Pure Cane Sugar - 220 Reviews

Apparently I just drank history. After drinking this bottle, I decided to do a little research and I found out that Red Rock is one of the oldest carbonated beverages in the United States. It was founded in 1885 in Atlanta, Georgia. This probably is why it has a very classic cola taste to it. It's not trying to be fancy (despite the "premium" label), and it really works. If you like Pepsi Throwback, you'll love this.

The most interesting thing I found out was that Babe Ruth endorsed this soda. This is a big deal because this was the only product he ever personally endorsed in his lifetime. Look at this iconic poster and tell me it doesn't make you want to try it:

People just don't understand what a hard life us members of Slytherin have. Wake up. Pray to the snake. Eat breakfast. Pray to the snake. Mock a Weasely for being a ginger. Pray to the snake. Go to class. Pray to the snake. Make fun of a Weasely for being poor. Pray to the snake. Study for potions. Pray to the snake. Plot against Harry Potter. Pray to the snake. Do the dark lords bidding. Pray to the snake.

That damn snake gets more praise than Odin ever did in his prime. On top of that we have to deal with all of the filthy mudbloods that started letting into the school. Ugh. Those disgusting creatures have no business learning magic. When will He Who Will Not Be Named come back and go all fourth reich on their unworthy keisters?

This is the only time of day that I get to relax. The snake has been appeased and I can sneak off to Hogsmeade and pop into The Three Broomsticks and get myself a nice cold one, loosen my robes and just spend some time on myself. They don't let the underclassman in here so it's nice and quiet. Also because they can't come here they all think that the sought after Butter Beer is alcoholic. They sure took a turn into Wrongville. There's nothing alcoholic about it. It's just a nice tasty cream soda that has been flavored with butterscotch. The combination hits you in some nice waves. First it's all nice and vanilla creamy. Then you swallow and the butterscotch tastes over as a nice mild aftertaste. To tell the truth before I tried one of these I was against butterscotch. It seemed unnatural as a flavor. Something mudbloods would eat as dessert. You still won't find me eating that trash, but I will enjoy one of these sodas whenever I get a chance. Oh great it's almost time to praise the snake again. I should get back to our common room.

If your grandma wasn't too busy playing nickel slots at the local casino, she would be home making this ginger ale. Bruce Cost knows how to make a high quality drink, complete with chunks of ginger that hit you just right. Reason I'm bringing your grandma into it is because of two reasons:
1. She has a serious gambling problem.
2. She cooks and bakes from the heart using "real" ingredients.

There are four ingredients in this drink, which proves that simplicity often wins the race. Tortoises win races and simplicity wins races. Every time you want to take a sip, you have to swish it around a little to get the ginger sediment a-moving. That makes this a bit of an interactive drink, which makes it fun. If you didn't care about swishing, you would be greeted with probably a pretty average, slightly bitey ginger all but then at the end you would be drinking the powdered equivalent of half a ginger root. If you're into that type of thing, you will love it, but it's not the way that your grandma, who has graduated to the quarter slots since I've started this review, or Bruce Cost intended.

There is a very fine line between crust punks and hippies. Seriously there are so many similarities; dirty, smelly, anti-job, and they both like getting messed up. One of the differences is that hippies prefer weed and hallucinogenics, while crust punks prefer alcohol...oh who am I kidding? They will take anything that will get them messed up. Another difference is that most hippies like to relax and "chill to the groove," while every traveling crust punk I've ever known has been obsessed with coffee. Seriously coffee non-stop. I am hereby requesting that for their coffee line Marley's changes their name to either Discharge or Crass.

I was halfway through this bottle before I questioned whether or not it was a relaxation drink. I know the idea of a relaxation coffee is ridiculous, but I was working and I had a shirt order I needed to get done, so falling asleep just wasn't in the cards. It, of course, is not a relaxation drink. It's a regular coffee drink. Maybe regular is wrong, because I am not a fan of coffee per say, but I think this is incredible. That could be because it tastes more like chocolate than coffee, but that's exactly how a good mocha should be. This tastes exactly like what my friend Nina makes me at her place of employment (minus the peanut butter). I seriously love it, but I would love it more if it was called Crass' Systematic Death Mocha.

