Sucrose - 113 Reviews

Hansen's makes a damn good soda. There are no questions there. In the past, I haven't had the best luck with "natural" energy drinks. They always taste bad, but not in the normal energy drink way. Bad in the "now I know why companies load their drinks with sugar to mask these flavors" way.

I'm happy to say that Hansen's knows how to make an energy drink! This is really delicious. It almost taste like a less syrupy grapefruit soda with a splash of Mountain Dew. There's no battery acid taste, which is great. As far as the energy portion of the drink goes, I've been dancing in my chair to Kanye West while writing this whole interview so I think it's working. Good work Hansen's!

It's going to be a long night. I haven't slept much in the past couple of days....stupid Jersey kids and making me laugh all night. I've been watching bands play all day. When did Record Store Day become some kind of fest? Oh I'm just complaining because I'm exhausted. These bands all have been fun and good. I mean how often does one get to see Floor play in this day and age? Ugh, I have to DJ tonight. How am I ever going to make it? I guess it's time to bust open this can of Beaver Buzz.

I'm really glad this obviously Canadian company has a sense of humor. Between the beaver and the "Dam good" joke this company had my support before I even opened the can. I also appreciate that the top of the can in black. It's the small things that amuse me. This smells good. Less chemical than most energy drinks. It also actually tastes like berries. That's a complete and utter shock. In fact this may be the best tasting energy drink I've ever had. It's like I'm drinking some carbonated juice rather than something that could make my heart explode if I drink too much of it. So it tastes great, but will it do it's job properly and keep me up?

*Many hours later*
Well it's now 5:30am and it's six hours after I drank the Beaver Buzz and I'm still wide awake. Seeing as I felt like I was on the verge of falling asleep before I drank it, I'll say it worked. It worked a little too well in fact. I now have to drink a relaxation drink in order to fall asleep. I wonder how cokeheads deal with problems like this.

Smell: Not bad.

Taste: Almost like a natural orange juice but with a strange aftertaste, almost dry. Then sometimes is gets a little strange. It sticks to your palate for a long time. Unwelcomely long. Uninvitedly long.

Burp: Disgusting. Seriously, every burp tastes like you just burped and bile came up. What's strange is that when you burp, it resets your taste buds like when your Nintendo, original, not Super Nintendo, game doesn't work and you hit the reset button 40 times to try and get 720 to work so you can see that dude that is clearly inspired by Rodney Dangerfield. So if you drink it and it starts to get grozz, just burp, make matters worse, and then have everything back to before you took your first sip.

This is along the lines of the FRS drink in its citrocity, but doesn't end up tasting like orange flavored chalk at the bottom of the can.

I can safely say that this is the first review for Thirsty Dudes to be written on the Amtrak Empire Builder train. I am currently in the middle of Montana on my way to Chicago for the Chicago Zine Fest. The drink selection on the train is really sparse, but I expected that to be the case. When I saw this lone bottle of Gatorade in the cooler, I decided to buy it because I wasn't in the mood for pop, and I knew we hadn't reviewed it yet.

That pretty much sums up my opinion of all Gatorade flavors. It's nothing I'm ever excited for, but will drink it when there's nothing else. Every time I drink the lemon-lime flavor, I wish it were more tart. It doesn't really quench my thirst (I'd rather drink water), and definitely does not make me want to go play sports.

It's well known that most energy drinks have a fairly similar chemical taste to them. I'm now realizing that most relaxation drinks taste alike. Luckily that taste isn't like something you'd find in a beaker in a mad scientist's lab. It's almost a diet taste. I blame the Valerian Root and Melatonin. They are in all of these drinks, and they are what gives them their magical powers. Imagine if relaxation drinks came out in the olden times. The creators would be burned as witches. "You brewed a potion that put others to sleep. Now you burn!" Logs are ignited and the town reeks of scorched flesh for the next few days. It's bad news all around. Luckily we live in a modern world where the machines will rise up and we'll all be burned for being human instead of witches. That's a better alternative, right?

Oh yeah, this tastes like a diet orange pop. I probably should have said that earlier.

Sarsaparilla in a can? OK I'm willing to try this. It was pretty cheap so I was expecting this to taste pretty cheap. Was I right? Pretty much. I didn't know it was possible to make a mediocre sarsaparilla. Then again, there are lots of mediocre root beers so I guess someone had to screw up sarsaparilla as well. This just strengthens my suspicion that no good root beers/birch beers/sarsaparillas come in cans.

