Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

After that abortion of a acai berry energy drink I downed a couple of days ago, I thought I owed it to Genesis Today to give them another chance to prove that they still have it. They have done just that with this juice.

The acai doesn't taste like its bloated rotting corpse was just pulled up the bottom of a lake, which is a definite improvement. There are a whole mess of fruits mixed into this drink which give it a fruit punch type of flavor, but the acai is definitely front and center giving you a little wave.

For having no sugar added this is very sweet. Further proof that fruit knows how to have a good time all on it's own and companies need to stop adding extra sugar to everything in liquid form.

Genesis Today wins this round. Here's to hoping they are never on the wrong end of the gun again.

When Pinocchio was released in 1940 actor Jiminy Cricket was riding high. He was invited to all of the parties thrown by Hollywood's elite. He was rarely if ever seen out on the town without a beautiful girl and boy on each of his arms. Some might say he owned the city for that year. Unfortunately Jiminy soon found out that there wasn't much work available in films for crickets. In the late 40's he did a couple of television commercials, and then faded completely from the public eye. Like with many fall from grace stories there were rumors of drug addiction and prostitution. In 1953 Jiminy was found dead in his shoebox apartment on the lower east side of New York. The coroner ruled the cause of death an overdose on Black Flag. Jiminy had apparently taken up mainlining the stuff.

In the years that followed paternity suits popped up. The courts threw out hundreds of cases and it wasn't until 1983 when John Cricket came forward that an heir to Jiminy's royalties was named. Coming from a rich background, John had no personal need for the inheritance. As a result he invested it all into making soda. His specialty was a cola that he infused with two cups of his father's favorite drink; green tea. The soda had a strong tea flavor that outweighed that of the cola. The cane sugar overpowered the bitterness of the tea and gave it a nice rounded out clean flavor. It also has a slight herbalness to it. That was fine for the collectors who wanted to get their paws on everything Jiminy related.

I've been drinking more and more unsweetened tea these days. A couple of years ago I couldn't stomach the stuff, but now I find it very refreshing and a nice change of pace from all the sugar I intake in the name of Thirsty Dudes. I say this because when I first tried Inko's I remembered thinking that it was nice that it wasn't overly sweetened. Now when I drink this it seems like sugar city, but in a good way. IN actuality there are only 7g of sugar in each serving, which isn't a lot by sweetened tea standards. It's also a sugar that tastes real and slightly gritty (although the texture is more my imagination).

Everything is natural about this down to the blueberry extract. It has a great flavor that you won't find in an iced tea that comes in anything other than a glass bottle. It's light, sweet and fruity just like a quality tea should be.

...and this ladies and gentlemen will conclude our tour of historic London. You've seen the Jack the Ripper locations, Parliament, Buckingham Palace and some cathedrals. For our final destination I give you Big Ben. This "clock tower" is one of the most recognizable structures in all of England. What most people don't know is that the framework of the building is entirely made up of bottles of soda. Many people try to call my bluff at this point in the tour and point out that soda bottles could never be structurally sound. My retort is that this was built in a time when companies sold soda in reusable bottles. Have you ever seen those things? They are really strong. Many different types of pop bottles were used for different parts of the building. The actual area around the clock is completely constructed from ginger beer bottles. You can tell by the green tint to them. Something about a ginger beer that is sweet and flavorful, with just a slight kick to it, resulted in the perfect bottles for that area. The flavor of the specific ginger beer that used to be housed in those bottles taunted the drinker. It really tasted like it should have a very strong burn to it, but in the end it just had a very strong flavor.

Bottles of the same recipe can be purchased in the gift shop for a modest fee of 15 quid. Yes I understand that is a ridiculous price and you could probably purchase the same soda in eastern Pennsylvania for $1.50, but what you're purchasing here is a piece of history and who wants to leave London without a bottle of culture?

Yesterday was my favorite day of the year; the first Friday of the Erie County Fair. I'm an old man and an outdoors kid at heart (yes it can both happen simultaneously) so I love the fair. To make things better the first Friday is the day of the annual llama fashion (costume) show. Llamas are pretty much the greatest things to ever exist and to watch kids parade them around in goofy costumes they made is just perfect. As per usual I took off from work and spent the entire day at the fair (11 hours). I came prepared with this energy shot to take to keep me up and moving (I didn't sit down for more than 3 minutes all day).