On a recent trip to the rain forest, Carl got lost. He was in the forest and no it wasn't raining. He did have a khaki bucket hat on and a Hawaiian shirt on, so he fit the bill. He also had cargo shorts and boots on, so you know he was semi-pro. He wasn't in love with nature, but he felt that he had to make it to the rain forest once before he died. A few of his friends went down on a cruise and he wandered off and hasn't been seen for hours. He's known for that kind of crap.

Carl is in the forest, walking around. He's hearing sounds that he's never heard before and seeing monkeys just jumping from tree to tree. It's awesome. Lions are walking around all casual-like and there are scarlet macaws just whizzing by his head trying to take his dumb hat off. He's getting a little thirsty and thinks to himself, "Man, I'm getting thirsty. I wish I hadn't used my good water to wash some dirt off my hands." Just as he said that, he walked into a clearing. He squinted his eyes to adjust to the light and a small form came into focus. It was a tiny bar with one man at it. He walked up to it and sat down at one of the chairs. The bartender, who was washing one cup said, "What can I get you?" to which Carl responded, "What've you got?" The bartender gave him a look and then moved the sign, which had the two drinks that they served very easily readable printed on it. His choices were Rainforest citrus pop and tiger blood. He obviously chose the Rainforest pop.

"This is pretty good." he said, wiping the sweat from his head from wearing that dumb hat all day. "It tastes a little like a Sprite but a little bit more bitter, but in a good way," he said. "Can you buy this in America?" he said to the bartender. The bartender nodded "yes" and ducked down behind the bar, as if to say, "Carl, you have had your drink and I am done with you."

Carl, who knew when it was time to leave, left and just as he stood up, he could see the resort in the clearing and realized that he hadn't been lost in the rain forest, but he has been drunk and wandering around the resorts mini-golf course. Carl had the time of his life that day and it was mostly all in a drunken stupor. As he turned around, the mini bar and bartender were gone. He looked down in his hand and noticed that he still had the can of Rainforest citrus pop. "Strange" he said, as he walked back up the lynx to meet up with his friends.

Remember in that episode of Olivia where Francine and Olivia start competing lemonade stands and Olivia's brother Ian brings her salt when she asks for sugar and she makes super salty, super sour lemonade? Yeah, it's the same episode where Olivia decides she doesn't want to run a lemonade stand anymore but wants to run a restaurant. At the restaurant, she serves pizza and Francine's Pink Lemonade. If pigs could make lemonade and run pizza shops, I would be there in a heartbeat. Also, I would like to think that they would have made this lemonade.

It's the classic stingy, great lemonade with raspberry goodness in it. It's really good and really quenching. The raspberry really comes through not only in color but also in rounding out the sharpness of Calypso's lemonade. If you like lemonade, you should have already bought a case of anything they make, but if you haven't buy some. I am finding it in more and more places now.

I always thought it was great when you would go to a diner and you could get Cherry Coke, but it wasn't made that way, they just added cherry syrup to the regular Coke. It always tasted better than the Cherry Coke you buy in bottles/cans.

Caruso's Legacy has taken this a step further, or actually backwards. When diners first began doing this they would use the juice from maraschino cherries to flavor the cola. Nowadays it's a cherry syrup that is manufactured expressly for this purpose, and it's not the same.

This bottle I hold in my hand is more like the original. A cola that is made with cane sugar instead of a gross syrup with maraschino cherry "juice." It tastes like something you would make for a little kid at a family party, and I am all for that. Someone in my family used to make "kiddie cocktails" which were just cherry juice and a random soda. I loved them then, and I love them now. I actually made one at my mom's birthday party a few weeks ago.

If you're a fan of Cherry Coke, put down the swill you're drinking and pick up one of these. You'll never look back.

This is going to be a strange review, so please, bear with me.

