Derek Neuland - 489 Reviews

Grapes rule: plain and simple. They're easy to eat, they're super delicious, and it's such a common fruit. I normally don't like grape juice because it's too rich and heavy. I never thought grape juice represented grapes very well because they are a very light and hydrating fruit.

I love this soda because it tastes like you're eating grapes. Most grape soda's I've had before are heavy and too sweet. This is the most refreshing grape soda I've ever had. Thank you Gamer soda for renewing my interest in grape sodas!

I'm not sure if he introduced me to it, but I've always associated root beer with my dad. Whenever we would go to the store, root beer would always be his go-to soda. While he never ventured outside of the realm of A & W/Dad's/etc..., those early trips to the store made me want to try new root beers as I was pushed off into the world of soda alone.

Hosmer Mountain must be a wonderful place (if it is a real mountain). I imagine it to be a beautiful snow capped mountain much like the one in Immortal's music video for Blashyrkh. On that mountain, you can find bottles of delicious soda, much like this one. The best thing about this wonderful mountain inhabited by a black metal band is that the soda is endless, and always cold.

This root beer is good and simple. If I were reviewing this soda on eBay, it would be like this: "A++++ soda! Very delicious! Fast shipping! Would drink again!"

If someone were to ask me how many different soda's I have tried over my entire life, I don't think I could come up with even a good estimate. Obviously I could count how many I have reviewed here as a start, but those have only been the past year or so of my 29 years of soda drinking.

Among those many, many sodas, I have tried many different fruit flavored sodas: orange, pineapple, strawberry, grape, apple, raspberry, and many more. Up until now, I have never had (or even seen) a banana soda. When a friend mailed me this bottle, I was really excited to try it and waited for the right time to try it.

Upon opening the bottle, it gave off a very strong banana smell. It was a very familiar smell, but I couldn't put my finger on it. After the first sip it hit me: Runts! This tastes EXACTLY like banana Runts. They were always my least favorite part of the fruit mixture candy, but only because they were the hardest to bite into. Sip after sip, this soda still taste like banana Runts. I heard this company makes a bunch of other fruit flavors. Now I'm very excited to find them and hope they are as good as this.

Much like Mike who reviewed the last chrysanthemum drink, I was disappointed that this didn't taste like earth. This tastes a lot like the other Famous House drink I had: loaded with sugar and no other taste. There is a slight black tea taste, but it's definitely not prominent. File this one under the "not great, but not horrible" category.

It scares me to push the marble down on bottles of Ramune. It always feels like I'm going to break it. Then the moment it finally gives, I get scared that the soda is going to bubble up and start spilling out of the cap. To try and prevent this, I keep the plastic plunger in the top until the fizzing dies down. There is a process to this.

Once again, we have a company that doesn't put the flavor of the drink on the label. Hawaiian Blue? Really? What does that even mean? I'll let it pass Ramune because this is actually kind of tasty. Like most Ramune I've had so far, I can't really distinguish a strong flavor. I feel weird writing this, but it really tastes like "blue soda". It's lightly sweetened, and doesn't have the usual syrup flavor that HFCS gives drinks. I keep getting suckered into buying Ramune because of the cool shaped bottle, but I'm always left unsatisfied after drinking it.

There is a lot riding on this review. Up until now, Virgil's has a nearly perfect record (with the exception of a 4 bottle review for their black cherry cream soda.) Virgil's has stepped into dangerous territory: diet soda. For the most part, diet soda and us do not usually go well together (except for a couple exceptions like the Thomas Kemper Diet Cola). I was really scared to buy this because I didn't want my opinion of Virgil's being one of the best soda companies to be tainted. But in the name of Thirsty Dudes everywhere, I have to.

Unlike most diet soda's that are usually sweetened with sucralose or aspartame, this is sweetened with stevia. I was hoping this would make it more tolerable. Sadly, it did not. I was really hoping the delicious and complex flavors of Virgil's root beer would overcome the gross chemical taste, but it failed to do so. The classic Virgil's taste is there for the first second of the sip, but then is washed away with a wave of dish soap water. Literally, if someone else had opened this bottle for me, I would be suspecting them of putting dish soap in it. It's pretty vile.

I'm sorry to have to give you a bad review Virgil's, but this is not good at all. I picked up a couple of the other "zero" flavors and I'm not that excited to try them anymore. Please stick to making your amazing non-diet sodas.

I've had clear cream soda. I've had brownish cream soda. I've had pink cream soda. Until now, I had never had a blue cream soda. This reminds me a lot of soda mousse. It is almost like a cream soda candy, I love it. The blue color is making me think it tastes like the blue bubblegum, but it really doesn't. I really hope there are other blue cream sodas out there, because just like white birch beer, it's a great version of a classic drink.

I have a love/hate relationship with grapefruit. I really don't like it in fruit form. I have eaten pieces of grapefruit, but have never consumed a whole one. Even the pieces I ate, I didn't enjoy that much. Drinks and candy flavored like grapefruit, that's another story. I absolutely love them! Which is why I was drawn to this bottle. Also, the word "new" on a bottle is an exciting thing for us to see.

I honestly wasn't expecting much out of this, seeing as it looks like a generic citrus soda bottled by the folks at Pepsi. It's a little lighter tasting than Squirt, but it's nothing special. I'm holding out for a citrus/grapefruit soda that is really tart.

I think it's funny when companies decide to put a name on a drink but not mention the flavor. Because of this, our database says this flavor is 'Vengence'. What exactly does vengeance taste like? If I had to guess by the color of the fonts and the liquid inside the can, I would say this would taste like green apple. In a way I was right, but also wrong.

