Derek Neuland - 489 Reviews

This is a first for me because I have never got a non-coffee drink from Starbucks before. Actually, this is made from green coffee extract so I retract that statement. I picked this up after a long walk and decided it was a better choice than an iced coffee full of soymilk. I pictured reenacting Ron Burgundy realizing that milk was a bad idea. I'll leave that to the professionals, or Mike since he has consumed expired milk on more than one occasion.

I've been trying to avoid using the word "refreshing" to describe this drink, but it's near impossible. It is the perfect summer drink. The coffee extract is delicious and mixes well with the lime flavor. The best part is they throw in a slice of lime in the drink. Not a tiny wedge you'd find on the side of your pad thai, a big beautiful delicious slice. Well done!

The Fast and the Furious 6 comes out next week. It would seem appropriate to save this can and review it alongside of the movie, but I don't think they would be so keen on that idea. I could probably wait until an engine revs in the opening credits and time my can opening to that moment so no one would notice. It would probably enhance my experience of watching it.

But let's not kid ourselves, the series is a guilty pleasure of mine and I'm already really excited to see it. Those who know me might be really shocked for my love of a tricked out car racing movie franchise because I have never had my driver's license. I like taking the bus/ riding my bike and have never had to urge/need to drive. As for my love of the Fast and Furious movies, I look at them the same way I do the Die Hard series: they are really fun to watch.

Now for the drink at hand, it's good but not worthy to be featured next to a fancy car that costs more than I will make in 5 years (Mike is the car guy, I don't know the names/makes/models of cars). It's on the better end of diet energy drinks, but it doesn't have much character to it. It's like the racer that crashes first in each movie; they have a prominent role in the movie but are very forgettable.

Hell hath no fury like my scorn for gross energy drinks. If this were someone's first energy drink, I wouldn't blame them for never wanting to try another one again. This is hard to stomach. I don't know if it's the un-original "energy drink" taste that is as bland/gross as the packaging of this can, or the sucralose that is burning an ulcer into my stomach. I have a deadline on Monday and am trying to get ahead so I don't have much to do this weekend. Despite my stomach telling me to stop, I keep drinking this. And you know what? It's not getting any better.

I just took another sip; yup it's still nearly undrinkable.

Quote direct from the can: "Ultra Blue is a little less sweet and lighter tasting with zero calories..."

They had me at less sweet. I love Monster energy drinks, but some are ridiculously sugary to the point that I feel like I'm developing a new cavity with every sip. Every word in their quote rings true. Well I can't scientifically prove that there are no calories in this, it tastes like a non-gross diet drink. My guess is due to them using erythritol to sweeten it. Not only does it taste good for a zero calorie sweetener, it's actually good for your teeth!

"Erythritol has been certified as tooth-friendly. The sugar alcohol cannot be metabolized by oral bacteria, so does not contribute to tooth decay. Interestingly, erythritol exhibits some, but not all, of xylitol's tendency to "starve" harmful bacteria."

So next time your mom or dad tells you energy drinks are rotting your teeth, as long as it's sweetened with erythritol you have a great argument.

Overall this is a great energy drink, it is delicious and light and the perfect amount of sweetness. The flavor is hard to pin point, it has a grapefruit taste to it but also has that classic "Monster" taste to it as well. The can is textured like they have been doing with their recent releases and I like it.

post script: Due to the name of this drink, "Ultra Blue", I thought it was beer at first and got really confused when it was next to the other Monster drinks.

Concentrated cold brew coffee like this is perfect for people who like REALLY strong coffee. I'm sure there are some people that go against the suggestions on the bottle and don't dilute it with any water and milk. I think those people are called men, or dads. Well except for Mike. One might go as far as saying that he's not a real dad because he doesn't like coffee.

For science, I first tried this without diluting it at all. Now I have never drank motor oil, but I'm guessing it's not far from this as far as potency goes. It would make a great coffee energy shot, rough to drink but would immediately energize you. There you go Kohana, I just gave you some free marketing advice.

Once I decided to not be an idiot and drink this like a normal person would, it was fantastic! Great flavor, great taste, I couldn't ask for more of a cold brew coffee. I often forget to cold-brew coffee the night before (I don't drink a lot so I do it in 1 mason jar batches) so it was nice having this bottle for a few days and not having to worry about it. Also not having to deal with stray coffee grounds was also a plus. No matter how hard I try and how many times I filter my cold-brew, I still find little granules every once in a while.

