Sugar - 840 Reviews

Ahh summertime. Hot dogs raining from clouds made of hamburgers. The air filled with the scent of noodle salad and freshly cut grass. That's what summer is all about. I found something we can add to the mix and it is this drink. Watermelon cucumber? Are you kidding me? Summer, dude. Well, I don't know if people are making...wait...I'm on to something...pizza...where the pizza is a slice of watermelon and the pepperoni is cucumber...Mike, you're a genius. I'd like to patent pend this, please, if you don't mind. I'll be right back, hold on.

I just got back from the patent office and you can't patent the idea of putting vegetables on fruit for some reason unless you sell it as a product which I don't have the energy for but if you'd like to take it and run with it, I ask for ten percent of all sales.

Why should this be another staple in summertime drinking? Watermelon is a limited time, summer fruit. Ever eat watermelon in winter because it blows. Cucumber is fine year 'round but teamed up with his (or her) friend watermelon. BAM! Summertime Emeril style. Great watermelon taste with a light cucumber aftertaste all while not having to deal with any syrupy garbage. What more could you ask for? Oh, the hot dogs from the burger clouds are spoiling in the street? Yeah, but it cut down on your dog food spending, didn't it? Not so bad after all.

Mixing this and mixing that, powder and concentrates, frozen or thawed. Everything. Who needs fruit when you can get something in concentrate? Remember when people looked at the future and they said everything would be in pill form? I feel like no one cares about flavor in the future. It's just vitamins and minerals crammed into a pill that tastes like chalk. This mix doesn't taste like chalk. It tastes pretty good. I would eat a pill that tastes like this but that would be a dumb action because I can just drink it and get some actual enjoyment. I can spend time with the flavor.

Country Time is something that we grew up with. Tea, lemonade, and I think juice. Did they make juice? I don't remember. Lemonade mostly. This is a nice mix. It doesn't really taste like a mix, mixes well and doesn't leave any unmixed remnants, and doesn't taste diet while still retaining a low calorie count. It is sour like lemonade would be but doesn't have a strong bite. It tastes like lemonade but doesn't feel like lemonade. The tea is a pretty standard sweetened tea, not a sweet tea, which is fine. Unless you're making sweet tea, you can almost do whatever you want to tea. Those are my rules and guidelines about tea.

I've had about three glasses of it and like it. I certainly hope that someone helps me drink the pitcher that I made so I don't guiltily drink the whole thing but if they don't, I can stretch it out. You stretch it out with some friends. Make a mix. Make a pitcher of mix for you and friends.

Basketball star Wayne Cruddish could not manage to get a sponsor. No one was knocking down his door trying to get him to endorse their products. No one wanted a custom Cruddish shoe. No one bought his jersey. No one was interested in a Cruddish cereal. It's not that he was a bad player. He was actually quite good. He scored a lot of baskets and his coach and teammates loved having him on the team. He wasn't bad looking and always gave to charity and shared his wealth with his community. Everyone liked him but no one wanted his face on anything for some reason. That was until he heard a knock at the door.

He walked to the door and a man with dark glasses said, "King Mills" would like to see you, sir." and Wayne obliged. Just then, a limo pulled up, a red carpet rolled out up to the front door and a short man barely if at all five feet tall hopped out of the car. He looked at Wayne, nodded his head to the man at the door and the man gave Wayne a document. Wayne asked what it was and the man said that the king had chosen him to endorse their iced coffee from Hawaii. Wayne said he had never heard of the drink and the man with the glasses went back to the car, got a can, and brought it to him to drink. Wayne took a nice, big drink and thought for a moment. Wayne told the king that he liked the drink and would be happy to endorse it. He liked that it was smooth, had a rich coffee taste and wasn't too sweet. He appreciated the fact that it was made with real sugar and that the coffee was Hawaiian. He said that he could tell there was a little diet in there but that sucrose was better than aspartame so he shook the king's little hand, signed the document and made the deal.

The man with the glasses went back to limo, opened the trunk, and got two cases of the iced coffee and handed them to Wayne along with a check for $87. He said that he will receive check like that every month as well as a case each month that he endorses the product. Wayne thanked him and closed the door. He was not an endorser of products that he always wanted.

This smells like a showgirl's dressing room in a retirement home. Let me tell you that would not be a pleasant place to be if such a place in fact did exist. This beverage has the scent of far too much perfume and old ladies. It's horrible, but two be expected when two different flowers are mixed together. Luckily the flavor is infinitely better than the nose on this thing.

