Derek Neuland - 489 Reviews

When I first took a sip of this, I thought it was juice. Only after tasting the chunks of fruit in it did I realize that it said smoothie on the label. I'm not a big fan of drinks with pulp and chunks, and this was REALLY chunky. That aside, I was hoping this would taste a lot more like other green juices I've had. Once again, I should have looked at the label instead of the color of the drink. As you can see, there is a giant banana on the label and this drink has a very strong banana flavor. The only ingredients in this are apples, bananas, and spirulina. I wasn't crazy about it, but that's because I generally don't like banana flavored drinks. Other than that, it was good and probably super good for you.

I have a love/hate relationship with this drink. I love it a lot because the ginger juice, lime juice, and the blood orange juice make a great flavor when they're mixed together, but I hate it because it's such a strong combination. It's hard to drink a lot of it at a time due to how much it burns my stomach. I love strong ginger and lemonades/limeades, but this can be even too strong for me at times. The bits of ginger at the bottom are especially hard sometimes. It's a great juice to take a big sip of in the morning to wake you up.

This drink had me intrigued from when I first saw it since I love cola and chai. I'm so glad I wasn't disappointed. The soda has a really strong chai smell and taste, but in a good way. It went down really smoothly and the cola complimented the chai tea really well. I would drink this everyday if I could.

When I first saw this bottle on the shelf, I dismissed this at first because I thought it was some sort of carbonated wine. I looked into it more and found out it was a cherry soda. Like most drinks I have never seen before, I had to try it. The cherry flavor is really rich and good. While this is definitely the best cherry soda I've ever had, I don't think I'll ever buy it again because it wasn't anything special. But for cherry soda lovers, this is definitely recommended.

I don't know why I expected more out of this. Jones makes some great original flavors, but apparently they can't make a good cola. This tasted like very generic cola, nothing special to it at all. The only plus to it was that it was made with cane sugar, so it lacked the normal bite colas made with HFCS have. Interestingly, unlike most sodas made with cane sugar this had caffeine in it.

After years of searching, I have found the best cola! Seriously, I can't think of a way to make this soda any better. The cane sugar used makes it the perfect sweetness. And I can't even begin to describe how amazing the aftertaste is. The main thing that makes this stand out among all other cola's is a hint of nutmeg. I really think more soda's need to incorporate nutmeg because it's great.

When I first took a sip of this, I thought to myself "this is the weakest ginger beer I've ever had". Then I looked at the label and noticed it was lemon ginger beer and it all made sense. It tastes like lemon lime soda mixed with ginger beer. It's actually quite refreshing. As you can imagine, it's much more mild than straight ginger beer. I personally like the strong taste of normal ginger beer, but this is pretty tasty.

Sometimes when drinking juice that isn't sweetened, it turns out to be very bland. This is definitely not the case with this apple pear cider. The natural sweetness of the two fruits is perfect! The pear taste compliments the apple so well. I've never had apple pear juice before, but I feel like it should be more common. The one thing I was disappointed with was how un-cider like it was. This jug definitely doesn't compare to fresh cider. It's still good, but it's not as strong as traditional apple cider. This is like if you mixed apple cider with pear juice. Do they make pear cider? I'm going to have to look into this.

When I saw this bottle I was excited because it reminded me of the IBC root beer "40's" (actually 32oz) my friends and I in high school would buy and drink around Tonawanda, NY. Sadly, this is no IBC. It tastes like any generic root beer, not bad but not amazing. Plus, the HFCS makes it a really heavy root beer. There's also a great drawing of Teddy Roosevelt on the label.

I'm not that familiar with Italian sodas, but this one is delicious. It's one of the strongest vanilla flavorings I've ever tasted in a soda. This is like a cream soda with extra vanilla flavor. I'm excited to try the other flavors Romano's makes.

I am not a fan or original Mountain Dew. When they introduced Code Red, I enjoyed it but it wasn't the best. But when Livewire came out, I got really into it. I was drinking about a bottle a day. I couldn't get enough of it. These days, I'm not as crazy about it as I once was but it's definitely a good drink. It tastes like orange soda with a slight Mountain Dew after taste, but not as acidic. Not my favorite orange soda, but not bad.

This seems to be my go to drink lately. Despite the name, this is far from water, even farther from water than Vitamin Water. It's lighter than juice, but more flavorful than water. This drink goes down really smooth and really quenched my thirst at work yesterday out in the hot sun. I've tried other flavors of Sobe Lifewater before, and none compare to this one. While the pomegranate flavor isn't that noticeable, yumberry definitely lives up to its name. The bottle was so full of flavor it was like a party in my mouth.