I love coffee, there's no hiding it. I don't know why it's taken me this long to have a drink made from the fruit of a coffee bean. Verdict? I love it! This lemonade is really delicious, especially for a diet lemonade. I opted to drink this instead of coffee this morning after only a couple hours of sleep and it definitely did the trick. Granted it doesn't have as much caffeine as a cup of coffee, but it has enough to wake me up this morning so I didn't pass out on the bus to work.

I recently started a new job designing/developing websites. I have been freelancing for a while so getting this job was a nice change. Seeing as I do a lot of reviews in the office, my co-workers have taken an interest in the drinks I bring in. Our project manager Carly mentioned that she liked lychee in the past so I knew she was going to be excited about this drink. Given the track record Rubicon has been having with us lately, I had a good feeling this wouldn't be disappointing.

First thoughts were it had a nice lychee smell to it, but there was something else in there that I couldn't put my finger on. It has a sour after taste, in a good way. Carly said it tasted like grapefruit and I totally agree. It really works well with the lychee, though mysteriously is not present in the ingredients. Keep up the awesome work Rubicon.

Now that I have finally had my ingredients-in-cap virginity taken, I am really enjoying these drinks. I think I just enjoy interacting with a drink and watching it change colors. I guess that's the inner child in me who just likes to watching things magically change before my eyes. If I could rate the drink on how much fun I had in those couple seconds, I would give it a 5.

Unfortunately, the taste is the majority of this arbitrary review system that we made up. Mentally I feel great drinking this due to the obscene amount of vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes. As far as the taste goes, it's just "okay". It's not mine blowing, but it's not horrible. This is a classic middle of the road vitamin water. I will echo Jason's suggestion that selling the caps of these to put in your own water bottle would be a great idea.

I was all prepared to ramble about the movie Bulletproof starring Damon Wayans and Adam Sandler in this review, but then I tasted the drink. Let me preface by saying that I like sugar. I eat candy from time to time, prefer my iced tea sweetened, and put sugar (or sugar substitute) in my coffee. That being said, this is WAY too sweet. The phrase "terribly sweet" comes to mind, because nothing should be this sweet. I had 6 cavities filled 7 months ago and two sips of this makes it feel like I'm already developing another 6.

I would like to say that this would be better if it was sugar free, but Jay's review of that didn't fare well either.

We at Thirsty Dudes love aloe drinks. You don't believe me? Look at the 73 (and counting) different aloe drinks we've had: http://www.thirstydudes.com/category/aloe-vera. Sure there has been a few bad apples in there, but overall I'm sure the aloe vera category has a better good to bad ratio than most on our site.

Back to the can at hand, I found this in an Asian market while I was visiting Boston last month. I'm really enjoying blueberry + aloe chunks combo. It's making me wish there were blueberry chunks in here as well, but you can't have it all I suppose. Part of me is regretting not saving this for the morning because this would be a great drink to enjoy while I waited for the bus tomorrow morning. Perhaps I'll do that another day with the other flavors I have. Though I think it's the blueberry that is making me think morning. I blame blueberry muffins.

I have a confession to make: this is the first "ingredients in the cap" drink I have had. I know this isn't a big deal to most people, but I feel ashamed admitting this as a 'Thirsty Dude'. It's almost the equivalent of me saying I never had an aloe drink before. Actually, if that was the case Mike and Jay would probably suspend me from the website. Give me a week off to think about what I did, like I was a delinquent kid who stole his parents golf clubs.

The liquid comes out brown when you unscrew the cap, which was kind of unsettling at first. I'll be honest it looked like diarrhea. Sorry to get that image in your head. Once it mixes with the water, it looks just like peach tea so that initial thought gets flushed away. The peach flavor is quite strong and luckily the sucralose doesn't obscure the taste too much. In fact, for a sugar free drink this is quite sweet. If I had to guess I would have thought it was sweetened with sugar.

The only thing that's disappointing is the lack of much of a tea flavor. There is "tea essence" in this, which sounds like someone sprinkled some tea flakes on top. It tastes closer to vitamin water than peach tea. Since there are lots of vitamins in this, and the base is spring water, this isn't that far fetched.

