Sucralose - 291 Reviews

The Fast and the Furious 6 comes out next week. It would seem appropriate to save this can and review it alongside of the movie, but I don't think they would be so keen on that idea. I could probably wait until an engine revs in the opening credits and time my can opening to that moment so no one would notice. It would probably enhance my experience of watching it.

But let's not kid ourselves, the series is a guilty pleasure of mine and I'm already really excited to see it. Those who know me might be really shocked for my love of a tricked out car racing movie franchise because I have never had my driver's license. I like taking the bus/ riding my bike and have never had to urge/need to drive. As for my love of the Fast and Furious movies, I look at them the same way I do the Die Hard series: they are really fun to watch.

Now for the drink at hand, it's good but not worthy to be featured next to a fancy car that costs more than I will make in 5 years (Mike is the car guy, I don't know the names/makes/models of cars). It's on the better end of diet energy drinks, but it doesn't have much character to it. It's like the racer that crashes first in each movie; they have a prominent role in the movie but are very forgettable.

I'm sorry, sir. Did you give my son a lime with a razor blade in it for Halloween? I swear to God that if you did I am going to take the razor out of the lime and slice your throat. No, you listen to me. I thought that was just a scary thing we told kids to not take things from strangers but now that it's out in the open and people are doing it, I don't know what to do as a parent. I tried to move to a nice part of town and into a place where I my kids are safe, or at least I thought my kids would be safe. No, I'm not done talking. You come into this town thinking you can get away with this stuff. Don't you know there is a block club where we talk about stuff like this? Fine. What do you have to say for yourself, you scum?

You what? Don't you lie to me! I'm a very powerful mother with four kids and will not take any of your garbage. You gave them what? A drink? My son Danny told me you gave him a lime with a razor blade in it. Danny, you told me. No. I explicitly heard...Oh it was like a lime with a razor blade in it. Do you have any more? Jesus, you're right. It tastes like lemon lime pop but the carbonation is actually sharp. You said this is diet, too? Eh, it's not too bad and I'm always drinking diet stuff.

Mister. I'm very sorry. You have to see it from my point of view, though. If you heard that your kid had gotten something with a razor blade in it, you would freak out, too, and rightfully so. I'm sorry. Please come to our next block club meeting and I'll bake you some cookies. Have a good night and I hope I didn't scare away your trick or treaters. Then again, that's the point of Halloween, right? Ha. Could I have another bottle of that, please? It's pretty good. I'll toss in another dozen cookies. Thank you. Hey! There is a razor blade floating in this drink! Eh, I guess I deserved it. I was a real jerk to him, Danny.

Dear Kraft, You sent us these samples months ago and I'm sorry I'm just getting around to reviewing this now. You see it somehow fell behind the giant mountain of drinks that is my kitchen, and it wasn't until I tried to organize everything yesterday that I found it. Such a little squeeze container can easily get lost in a forest of the gluttonous large bottles of most American beverages. In this country we are taught that more is better, but most of the time that is not true. More often ends up with stomachaches, cavities and diabetes.

The more is better mentality also does not fare well with Crystal Light Liquids. When they say one squeeze for each 8oz serving, they mean a small squeeze, not a big honking one. With a small squeeze you get a nice fruity flavor that tastes more like a tea that it should for not having any tea in it. IT has a general tropical fruit flavor rather than one of specific fruit. There is also a slight diet flavor from the sucralose they use to sweeten it, but it's more than manageable. The more you squeeze, the less pleasant the flavor become and the more the diet taste of it all jumps out at you.

When done properly this can make a nice little beverage for those weirdoes in the world that don't like the taste of water. It's also a nice substitute for sugar water if you're trying to lose some weight or just consume healthier beverages, just don't overdo it like you did those bacon triple cheeseburgers that got you into this mess in the first place.

Thank you for coming to the 3 o'clock show of The Great Blastino! I hope you all enjoyed the past 20 minutes of magic and illusions. We have time for one final trick, The Miraculous VBlast! In this trick I will turn an ordinary bottle of water in a vitamin packed treat with a light purple hue.

