Derek Neuland - 489 Reviews

The label for this bottle screams "we're trying to be cute and retro, but really just bottled a mediocre root beer and called it olde time". I'm glad that this was not the case because I was excited to try this local soda (it's made in Seaside, Oregon).

The taste of this is really different than most root beers. To say this has a vanilla taste is an understatement. This reminds me of a root beer float with vanilla ice cream. Yup, that's it! And I love root beer floats. But sadly, this is no substitute for a root beer float.

Now I am really craving a root beer float. Why does it have to be 1am?

You know when you drink something and it has a very distinct taste, but when you look at the ingredients it's not there? That happened with this bottle. My first sip I got a really strong pancake syrup flavor mixed with the root beer. Thinking it was a fluke, I took another sip and it was more of a brown sugar taste. Turning the bottle to see the ingredients, i was shocked to not find brown sugar. There is honey and "real vanilla" in this bottle. The honey isn't overpowering, but it's a nice and subtle aftertaste. The vanilla helps this be one of the sweetest and smoothest root beer's I've ever had. While it's a nice and smooth root beer, I wish it had a little more bite to it.

I usually avoid drinks marketed to little kids. They are usually full of artificial flavors, high fructose corn syrup, and involve a straw or a spout to limit the amount of juice spilled onto Sponge Bob shirts. I found this drink at a store that specialized in interesting sodas. Normally I would have passed over the bottle in the corner store, but since it was among bottles of soda's not found in a normal store I decided to give it a try. Plus, I got a deal if I bought 24 drinks.

First surprising thing about this drink (besides the awesome shade of green): it has pure cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. But further down the list there's also aspartame in it, which confuses me.

Second surprising thing: it actually tastes like lime. It's a tart lime. But in the end, it still tastes like a drink for kids. And I hate drinking out of spouts.

I like cola. This is a well-known fact. I also occasionally like cherry soda. Mixed together? Not so much. This soda wants to be two different flavors at once, and doesn't succeed at either. Maybe I'm just not the target demographic for this flavor? I wish Pepsi/other companies would try different fruits mixed with cola. Orange cola sounds amazing to me. Somebody (it doesn't have to be Pepsi), make it happen!

How have we gone this long without reviewing IBC Root Beer? This was the root beer I grew up on. In high school my friends and I used to get the 32 oz bottles (we called them IBC 40's despite being 8 oz less) everyday and walk around our town drinking them. It was a glorious day when the dollar store started selling them.

I love this root beer. I don't know if it's the familiar taste, the fond memories I get from drinking IBC, or if it just that good. It doesn't have much bite, but it goes down so smooth! Even though it's sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, it doesn't taste syrupy at all. If I hadn't looked it up, I would have thought this had real sugar in it. That makes me wonder how good this would be if they did a batch with cane sugar.

Despite Rhino's track record with energy drinks so far, I was excited to try this one. When companies add real juice to an energy drink, it usually works out well. For example, take Jason's review of Monster Khaos.

No matter how hard I try, cranberry always reminds me of Thanksgiving. More specifically, it reminds me of my great grandmother cheating at rummy and swearing during dinner. In a weird way, that's a very fond memory of mine. I'm bringing this up because this drink has a very strong cranberry taste to it. In fact, it's the only taste I can decipher. It completely masks the energy drink taste, which is good. Unfortunately, despite the memories cranberry drinks conjure up for me, I have never liked it's taste. But as far as energy drinks go, I'd drink this one over 90% out there.

I was told about Jarritos cola several months ago. Ever since I heard about its existence, I have looked for it in every taco and burrito establishment. Sadly, I couldn't find in anywhere. When I went to Pop Culture, I was really excited to see it in the cooler. Finally, I could taste what everyone has been raving about!

I must say, this definitely deserved the hype! It is a really good cola, and has a nice cola bite to it without the syrup taste HFCS gives other colas. It's not as refreshing as other Jarritos flavors (obviously), and I was unable to give it the burrito test. But unlike other Jarritos flavors, this stands on its own without a burrito. If I could find this more often, I'd drink this over Pepsi/Coca Cola any day.