First off it smelled pretty terrible. It smelled like acai gone wrong. I had a couple friends take a nice big whiff and the disgust was present on the groups collected faces. I gave it a little taste, and it tasted only slightly better than it smelled. I was excited to have an organic energy drink. While it didn't taste gross in the chemical way it was far from good. I'm not a huger acai fan, but this was the worst I've ever had. I was disappointed because I've enjoyed everything else I have tried by this company, but this did not live up to my expectations. I would have probably given it a one bottle rating, but since it's an energy shot, and they never taste good by definition I will give it a two for being the first one I've had that didn't taste chemical.

John Lennon informed the world that, "Happiness is a Warm Gun." According to the Be Happy company he got it all wrong. Happiness is in fact a cherry cordial, or at least a weird chemical facsimile. That is exactly what this little 2oz shot tastes like. At first I thought it was kind of gross, but then I thought about the candy and it made it go down much smoother.

I can't relax when there are things that need to be done. My new apartment is almost totally put together now, but there is still a handful of things to do, so I'm still on edge. I had a busy day Friday and when I got home instead of relaxing I just started working again and getting annoyed. I decided I needed to calm down and relax and enjoy myself. I drank this and I have to say it worked. I felt much better. I decided I should watch a feel good movie, but instead put on the remake of I Spit on Your Grave. While it may not have been the family blockbuster I was looking for, movies like that prove to me that I am not completely desensitized, and I appreciate that.

Do not be thrown off by what looks to be lawn debris that hang out in the bottom third of this bottle. They are nothing more than jasmine tea, goji berries and orange peels. Some may say that it is fodder for a compost pile. I say that it is the makings of an incredible tea. This is the strongest bottled jasmine tea I have ever tasted, and rightfully so as it's "literally stewing in it's own juices." There is a slight hint of the orange and goji berries, but it's mostly just straight jasmine right up in your face.

A tasted this with some friends and all of them asked if we were supposed to filter out the tealeaves and such. I chose not to and just filtered them out with my lips/teeth. I enjoyed it that way. The bottle also says to fill it with water after the tea is gone and you can get a lightly flavored drink. Who doesn't love round two?

If you like jasmine tea you definitely should check this out. It's basically perfect.

Seeing that I am now 32, I own my own business and I have an apartment with my ladyfriend I think it's safe to say I am an adult, or a grown up if you will. Now that I fit into that demographic I can finally drink this brand of soda without feeling like I am cheating. If anyone really felt that way, they are either obviously an actual child between the ages of 2 and 7, or they have some serious issues that they should probably see a specialist about. Feeling guilt over a soda is just plain dumb, unless you stole it from someone else, or you're cheating on your diet.

This pop is "for grown ups" because it's not as sweet as most sodas and it's also dry. I'm not exactly sure what it is that makes a soda dry, but I know I'm drinking one as soon as it hits my lips. Maybe it is just that there is less sugar in it. I tried to "Wiki" it, but all that come up was stuff about the company Dry Soda. All that aside this is a great tasting pop. Both the cranberry and the lime are fighting to be on the forefront of flavor town. That definitely gives it more of a sparkling juice flavor than a soda flavor. It is fairly dry, which is a nice change of pace from all the overly sugary sweet sodas that are out there. I love them but sometimes I need a break, so get off my back!

It's a wonderful thing when you find local drinks that you didn't know exist. I especially love when I find local juices. My ladyfriend picked this up for me at a farmers market and it's incredible. It is made in Lockport, NY and the only ingredients are local grapes and apples, both of which grow in abundance around here. No sugar, no preservatives, just fresh fruit. I love it. It's possibly the best grape juice I have ever had. The apple sweetens it up a bit so it's not very tart, but the strong flavor of the concord grapes greets your tongue with every sip.

If you're ever in the area and you come across this, I can't urge you enough to pick up a bottle. According to their website Blackman also makes a cider in the autumn that I can't wait to try.

I don't mean this to come across racist in any way, but I really feel like whoever designed this can did so with the Hispanic market in mind, specifically teenagers and young adults. I'm not saying that everyone who is from that ethnicity is into this sort of design, but that is what television would like me to believe. Stupid racist television. Because of it this can fills my head with visions of low-riders and bandanas.

In a blind taste test I don't know if I could tell this and Arizona's raspberry tea apart. Both are sweet and syrupy with that not quite natural raspberry flavor. It's not terrible, but with the current selection of iced teas that are on the market this certainly doesn't stand out.

I remembered something very important yesterday: I am not a beach person. My somewhat recent vacation to Hawaii had me confused. There I enjoyed the beach, but that was because there were cliffs to jump off of, ropes to swing from, and clear water full of weird sea creatures to see when snorkeling. The beach in Buffalo has none of these things. It has a terrain that is more rocks than sand, and what little sand there is is blowing around in the wind. I went with some friends, and then tried to suck it up as to not bum anyone out. I don't know how good of a job I did, but I can say I tried. To overcome my boredom/trying to escape the suns ever burning rays I hid under an umbrella and drank some lemonade.