Last night I had one of the worst nights of sleep of my life. I went to bed around 1:30. Then from then until about 5am I woke up every half hour on the nose. Sometimes I was freezing. Sometimes I had to pee and others there seemed to be no good reason. I finally got fed up, and went and grabbed an Unwind. This allowed me to sleep for two straight hours, then the half hour bouts of sleep started anew. This has all of the usual sleep suspects listed on the ingredients; Valerian root, melatonin, passion flower and others. I'm not blaming the drink for not doing its job. I think on any other night it would have worked wonderfully. I think there was just something wrong with me last night. My roommate blamed it on me eating too much pizza flavored hummus. He might be onto something.

It tasted like a flavored sparkling water. It's a flavor I always initially confuse with a diet flavor, but it's not. It's something all of it's own. Pomegranate flavored sparkling water. I bet my mom would love this stuff.

A carabao is a domesticated subspecies of the water buffalo found in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. This is the reason for the skull on the front of this can. Why am I rambling about this? I have no idea.

I was surprised that this wasn't carbonated, as most energy drinks are I believe. Maybe that's just how they do it in Thailand. I was also surprised how not awful tasting this was. It's really sweet and doesn't have the awful aftertaste that most energy drinks have. It has a slight pineapple taste to it. But it tastes very similar to red bull minus the bite.

This is the red cap stuff, the hot stuff. Rumored to blow the lid off your mouth. I might disagree. I'm not looking for torture, but I think that the medium, gold cap might have been hotter. That being said, this still burns. Burps hurt. Sneezes hurt. Breathing through your nose when you have some in your mouth hurts. It could be considered torture, but they are so nice to treat you to a nice, sweet taste after that you can't stay mad at them. Like if your husband hit you and then bought you a box of exquisite chocolates. Wait, that's probably not the best example. How about if you played little league baseball and the pitcher beamed you and then when you were back up to bat he lobbed you one and you knocked it out of the park. I say little league because that kind of garbage wouldn't fly in the majors, or even high school baseball. Is that better, though? I don't want you to think that domestic abuse and ginger ale are the same thing or even at all parallel, because they aren't.

This is a repeat beverage. I like the hurt that it gives me and the sweet it leaves me with. It's a good "shock" drink that you could drink and keep a straight face and give you brother's stupid girlfriend and burn her mouth off her face. It's as good for pranks as it is for quenching legitimate thirst.

Well hello there, friend. Where did that burn come from? I did not expect that. Someone was nice enough to recommend the Blenheim red cap, "hot" ginger ale and when Jay got back from tour, he came back with this one. I knew the name looked familiar when I saw it today in the fridge. This is just the "medium" ginger ale but it's got a serious punch that I am proud to say that I liked through and through. I like ginger ale a lot and this isn't your Pep Pep's ginger ale. It's sweet, but the burn quickly takes over. Don't worry, though. It leaves you with a nice mid-sweet/mid-hot aftertaste.

I can't say enough good things about this drink. Get some and leave some comments about your impressions. I can't wait to get my hands on a red cap.

I guess this energy shot could be considered a drink. It tasted like Red Bull mixed with poison; a complete chemical flavor. So gross. Not for me.
If you need to drink a Red Bull go for a regular one, they taste way better.

Some friends of mine brought me this bottle over from the U.K. I had seen it when I was over there, but never tried it. As per usual, I messed up. It's pretty awesome. It's a grape/raspberry soda that has actual fruit juice in it. It's like a thick berry juice that's been carbonated. It also has Vimto flavoring in it, which includes herbs, barley malt and spices. Weird. There is apparently also a non-carbonated version of it. Kids would really love this, as do I, because I'm a child.

Before I talk about the drink itself, I must mention the can it came in. To my surprise, this can has a RECLOSABLE TOP! It's this piece of plastic that turn half way around to open or shut. I must say, opening this can was really fun and I would love to open these over and over again. I love that they put a reclosable top on this because many times with large energy drinks like this (this is an 18.6 oz) I never finish the can in one sitting and it goes flat in the fridge. I wish more companies started putting reclosable tops on their cans.

As far as the drink itself, I really like it. It has a very fruity grape taste, with only a slight typical energy drink acid aftertaste. It almost tastes like if someone mixed grape soda and Mountain Dew.

According to the can, this Dub Edition energy drink is "more than just another energy drink. It's high performance fuel for the true baller."