The elderflower is the stronger of the two flavors, but there is definitely some rose in the planning hijinks. It's right on the cusp of going overboard and taking things to far. It seems like it's going to just up and throw a pie in your face (that's what showgirls do, right?), but at the last minute it decides better of it, gets ashamed and hides in with the scenery. I'm pretty sure that it's the lemon juice in here that is the moral compass that the drink needs. It keeps everyone in line and brings the best out of all flavors involved.

This is one of those drinks that you are unsure of after a sip, but the more you drink it the more you learn to enjoy it's intricacies. Don't be put off by that smell. Think of all the wonderful things your grandmother did for you over the years, and then forgive the scent, and the unwrapped pocket candies and learn to love it like you love her.

I don't know why John is so moody. What does he have to complain about when he's created drinks such as that perfect raspberry ginger soda, and now this traditional ginger beer? Also, the guy lives in Scotland, which is one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited, and also the place where I have come the closest to losing my life. I know that John has something against me, so I thought that knowing how I nearly tumbled down a cliff side onto the jagged rocks below might bring a smile to his crabby face. Alas it did not. He's still complaining about everything. I don't know how to get him out of his slump. Then again if it's his disposition that caused him to create this fantastic ginger beer, maybe we should just let him be.

This is the smoothest ginger beer I have ever had the pleasure of tasting, and I've had quite a lot. Normally I prefer more of a burn to my ginger sodas, but there is something about this that just sits perfectly with me. It has enough of a burn to keep me happy, but at the same time it manages to be so damn smooth that 90's R&B songs should be written about it. John, you keep doing what you're doing, and I'll keep reaping the rewards of your unhappiness.

After I drank the Levi Roots' Mango N Pineapple soda I had some reservations about giving a different flavor a try. There are some pluses to the soda, I mean it does contain some actual juice, but then again there are artificial sweeteners that just ruin it all.

This appears to be the same soda, except with the apple juice mixed out for grapefruit. I'll tell you that the grapefruit is the real game changer. It really cuts through the flavor and helps mask most of the artificial sweetener flavor. With some sips you get more of a pineapple taste, but one thing that is constant is that the orange flavor is always just mellowing out in the background. It is the roots rock rhythm of this soda.

With the use of real sugar this could have been fantastic, but as much as you try to cover it up the taste of sucralose/acesulfame is going to be there in the undertaste. Did I make that word up? I'm going to start using it, because I like it and I think it should be a real word, if it isn't already.

“I got OJ, purple stuff, soda…€¦Bravo?” That is the Italian version of the classic Sunny D commercial. Like Sunny Delight this is an overly thick juice drink that impersonates orange juice. At least in Italy they have a blood (red) orange version. Other than that I could be served this blindfolded and I would think it was something from the American company.

I was told that I needed to try this, as it was something unusual. It may be unusual in Europe, but it just tastes like a junk American fake juice to me, albeit with a little twist.

Now I'm sure that rhubarb grows somewhere in the United Kingdom, but will forever be associated with American country living to me. I can't think of a single time in my life where I was offered rhubarb when I wasn't on a farm. Goats, bails of hay, horses, barn cats and rhubarb are all grouped together for me. Oh yeah and don't forget strawberries. Is there anything better then being on a farm and plucking a strawberry from the plant and jamming it in your mouth. Oh man, the tiny ones are so damn good.

Now that I think about it all of the things I've mentioned could very easily exist in England. Maybe I just need to spend less time in the cities there and more in the rural areas. I once spent two days on a farm in Bavaria and it was one of the best experiences in my life. Everything we ate was grown on the farm. I'm talking homemade veggie burgers that were composed of fresh vegetables. Being vegetarian was never so good.

Okay, I retract my statement. I will assume this makes sense abroad, and let it be. I now wish that I had been on a farm over there whilst I was drinking this. Instead I was in a kitchen of a friend's house in Wales. It was a perfectly pleasant place to be, I had a cat and dog around me, but it didn't have the same effect as a farm.

Okay, pondering/complaining aside, this sure is wonderful. It's subtle and the rhubarb isn't over the top (not that I would complain if it were). The strawberry is very present and it's just shy of tasting like fresh fruit, which is quite a feat for a concentrate. I wish I had some bubbly water here because this would make one fantastic soda. It's more than fine with still water, but the bubbles would take it over the top. Now just close your eyes and think of goats as you take a sip.