I am ashamed to admit how long it has been since I've had iced tea. I could blame it on the weather, since, as we all know that iced tea tastes better in the spring/summer. Or I could blame it on Mike and Jay, as they are iced tea fiends and review most iced tea as soon as we get them. In reality, I don't have a valid excuse.

This is a pretty basic green tea. I wish they wouldn't have used grape juice concentrate, but it's not the end of the world. The grape compliments the green tea nicely and doesn't overpower it, which is nice. This is one of those classically "middle of the road" iced teas.

Jimmy was a kid growing up in the 1920's who lived in a one-bedroom basement apartment with his parents and 5 brothers and sisters. Unable to afford anything and unable to get to school, he spent his days roaming the streets looking for something to do. He once came across some kids on a stoop playing marbles. He had never seen marbles before and they intrigued him. He was timid, but he managed to ask them if he could join. They were reluctant, but said he could play with them if he brought his own marbles.

This proved to be a challenge to Jimmy, as he didn't have any money to buy marbles. Just then he stumbled upon an empty bottle of Ramune in the trash. He had seen them many times before while he went looking for cans and bottles to return. The one thing he never noticed was the marble in the neck of it. His face lit up as he rattled the marble around the bottle, but slowly faded as he realized the marble was stuck in there.

His initial thought was to smash it on the ground, but he was afraid of cutting himself, causing a scene, and possibly losing the marble. He then notice that the top of the bottle was plastic so he found a sharp rock and started prying it off. It took some work, but he finally did it and retrieved his first marble. But this was only one marble, how was he going to get enough for a whole collection?

Just then he remembered that the karaoke bar down the street always had a lot of empty Ramune bottles in their dumpster. Sure enough, he was right and he found over 30 bottles he could pry the marbles out of. As he was going through one, he noticed a raspberry bottle still had some soda left in it. He had never had soda, and was afraid of his parents catching him drinking it. He hid behind the dumpster as he took a sip of the fizzy beverage. It tickled his throat, but was much too sweet for him. The most sugar he has ever had was a small piece of cake on his birthday last year. To his family, sugar is "not-essential" so he has learned to live without it.

Within a couple hours he had a couple dozen marbles and returned to the kids on the stoop. They were impressed with his collection and promptly punched him in the face and stole them all.

Moral of the story: don't play marbles with randoms on the street.

I haven't even opened this drink yet and I'm already both terrified and excited. Look at the list of random ingredients on the front of the bottle:

• Ashwagandha


• Yerba Mate


• Tulsi


• Turmeric


• Ginger


• Cardamom


• Spearmint


• Coconut Nectar


• Coconut Oil


• Lemon


• Sea Salt


• Black Pepper


• Cinnamon

I opened this up and it literally looked like curry. So much turmeric floating at the top Then I gave it a smell and it smelled like curry with a good amount of cinnamon and ginger. After reading that long list of ingredients I thought for sure one of them was going to stand out, but it's literally a wave of different tastes. One sip the ginger and cinnamon stood out, but the next the black pepper burned my lips. As far as weird drinks go, this is at the top of the list.

The problem is, I don't know whether I love it or hate it. It's definitely a sipping drink. Unless you are a masochist, I wouldn't advise you drink this in one shot. I'm sure this drink is really good for you, but I don't think I could stomach drinking the whole thing.

Step 1: Take a grapefruit and cut it in half.

Step 2: Take a 9 volt battery and shove it into the grapefruit.

Step 3: Juice the grapefruit into a tall glass. Add ice to taste.

Step 4: Drink your homemade Diet Squirt.

Mike Thirsty Dude (or should it be Thirsty Dude Mike?) called me last night pleading with me to review this. Okay, maybe it was actually just asking me nicely. Mike was under the impression that this was going to be a coffee soda, but in actuality it's just cold pressed coffee. He admitted that he likes coffee drinks, but not straight coffee so knowing that I love coffee he thought it was best that I take a shot at this.

While I normally drink my coffee with a little soy/almond/rice/coconut milk and sugar, I know good coffee when I taste it. I lived in Portland for almost 3 years where it's mandatory that you fall in love with Stumptown Coffee. While normally I would add the aforementioned things into this, for science I will drink it without.

