just start packaging it in canteens.

We have a decent product here people. It has a taste that mixes the electrolyte flavor of Gatorade and the actual flavor of Vitamin Water. It really sits right in the middle of those two brands and I truly think there is a big market for it. I mean we use real blueberry flavor, so that puts us ahead of the competition. We just need to think of a better way to promote it. This whole ice mountain climber shtick really isn't going to work out. What do we want our products to end up in a Big Lots or some such store? Of course not, but that is exactly where we're going to end up if we keep with this ad campaign…€¦.ooops.

Bruce Cost never disappoints. They are a company that knows how ginger ale should be made. They don't bother with that pale dry nonsense. They start off with a solid base of real ginger, which gives the drink a slight burn, not too bad though as it is still a ginger ale and not a ginger beer. How often does one come across a ginger ale with real ginger in it? They all really should, but somewhere along the way "big-soda" phased it out and the smaller guys followed suit.

The addition of passion fruit juice to this soda does nothing but up the game. Bruce Cost doesn't play games. If they are going to use real ginger then they are also going to use real juice to flavor it. It's magic in a bottle. The final touch was to add some turmeric powder. Now I know that turmeric is as spice and I've witnessed it placed in many a spice rack. What I didn't know was that turmeric was actually ground up yellow ginger. You learn something new everyday. Since there is so much ginger in this drink I don't know if the turmeric just blended in with it, but I really couldn't taste it, or could?

Joia soda, we meet again! Your complicated looking flavors always intrigue, and never disappoint me. I have never met a grapefruit soda I haven't liked, and this is no exception. I can't really distinguish the chamomile or cardamom in this, but the grapefruit is strong and delicious. While other grapefruit sodas have a decent amount of grapefruit flavor, this actually tastes just like taking a bite out of a grapefruit. I've already finished the bottle, but my mouth is still watering from how delicious it was.

Boat shoes? Check. Polo shirt? Check. Madras shorts? Check. Book on how to tie knots? Check. Ray Ban Sunglasses? Check. Those are the prerequisites for buying a bottle of Yacht Club ginger beer. We have put together the necessities and have gone to the store where they unlocked the case. Then and only then did we pay the required $1.50.

We got it home, took all our fancy clothes off, put that book of knots back on the shelf, put back on our obscure band shirts and a pair of dusty old jeans and took a sip. All of our hard work at J. Crew was not for naught because this is pretty great. It's got a nice sweet start and then burns you. It's not terribly hot but it's on the warmer side of the ginger beer scale. That side is also known as our "good side" since we like it hot. Some like it hot. We like it hot. It left a nice tingle in our throats, which left us wanting more.

Now we've got all these clothes and the know how of sailing, maybe we'll put it to good use someday. Us Thirsty Dudes out at sea, eating sea fare with pirates and golfers is going to be in our near future. That's what sailing is right? Jib? Right? Stern and bow? Right? Starboard and the other one. Right?

Wisconsin is a land of wonder. For some reason that state will always be a little slice of heaven for me, well besides the craphole that is Milwaukee. How can the rest of a state be so serene and magical and then it is mostly known for such a pile of filth. In the few times I have visited that city I've had a run in with suburban punk kids who thought they were nazis, watched a drug deal gone wrong and violence ensued, watched knives get pulled on people and various other activities perpetrated by degenerics. Then there are towns like Appleton that are filled with joy, wonder and amazing people. I got my highest score ever in Galaga at a Laundromat in Appleton. That is enough for me to love it forever.

I've been to many towns large and small in that incredible state, yet I have never visited Janesville, the home of Gray's Brewing Company. It is another beer brewery that also puts out a line of sodas. If I've learned anything through my years at Thirsty Dudes it's that you should pay attention when a brewery starts making some root beer. It's usually something special. Gray's knows that root beer should be stored in brown bottles; none of that clear garbage.

The root beer has a heavy wintergreen and licorice flavor to it. It's a classic root beer taste that is better than the pops “big soda” puts out. That is a hysterical idea: big soda. Seriously though, the way this tastes is what I think of when I think of root beer. It's not complex and there is nothing that particularly stands out about it, but it's solid and that's all you can really ask for.

Now Wisconsin, you should really think about kicking Milwaukee out of your state. Maybe IL would take them?