This drink is good. This drink also tastes the way that fine leather smells. I'm sorry, but every sip I take reminds me of walking past Coach or Wilson's Leather when I worked at the outlet mall. Between the mint and the honey and the green tea and whatever is in there (which isn't much, I'm exaggerating) it really tastes like a nice new belt. I'm sorry. I know this isn't what you want to hear.

Let me try to get out of this funk for a second. It's really "mojito-esque" and the spearmint is very strong, but the bitterness is there. It's a very complex drink because you really can taste all the flavors at once and you have to roll the drink around to get it all. All the flavors are "there" but together...wallets.

I'm sorry. Would I drink it again? Probably not just because I'll never be able to get this thought of filtering an otherwise great drink through a pair of fine, Italian loafers, but I hope that it doesn't discourage you from picking some up for yourself. It probably does.

You may ask yourself may questions when drinking this drink such as, "What is a tropifruit?" and "Is this made from Rainforest?" and the ever popular, "How can you be a carbonated drink and call yourself an anti soft drink?" I'm going to answer these questions three for you right here and now.

What is a tropifruit
Tropifruit is apparently a slew of "tropical fruits" including mango, passion fruit, and guava. The flavor is there of the fruits, but there is something else going on. A bit of an over saturation of...something. Remember in seventh grade when you were in science class and you learned about over saturation by putting salt into a glass of water? Some of it would mix in but as soon as you added too much, it would start to accumulate and coagulate on the bottom or top. I found that happening in this can. I don't know if it was the fruit flavors or the other natural ingredients but I found that there was a bit of "too muchery" in there.

Is this made from a Rainforest?
Hardly. The company actually donates money from each purchase of their product to save the rainforest. That is an ambitious task and should not be overlooked.

How can you be a carbonated drink and call yourself an anti soft drink?
That's a good question. I believe it's because they actually have green tea, ginseng, and or "tried and true" traditional ingredients including a couple new cats like Stevia, which I think was laid on a little thick and gives this drink a very sweet taste. It's all-natural so, as opposed to most other soft drinks, it ranks pretty high in the ingredient department.

I'm on the fence about this one. On one side, the fruit flavor is good, they do well for the environment, and the drink is kind of good for you but on the other side, the sweetener and extra ingredients kind of take away from an otherwise good drink. I'm torn. What do you think?

This bottle claims it's a fountain classic, and I can't argue. It has a classic root beer flavor that people know and love. There is nothing special about it at all. It has the flavor that 99% of the world would think of when they hear the words root and beer in that order. It's a nice alternative to the major brand root beers out there, as it's made with cane sugar for a less syrupy texture. It is slightly on the watery side, but it's nothing terrible.

I can't say I'd go out of my way to pick this up again, but if I was at a BBQ and someone offered it to me I would gladly accept it along with six veggie dogs slathered in BBQ sauce, mustard, pickled ginger and Bacos. Now there is a meal.

Ahhh, big city boy like you coming down to the South, eh? Well we've got a thing or two to teach you about how we do things 'round here. For starters, we only wear overalls. For the women-folk, they wear sundresses. That's the way 'tis and that's the way it's gonna be, now and forever. Number two is that we make our pies with lard, the way that mama made 'em. None of that fancy, low calorie margarine like you city slickers have up there. Lard. If y'ain't got lard, butter. Ol' fashioned butter'll make everything go down smoother. Third, it's hot. Get used to it. Fourth is that we make our sweet tea with two things; tea and sugar. That's it and that's all, now and f'ever.

What's that you got there, boy? Sweet tea?! In a bottle?! That better be a bottle that used to have paint or some sort of gas-o-line in it or I ain't tasting' it. Alright, give her here, I'll take a swig. Ppppttttt!!! What's this, here? Swill is what it is. It's too thick. It's downright syrupy, if you ask me. Not that bad?!? City boy, number five is respect your elders so don't you forget it. Real Southern sweet tea is smooth and sweet. This is smooth and sweet and syrupy. Do you remember me saying that real Southern sweet tea is s'posed to be syrupy? 'Cause I didn't.

