Derek Neuland - 489 Reviews

I was drawn to this drink because of the color. This pink colored drink really stood out in the Asian markets cooler. After I picked it up and noticed that it was a chunky drink, I was sold.

At first I thought the chunks were aloe, but then I looked a little closer. I saw 'nata de coco' in the ingredients. I had no idea what this was, but a quick Google search found the answer for me. Taken from Wikipedia: "Nata de coco is a chewy, translucent, jelly-like food product produced by the fermentation of coconut water, which gels through the production of microbial cellulose by Acetobacter xylinus. Nata de coco is most commonly sweetened as a candy or dessert, and can accompany many things including pickles, drinks, ice cream, puddings and fruit mixes."

Now I can see these chunks with drinks and fruit mixes. Ice cream and pudding are ones I wouldn't have thought of, but I'm sure it's delicious. The one that throws me off is pickles. So are there jars of pickles with these chunks floating in it? If so, I really want to find one of these because I love pickles.

The drink itself is good. It's really refreshing and taste like something between juice and vitamin water. It's not too sweet which actually works in this case. I feared it was going to be very syrupy. The strawberry flavor is good, but I wish it had more of a tart flavor to it. This is quite possibly the chunkiest drink I have ever had. It is impossible to take a sip and not get any chunks. It's pretty awesome.

This is a limited edition flavor of Mountain Dew that they just recently brought back. I remember it being around a few years ago, but I never got around to trying it. When I first saw the name Pitch Black, I was hoping this was going to be a blackberry soda. Sadly its not, but black grape is equally intriguing.

The black color of the soda is actually a very dark purple. I've never heard of a black grape so I'm assuming they just decided to market it this way because it's a lot catchier than Pitch Purple. The taste is decent, but not amazing. The grape flavor is really tart which is nice, but then the usual heavy Mountain Dew taste sets in. Overall, this isn't the best limited edition flavor they've concocted, but it's not horrible.

I love energy drinks. I used to try them all out of curiosity long before this site was around. What's great about them is they really work! I stayed up all night hanging out with my friend Biff until 6am, and I had to wake up at 11 to meet some friends for lunch. So I'm dead tired right now.

The unfortunate thing about energy drinks is most of them are gross. Some that I've tasted over the years puzzle me how bad they are. Monster usually is good so I decided to give this flavor a try. I had a feeling this was going to be Orange flavored due to the can color, and I was right. More so, it has a great orange flavor. It tastes more like Orange soda than an energy drink. This is easily one of the best I've ever had. I'm already energized!

With a name like "Buckin' Root Beer", I was fully expecting this to have a lot of bite. I like that in a root beer. The more bite, the better. Or maybe the folks at Jackson Hole want me to drink this on the back of a bull at a rodeo? I have a feeling that isn't the case, as I'd probably wear more of the bottle than what I could manage to drink.

I've been saving this root beer for a week now. Was it worth the wait? Very much so! This is a really heavy root beer, but it also has lots of flavors. As I suspected, this has a good amount of bite to it, with a really nice anise taste. It just gets better and better with every sip, unlike some sodas which lose flavor as the bottle goes down. The bottle says that this is batch brewed, and I must say that this is a great batch!

I mentally associate this drink as a kids drink. This is because I dated someone who had a 2-year-old daughter who loved these. Her car would be littered with these empty containers. The smiling face on the opening is kind of hard to forget. Anyways, one time she offered me a sip and who can say no to an adorable 2-year-old girl so I drank from the smiling face opening. I'm not sure what flavor it was, but it was tasty.

There is no mistaking this is strawberry flavored. I don't see how anyone could not identify this flavor, even if they were blindfolded, spun around 8 times, and had their nose plugged. This is quite possibly the most potent strawberry flavored drink I've ever had. It almost taste like a strawberry puree. It has a slight tart aftertaste, which I really like. This probably is due to the ingredients that make it a probiotic drink.

If this is available in a bigger bottle, I'd definitely drink it all the time. I feel silly drinking out of a container that i can hide if I make a fist.

I saw this bottle in my mom's fridge and realized that we hadn't reviewed it yet. Even though I hate diet soda, I decided to give it a try in the name of Thirsty Dudes.