For this trick I will need a volunteer from the audience. Yes you, you will do nicely. Will you please come up here and inspect this bottle. Feel free to taste it. Can you confirm that this bottle is full of nothing but ordinary water? Yes? Good. Now let me return the cap, say the magic words, BolognaOnPastrami! Now you will notice that the fluid in the bottle has changed in color. Please take another sip and tell us how it now tastes. Ahh yes, you say it has a nice light grape candy flavor, but in a diety sort of way. You would be correct. You will also be happy to know that you just received a mouthful of crucial vitamins in a fun and interesting way.

Now folks magicians aren't supposed to reveal their secrets, but truth be told I actually am an employee of the VBlast Corporation and this entire performance was put together as a marketing technique to introduce you to our newest vitamin drink. You see it truly was just a bottle of spring water; the vitamins are all stored in the cap, which once you twist it causes the contents to drop into the water. All you need to do then is shake it up and enjoy. Bottles are available for sale in the lobby. I will also be out shortly to sign autographs.

Hell hath no fury like my scorn for gross energy drinks. If this were someone's first energy drink, I wouldn't blame them for never wanting to try another one again. This is hard to stomach. I don't know if it's the un-original "energy drink" taste that is as bland/gross as the packaging of this can, or the sucralose that is burning an ulcer into my stomach. I have a deadline on Monday and am trying to get ahead so I don't have much to do this weekend. Despite my stomach telling me to stop, I keep drinking this. And you know what? It's not getting any better.

I just took another sip; yup it's still nearly undrinkable.

Honey is a wonderful thing. Think of all those millions of bees out there working their little stingers off for their queen and as a result leaving this sweet delicious waste behind. That's right, honey is essentially bee poop, and we all love it.

Ginseng on it's own is rather gross. Have you ever had one of those Asian energy drinks that are basically ginseng root floating in water? They taste like the water that is strained through a potted plant, or so I would assume. Ginseng mixed into other drinks can be pretty alright though.

The thing is when honey and ginseng are mixed together; all I can think of are cough drops. No one wants to be reminded of the things they need to ingest when they are ill. It just causes waves of gross feeling to wash all over you.

As a result of all I have written above, I fully expected this to taste like a cough drop bathed in a sea of chemical energy drink grossness with a hint of diet poison. I am very grateful that the Xyientists would never let that come to pass. They busted out their Erlenmeyer flasks and their Bunsen burners and burned the midnight oil (whilst listening to “Diesel and Dust”) to create a downright tasty drink that they themselves could have utilized on that late night.

This is firstly a green tea. It has a bit of a honey edge to it, but you can't really taste the “dirt” ginseng flavor. It comes nowhere near cough drop flavor, which is a huge plus. The flavor of the sucralose blends in well with the energy drink flavor, and it ends up not tasting too much like either. It's also non-carbonated, which is a nice direction for energy drinks to move in. These new lines of tea and lemonade Xyience beverages that come out have all put a nice twist on a beverage style that is becoming increasingly stale and boring.

Glaceau, home of Vitamin Water and Smart Water, has decided to try its hand at sparkling beverages. When the dealer passed out the cards things we're looking good for them, but their hand just wasn't strong enough to make something spectacular. On first sip I thought this had the potential to be something like a Clearly Canadian, but then the sucralose kicked in and everything went downhill. Does anyone on this planet actually think that sucralose is acceptable? I mean I know people deal with it, but with stevia hitting the market, why would a company that uses real sugar in one of its other product lines use such a low level zero calorie sweetener? Next thing I know they'll be using aspartame. Ick.

Okay, so the base of this tastes like a nice light, non-syrupy raspberry soda (if such a thing exists). It's quite pleasant until the sweetener kicks in. With a different sweetener this could have been all the rage in my world. As it stands I didn't' finish the bottle.

If you are one of those imaginary people that actually like sucralose, I highly suggest you check this out. If not, stay away.

Zero calories, zero sugar and very little diet flavor. How do they do it? Science, that's how. Or should I say Xyience? Non-carbonated energy drinks always throw me for a loop, but this one really works. It tastes like light lemonade, with just a touch of raspberry in it. If this were served to me on a hot summer day from a pitcher into a glass full of ice, I might think there was something a little weird about it, but I would never expect it to be an energy drink, and that is something that companies strive for, but rarely achieve. Leave it Xyience to come through.

Oh and by the way, it's April in Buffalo and I already have my second sunburn of the year. There is going to be an epic battle this summer.