Boy, you've got some learnin' to do before you make it down here. It's not all swamps and gators and biscuits and gravy. What'd you say, darlin'? I've got to go, boy. M'wife made gator stew with biscuits and gravy.

Editor Dan sends me messages all the time like, "Have you ever tried _______?" and I will refer to the list and let him know if we have or not. He goes on more little trips than anyone I know. Dude will just up and leave and I'll call him and he'll say "Oh, I'd love to get tacos but I'm in Nebraska" or "I'd love to get pizza but I'm in Albuquerque". One thing that Dan excels at is thinking of Thirsty Dudes and always bringing us stuff back.

Well on this occasion, he brought us stuff back from a store that is two miles away that carries this drink that I've never seen, Jay's never seen, and Derek's never seen. That's strange as we typically scour stores we've been to hundreds of times. You know, just in case.

So he brought us back every flavor they had and I paid him in a burrito. Fair trade? I think so. He wanted me to wait for him to try this, but since he's not here, I'm thirsty, and this guy was cold, I had to go in without him. He would and should be upset.

This tea rules. It's got all the inherent bitterness you would expect from a white tea but a killer, natural strawberry flavor through and through. It contains "strawberry flavoring" which is a bit ominous but it also contains Poteet strawberry puree although there isn't any seeds or strawberry remnants. Poteet is a city in Texas known for its strawberry festival, and dude, if this is what they come up with, I might have to schedule a trip. This tea is wonderful. It's strong, sweet, and it tastes as natural as it says it is. I believe them. Texas is known for being big, not liars.

Call it a hunch, but I'm pretty sure this is a completely different company than the Texas Tea we reviewed in the past. That stuff was cheap gas station swill that was passable only because it was so cheap. This on the other hand is a high quality organic tea. This one is also actually made in Texas instead of New Jersey. Can we just strike the other country from our collective memories and pretend that this was the only Texas Tea that we've known?

This tea is wonderful. You can tell from the taste that actual blueberries were used in the creation of it. The sweetness of it is also very obviously pure cane sugar. It's almost gritty and I mean that in the best possible way. It's sweet and refreshing. I can imagine myself slowly sipping on a bottle while I sit on a back porch of a century house somewhere in the backwoods of the south. It's a relaxing and slightly terrifying thought.

The bottle was also informative as I learned that Nacogdoches is the oldest town in Texas and it also has the highest production of blueberries out of anywhere in the U.S. Who would have thought that? I never expect much to be in Texas. With the exception of Austin my experiences in that state have been less than stellar. Since starting this site I've learned that there is an unusually high concentration of quality tea companies that reside in that state and I'm glad that I've found another in Texas Tea. The next time I'm down there the amount of iced tea I will consume may be setting a record for the books.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. I watched one episode of Miami Vice and I think that I could wear shoes and no socks like Don Johnson. It's not like I'm going to wear trainers and just sweat up the joint. I'm going to wear loafers or something. Obviously I've got to do some research into what Mr. Johnson wore. I mean, what a cool dude and what a classic look and summer? Come on. Who wants to wear socks anyhow?

While I'm walking around, wearing no socks and some killer loafers, I would most definitely be slurping on this can of Xing green tea with lemon because it's wonderful. It's a great mixture of flavors through and through. You can taste the green tea first and then, when you're done swallowing, you get a really good lemon taste. There's Arizona lemon tea, and that's all well and good, but this is something that you can tell Don Johnson about.

Hey, Don! You might want to give this a try. It's good. Oh, you don't know who this is? It's Mike from Thirsty Dudes. Thirsty Dudes? It's a drink review site. You still don't know? That's alright. Hey, two things...what do you think of this tea? It's great, right? Second, what shoes did you wear in that episode of Miami Vice where your God kid's dad, your friend from 'Nam was into all that bad stuff? They looked comfortable. Wait, Don...where are you going?

I'm sorry Sport. I hate to be the one to tell you this but you can't win all the time. I know, I know. You won so many games to get to this one; the "big game". It's alright that you lost. Sure, you lost to a bunch of twelve years old chumps, but who cares. You got a free pizza, medium pop, and a great summer. I know it's not fair, but there's nothing to be sad about when you've got a fifteen and one record. Maybe next summer you can take it all.