The quantity of almonds I have consumed in my life is fairly astronomical. I went through a period where I ate 3-5 pounds a week. I feel like I shouldn't be alive after that. It just seems like so many almonds. I t probably helps my state of living that I only ate raw unsalted ones. Now that I think of it, I probably could have doubled my intake and still been fine. I also have unsweetened almond milk on my cereal every morning. My point is, I know almonds. A lot of things that claim to be almond flavored don't really taste like the nuts at all. I can assure you readers that Victoria's Kitchen also knows almonds. As soon as you open this bottle it smells like almond concentrate. That was a bit frightening because I was afraid this might actually be as strong as almond extract, which would be absolute hell on ones taste buds. Before I took a sip I had decided that this was either going to taste like an extreme almond extract, or it was going to taste like watered down almond milk. Neither of those options particularly interested me, so luckily I was wrong. It tastes like you took a glass 99% full of water and mixed in that last 1% with almond extract, well we should probably lower those percents in the same ratio so this hypothetical mixture doesn't spill out of the nonexistent glass. I like it. It tastes exactly like almonds, but the sugar in it is a bit of a turn off. It's pretty sweet and it gives it a bit of a candied taste. As a result I couldn't drink more than half the bottle in one sitting, but I was happy to go back to it later. I think Vicky and her kitchen staff could have gone with perhaps 1/3 of the sugar they used and I would have liked it a lot more, but hey I like my almonds really plain. Now go get a rag, we have to wipe up all this ghost almond drink you spilled all over your counter.

I have a couple of questions for you. How many of you would drive an hour and a half for a couple of veggie dogs from a street vender? How many of you would drive an hour + to get burritos? I have done the prior more times than I am proud of, and I did the latter for the first time yesterday. I'd say it was worth it. My burrito was delicious and huge and it put me in a food coma for a couple of hours. To make myself feel better about the trip I stopped by a deli/market and bought a couple of drinks.

I was very excited to see a new flavor of Argo, especially in Western New York, where there are no Whole Foods. Even though I had negative room in my stomach (I believe it was stretched as much as humanly possible from the gigantic burrito I had just ingested) it was over 95 degrees out and I was parched. I cracked this bottle open and took a sip. It definitely tasted different than I expected. I decided that I liked it though. A couple of minutes later I tried it again and decided I was mistaken the first time around. I sealed up the bottle for later consumption.

I think I've been wrong about hibiscus all these years. I had one drink with it that I really loved, and I'm now thinking that it was something else in that drink that grabbed on to my heart and shook the hell out of it. I don't dislike hibiscus, but every time I drink something with it in it now, I miss the spices from the original tea. Also, upon drinking this I am reminded that I am not a big sangria fan. I think it's the orange juice mixed in with the berries and apples that throws me off. If you mix that all together, it doesn't meet the delicious expectations that lived in my head (my fault not the drinks).

I've gone back to the drink, and I like it more than I did on the car ride home, because I've accepted that it's not what I thought it was going to be. In reality it tastes exactly how hibiscus and non-alcoholic sangria really taste (elderberries, apples, rosehip shells, strawberries, kiwi, raspberries and orange juice), and not how I wish they tasted.

Ah, Gamer Soda, we meet again! In the past you have disappointed me with your bland flavor and lack of caffeine, but I'm willing to give you another try. I do still like that it doesn't have food coloring in it. I appreciate clear sodas that aren't lemon-lime or cream soda.

Now onto the flavor. It's good, but not great. This is definitely one of the better cherry soda's I've had, but it's nothing to write home about. It's crisp and flavorful, and most people would think this is a decent soda. I haven't played video games in a while (Mike will probably scoff at me for that), but I suppose this would be a good soda to drink while playing games if we want to get into that discussion. It's much better than any normal fruit sodas you can find at your local grocery store in 99 cent 2 liters.

When I moved back to Buffalo for 10 months, the number one complaint I got from fellow reviewer Jason was that I didn't review more Hotlips soda while I lived in Portland. You'd think I passed up a chance to see a one-off Fugazi reunion by the consistency that he would bring it up. If he were my father, he might have disowned me, or at least cut off my allowance for a couple weeks.

So now I'm back in Portland where Hotlips soda can be found everywhere. For those who are not familiar with it, Hotlips is a Portland, Oregon based chain of pizza shops that also make their own soda. They are available on tap and bottled at various grocery stores around the greater Portland area. The great thing about Hotlips soda is that it's made with real fruit, something I didn't appreciate the first time I had one. It only contains whole ingredients, no gross chemicals or filler. People's biggest complaint with Hotlips is their soda is VERY lightly carbonated, so little that sometimes it seems like it's not at all. While it was off putting at first to me, I've grown to like it. Now don't get me wrong, I love carbonated soda, I just think of this as it's own thing and try not to compare it to traditional soda as far as the carbonation goes.

Now to this flavor, black raspberry. It's one of my favorite fruits so I might be biased, but I think it's delicious. Like most flavors, there are little chunks of berry in it that make the drink. If this weren't so expensive, I would probably drink these all the time.