Lemonade is the official drink of the summer for me. I can't remember a past summer when I didn't drink obscene amounts of the stuff. When I saw this at Wegmans I was pretty pumped. Maine Root has treated me well in the past with their sodas and now they are throwing ginger lemonade my way. I help off a bit before drinking it because I was expecting the ginger to be super harsh. When I finally drank it I discovered I was mistaken and it's actually pretty tame. This tastes like pretty straightforward lemonade with a bit of ginger mixed in. There's really not burn at all, but there is a ginger flavor hidden under the lemon. It's not crazy impressive, but it's perfect for people who like the taste of ginger, but don't have the tolerance for the burn.

I may not be a beach person, but this drink did help to improve my time spent there.

It's been a long day here at the juicery. Jerry called in sick, so I had to work a double. I told him that milk was two weeks expired, but he wouldn't listen and chugged the carton. Now he's laying in a pile of vom on his bathroom floor and I'm stuck at work. At least the boss just told me that I could leave as soon as I get through this batch for Fruit 2 Day. I wonder what would happen if I only blended the fruit for a quarter of the time that we're supposed to. I'm sure no one will be able to tell the difference, and it would get me out of here like two hours earlier than I expected.

**Cut to six hours later**
Okay, let's see here.
Apples? Check.
Grapes? Check.
Bananas? Check.
Strawberries? Check.
Raspberries? Check.
Blueberries? Check.
Pears? Check.
Cherries? Check.

Looks like I got through all of the fruit that is supposed to get mixed together for this juice. I'll just check the consistency quick and then I'm home free. Fudge. This is really chunky. I mean really, really chunky. Some of the fruit was soft enough and was liquefied, but the strawberries and a few of the others are still in like quarter inch chunks. I already told Sharon that I was going to be home early and dinner is waiting. Ugh. What to do? What to do? I guess I'll taste it and see if it will be acceptable. Well it tastes awesomely fruity. It's definitely way more berry than any of the other fruits that are involved and I for one applaud them for that. The chunks are actually kind of nice. It makes this stand out amongst other juices. It's a bit chalky because of the whey protein, but that's not my fault. You know what this is actually super awesome. I think Fruit 2 Day owes me a thank you for making their product awesome. I'm going to let this slide. Let me fill out the completion slip and Sharon here I come. Oh it actually says on here to only blend it 1/4 of the normal time. Apparently my laziness is the way things were supposed to be. No great reward for me.

It's no secret that hip-hop artists drink Cristal when they are partying to show off their riches. I may have just completely dated myself there. Is that still a thing, or did it die off in the late 90's? Either way, it's a little known fact that those who are fans of flavor country, but don't drink alcohol down bottles of Kristall in the same situations.

This is my second flavor of this fine product and both have completely blown my socks off. Literally. I had to go across the room, pick them up and put them back on my feet. They are so light and bubbly, but still jam packed with fruit flavor. In my dream world all fruit flavored pop would be like this. It's not syrupy and it actually tastes like raspberries, not sugar or some other sweetener. It also comes in a very classy and classic looking bottle.

Kristall for when you want to party fancy style. Anything else would be uncivilized....or something.

Things that are awesome include when a solid company like Pom starts to make iced tea. I know it's been around for a while, but every flavor I try is top notch. They start off with a strong green tea flavor and mix in a strong pomegranate flavor. That would be great enough, but then they add some other flavors to up the ante a bit. This one has some hibiscus in it. How are you going to argue with hibiscus? You're not, because you would lose. I have never had a drink that contained this wonder that I didn't enjoy. So here you are with a perfectly blended pomegranate green tea with a hint of floral flavoring. Pom was somehow able to do this and make it a light tea aka diet without losing much flavor. Color me impressed.