You still don't understand? Well you can't win all the time. I can't say it any better. How about this; I love Calypso drinks and one day, when I saved one up for months I decided today was going to be the day to drink it. I was tired, my feet hurt, I had spent an hour in a half in the car in heat that the air conditioner that couldn't beat the humidity and then I came home and knew it was time. It was the mint tea and lemonade one. Man, as soon as I saw that I knew that I was going to save it for a special occasion. So I poured it into a glass with some crushed ice to cool it down and took a sip. It was too minty, the lemonade wasn't all there, and it just wasn't what I wanted it to be.

Remember when the pitcher threw you that absurd curve ball and you hit it and right before it got to the stands, that kid that looks like he's seventeen caught it? That's not fair because you are a good kid, but being a good kid doesn't get you everything. The way that you felt when that ogre caught that ball is like how I felt when I drank that tea. We both wanted a home run, but instead some senior caught your ball and my tea was too much and too little.

You've got a great baseball career ahead of you and I will be there next year when you knock that ball out of the park. You want some soft serve? I've got a craving for something that will never let me down; chocolate vanilla twist with jimmies on it. Come on, my treat.

Sioux City has had stellar marks thus far on Thirsty Dudes. Okay, Mike gave the ginger beer only 3 bottles, but I think he was having an off day. Everything else has been great thus far. They even made a good weird blue berry soda that was great. I didn't know what to expect with the prickly pear. I assumed it was cactus flavored, due to the label, but I had worries that it might be pear and let's face it pear drinks tend to be pretty gross. Lucky for us it was cactus flavored and Sioux City keeps up their batting average.

This has an incredibly familiar scent to it, but for the life of me I can't place it. It seriously has been driving me crazy. I think it might remind me of the smell of some of the Skeleteens' sodas, but I'm not positive. It also tastes exactly like it smells and that drives me even crazier that I can't place it. I'm supposed to be a professional here, and my memory is putting me back in the bush league.

It's sweet and almost candy like. Derek says that it almost reminds him of some sort of Jolly Rancher. I disagree because that is one candy that is totally gross sauce. There are two distinct waves of flavor. The first I can only assume is what cactus is supposed to taste like, and then the weird candy taste hits you afterwards. I really enjoy both of them. Now if only I could remember what this tastes like I'll actually be able to sleep tonight.

Here at Thirsty Dudes we search far and wide, from bodega to grocery store looking for the perfect ginger drink. The general populace has been fooled into believing that main stream ginger ale's are in fact what ginger is all about, when in reality most of those sodas don't have even a smidgen of actual ginger in them.

When our journey first began we believed that the stronger the burn from the ginger, the better the soda. We found some that really knocked us on our butts and they were great. Now that we are a bit older and arguably wiser we've come to accept that a blend of flavor and burn is what we truly want from our ginger soda. A soda can burn so bad that you won't be able to taste anything for a while, and that might be fun, but really how often are you going to sip on a bottle of something like that.

Today Bruce Cost stepped up to the plate. He didn't point to the stands to signify he was going to knock us into next Tuesday. He just stood there, shrugged and said "If you like this that's cool. If not, that's cool too." Well Bruce we did more than like it. We loved it!

The bottle states that "Separation is natural" so I gently shook the bottle. As I did a cloud of sediment with little pieces of actual ginger lifted from the bottle and swirled around the amber tinted fluid contained within. That is always a good sign. Drinks that need to be shook due to settling are almost always superior to those that are consistent all the way through. Finally it was time to twist off the cap. As soon as I did a nice fruity ginger aroma greeted my nostrils. When I took a bigger whiff it kind of burned, which is another good sign. After a single sip, I knew it was love and that it was the real thing. I knew wedding bells were in my future. Hey I live in New York State. Same sex marriages are now legal. I can only assume that means that the next bill to pass will let me marry an inanimate object. (For the record I am so stoked and proud of NYS for passing the same sex marriage law. How it took people so long is beyond me.) It's slightly fruity and flowery, but ginger will always be the main player here. It's the only flavor I've ever known that can overpower pomegranate and believe me that fruit needed to be put in its place. Oh, the burn? It's there. It's not a crazy burn like the Goya Ginger Beer has, but it's decent enough that I can say that I have no complaints. This may in fact be the greatest ginger ale that I have ever consumed. Bruce Cost if you are an actual human and we ever meet be prepared for a hearty handshake and a big wet kiss on the lips.