Dear Red Bull,
Perhaps a lawsuit is in order.

While I know in reality this is not true, with all of my heart I want to believe that the huge contribution of the Jamaican/Caribbean culture in England came from the Clash going to record Give …€˜Em Enough Rope in Jamaica. I'd like to think that they got so hooked on the cuisine on their trip that they came back home and made it for everyone and it just caught on like wildfire. It's such a ridiculous notion that it's wonderful.

I unfortunately know this isn't true because the Ka soft drink company started in the 1960s, nearly 20 years before Mick, Joe, Topper and Paul make their trek. The company claims their drinks are based on original Jamaican soft drink recipes, but they are either liars, or they just did something wrong. I've had pineapple sodas from its country of inception and they are generally wonderful. This Ka pineapple soda is completely middle of the road. It tastes very generic. I wouldn't ever question it if it were store brand. It's perfectly fine for family parties, but I wouldn't drink it for my own pleasure. I will listen to the Clash's second masterpiece now and pretend I have a more fitting soda.

I could have sworn that we had already reviewed this. I mean I know Mike and I purchased some years ago, because that is when Mike proclaimed that blackcurrant smells like feet and urine. I can't really argue with that statement, but I think it tastes just fine.

Growing up we had red currants growing in my backyard. Those berries were wonderfully tart, and nothing like this. Black currant falls somewhere between a grape and a blueberry, with the grape is on it's way to becoming a raisin. Luckily it tastes better than it smells, but it also tastes a bit watered down.

Could this be a great drink? I personally don't think it ever had any hope of that. It is okay though, and it could be a little bit better without being so watered down, but this is a huge company in the UK so they have to be doing something right.

It's not like I'm ever going to turn down an apple when it's offered to me. You're reading the words of a man who has eaten apples until he was physically sick on several occasions, solely because he was hanging out in an apple orchard. I have no self control. The thing is that if the choice is given between a green, red or yellow apple, green is going to win out every time. It's a shame that when most companies make products that they deem to be green apple flavored they taste like sour, artificial garbage. Tango on the other hand does things right, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go back in time to my first encounter with this wonderful soda.

The year was 2007 and I was touring Europe for the first time. We had just taken a ferry from France to England and we had played a show in Brighton. That night we stayed at some abandoned office building that some kids, and I mean a lot of kids, were squatting. The building was pretty run down and only a couple parts of it had weird makeshift electricity that I believe they were stealing from an adjacent building. The kids were nice enough and I accompanied them to a store so they could pick up some beer. As a non-drinker I was looking for something more kid friendly. I had still not given up my search for root beer or iced tea at this point, and my hopes were high when we entered the corner store. Of course there was no sign of what I was looking for, and since money was extremely tight, I bought a giant bottle of Tango, because it was under a pound and it would last me all night. I took some swigs from the bottle as we walked back to our home for the night and a wonderfully sweet, fruity flavor washed over my tongue. Over the next two hours I downed that whole bottle, and felt like garbage for it. I didn't regret it though as it was delicious. The soda was made with real apple juice and it tasted like actual fruit and not sour chemicals. It was like taking a teaspoon of sugar in your mouth and biting into a nice crisp Granny Smith. The night went long, and I was beverageless for most of it. I ended up hanging out in the building's break room, which was now the current denizen's kitchen most of the night. I always seem to end up hanging out in the kitchen of a party for some reason. The following morning I woke up and my saliva glands were just secreting apple flavor, which was fairly gross and concerning. I drank many more bottles of Tango on that trip, and I enjoyed every one, especially when I drank them in moderation and they weren't altering my chemical make up.

Not only is Tango a fine beverage, but it's also the best tasting apple soda with added sugar that I have ever drunk.

I've looked it up and elderflower plants thrive in the United States. Why on Earth hasn't this flavor epidemic swept over us? Sure pomegranate, mango and acai are wonderful and all, but I want, nay, I demand companies start releasing elderflower flavored beverages! I don't want to have to rely on trips to the United Kingdom to get my fix, or paying ridiculous amounts of money for imported drinks. Is there some sort of conspiracy I'm unaware of that is keeping the elderflower down? Do we need to march on Washington? Was that statement insensitive? If so I apologize, I am just very passionate when it comes to this specific flavor.