I have a confession to make: this is the first "ingredients in the cap" drink I have had. I know this isn't a big deal to most people, but I feel ashamed admitting this as a 'Thirsty Dude'. It's almost the equivalent of me saying I never had an aloe drink before. Actually, if that was the case Mike and Jay would probably suspend me from the website. Give me a week off to think about what I did, like I was a delinquent kid who stole his parents golf clubs.

The liquid comes out brown when you unscrew the cap, which was kind of unsettling at first. I'll be honest it looked like diarrhea. Sorry to get that image in your head. Once it mixes with the water, it looks just like peach tea so that initial thought gets flushed away. The peach flavor is quite strong and luckily the sucralose doesn't obscure the taste too much. In fact, for a sugar free drink this is quite sweet. If I had to guess I would have thought it was sweetened with sugar.

The only thing that's disappointing is the lack of much of a tea flavor. There is "tea essence" in this, which sounds like someone sprinkled some tea flakes on top. It tastes closer to vitamin water than peach tea. Since there are lots of vitamins in this, and the base is spring water, this isn't that far fetched.

Total disclaimer is that I did not want to drink this. I have been scared away from energy drinks because the last few I've drunk have made me real weird: just general nausea and spinning and stuff. I don't know what's up with me. Perhaps I'm dying from all the stuff I've been drinking since I've been doing this site. I also have no interest in extreme fighting. I don't have anything against it, let it be known, but it's not a selling point for me. Just something to keep in mind while I write and you read this review.

This drink is non-carbonated. I appreciate it because most energy drinks are carbonated and this is different. Likewise, this doesn't taste like concentrated candy like most energy drinks do. This basically just tastes like a diet raspberry juice and tea. If you didn't know better, that is what you would think this is. It has sucralose in it, which keeps it not awful for you, but it does translate during the aftertaste and should be mentioned. The flavor isn't that bad. It's fruity and the acai doesn't have that awful taste that I normally get where it's a little bitter, almost like a blackcurrant.

If you're short on energy and have some sort of cage match coming up, I actually recommend this. If you have an elbow that is just itching to go into some dude's back but just don't have the "get up and go" to bring yourself to do it, this is good for you. If you hate Red Bull and want a boost, to a lesser extent, this is for you.

You know what I like? Diet energy drinks that don't taste gross. See, we here at Thirsty Dudes consume a lot of empty calories everyday. Because of this, I have come to enjoy diet drinks because it means I don't consume more calories. The problem with this of course is the majority of diet drinks taste like someone mixed dirt and battery acid and made stew out of it. This is especially true for a lot of diet energy drinks.

I have been really tired this week, due to lack of sleep. It's starting to (finally) warm up here in Buffalo so drinking hot coffee in the morning isn't something I like to do. Because of this, I have been drinking more energy drinks than I'd like to. They do the job, but I'm trying to drink as little of them as possible.

All that being said, this drink is delicious! The lemonade is sweet and slightly tart, and the pineapple taste compliments it very well. It makes sense that UFC made this its official energy drink because it's a touchdown. Wait, UFC isn't football? Oh, fighting, hmmmm... It's a punch to the mouth? That doesn't sound too positive.

In order to ensure that bullets don't pierce your person there are a few things you have to sacrifice, limited mobility for one. Also, if you're a sweet spy, the bulkiness of it all will ruin the lines in your suit. I also just learned that in order to become bulletproof, you also have to sacrifice flavor.

As with most energy drinks that don't proclaim to be a specific flavor, I expected the generic energy drink flavor of sugary candy. Well, diet sugar candy. I actually prefer the sugar free Red Bull to the original variety, so I thought this was going to be a little bit of decent, but nothing out of the ordinary. That proved to be not the case. This definitely has the chemical energy drink flavor, but it also has a weird almond smell to it that comes across as something completely different and weirdly citrus in the flavor. It's not something that I would ever purchase, as there are so many other varieties of energy drinks in every gas station ever. Maybe this will be your thing, but I couldn't really enjoy it. Maybe I'll unload a few rounds into it and see if it actually is bulletproof. My predictions: I'm going to tear this thing to pieces.

A couple weeks ago I went to PAX East aka Penny Arcade Expo in Boston, MA. It's basically a giant gaming convention stemming from a long running webcomic about video games. It was my first time attending and I had a lot of fun.