It's pretty easy to recreate the taste. All you need is a sour green apple Jolly Rancher and a friend. First, put the Jolly Rancher in your mouth. After a few seconds, have your friend punch you in the stomach really hard. This is what this drink tastes like, plain and simple.

Of all the alt-milks out there, almond milk is by far my favorite. It's smooth and doesn't taste watery or chalky. As far as vegan chocolate milk goes, this is the best. It's super rich and delicious and makes me wish I had Oreos to dip into it. I don't know why I only buy this every few months. When I have it in the fridge it rarely lasts longer than a few days.

An energy drink exists that doesn't taste like battery acid? No way! That can't be. The second ingredient in this is apple juice, which is exactly what this taste like, apple juice energy drink. Doesn't sound that appealing does it? If I had gone into this drink knowing it I probably would have had my doubts too. But it's actually not that bad, and I'm not the biggest fan of apple juice. Growing up, it was always the juice of choice in the fridge due to the low cost. This taste exactly like that cheap apple juice, but with carbonation and lots of caffeine added. Worlds better than most energy drinks.

This can came courtesy of my friend Bree from Pittsburgh. On a mission to find weird drinks for me, she came across this at a dollar store. While I love the name of the drink and the art (who doesn't love otters who can play hockey?), most dollar store drinks are that cheap for a reason.

I was surprised that I actually enjoyed it. It's a sparkling juice marketed to kids, and not as sweet as i expected it to be. It's a decent orange taste, with a bitter (almost energy drink like) aftertaste. While it's good for a dollar store drink, it's not something I'd regularly buy.

The only thing, soda wise, I don't like about the Northwest is the lack of birch beer. It's nowhere to be found. Luckily the good folks of Hosmer Mountain sent me this bottle to satisfy my birch beer craving. I have come to love white birch beer more than other varieties of birch beer. It has a much lighter and cleaner taste. I love the 'birch' flavor in this bottle. It's the perfect sweetness and taste. I just found my favorite birch beer.

Try as I might, Arizona iced tea always reminds me of summer. Skating during the day, going to a show in the evening, and swimming at night. Cans and bottles of Arizona Iced Tea was my beverage of choice in-between and during each activity. That is how I spent many summers in Buffalo. Which is why Arizona iced tea= summer.

It has been a long time since I've had Arizona iced tea, and it's still good. Obviously it isn't the best iced tea out there, but it's just how i like it: sweet and fruit flavored. The only thing I wish is that this was made with cane sugar.

Coca-cola the way it should be, made with real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. I don't know if it's the free fancy hotel room I'm sitting it while drinking it (due to being bumped from a flight), but this is one of the best bottles of normal cola I've had in a while. It's smooth, delicious, and lacks the burn that most colas have. Mexican Coca-Cola for the win!

I had really high hopes for this, I really did. Small soda companies usually make normal soda flavors a little more interesting. This was not the case this time. I don't know if this was the worst orange soda I've ever had, but it was far from the best. It tastes like someone started filling your cup with lemon-lime soda and then realized you asked for orange soda. Instead of dumping it out, they just mixed the orange soda with the lemon-lime. It gives it almost a bitter orange flavor. This might be delicious to some people, but I didn't like it at all.

Growing up in Buffalo, going to Canada was no big deal at all. It was closer than most suburbs and all you needed was a photo ID to get in the country. On one of my first trips there, I came across a bottle of pink cream soda. I love cream soda, so it really intrigued me. After the first sip, I fell in love immediately. It became a staple for every trip to Canada after that (as well as 'all dressed' flavored chips and Coffee Crisp (before I was vegan)).

It had been far too long since I had a bottle of soda mousse. It is impossible to find in the states, and Portland is not conveniently located 20 minutes from the border. Two weeks ago as I was planning to come to the Chicago Zine Fest, my friend Amy Leigh from Toronto asked if I wanted her to bring me anything from the Great White North. I took her up on the offer and requested a bag of all dressed chips and a bottle of soda mousse. Not only did she deliver on her offer, she brought two of each! I couldn't dream up a better friend.

The taste is just as I remembered it, truly amazing. It's not the creamiest cream soda, but it's really smooth and delicious. My mind is trying to play tricks on me and think that it has a hint of strawberry flavor, but I think it's just due to the pink color. Maybe it's a good thing that I can't buy this at any store, because it's a wonderful treat every few years.

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.

Amazing. That is the first word that comes to mind when drinking this. Sweetness is perfect, the bite is good but not overwhelming, and it goes down smooth. But yet, it's not a smooth drink, it is kinda heavy but in that good root beer/sarsaparilla way. This is by far my go-to Sarsaparilla. I must have drank a half dozen bottles of these over the past couple months before I realized that I forgot to review it each time. It's just so good. It's hard to stop drinking it.

This bottle looks like it was taken from a fancy dinner party on the 23rd floor in Manhattan. Instead of a flavor, this has "notes of apple, cherry, and anise". All of this intrigued and also scared me.

Upon opening this, it smelled like alcohol. This is probably because it has fermented barley malt in it. While I have never tasted alcohol, it tasted exactly how it smelled, which really grossed me out. Then upon further tasting, it tasted like apple juice that has been in the fridge past it's expiration date. You know when the bottle starts to bulge a little and it lets off that strong fermented smell when you open it, and then you take a sip of it to see if it's still good? They managed to bottle that, for whatever reason. Maybe some people like that but it's not for me. This isn't necessarily bad, but it's nothing I want to drink.