Boy Scouts are trained for weeks to find specific berries. Which ones are poisonous and which ones are safe to eat. Badges are given out to scouts all around the nation who can tell the difference between the two. It's a crucial skill to people who spend any amount of time in the wilderness and don't always have the luxury of a grocery store that sells consistently nonpoisonous berries.

Grapes? Anyone can pick a grape. We've all seen green and purple grapes and can pick them. We don't need Boy Scouts for grapes, thank you very much.

We do need them to mix these two berries together. Anyone who says that the Boy Scouts do not have worth in today's society is full of nonsense. It's more important than ever because juice has to be made. Good juice. Quality juice. Quality juice such as this. This is a wonderful split between nonpoisonous blackberries and grapes. It's good. It's strong. It's sweet. It's juice. It's the type of juice that reminds you of the juice that used to be. Remember good juice? No, you don't, because companies have stopped making it. No, not all companies, but a lot of companies. It's not every day that you can get a blackberry juice. Grape is old hat. It's good, but you've had it. Everyone has had it. Blackberry is the main character, the protagonist. Grape is the supporting role. It's fine. Everyone is fine with the casting. The Boy Scouts are still a necessary organization, and the Girl Scouts aren't forgotten since they still sell Thin Mints. Everyone and everything is fine. This drink helps make it all possible.

Mom! Come look what Mittens did! It's SODAsgusting!

Billy, what did I tell you about yelling while I'm making crème brulee? Do you want me to burn down the…€¦Goddamnit! Did the damn cat pee on the carpet?

Mom, it's SODAsgusting!

I know Billy go get a rag and we'll clean it up. What are you doing with that straw! Billy, get away from there! Don't drink that! It's disgusting and vile and you are no child of mine!

Mom, chill out it's SODAsgusting!

You're damn right it's disgusting! I can't believe the fruit of my loins would do so a despicable thing as drinking cat pee off of the carpet! With a straw no less! It's like you are starring in the movie Pink Flamingoes! You're grounded mister!

No mom, you've got it all wrong! It's not cat pee it's Kitty Piddle! It's a flavor of the Avery's Soda companies SODAsgusting line! See, here's the bottle! The name is a joke because of the color of the pop. It's actually pineapple and orange in flavor. It has that very specific Avery's flavor. It's a little on the cheap side flavor-wise actually. It doesn't taste like the real fruits, just a knock off. It's not terrible for a kid like me, but I bet you wouldn't like it. I had a bottle on the coffee table and Mittens knocked it over on the carpet.

Well, that is a relief to say the least. You're still grounded though for having a soda before your crème brulee. Now clean that up and get to your room!

Dude, I'm so glad I caught you. You'll never guess what happened last night. I was walking around, minding my own business when aliens abducted me. I know it sounds nutty but it really happened. It was kind of clichè, honestly. A UFO, round with a glass dome on top, flew over me, shined a light and I was sucked up into it. How did it feel? Um, it was just like it sounded, actually. Not painful, a little slower that I expected it to be, and just kind of like they turned down the gravity a bit.

So I'm in the spaceship and everything is chrome and white. There are aliens in there that started speaking a strange language to me and when they saw that I didn't understand, they just kind of switched over to English, but British English like in the movie Dreamcatcher. They said they were marketing some new drink and wanted someone "out of this world" to try it. I told them that it was a very lame line but I would help them anyways. Then they sat me down in an uncomfortable looking but incredibly comfortable chair and started pouring some drinks down my throat with a carafe that looked like it had been stolen from Denny's.

I've got to tell you, though. This drink, like their odd target demographic, was out of this world. It was somehow light but super flavorful and they said it was "tropical" but I've tasted a lot of fruit and a lot of "tropical" drinks and aside from a little lemon, everything else was indistinguishably fantastic. I mean it. I asked if I could take a carafe home but they said that this was a survey and all they could pay me was $20. I said that was fine, they beamed me down, and that was that.

I know you don't believe it but it's the truth. I gave them my mailing address and they said if it goes through the proper approved process and makes it to production, they would send me some. Here's hoping to that. I hope they ask me to do another survey.

It's well known that in the 40's the Manhattan Project was underway to produce the first atomic bomb. The US, UK and Canada all worked together, spending an obscene amount of money to basically devise a weapon that will someday cause the end of the world. Scientists worked long and hard to achieve their goal, even coming up with some cool fission guns using uranium. Nuclear weapons in gun form sound terrifying, yet strangely alluring (note to self: you may indeed grow up to be a super villain).

