Reb A - 12 Reviews

When it comes to cherry juice, Cheribundi does not mess around. Those days of thinking that everything cherry either tastes syrupy or medicinal are long gone. It's like walking out into an orchard and filling your stomach with cherries you picked right from the tree. They have tried their hand at mixing cherries with tea, chocolate and other fruits (all with great results), now they are expanding into the world of relaxation drinks. Yet again, they have not failed to deliver.

Did you know that cherries naturally contain melatonin? I certainly did not, but it's good to know. Unlike some relaxation drinks that are just meant to calm you down and focus, this one is more for sleepy time. You've got your specific tea for that when the weather is cold, but in the summer when you don't want a hot beverage you can now reach for a bottle of this.

The only things in this bottle are tart cherry juice, water, L-theanne (tea extract) and reb a (stevia). I honestly had no idea that there was stevia in here at all, and that is saying something since I can normally spot it a mile away. The taste of the cherries completely overpowers it. This is how zero calorie sweeteners should be used. You'll have to excuse me now I can hear my pillow calling.

Martha, I have zero idea as to why you keep buying me these diet drinks. I'm not fat, I'm just your average middle-aged man size and there is nothing wrong with that. I am comfortable in my body, as I hope you are in yours. I mean you don't see me going around ordering you salad when we go out do you? That would just be rude. If you want to eat that cookie-sunday explosion, you go for it. It's your life and you should enjoy it, just as I am going to enjoy my life in a way that is free from the poison diet taste.

Oh what's that? You didn't buy me this because you think I need to lose weight? You like my little paunch? Well isn't that adorable. Why though, why do you keep buying these Lifewaters and put them in my lunch. They taste delicious? I doubt that. You see it says right there “0 calories” on the label. In my world that means this might be better for you but it's going to taste horrendous.

Fine I'll take a sip if it will make you happy. Well Martha, I owe you an apology. This is pretty darn good. It's very light tasting. I can tell that it's diet, but it's not the normal flavor I associate with things of that nature. It's kind of hidden in the back, right there with the acai. That is actually odd because acai is such a powerful flavor most of the time. Don't look at me like that, yes I know what acai is and what it tastes like. Just because I work construction doesn't mean I'm a complete dufus. I like to get a fancy juice every now and then. That's not important though. This has a nice raspberry flavor with some acai hints around the edges. Like I said the taste of the stevia is somewhere below that.

I don't know how Sobe did it, but I will definitely be sipping on these at work now. Not only does it taste good but it's guaranteed that none of the other guys will steal it from me. Those jerks. Seriously though honey, are we getting some cookie-Sunday explosions or what. I've been thinking about it the entire time we've been talking about these drinks. Yes I know we'll have to drive a half hour to the restaurant, but I want what I want and what I want is hot fudge drizzled over a giant soft cookie with seven different types of ice cream below it.

I'm fairly certain there was a mix up with shipping at the plant where 989 is made. You see each week they normally get a shipment in of the oddly tasty Flintstone chewable children's vitamins. They then dump them into this gigantic electronic pestle and mortar that they have in the back and it turns them into a nice fine powder to which they add their personal blend of ionic minerals and electrolytes. From the smell/taste of this I think someone screwed up in the shipping department and ordered a bunch of old people vitamins instead. You know, the kind that always smells stale, and you don't want their taste on your tongue at all. Whoever accepted the shipment must have just shrugged and loaded them in anyways.

The rest of this line has ranged from acceptable to tasty, with very few real complaints from us. This grape unfortunately does not cut it. It smells like a mixture of white grape juice and Centrum. Actually that's pretty much how it tastes as well, except there is also a more than heaping serving of stevia in there as well, so you have a cooling adult vitamin flavor. It's not something that I can say I enjoy.

I would also like to point out that I was with a three year old when I drank this, and they were so completely excited about it. The twisting of the cap so that the vitamin powder mixed it elicited cheering and clapping. She could not get this drink to her lips fat enough to drink it down. Then as soon as mouth contact was made, she immediately stopped, handed the bottle back to me, whilst making a grossed out looking face and simply said, “I don't like that.” Even kids can tell there is something wrong here.