I really wanted to love this soda because I love pomegranate flavored drinks. Sadly, this soda doesn't have a strong flavor. It tastes like sparkling water with some sugar and a hint of pomegranate flavoring. But if you like pop that is light on flavor, this is definitely for you.

First off, how awesome is the old time golf guy on the front of this? I'm pretty sure it's their way of incorporating the well-known name of this drink (an Arnold Palmer) without the ability to use the famous golfer's name.

This is the first lemonade/tea mix that I've found that is organic so I was very happy about that. While I have not had many, I must say this is my favorite I've ever tasted. Arizona's half and half is good, but the HFCS and aspartame just don't go well with how delicious this drink is. For that reason, I was so happy to see this was made with organic cane sugar. A glass of this goes down really smooth, and it's the perfect mixture of tea and lemonade. My only complaint is that it isn't available in smaller bottles. I would love to stock up my fridge with 20oz bottles of this. But for now, I'll still enjoy this out of the 64oz containers it's sold in.

I wonder why major soft drink companies decided that cherry was the flavor they were going to add to all of their drinks. First there was Cherry Pepsi. Then there was Mountain Dew Code Red. Now Dr. Pepper Cherry. Maybe they tried making Dr. Pepper Orange and it just wasn't good.

This incarnation of cherry infused soda is alright. I like that it's colored red instead of the normal brown that Dr. Pepper is. Some sips taste like cherry soda with a hint of Dr. Pepper, and others taste the exact opposite. It goes down much smoother than normal Dr. Pepper, and doesn't have as much of the usual aftertaste. I got this can for free in downtown Portland. I'm assuming they were trying to get people to be interested in their products, but I doubt I'll ever buy this because it's not amazing.

Before I talk about the drink itself, I must mention the can it came in. To my surprise, this can has a RECLOSABLE TOP! It's this piece of plastic that turn half way around to open or shut. I must say, opening this can was really fun and I would love to open these over and over again. I love that they put a reclosable top on this because many times with large energy drinks like this (this is an 18.6 oz) I never finish the can in one sitting and it goes flat in the fridge. I wish more companies started putting reclosable tops on their cans.

As far as the drink itself, I really like it. It has a very fruity grape taste, with only a slight typical energy drink acid aftertaste. It almost tastes like if someone mixed grape soda and Mountain Dew.

According to the can, this Dub Edition energy drink is "more than just another energy drink. It's high performance fuel for the true baller."

Did cola 40 years ago taste bad? Because if this is vintage cola, I'll stick with the modern recipe. This is made with can sugar, yet has the bite and aftertaste of HFCS. Usually cane sugar cola's taste much better than the normal 99 cents per 2 liter store brand stuff, but this one tastes just like them, if not worse. This is my 2nd bottle of Trader Joe's "vintage" sodas. The only one I haven't tried yet is Orange Cream, and I don't know if I want to see how bad they messed up one of the best soda flavors. I'm going to try it though for the sake of Thirsty Dudes, so check back soon to see how that goes

I don't know why I expected more of this root beer since it's a store brand. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's definitely mediocre as far as root beer goes. It's better than A&W since it's sweetened with cane sugar, but it's far from being as good as Virgil's or other top tier root beer's. It's drinkable, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get a bottle.

This is a soda I try at least once a year because I keep hoping I'll like it more than I do. It's not a bad cola. In fact it lacks the bite that most cola's have which is nice. The aftertaste is what I'm not crazy about. The bottle says it has herbs and spices in it, and that is what is probably contributing the interesting aftertaste. It sort of reminds me of that holiday Pepsi Spice that was available a few years ago that had a nutmeg aftertaste. Although, I loved Pepsi Spice and I'm not a huge fan of China Cola.

It's weird putting this drink into the water category because like Mike said when he reviewed the dragonfruit Vitamin Water, this is much more like juice than water.

Anyways, this is part of the Vitamin Water zero calorie line of drinks. I like these a lot better than normal Vitamin Water because they're not as heavy tasting. As far as this flavor goes, it really lives up to its name because it truly tastes like mixed berries. Usually mixed berry drinks taste more like one or two berries, but I cannot distinguish any particular kind of berries in this. It's very delicious and refreshing.