I wonder if anyone actually likes supermarket brand soda? I've always seen it as the soda you buy because you're on a budget and it's much cheaper than the name brand stuff. That's how I ended up with this bottle. I was at Safeway and I wanted a bottle of cola. It was either a Pepsi for $1.69 or this for 99 cents. Seeing as this one was much cheaper and I didn't care if it was not as tasty, I obviously went for the "Refreshe".

As far as taste goes, it's exactly how I expected it to taste. It's your standard generic cola with high fructose corn syrup taste. There's nothing special about it at all. I don't know what else to say about it really. This is why it's so hard to review mediocre drinks.

Have you ever been super stoked on a drink but then you take a sip and you find out someone put sand in it? This has never happened to me, but it's how I feel about this can. I love root beer and I love Hansen's, but I do not love diet soda. For a second this taste good, but then the awful diet acid taste kicks in. Sorry Hansen's, I'm sticking with the regular sugar versions of your soda.

I have been putting off reviewing this one for a while due to the "dangerous" warning on the bottle. The name of this ginger beer doesn't lie. This is easily the most intense ginger beer I've had so far. As the Sloth look-a-like on the bottle is saying, it's "Hot Mon!" The ginger extract in this burns so deep. I love the taste of this too, but it's really hard to drink a lot of in one sitting. Now it's stinging my nostrils. I need to get some water fast.

Water, grape juice, fructose, and fermented vinegar are the only ingredients in this pouch. The first three sound like the ingredients to grape juice. But then you add....vinegar? As if the ingredients didn't weird me out enough, the tag line on the packaging is really interesting: "They quench your thirst and their acid content makes them a natural mouth freshener". I assume the 'they' in this content is the drink, or did we just walk into the middle of some weird anime?

At first I couldn't smell the vinegar, only the grape juice. Then a waft of strong vinegar hit me. This is the same thing that happened when I drank it. The first sip there was no vinegar taste. So for my second sip, I took a bigger one and got a strong vinegar taste. I really like the taste of vinegar, so i can't say this is bad. But it's not really that good. You only get slight hints of vinegar when you're drinking it, it's mostly grape flavored. But then when it settles in your stomach, it's all vinegar. I don't really understand the appeal of this drink. Maybe it's for people who like vinegar, but it looks weird chugging a bottle?

Every once in a while I come across a drink that sounds so disgusting that I can't wait to try it. Today I had this pleasure once again while shopping at an Asian market. When my friend Robyn pointed out a curry flavored soda, I couldn't believe my eyes. I couldn't wait to try it so I opened it in her car. I let her know there was a chance of me puking and she was OK with it.

Sadly I did not puke because this does not taste like curry. I can't even figure out what this tastes like because my mind so wants this to taste like curry. It's not a bad taste either. It's almost like a weak ginger ale. Now I want to find a drink that is marketed as curry flavored that actually lives up to its name.

I had previously had Sprecher's cream soda and it was pretty incredible. When I came across this bottle, I had to drink it as soon as I left the store. I was definitely not disappointed at all. The orange smell upon opening it was awesome and set me up for the best orange cream soda I've ever had. It's the perfect balance between orange and a rich cream taste. And then, the fire-brewed taste kicks in. It adds just a great taste to it, I'm honestly at a lost for words. It's not the same burn that comes from ginger, but it sits in your stomach in a similar way.

Also, I love the drawing of the cow drinking an orange with a straw. Ridiculous yet awesome!

I have never met anyone who loves fruit punch. Fruit punch is the flavor you settle for when nothing else sounds good. Many times I have chosen the taste of water over fruit punch. Considering all this, I wasn't expecting much from this soda. As far as fruit punch sodas go, this is the best one I've ever had, but that is not saying much. The thing I hate most about fruit punch is that it's impossible to distinguish any single dominant flavor. Strawberry maybe, but I have my doubts.

I knew this was going to be like no other energy drink I've ever had before. First off, it's made with pomegranate juice and grape skin. I've never seen an energy drink made with anything other than 15 different weird chemicals. It's nice to see a few easily identifiable things on the ingredients list. 'Red Lightning' has a really nice smell to it, very deep grape smell. The taste is definitely better than most energy drinks as well. There's virtually not battery acid taste, which is awesome! There's a little bit of acidic after taste, but that is most likely due to the HFCS. It's really tart which I like in drinks. The pomegranate flavor is strong, yet not overpowering like most pomegranate drinks are.