Battery acid. That's what it tastes like. It burns all the way down. No matter how much I try, I can't get used to the diet soda taste. I only had a couple sips and my stomach feels horrible.

I'm not sure if it's actually the container that is the difference, but I've found that most soda in cans is not as good as bottled varieties. This is especially true of root beer. I have never had a canned root beer that was anything more than acceptable. Given this, I didn't think this root beer was going to be anything to write home about.

Upon first sipping this, I was surprised how good it was. The actual color of it was clear, which is uncommon with root beers. Since this is an organic drink, they probably decided to not add unnecessary coloring to it. Plus, most people who drink out of a can don't check what color a drink is, only obsessive drink reviewers such as myself. We should really come up with a term for drinks that are clear when they normally aren't. I'll have to think this over more. Any suggestions?

Anyways, this root beer is great. It's really smooth with a very light root beer taste. While I'm a big fan of heavy and complex root beers, a light but flavorful root beer is nice from time to time. The root beer taste was very close to root beer barrel candy, which I've stated many times that I love. Maybe that's the taste they were going for and was the reason they put the root beer barrels on the can's artwork.

I can safely say I am an energy drink connoisseur. I do my best work late at night so naturally I am a night owl. I have easily tried 50 different energy drinks over the past 10 years and I always seem to come back to the original Monster flavor. It has a strong citrus flavor. It also sometimes reminds me of sour apple. Like most energy drinks, it has that usual energy drink battery acid chemical taste. I feel like it isn't as bad with this kind though, but it may be because I got used to it.

I wonder if there is anyone who prefers generic, store brand cola. I've always seen it as a cheap alternative if you are on a budget or don't care that much about the taste. This Wegmans cola is no exception. It may not be the worst cola ever, but it's so bland and boring that I keep hoping to find something different about it while drinking this. Not bad, but not good.

I've said it before, and I will continue to say it: I have yet to try a flavor of Vitamin Water that I don't like. I'm not saying that every flavor is amazing. I am just in the group of people that thinks they have yet to make a bad flavor. I continue to try all the new flavors and continue to be amazing by the consistency of how good they are.

As most people know, each flavor of Vitamin Water has a fun little blurb of text to help them stand out among all the other flavored waters. Since the name of this drink is "Glow", the blurb is all about how a supermarket is also a great place to meet people to date. It even goes on to say that if someone sees this bottle in your basket things will go good for you. I'm used to companies covertly (or in this case not so subtly) push their products onto the masses, but it always makes me uneasy. I highly doubt someone will be more attracted to someone if they had a bottle of vitamin water in their shopping cart.

I had never heard of a guanabana so I had to look it up. It grows on trees native to Mexico, Venezuela, Central America, the Caribbean and northern South America, Colombia and Brazil. Its flavor has been described as a combination of strawberry and pineapple with sour citrus flavor notes contrasting with an underlying creamy flavor reminiscent of coconut or banana.

I would love to try this fruit on it's own, but it is mixed with strawberry in this drink. It kind of tastes like a strawberry dipped in whipped cream, but not as heavy. It's actually really good, and I normally don't like strawberry flavored drinks. It has a very slight stevia aftertaste, but most people might not be able to tell that.

This is a new flavor of Mountain Dew that is, like most new flavors, "limited edition". What this really means is they'll stop making it if no one likes it.

As far as Mountain Dew flavors go, this is my favorite. The combo of melon and strawberry is really great and refreshing. It has that normal aftertaste but it is not overwhelming. I for one hope this flavor sticks around and they get rid of Code Red.

I'm back in Buffalo and it feels great! It's super nice out today so after leaving a friends house I stopped in a corner store to help quench my thirst. I am a big fan of lemonade/ iced tea mix drinks and have never had this one so I thought why not. Now for 79 cents I wasn't expecting the best drink ever, but Arizona tall boys are 99 cents and they're pretty delicious.

Sadly, this is not of the same caliber as Arizona. It tastes really watered down and cheap. It doesn't have a heavy taste which is nice, but it is lacking a lot of taste in general. It taste like they just the in a little bit of iced tea and lemonade in with a lot of water. I guess I got what I paid for.