The other day Punchy was hanging out with that weird "angel" dude that stars in the Red Bull commercials. Punchy just wanted to slug the ol' punching bag for a bit, but the angel guy just kept trying to get him to drink some Red Bull. He kept going on and on about it giving you wings. Being that Punchy is still a child somehow he gives in easily to peer pressure. It didn't take long before he downed a can, then two, then three. He was flying. He had grown accustomed to sugar highs, but this was something completely new to him. He got so worked up that he kept goading the angel to punch him in the stomach. One punch later and Punchy was laying on the ground in a puddle of his own red vomit. Just then a vampire was passing by and thought that it was blood that Punchy was passed out in. Never one to pass up a free meal he pulled out a straw and started to drink it down. It was obviously not blood, but it had a decent taste. The vampire called his friend, who runs True Colors, and they worked out a deal. Long story short they kidnapped Punchy, they keep him tied up in a basement and cyclically force-feed him Red Bull and punch him in a stomach to make him vomit. They then can what comes up, which tastes like a mixture of Hawaiian Punch and Red Bull. I swear it doesn't actually taste like vomit.

I've been unpacking into my apartment all week and figuring out what I need to do/buy. I didn't go to bed until after 2:30. At 5am I was still laying there awake thinking about things that needed to get done. Normally I'm out as soon as my head hits the pillow, but occasionally I have nights like these. It was about this time that I remembered that I had some relaxation drinks chilling in the fridge.

I know this wasn't meant to be a sleeping pill in a can, but if it would reduce my stress and help me not worry about a million things, it would be just what I needed. I downed the can (it's weird drinking a carbonated beverage fairly quickly when you're trying to sleep) and lay back down in bed. Within ten minutes I was out. My brain certainly did chill out.

Unfortunately here at Thirsty Dudes our rating isn't totally based on functionality. We're actually more concerned with the way a drink tastes. This is fruity tasting, but in a very light, light way. It's not diet tasting, and it's completely natural, but there's something about it that didn't quite sit right with me. I left a little in the can to taste this morning as I wrote the review. I can say it tastes better when it's no longer carbonated.

One other thing; I absolutely hate it when any company uses the "Papyrus" typeface. It's everywhere and you don't even realize it until it's pointed out. After that you see it everywhere and it's unnerving. There are only two lines of text on the can that use it, but it's enough to annoy me.

For my snack at work today I brought a half eaten bag of pretzels. It turns out that they were pretty old and stale as can be. Gross sauce. Seeing as I hadn't really eaten all day come 3pm I was starving. There was no food to be found so I downed this to curb my hunger. We've all seen the diet pills episode of Saved by the Bell and know that they are really nothing but caffeine. So I figured caffeine = appetite suppressor. It actually worked, but since my stomach was empty the energy rush made me all crazy. I don't recommend it at all.

When I took the first sip I was shocked by how much I liked the way it tasted. It didn't taste overly diet, but it still had the chemical energy drink flavor that we talk about way to often. With each sip it got worse and worse. About 2/3 through the can it was well along its way to being undrinkable. It's a shame because the normal variety is pretty tasty.

Everything about this can looks like it was left over from the late 90's. Even though this just various juices with no sugar added it tastes more like a "drink" than a juice. Watermelon juice never works folks. You shouldn't even bother trying. It always ends up tasting like some sort of candy. It just tastes generic and I can't get into it.

In the Rocky Mountains the Brothers of Barrels did live.
Each with their own gift to the world to give.
Martin with a root beer that was very plain,
and decent cream soda was created by the brother Shane.
Why don't you mix the two together their father did suggest.
The creator of Apple Beer the brothers could not protest.
Now the sum is certainly better than the parts,
but the mixture didn't quite capture the Thirsty Dudes hearts.
While our interests the vanilla cream did pique,
the root beer was a bit watered down and weak.

My ladyfriend and I moved into a new place. I expected to move stuff Saturday and be done with it. I figured one vanload of furniture and one of everything else. We're simple people we don't own much stuff. Everything I owned was basically stuffed into my bedroom of the past six years. Four days and five vanloads and four carloads later we have everything moved in. Where and when did I acquire so much stuff? I knew I had a lot of CDs/records/books/DVDs but those all fit into maybe 6 or seven boxes.

It didn't help that it was sweltering hot and the humidity was ridiculous. The amount of water I have consumed in the past 96 hours is obscene. I would down a monstrous glass and five minutes later feel like I had sweat it all out. Once things started to calm down I celebrated with this lemonade. It was worth the wait and worthy of a celebration. The peach flavor is out of control good, but it still tastes very much like lemonade. I think the secret is that they use peach puree instead of just juice. It's fairly thick in the best way possible. It hit the spot exactly when I needed it to.

There are two things that Santa Cruz is known for and they don't mess around with either; skateboards and lemonade. Now that I think about it I've never owned a Santa Cruz deck. I had a bunch of t-shirts, but never an actual board. How great would it be if this was the same company? I'm 99% sure it's not, but it would rule if there was a bunch of aging skaters putting out some of the best lemonade you can get your hands on.