The men who worked on this project knew that they would get nowhere if they worked constantly. No one ever got anywhere with out a little playtime mixed in. Since they were scientists their playtime of course involved mixing ingredients to create something new. Back in '43 they had a little challenge going on the various project locations to see which team could create the best tasting soda. The team based in Brooklyn, NY ended up winning the competition. Led by Dr. Jonathan Osterman the team had a brief brainstorming session while separating uranium-235, and decided that the only way they could win this little game was to brew their own version of the greatest soda on the planet: sarsaparilla. To say they succeeded is a bit of an understatement. If there were any justice in this world these men would be more famous for their soda than their weapons of mass destruction. What they created is a dark sarsaparilla with a heavy licorice and wintergreen levels in it. Every aspect of it is strong, and I will forgive those men for the future destruction of everything I know. The 10oz bottles that it comes in simply aren't enough. I could drink this all the livelong day and not have had enough. Perhaps the team cheated and used a little bit of that uranium in their recipe. I would risk radiation for this, would you?

The Caruros are a family that means business, just look at that photo. The man looks like he's a pleasant enough chap, who enjoys a good time, but his wife looks as if she doesn't take guff from anyone. It is because of this combination that they were able to achieve and uphold a level of quality in their sodas.

With this root beer they were not out to invent something new, they wanted to keep things tasting classic, and to make it in the same way. Many companies nowadays use “root beer extract” or some such thing to get a generic root beer taste. When companies do that their product suffers from mediocrity. The Carusos took their time perfecting a formula and then ran with it. It's full bodied with a nice wintergreen aftertaste. When I got closer to the bottom of the bottle it had a kind of woodsy flavor that reminds me a lot of the Sprecher sodas. This blows their root beer out of the water though.

Now go and wash up. It's dinnertime and you don't want to keep Mrs. Caruso waiting.

Fourth grade. What a joke that was, right? Homework cuts into all your serious Mortal Kombat time and all you want to do is play with your friends. There are bikes that need to be ridden, tree forts that need to be built, and football that needs to be played. No, your English teacher thinks that Arthur Miller is more important than building friendships and burning wood with a magnifying glass. All you want to do is go outside in the late spring sun and eat Freez-e-pops with your friends and play basketball.

What's that? Your daddy brought you a new bottle of pop that you've never seen with quite a sexy lady on it and gave it to you with a wink. What was he thinking with such an erotic bottle? Lemon Slime? Gross, and awesome. You can't wait to sink your teeth into this. You open up the bottle being careful not to spill any on your homework. You take a sip and love it. It's so sweet and tastes like a green popsicle. You drink half the bottle and continue reading. Your mom comes in to see how you're doing and sees the rather erotic pop that your daddy brought and instantly disapproves, taking the bottle from you. On the way down the stairs, your mom takes a sip and is disgusted. It's so sweet and tastes like a green popsicle. She couldn't possibly drink a whole bottle of this herself, as it is just too much to handle. She dumps it down the drain only to be seen by your daddy who gave that to you as a little "man to man" drink. Alas, it will be a few years before your mom lets you watch anything with Elvira in it.

To be a kid again, right? You can endure all the sugar thrown at you but as you get older, you just can't do it. Don't grow up, theoretical kid. Stay young forever.

America has decided that they are simply too cool to take vitamins in pill form. There was a public hearing and it was decided that vitamin pills were just too 80's, and not in the “cool” we dress like complete morons way. They were fed up, and demanded something simpler, because as you may know they are a lazy bunch. The FDA suggested that if they did not want to take their vitamins they should simply start eating better. If you're getting everything you need from your food, supplements are completely unnecessary. America laughed in their face. They chuckled as they said there was no way in hell that they were going to give up their Big Macs, their pork rinds or their Double Downs. It was a sad day for America indeed. Then someone had a stroke of genius and decided to start putting vitamins into drinks. People could easily consume all of the vitamins they needed for the day in one convenient bottle. More importantly it was a drink for this decade, not the stupid past. Thus Vitamin Water and the like was born.

Not long after a million other companies started doing similar things. Some were great tasting others belonged in the filth can. Sadly Multi Vitamin Enhanced Water is closer to the latter. What we have here is a lemonade-flavored water. No it's not just lemonade, it's like watered down lemonade with a whole mess of vitamins thrown in the mix. The label boasts that there are “more vitamins in every bottle.” That is definitely true because you can taste them, and it's not a good scene. In other companies versions of these drinks the flavor of the drink masks the taste of the vitamins. When you drink this you may be confused and think that someone put poison in your supposedly refreshing beverage. This is like the end of Planet of the Apes, but in beverage form. We finally did it. We got rid of the need for pill vitamins, but now it's been replaced with gross tasting beverages.