As you may (but probably don't) know I am not a fan of concentrates/cordials. I can never seem to get the ratios right, even when I use measuring cups. They just never taste right to me. I like a consistency to the taste of my drinks that they just don't provide. Yes I know it's something wrong with me and not the concentrates.

The thing with this cordial is that I have experimented and no matter what ratios I put together, it tastes fantastic. I'm making it with still water, and it's not quite the same without the bubbles, but I'm not letting that stop my enjoyment. This is sweet and vaguely floral in the best possible way. I would liken it to lychee if it didn't taste like old lady perfume, but also different enough to make it mouth watering.

Get on board America, the train is leaving without you.

Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap.
I bought this in Edinboro, Scotland at a little shop where I got vegan haggis. I ended up getting a water to accompany my meal, and slipped this can into my bag where it went forgotten for a couple of days.

Cut to a couple countries later and I reach in my bag for a granola bar and find this floating around at the bottom, still somehow fairly cold. I didn't expect much from this from the get go. I'm not a huge rhubarb fan, and the sodas I've had of that flavor were perfectly fine, but nothing exceptional. This though, this is a game changer. I've been kicking myself ever since I drank it that I didn't drink it with my haggis. I would have instantly bought several more cans for my travels.

I suppose I should tell you what this glorious liquid tasted like, but I'm afraid I won't be able to do it justice. The Cawston Press company bases all of their beverages on apple juice, and they do that very well. Without the addition of the rhubarb this would have been a nearly perfect sparkling apple juice. Sure they add some sugar, which I normally frown upon, but they made it work and taste natural. You add a little bit of rhubarb to that and the flavor just skyrockets. You would expect the rhubarb to be overpowering, but it sits perfectly in the mix. It's a match made in heaven that no one else has seemed to exploit yet.

I need to stop thinking about this because it's depressing me that I don't know if I'll ever be able to taste this again. Perhaps I'll book another tour with the sole reasoning of acquiring more of it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Let it be known that I hold grudges. I don't care if you've become a pillar of the community and do all the work in the world to bettering life for the poor and needy, if you treated me like crap at one point I will hold that against you until the day I die. Sure there's the whole forgive and forget thing, but sometimes people are too forgiving and horrible things are welcomed into a community. I'm trying to get better at this, and let the small stuff go, and only hold on to my big grudges, such as you hooked up with an ex while we were still dating and oh you have Nazi tendencies. The small stuff though, the small stuff I'm going to try and let slide. In fact I'll start right here with this drink.

It's right there on the label. “Pineapple & Passionfruit.” That's all I want, a strong taste of both of those wonderful fruits. Instead what I am greeted with is something less than that. Sure it has percentages of both those juices, but it also has orange juice in it in equal amount as the pineapple and double the quantity of the passionfruit juice. Dear readers, this should clearly be called “Orange, Pineapple & Passionfruit,” if the company wants to be accurate, which I hold my suspicions about.

Even though it's the lowest in percentage of content, passionfruit is the strongest flavor in here, with the pineapple riding a little lower, but taking the lead in the aftertaste. The problem is that the orange juice is in there mucking things up a bit and making them taste light and a bit watered down. This is not the end of the world, and I'm going to let it go. Sure this could have been a much better drink without the OJ, but I understand price points, and this is a perfectly acceptable beverage with it included. I would just prefer more honestly from the companies out there.

Well what do we have here? Is this an energy drink that is made from truly "all natural" ingredient and doesn't taste like someone poured sugar on Smarties? This tastes like a fruitier Bai because it uses both the green coffee extract and Stevia. It is also definitely more orange than mango. I didn't get very much mango at all, to be quite honest but the orange was good enough that I didn't care. The stevia and green coffee extract provides a slight bitterness which is actually a nice touch to the often overly sweet orange juice.

I was reluctant on buying this because it was an energy drink and I suck at those. This didn't give me the jitters, for which I actually own them a "thank you" for. Jay reviewed the other one so go get the pair if you'd like.

I know very little of Jamaica. I mean so little that it's a little embarrassing. When you compartmentalize an entire country into reggae music and spicy foods you feel a bit like a small minded. Then someone like Levi Roots comes around who's entire world seems to be comprised of those exact two things, and you start to think, …€˜Man, was I right?” Then you feel even worse, so you just sit back and drink your soda and try to shut off your brain.