In addition to all the new and upcoming games, there was a 5-Hour Energy booth set up in the front lobby all weekend. Normally I would avoid these little bottles of death like the plague, but the line for the coffee shop in the hotel was always way too long and I didn't want to get my ass handed to me when I was playing Halo 4 against some 6 year old. Over the weekend, I lost count at 4 or 5 of these consumed. I'm afraid to know the actual number, but I did manage to bring an additional 5 home with me somehow.

Does this taste like "berry"? Sure. Could it be mistaken for another flavor? Most likely. Did I barely notice the flavor due to consuming this in one sip due to over-exhaustion and wanting to just "wake up"? You betcha! Did it work? Indeed it did.

I handed this to my friend/coworker and I told him to get "V Blasted." We knew it was gross, we acknowledged it was gross, and then moved on. He unscrewed the cap, shook it, and got juice on him. I promptly told him that he got "V blasted." We knew it was gross, we acknowledged it was still gross, and then we moved on.

I don't care what you say this is a juice. You can call it water all you want but I would like to see you give anyone this drink and have them not call it a juice. Stop it with the water. No one is offended by the word "juice." As a juice it is quite good. It's sweet and has a slight sting from the sucralose but is promptly covered up by a rush of…€¦you guessed it, strawberry and kiwi. Good flavors, too. Nothing at all bad.

You get to buy it, make it, shake it, and drink a pretty good juice all in a matter of seconds. It's a pretty good deal also not forgetting the fact that it is a downright disgusting name that you get to keep your mind in the gutter for. Ugh. VBlast.

I think that if given the opportunity to run the United States, Rush Limbaugh would take the offer. Right there on the table. President Obama meets Rush at an undisclosed location (TGI Friday's) and he slides a piece of paper across the table. On the paper says the following words; "Do you want to take over?" and below it asked you to circle "Yes" or "No." He would answer, "Yes" and then they would eat a Jack Daniels burger, fried mac and cheese, and chicken tortilla soup.

If Rush had to win over America, which he would have to do to about half of the country, he could simply hand out this tea. It would be an olive branch that tastes like raspberry tea. No, not like diet raspberry tea, just regular raspberry tea. He could say something like, "I understand that some of you don't like me. My intentions are pure and to let you know how serious I am, I am giving you each a bottle of this tea. I am a man of research and that is why I have given unto you a bottle of diet iced tea that doesn't taste diet and still tastes great. I am a giving, generous, and genuinely care about this country. Please accept my prompt leadership and I will do my best to point us, much like the captain of a ship, towards greatness."

Rush, if you are reading this, which I assume you are, you can use this line when Obama meets you at a secret restaurant that may or may not sell deep friend green beans.

Hi, Skip Gator here. When diving into the gator pit to get your wrestle on it's very important to be hydrated and to have your daily serving of vitamins. Now many of my competitors do this the old fashioned way with a bottle of water and some multi-vitamins from the drug store. I say, “Who has time for that?” I need to get getting myself psyched up for the rush of the fight. That is why I combine the two and down a bottle of V Blast. They even have formulated a specific blend for me that they call “Gator Pit.” They know my love of all things green includes limes, so they made my drink lemon lime flavored, heavy on the lime. Mrs. Gator says that it smells like a green freeze pop, I can't argue with her. She also says it's way more lime than lemon and tastes like that self same freeze pop if it didn't have a harshness to it. What can I say? My lady knows how to exactly pin point a flavor. Don't get her wrong, she doesn't mean that in a bad way either, it's just the way things are.

The fun in V Blast comes in the fact that the vitamins are stored in the cap and when you open it they are dropped into the liquid below. That helps keep the vitamins fresh for optimal use by the body. It also gives the whole thing a bit of a children's vitamin flavor as well. It's interesting and fun. Oh did I mention the vitamin flavor severely decreases the taste of the sucralose used to sweeten this puppy? Well it does, and for that I'm grateful. You gotta keep in top shape to tangle with a gator and sugar is a big no no in my world.

Welp, the bells a ringing and that means it's time for me to jump into the pit. With the extra boost I got from V Blast this fight will be a cinch.