I had no idea what this was going to taste like. I didn't think it was going to be like cola, but I was guessing maybe a ginger ale taste. I wasn't expecting this to taste like bubblegum. This really excited me when I smelled bubblegum because it's one of my favorite flavors of soda. This is different than other gum sodas I've had. To be specific, this tastes exactly like gumballs. Mary Liz thinks it tastes like white gumballs, which is why she doesn't like it much.

Not me though, I love this drink! It's not incredible, and some of my love for it might be due to the rash of horrible drinks I've had lately. Nevertheless, this is good and I look forward to finishing this bottle.

After the last flavor of Hog Wash and how sugary it was, I was not looking forward to this one. To my surprise, it was actually really good. It tastes like Sunny D, which I love. Mary Liz also noted a chemical aftertaste, which became apparent after she mentioned it to me. It's been a while since I've had Sunny D, but it seems more tart that the iconic orange beverage. Mary Liz said she likes it less the more she drinks it, and I think I'm going to have to agree with her. I'll stick to the real Sunny D.

I hate fermented drinks. I have not been looking forward to trying this. But as a Thirsty Dude, I had to give this a try. Mary Liz says this tastes like a red wine spritzer. While I have never had one, I can only say that this is gross. This reminds me a lot of other fermented/barley sodas I've had in the past. I can't get into this at all. It taste dry and does not agree with my mouth.

The bottle says: "Cascal is made with fermented juices and fermented malt for a "grown-up" taste. In the words of Mary Liz, "Grown-up tastes means mildly disgusting". I agree 100%.

We found the warning on this bottle to be very amusing. "Warning: Contents under pressure. Cap may blow off causing eye or other serious injury. Point away from face and people especially while opening." Heeding that advice, I did not point this bottle at Mary Liz while opening it.

This is quite a refreshing soda. It's a really crisp, but light lemon-lime taste. Mary Liz says: when it first enters your mouth, it taste like a seltzer. After a few seconds, the sweetness kicks in and the lemon-lime taste shows itself. It's very lightly sweetened, so sugar fiends should stay away from this one.

This drink has "dollar store" written all over it. It's no surprise that this isn't that good. It has a sharp blue raspberry taste to it. But then a familiar aftertaste kicks in: energy drink battery acid. This is weird because it's not an energy drink. If this is marketed to kids (which I'm assuming it is), this is not a drink kids would enjoy.

We were going to give this a 1 bottle rating, but the drawing of a raccoon on a skateboard was too awesome to give it such a low rating.

This is the flavor I was saving for last, but I decided to do it now. I don't like plums at all. But strangely, I don't mind this taste. It's been a long time since I've had a plum, so maybe it's time I try them again. Mary Liz likens this to kombucha that is less fermented. Seeing as I hate kombucha and have only drank a few sips of it in my life, I can't really back this statement up. Like the other vinegar drinks, it doesn't taste like vinegar much when going down.

To quote Mary Liz: "For something that's good for you, this is pretty good."

I enlisted my friend Mary Liz to help me review some drinks today. We didn't know what to expect with this one, but since it has barley malt and hops in it we had a feeling it would taste like beer.

The smell, in a word, gross. It's really strong and sort of has a molasses hint to it. The taste isn't any better. Mary Liz says it tastes like rotting fruit and vegetable juice. I honestly can't figure out what it reminds me of, but it's too gross to drink anymore. It almost tastes like molasses that has been sitting out for a year. Mary Liz asked if we could give this drink a zero, but unfortunately we can't.

This soda really surprised me. I was expecting this to be a ginger ale or lemon-lime type soda. Never in a million years did I expect this to taste like bubblegum. More specifically, Monet says it has a stale Bubbalicious flavor. I'm not a big gum connoisseur so I can't confirm or deny this statement. To me, it tastes like the gum you get in a pack of 1985 Topps baseball cards. It's not bad, it's actually kind addicting. The more I drink it, the more I want to drink. I wonder if there's a reason why they don't market this as a bubble gum soda.