Oh these drinks. I like 'em. I really do. They're different but this one I'm going to call their initial foray into this market because for the first time it tasted a little like crushed vitamins. Yes, this drink does in fact contain vitamins so it's not far from the imagination that it would but the previous flavors we reviewed do not have that taste. It doesn't make it undrinkable or even bad, but between the Reb A and the vitamins, it defiantly will turn some people off.

Because I am a great man and because we three Thirsty Dudes care about you, we can only draw such a picture with our carefully written words so I shot you a video of this drink in action to enjoy.



I don't want to hear any grief about it being in portrait versus landscape because we had a tight crop on a bottle, a portrait object by definition.

Back to the drink. It tasted like if you had a lemon lime juice and let a couple Flintstone vitamins marinate in it overnight and then drank it. As a kid I never hated the taste of them so this was fine to me. To Jay, disliker of lemon lime, he wouldn't drink this and it's no wonder why I had it and not him. I don't mind though. I hope they come out with a dozen more flavors so I can open up more of these bottles. Liquid good, people. Secret, liquid goods.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, this is an awesome design. The OnDemand system is a dual twist cap with a concentrated liquid, not a powder, in the cap. The first time I had one it all came out at once. Today when I drank this it was a more tranquil, slow drip that was almost therapeutic to watch. It lasted for a while and I could see it all spiral into the water.

I do not think that it was a good representation of pomegranate and/or blueberry. It's alright but I think it's a bit skewed by the Stevia. It's not bad and it's still fruity but something about it tastes artificial, like if all the crops in the world were destroyed and someone salted the earth so nothing could grow and someone artificially created all fruit flavors. Maybe not to that extreme, but you feel me. I like it a lot though. It's like a fruitier, strong apple juice.

If you are an alien and you're reading this, number one, congratulations on deciphering our language. I have heard it is very hard to learn. Secondly, please don't destroy our crops. I know from space we don't look like much but we make a fine ear of corn. Just take some of it. I'm sure someone would give you enough to last you a long time. We've also got quite a lot of seeds that you can use to grow your own environment permitting. I think that fast food could last in space and we have too much of that. Take that. I'm not going to look down on you if you eat a Whopper.

Now that I have finally had my ingredients-in-cap virginity taken, I am really enjoying these drinks. I think I just enjoy interacting with a drink and watching it change colors. I guess that's the inner child in me who just likes to watching things magically change before my eyes. If I could rate the drink on how much fun I had in those couple seconds, I would give it a 5.

Unfortunately, the taste is the majority of this arbitrary review system that we made up. Mentally I feel great drinking this due to the obscene amount of vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes. As far as the taste goes, it's just "okay". It's not mine blowing, but it's not horrible. This is a classic middle of the road vitamin water. I will echo Jason's suggestion that selling the caps of these to put in your own water bottle would be a great idea.

What we have here is a bottle of water, reverse osmosis water. On top of that bottle site a little cap full of secrets, or are they mysteries? No, I'm fairly certain they are secrets that it will whisper in your ear if you ask in the right way. By the right way I mean if you look at their website, or just take the time to read the label. The secret is that within the cap is syrup that contains 9 vitamins, 84 ionic mineral, 5 electrolytes and some naturally zero calorie sweetened fruit punch flavoring. You add that all up, with some strange math, and that gives you 989. I'd like to say I'm sorry to the folks at the company that I told your secret to the entirety of the internet, but if they are smart enough to read this, then I think they could have read the label.

All you do is twist the cap one-way, and the syrup drops into the water. You just shake it up, twist the cap the other way and you have a nice little beverage to get you through your day. I will say that it is strange having a zero calorie fruit punch. All of my life I've thought of that type of beverage as a sweet syrupy hell that is produced solely for children. 989 challenge that mindset with their use of stevia. It's fruit punch for adults, and I'm okay with that. It's light with a classic fruit punch flavor. Most of this turn cap vitamin drinks have a base that tastes like Flintstone chewable vitamins. The stevia in this counteracts that flavor, and you get a natural diet fruit punch drink that you don't have to feel terrible about drinking.

One suggestion to the company, have you ever considered selling just the caps for people to put on any old bottle of water? Think about the money you would save on shipping, not to mention everything else. Let's face it; water is water, no matter how you talk it up. It's the cap contents that really matter. That is all.