Last night at about 3am someone in the apartment I was staying at started blasting Madonna. Let's get something straight; the first couple of Madonna albums are incredible. They are some of the finest pop records I've ever heard. The thing is that no one wants to hear any music played that loud when all they want to do is sleep. Why do I bring this up? I'm glad you asked. I think that the song Borderline may have been written about this tea (well what she wants this drink to do). Unfortunately it never falls either way. It just keeps riding the fence. It tastes like pink grapefruit, but in kind of a fake way. With each sip I expect it to suddenly turn amazing or terrible, but it's just stuck in the middle. I really want the grapefruit to be stronger then I would be on a "Holiday."

Little known fact, but in Brewster's Millions there is a cut scene where Richard Pryer realizes that he still has one dollar left after the party. With seconds to spare he runs to the store and purchases a bottle of grape soda. An argument then ensues about whether the deposit counts as spending since he can get it back afterwards. Mr. Pryer then throws a right hook and yells "Deposit this!" The movie then cuts to the ending that everyone knows.

This is the grape soda he bought. The packaging was changed after the movie came out to celebrate it. Since the movie is now ancient, and most people who now drink soda have never even heard about it, drinkers are left scratching their heads about the name.

The soda may be good, but certainly not a million dollars worth of good. It's sweet and candy-like as most grape sodas are. The difference is the cane sugar doesn't leave such a sickly sweet aftertaste. I swear I can taste a hint of real grape that you don't get with most grape sodas. Now that I think about it, it was really good, maybe $5000 worth of good.

Ladies, ladies, no need to argue. You can both have what you want. Samantha, you can have a water and Carolyn, sorry, Caroline you can have a nice juice. Now look, I know you both didn't want to meet each other like thing, but I can assure you, no funny business is going on between any of us. Samantha, I enjoy your company because you like to go to the movies, and Caroline, I like to be with you because we go to fancy restaurants. Now although I didn't want you to ever meet each other, perhaps it's a good thing that you met my wife, my kids and I here at Applebees. It gives everyone a chance to air his or her grievances.

Honey, I know you're upset because I've been spending a lot of time at work when, in fact, I've been catching the latest summer blockbusters with Samantha. Samantha, I know you've been upset because I am always full and that's because a lot of times I just came back from dinner with Caroline. Caroline, I know you're at your wits end because I never want to stay over at your house and the answer to that is that I'm a married man and don't sleep around.

Sure, I entertain the company of several women, but I only love my wife, and that doesn't make me a monster, does it? Sure, I've been lying a bit, but it's just to keep you all apart so we don't ruin the good thing that we've got going. Speaking of good things, while I was at the store I picked up this Bot water. This is why I'm happy we can get together and I can please all of you at the same time. It's a blue plum flavor, which I have never heard of, and I'm a botanist. Apparently I'm not a good one. Right ladies? That was a joke. So anyhow, Samantha, you can drink this and be refreshed and quenched because you always drink a lot of water. Caroline, you love juice and order it whenever we go out to eat. Honey, you can drink this in its entirety and just plain old enjoy it because it's delicious. It's just sweet enough that you keep coming back for more. Also, ladies, you'll all come together on this, that it's not bad for you. If you all split this three ways, it would be less than twenty calories.

So lets all sit down, I'll have the waiter bring over one of those Ultimate Trios that we can all split and we can just talk. Ladies, you are all wonderful and since I've been honest, I can honestly hope that you will pick up the tab because I left my wallet in the car.