While this is much better than most energy drinks, it's definitely still a sipping drink like other energy drinks. The additives to give it 'energy' are definitely strong and my stomach would not like me if I chugged this bottle. Once again, my hat is off to Hosmer Mountain for making a tasty drink.

Up until now, every lemon lime soda I've ever had was clear. I like that this one is green. It's a really nice shade of green too. It's Ecto-Cooler green, easily one of my favorite shades of green. Can you tell green is my favorite color?

This is a pretty basic lemon lime soda with no frills. It's smooth and delicious, and tastes a lot better than 7-Up or Sprite. I don't know if it's in my subconscious due to the color, but it taste more lime than lemon. Now that I think of it, I don't know how one could make lemon lime soda with frills. I think it would probably ruin how classic it is. Then again, I probably thought that about root beer at one point.

I usually don't care about flavored water, but the unique packaging of this bottle drew me in. It's clear plastic and has a footed bottom like most bottles. But then it is shaped like, and has a top like a can. Weird.

Unlike the packaging, this drink is pretty straightforward. It has very light carbonation and sweetness, which lets the orange flavor really stand out. It's a really light drink, and pretty refreshing. I keep wanting this to be a soda with more carbonation, but sadly it's not. This is precisely why I can't get into flavored water. It doesn't want to be water, but it doesn't want to commit to being a soda. Pick a side!

I already have a hard time drinking most energy drinks. When you give me a diet/sugar free energy drink, there's no way this is going to be good. The first sip of this was pretty horrible, like swallowing battery acid. The next couple wasn't too bad. Perhaps I've already acquired the taste for this drink? Nope, around the fourth sip the first couple sips finally hit my stomach and it feels very similar to the time I had food poisoning. For three days straight, I lied on the couch while my stomach felt like it was eating itself. It was easily in my top five worst feelings I have ever felt. Any drink that can give me that same feeling is not one I want to consume.

It takes a lot for a drink to gross me out. I didn't know what longan was before I bought this, but I assumed it was a fruit. When I picked up the bottle, I noticed that there were big chunks of something floating inside. Then, I noticed on the ingredients list the following: Longan Meat (2.0%). My vegan instinct kicked in at the sight of meat on the label and freaked me out a little. The floating stuff did have a meat look to it as well. Luckily I was right, and longan is a fruit grown on a tree of the same name in South and Southeast Asia.

Upon opening it, I couldn't help but to smell it first. After drinking some nasty stuff over the years, it's instinct. The smell was something I have encountered many times, but never in a drink. If you guessed really dirty socks, then you are correct. How they managed to bottle the smell of dirty socks I will never know. A couple of my housemates said it smelled like dates or prunes to them, but I didn't get that at all.

To prepare for potentially getting a mouthful of dirty socks, I took the first sip over a sink. Luckily (or unfortunately depending on how you feel about drinks making you puke) it tasted better than it smelled to me. The taste can be summed up in two words: liquid raisins. I don't hate raisins, but I don't particularly love them either. The idea of a raisin flavored drink is pretty disgusting to me. After this revelation, I tried taking another sip and it was too gross. I don't want liquid raisins.

I picked this up at my local co-op because it was being discontinued, which means either I won't be able to find it again or it's really gross and that is why no one is buying it. In either case, I couldn't pass it up. So far, my experiences with aloe drinks have been very positive. As I was shaking the bottle, I noticed the bottom was stained brown from the contents inside. This terrified me. After opening the bottle, I noticed a lot of tea like flakes floating inside. This also took me by surprise, but then the pleasant fruity (mostly grape) smell hit me. This made my fears go away, and rightfully so.

The grape taste in this is really good and tart. What I thought was tea, is actually pulp from the aloe vera. This was not only a relief but pretty delicious. I love how the tart flavor is consistent throughout the drink. It's been a while since I've had a good tart drink. They also had a lemon flavor of this at the co-op, I really hope it's still there when I go back.