I have had these drinks where you turn the cap one way and magic comes out and then you turn it the other way and the cap comes off. I like them. They are fun. Until now the color of the dust that comes out is the color that you would expect. Strawberry drink? Red or pink dust. Lemon lime drink? Green dust. I turned this expecting a dust and was given a dark brown liquid. I'm not saying it was gross but it was unexpected. You know when you're at home and sometimes you turn on the water and the water is a little yellow and you have to let it run for a bit to clear itself out? It's like that except this won't poison you like old pipes might. The nice thing about the liquid is that you barely have to shake it. I know there are a couple Elaine Benes' out there that hate shaking things so I feel the need to point it out. Give it one quick jiggle and you're done for the rest of your life. The taste is a little different than I expected, though. If you sold this to me as an apple juice, I might say, this is a pretty fruity apple juice. It's the same color as apple juice and tastes a bit like apple juice. The more you drink it the more convinced you are that it is kiwi strawberry. It's hard to say if this tastes like "real" kiwis and strawberries or if it's something with the aftertaste of the Stevia leaving it with a bitterness that I actually like. This drink is a regular enigma. I like it. Keep it up, 989.


EDIT:
We got this note from the company, so that explains the color:
"I just want to explain the reasoning behind the coloring on Kiwi Strawberry. Out of all of our flavor, Kiwi Strawberry color changes the fastest. All of our coloring are ALL NATURAL and hence they do tend to change colors after some time. If you try any of the other flavor, you will see that their colors are much more vibrant."

I had a fairly stressful day that I don't want to get into, so I won't because it's my life, and my website and I make the rules. I was worried. I was upset. I wanted to sleep the day away, but I had too much to do. Lucky for me this little guy had shown up in the mail. I downed the shot like an alcoholic at noon, and went about my scheduled activities.
Since it is a shot I didn't expect it to taste the greatest, but I would never have expected what I got. I expected the harshness that only a concentrate with a bunch of chemicals in it can give you. What I got was a fluid that tasted like someone liquefied some baby aspirin and added a berry flavored , sugar replaced with stevia Pixie Stix. At first it really threw me off and I thought it was gross, but then I realized that it actually tasted fairly pleasant and way better than the harshness I had expected.
I definitely calmed down shortly after drinking this. I will attribute part of it to the ingredients of this bottle and part to Mike's ridiculous stories that he told in a podcast we recorded for Buffalo Eats. Which one played the stronger role? I guess we'll never know, but I am glad that I have a few more bottles of this on hand for future stressful days.

Marco and his family had money. Not only did they have money, but they were filthy, stinking rich. Where as normal families save all year to go on a weeklong vacation his family went to exotic locations every weekend. You would think that all of that travel time would be rough on a child of ten, but you'd be surprised at how much faster a Lear jet can get you places. Marco's favorite weekend trips were the ones they took to tropical locations. He liked the beaches and all the crazy birds, but his favorite part was all of the crazy exotic sounds drinks his parents would have, but never let him try. As he laid his head down on his pillow each night his mind was filled with visions of margaritas, mojitos, mai tais, and daiquiris. The names and colors were so intriguing, but since they were “adult drinks” not a drop ever passed his lips. For years he begged, but his parents were relentless.

One unlikely day whilst on a trip to NYC where he had tagged along with his dad, his life changed forever. His dad had stopped at a corner store for a pack of cigarettes, and told Marco to grab himself a drink. Being disgustingly rich, Marco was not used to shopping for himself. There were people who did that sort of thing for him. He was shocked at the selection of drinks set before him. Instantly a pink bottle caught his eye. He instantly knew he needed this drink in his mouth as soon as possible. This was all before he even saw what flavor the drink was. When he pulled it from the shelf he saw that it was a strawberry daiquiri. His brain was suddenly filled with the Gabrielle song “Dreams” (you know the one “Dreams can come true, look at me baby I'm with you.”). It took until the second verse until he realized that the song was actually just on the radio in the shop. As he held it in his hands his dad gave him an understanding smile and gave the shop keep some money.

He wasn't even out the door before he had opened the bottle and let the sweet, sweet liquid pour over his tongue. To tell you the truth, it wasn't as magical as he had expected. Maybe it was because he was in a dirty metropolitan and not in a tropical paradise, but the drink seemed off. It certainly tasted like strawberries, but more like a combination of real strawberries and strawberry flavored candy. It was also way milkier/thicker than he had expected it to be. This wasn't what he expected to be drinking when he turned 21 in Cabo. Okay this is stupid. This drink is okay, but it's nothing special.