There are two things that this drink reminds me of. First is the most suburban America restaurant I can think of: Olive Garden. I would like to go on record and say that anywhere that has endless breadsticks, salad and soup is in no way shape of form a fancy restaurant. There is no need to pull out your fanciest clip on tie, and your slightly stained suit coat to take your family out for a meal there; t-shirts and jeans are just fine. Also, it's not gourmet food. It's a crappy chain restaurant that has a fake fancy image to trick the common folk. The one thing it goes have going for it is that they serve peach bellini, which is a nice tasting peach and raspberry iced tea with chunks of peach in it. Now that is something to brag to your friends about, not how large the portions of mediocre pasta are.

To be fair Olive Garden is my only form of reference for peach bellinis. Apparently, it's normally an alcoholic drink that is a mix of peach schnapps and champagne. That sounds horrendous, especially because in the way back time in the early 90's when I actually would drink alcohol I drank way too much peach schnapps and vommed everywhere and it was black and stringy. I couldn't eat anything peach for years.

This is closer to the Olive Garden version than that other unmentionable version. In moderation it tastes like a watered down peach/raspberry tea, but if you add more mix to give it a bit more flavor there is some weird taste floating around beneath the surface. I don't know what it is, but it tastes remotely like plastic. This is to flavor water though, not make a sweet drink, so follow the directions and go light on your squirt and it's a nice treat that has no sugar and no real diet taste.

Oh, and that other thing that each bellini reminds me of? Well, that would be the Kids in the Hall's “Touch Bellini” contest. In fact I'm going to have my own “Touch Bellini” contest. For the next week anyone who sends us an email to thethirstydudes@gmail.com or comments on our Facebook page as to why they should be able to “touch bellini” will be put into the running to receive what is left in this squeeze bottle of drink mix. Kraft sent it to us to review, so we shall pass along our leftovers to you, our twelve readers.

Sometimes you can just cram a couple berries together and make something nice. This isn't always the case. Most fruit and berries are pretty good but sometimes you find something that just sucks up your drink. I feel like, for the most part, you could add grapefruit to anything and it will turn your concoction into the equivalent of a fruit poop. Yeah, if fruit had butts, it would make that. Blackberry, a pretty sacred berry, and blueberry...eh..., come together for an epic collaboration that you will talk about like it was 1992 and you just heard "Nothin' But A 'G' Thang" for the first time. Now, sure, in that case, Snoop and Dr. Dre are both blackberries since they are both awesome and calling either of them blueberries would be insulting to their bodies of work.

This is a pretty great drink, though, all jokes aside. It's diet but does not taste like it and just tastes like a juice. Go ahead. Go to a Snoop Dogg/Lion show and make him a glass of this. He'll love it. He'll (slowly) say that it's sweet, tastes like the fruits that are in it, and probably ask for another glass since, I don't know, I feel like he's eternally thirsty. Dr. Dre is in cahoots with Dr. Pepper so he probably wouldn't drink this for you. That's not a dis, it's just that I don't want you to get shot down. Go with Snoop.

Ps. Kraft sent us this sample. They want us to make sure we say that.

Concentrating and dieting tea sounds like the worst idea to me because I'm such a tea snob that I can't stand anything but either unsweetened tea or pure Southern sweet tea. Everything else is just kind of situational. I drink it for the site but I can't tell you the last time I went to a restaurant and even wanted anything other than unsweetened tea. One primary reason is because sweetened, mass-produced tea typically sucks. No need to beat around the bush. In terms of legitimate quality, it sucks. Every once in a while and completely due to this website, I come across a diamond in the rough that breaks the mold a bit.

This Crystal Light Liquid that Kraft sent us doesn't break the mold but it's a nice middle ground that I'm giving extra credit because it is a diet drink that doesn't taste like diet. It tastes like a watered down, not sharp tasting, Brisk. Basically, it is what Brisk should be instead of the toxic sludge that it is. It's got a decent sweetness that, no, doesn't taste "natural" but isn't offensive. The tea taste is pretty good, too. All-in-all, I would say that this is a success. Diet or not, this is a pretty good tea mix.

I have been sitting here for 10 minutes drinking this white grape tasting energy drink trying to think of clever plays on "Amp" but I'm coming up empty handed. I'm going to blame the Sabres because they're not playing that great right now despite firing their coach. At least this drink tastes decent for an energy drink. Somehow it tastes more like a juice energy drink, despite not containing a drop of real juice. Why can't more diet energy drinks taste this good? It would make diet drinks have a better name.