The awesome thing about cold brew coffee is that you get a richer coffee flavor from the beans. Because the beans are never subjected to hot water, it has a much lower acidity in the taste. Anyone who has had gas station coffee that's been sitting out for hours knows that taste. It's super easy to cold brew at home, especially if you have a french press. All you do is course grind the beans, put them in a mason jar and fill it with cold water. Mix it well and put the lid on it. Then place the jar in the fridge for 12 hours, take it out and press the coffee in the french press. Now this is coffee concentrate, so you can add milk or water to taste to dilute it. Or if you love REALLY strong coffee, you can just drink it straight.

Now back to La Colombe. I haven't had many bottled cold brew coffees before, but what I have had been nothing short of awesome. This was no exception and they definitely give cold brew/pressed coffee a good name. It has a really awesome and complex rich taste. Since I don't normally drink black coffee, this is a sipping coffee for me (much like espresso) and it's a great way to savor the flavor. (Note, that rhyme I just wrote was 100% unintentional and I'm kind of embarrassed by it but decided to leave it in for some unknown reason, then write this big long unnecessary apology that brings more attention to it).

You know what I like? Diet energy drinks that don't taste gross. See, we here at Thirsty Dudes consume a lot of empty calories everyday. Because of this, I have come to enjoy diet drinks because it means I don't consume more calories. The problem with this of course is the majority of diet drinks taste like someone mixed dirt and battery acid and made stew out of it. This is especially true for a lot of diet energy drinks.

I have been really tired this week, due to lack of sleep. It's starting to (finally) warm up here in Buffalo so drinking hot coffee in the morning isn't something I like to do. Because of this, I have been drinking more energy drinks than I'd like to. They do the job, but I'm trying to drink as little of them as possible.

All that being said, this drink is delicious! The lemonade is sweet and slightly tart, and the pineapple taste compliments it very well. It makes sense that UFC made this its official energy drink because it's a touchdown. Wait, UFC isn't football? Oh, fighting, hmmmm... It's a punch to the mouth? That doesn't sound too positive.

Two facts about me: I like sour things and I like energy drinks. Put them together and theoretically I will be very happy. Aside from the mash up flavor name of "Bubbleberry", this would have been one of the first drinks I would have proposed if I got a job at Rockstar.

Other things I will do in my first week at my less-than-ideal job at Rockstar include:

• Take the star out of the logo.


• Fire anyone who played "All Star" by Smash Mouth, "Rock Superstar" by Cypress Hill, or any other song that featured some play of "rock star" heavily in the lyrics.


• Make this drink not so gross by keeping the awesome sour taste but adding a good flavor to it that didn't taste like energy drink battery acid.


• Secure a deal with Rockstar Games to trade energy drinks for free video games for all employees.


• Ensure "Bubbleberry" is never on another Rockstar can ever again.


• Taco tuesdays.

A couple weeks ago I went to PAX East aka Penny Arcade Expo in Boston, MA. It's basically a giant gaming convention stemming from a long running webcomic about video games. It was my first time attending and I had a lot of fun.

In addition to all the new and upcoming games, there was a 5-Hour Energy booth set up in the front lobby all weekend. Normally I would avoid these little bottles of death like the plague, but the line for the coffee shop in the hotel was always way too long and I didn't want to get my ass handed to me when I was playing Halo 4 against some 6 year old. Over the weekend, I lost count at 4 or 5 of these consumed. I'm afraid to know the actual number, but I did manage to bring an additional 5 home with me somehow.

Does this taste like "berry"? Sure. Could it be mistaken for another flavor? Most likely. Did I barely notice the flavor due to consuming this in one sip due to over-exhaustion and wanting to just "wake up"? You betcha! Did it work? Indeed it did.

I found this in a bar in Boston a couple weeks ago. I went along with my friends as they bar-hopped around Cambridge, drinking nothing but water and Diet Pepsi. Finally, at our last stop they had this fine beverage on the menu so I obviously ordered it. There's only so much Diet Pepsi I can consume in one night.

I am a fan of Squirt, so whenever I find a different grapefruit soda I have to try it. I have never been disappointed with a bottle/can and this was no exception. It was very sweet, which surprised me since a lot of sparkling drinks are lightly sweetened. It also had little chunks of grapefruit, which was pretty awesome, and a great surprise.

I apologize for the crappy photo. Bars aren't known for their stellar lighting as you might know.