Corporations, man. They're eating our society up. Everywhere you look there is another chain restaurant eating up the once freethinking eatery that was there before. It's a plague on our society. Everyone is a capitalistic pig whose only concern is sex and money. Everyone just wants to make a quick buck using as little of their brain as possible by buying someone else's franchise and cashing in on the lemmings. The sad part is that they will succeed because we're conditioned to accept these franchise STDs as common in our lazy society. What ever happened to small, mom-and-pop stores? There was nothing wrong with them and there was a helpful, local, friendly feeling to them. Now everything is painted in a coat of cold steel and wood and cookie cutter'd out as if corporate America is just churning out mediocrity to feed it's overpopulated, suburban sprawl.

What? I'm kind of in the middle of something here. Can I help you? What? You expect me to drink this? Starbucks is some of the worst people that existed. It's roots were hardily into West Coast soil but once they found out they could make a buck or two expanding, they littered America with their stores, merchandise, and cups, filling up landfills and valuable property, raising the cost of living and pushing the less fortunate so the wealthy can devour mediocre fare like so many before them. Fine, since you said "please" I will drink this for you to prove to you how terrible and awfully average Starb....ohh...this is actually good....er...I mean. This is alright for a corporation. The raspberry is pretty strong and the aftertaste or pomegranate is pretty refreshing. Only 60 calories per can? Oh, Stevia. Cool. That's a pretty, mostly all-natural drink that uses coffee like Bai to infuse energy into their drink naturally. It's nicely, sweetened and the Reb-A isn't overpowering and overly sweet.

Starbucks is a plague on society not unlike boils and frogs, but I've got to admit, this is really good. I guess a company that makes this can't be all bad. They've got to have some people working there that understand "good" and I will try and keep a little bit more of an open mind.

Did someone say something about WalMart back there? Are you carrying a WalMart bag? Oh, sir, did you just open a thirty to forty minute can of worms. Please, take a seat. I've got some things to say.

Imagine spending your entire life hating coconuts and everything they flavor. For years your hatred rose to a point where if anything had even trace amounts of the fruit you wouldn't taste it for all the pineapples in Hawaii. I lived those dark days. It got to the point where I couldn't even see the humor in a coconut carved to look like a monkey. Then one day everything changed. You see I wasn't alone in my anti-coconut crusade. All three of us here at Thirsty Dudes had the same aversion. It was an unspoken bond that we would put off reviewing coconut waters for as long as we could, and with so many beverages in the world that could be a long, long time. One day a package showed up. It was full of dozens of cartons of coconut water. Even though our hatred ran strong, our duty to the website was stronger. We each took a handful of the drinks and went to our respective homes to taste the foulness in peace. I don't know about the others, but I can say that the one I drank was better than I expected, but not something I actually enjoyed. By that I mean that I was able to drink the entire bottle without wanting to throw up. We each posted reviews and we thought we were done with it. Then a magical comment appeared on one of our reviews. It instructed us that we should make sure that we drank coconut water ice cold. I thought what the hell and I gave it a try. I can't explain what a difference a few dozen degrees makes. A drink that was chalky and gross suddenly became refreshing and flavorful. I began to truly enjoy coconut water.

All of that took place about a year ago. Oh how things change. Here I sit in my home and within twelve hours of procuring this carton of coconut water I'm leaning back and enjoying it. The flavor is called “Pineapple Punch,” but since it's pineapple and coconut it really is just a pina colada. Who would have thought that I would ever like drinking pina colada? If you had handed me one in the past it would have gone directly down the drain. Now I'm sipping it from a carton, like my computer room was some kind of paradise. It tastes mostly like normal coconut water with just a hint of pineapple mixed in. Our citrus friend is kept in check, so the drink remains nice and smooth. As an added bonus vitamins from GNC added to it. I don't notice them in the flavor or texture, so that is a good thing.

Now that you are done imaging a world where you hate coconuts take a moment to imagine a world where everyone abbreviates everything and “phenom” is used as an adjective constantly. That would be a frightening place to live.