Roots was raised in Jamaica where his grandmother taught him how to cook and the surrounding culture taught him about music. I'm not well versed in reggae music, so I don't know how good his contributions to it are, but they sound fine enough to me. I would be more than happy to try his cooking, but his soda just doesn't do anything for me.

This is just an overly sweet soda. If it were a more common flavor it would pass as generic store brand. Since it is mango and pineapple it stands out a bit more. 5% of the total is made up of pineapple, mango and apple juice. While it's a low percentage it's still more than most companies, so this should be better than it is. Unfortunately, the added artificial sweeteners ruin it for me. Perhaps if there was a higher percentage of juice it would mask the flavor of the sucralose, but the flavor is on the weak side and that fake grossness just cuts right through.

Man, cordials are just not my thing. I understand them, and in theory I like that I could make either still or carbonated versions of the beverage, but for the life of me I just can't get it right. You could give me a hundred attempts to recreate the companies “real” version and I would never be able to get duplicate it to my liking. Does everyone have this problem? Am I cursed in the drink mix world? Perhaps I'm just too damn picky. Whatever the reasons I tend to stay away from them.

I bet that if I purchased a ready to drink version of this beverage I would certainly love it. Making it myself I still enjoyed it, but it left something to be desired. The rose flavoring isn't very floral, which is a good thing. You still get a rose flavor out of it, but the sugar covers it up a bit so it's not screaming in your face. The raspberry on the other hand is nice and strong. This is composed of 55% raspberry juice (30% pressed, 25% from concentrate). Anything with that much raspberry is bound to be great. Unfortunately, the opposite of the rose happens with it and the added sugar makes it a tad too sweet at the recommended proportions. I tried watering it down a bit more, which fixed the sweetness problem, but weakened the flavor of the rose to a level that it might as well not have been there at all.

I apparently need more than a little suggested direction. I need the finished product plopped down right in front of me. Hell, I've never even been able to make Kool Aid correctly.

For whatever the reason, sometimes you just want to sneak a drink. Maybe you don't want to share. Maybe you're in a situation where it wouldn't be proper. Certain drinks are easy to get away with, but energy drinks are not one of them. You can try to cover up the sound of the can cracking up all you want, but as soon as the can is opened, everyone around you is aware of what you've done and what you're drinking because it's scent has perfumed half a block's radius.

I wasn't trying to be stealthy with this beverage, but every head that was around me turned once the smell hit them. It's a scent I can only assume you are well aquatinted with, and it tastes pretty much exactly as it smells. This is not an exact Red Bull replica, but it is enough of a facsimile that you can guess what it would be like on your tongue. It is to Red Bull as Pepsi is to Coke.

This is apparently the limited edition version. I don't know why someone would need a limited edition energy drink, especially when it doesn't taste like anything special, but there you have it.

Let's go through the things I know about Scotland. I really like nearly every band I've heard from there, It's where the Loch Ness Monster resides, It's the home of the grossness that is Irn Bru. Haggis is served there. Glasgow is one hell of a drinking town that tends to get violent. They apparently deep fry everything. Scotland: The carnival of the United Kingdom. Okay that might not be an official term, but with the amount of deep friend food in that country, perhaps it should be.

So I like the music, but the food and beverages are not really up to my standards…€¦or so I thought. Everything I knew about Scottish cuisine came crashing down around me as soon as this John Crabbie soda touched my lips. I, my friends, have been converted. This is one of the single greatest beverages I have ever tasted. I knew a raspberry and ginger soda would be right up my alley, but I didn't expect it to be executed so perfectly.

Let's start with the magic. This says that it just has raspberry flavourings (note the U) in it, but they somehow perfected it and it tastes exactly like I'm jamming my pie hole full of fresh berries. JC and Co could have stopped right there and this would have been an amazing soda, but they are apparently famous for their ginger beer, so they decided to add a little bit of that root to this soda as well, which took it up to a level that will be hard to beat. At first I thought that the minimal burn was a let down, but then I realized that if it were more present it would distract the drinker for the wonderful raspberry taste. The way they did it everything sits perfectly in harmony.

I can't express to you how upset I was when I had finished this bottle and I realized that even though I had access to more, I shouldn't purchase it because there were so many other sodas I needed to review for this site. So thanks Thirsty Dudes for keeping me from what could have been my one true love in this world.