Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

Dear people of Monster,
Talking about getting trashed and how you're suffering from cottonmouth doesn't make you look cool. It makes you look like an overgrown 15-year-old stoner wearing a stained old poncho. If I had read that description on the can before I bought it I would have put it right back in the cooler. Lucky for you and I all I saw was "tea + lemonade."

Even though I think your marketing is idiotic I will overlook it because this happens to be one of the best energy drinks I've ever had. It's not carbonated, which is rare in the energy drink game. Most importantly it tastes like a more than decent Arnold Palmer. I would drink this on the regular if it wouldn't keep me up. It also doesn't have a strong chemical taste (I know I constantly talk about the chemical taste of energy drinks, but most taste terrible, so when one doesn't it is headline news. Shockingly it's only 10 calories per serving, but it doesn't taste anything close to diet.

I had very little interest in this beverage when I first picked it up, but since I had never seen it before I felt an obligation to this website. It has zero sugar; only five calories and the light color did not make it look very flavorful. None of that is very enticing to me.

The saving grace/overall coolness of this drink is the fact that there is a compartment of vitamins hidden in the cap. When you're ready to drink it you twist the red part of the lip and they drop into the drink. I've never come across a drink like that before, and it's pretty rad. The reason for it is that vitamins deteriorate and lose their potency in water. This way you get the most bang for your buck if you will.

This flavor really tasted like Flintstones Chewable Vitamins. Do they still make those? If not they should. They are tasty and made me want to take vitamins as a kid. Barney was always the best one. Do kids even know who the Flintstones are? Would Fred selling cigarettes even work nowadays? Who would be peddling those wares these days?

The use of stevia was a wise choice. It keeps the diet flavor to a minimum, and actually makes the drink enjoyable.

On my vacation I'm working on keeping my normalish sleep schedule. It's six hours behind here, so I've been having at 5 or 6 in the morning and going to bed around 10 or 11. When you're in a tropical adventure zone, you want to make the most of the sunlight you have. It's been working out pretty well thus far, but after five nights of less than six hours sleep I needed a little pick me up.

I was hoping to find some sort of local energy drink, but when that turned out to be a bust I grabbed the next best thing; a guava flavored one. When I'm consuming energy drinks I prefer ones made with juice. I know they are still terrible for you, but I t makes me feel a little bit better that they aren't all garbage.

I don't think this really tastes like guava, but it does taste tropical, fruity and sugary as all hell. It also still has that chemical taste to it that nearly all energy drinks have. You learn to deal with that.

One of the things that I love about the Aloha drinks is that the order they list the flavors on the can is the order that you taste them. In this drink you instantly get a very strong strawberry flavor that transfers into the tropical guava sweetness. I also appreciate that they use fruit purees instead of fruit juice from concentrate. Keeping it classy.

I always think I don't particularly like swimming. There were two instances in my childhood where I almost died. I rarely think about them, but water doesn't seem very inviting. I'm not afraid of it. Cliff jumping is high on my list of favorite things to do. It just normally seems boring. I think the fact that my skin instantly combusts in the sun probably factors in. Today I discovered a new thing I like to do in water; snorkeling. I was face down in the water for nearly two hours. I chased all sorts of fish all over the reef. I saw tons of crazy neon tropical fish, and even two creepy "sea spiders."

Do you know what the body needs after two hours of snorkeling in the ocean? Refreshment. For that I chose juice, specifically this tropical local juice. It was a wise decision on my part. It was nice and cold and quenched what I thought was an undying thirst. How was I thirsty? I was in the water for so long. My stupid body needs to learn to absorb fluids. I must evolve!

The juice was mostly passion fruit flavored with a slight orange undertone. I had expected the orange to be stronger, and was pleasantly surprised to find I was wrong. I'm really going to miss Aloha juices when I have to head home.

Does anyone remember the incredible beverages known at Clearly Canadian? They ruled gas station coolers for years before they inexplicably went extinct. Seriously we're talking a Roanoke-esque type situation here. One day they were just all gone. Although nothing remains of them but a few empty dusty bottles scientists (the Thirsty Dudes) have recently discovered that their line of heritage did not completely die out. We have discovered that the Juice Squeeze line is a descendant of the carbonated drinks of old.

This has the scientific community in an uproar. They are screaming for more concrete proof. We here at Thirsty Dudes say the proof is in the flavor. It's a mixture of incredible naturally sweet berries and other fruit. That mixture has been slightly carbonated to make an exquisite drink. If this were available back home it would be a staple in my diet. Choke on that real scientists!

Up until a few minutes ago I though a "high ball" was the name of a specific alcoholic drink. It turns out it's a general term for and mixed drink. They are typically sold by middle aged women in their bras during mud wrestling matches held in living rooms.

Hi Ball is more specific. It is a very dry, borderline seltzer, sparkling energy drink. There is no sugar added at all. It's just water, bubbles, a small amount of lemon lime flavor, and some herbs for energy. It's the high-class energy drink. I understand how this could be attractive to some people, but it's not for me. I like my energy drinks to taste like juice, not.....nothing.

Man it's hot out. I'm sweating just sitting here. I think my skin is starting to stick to the chair. The only thing that is going to make this better is a trip to the beach. You know where there's no shade and ten million people in the water. The beach can be fun, but those good times are generally reserved for night visits and hidden beaches. Today I happened to go to the latter. On the way we stopped at a health food store where I picked up some chocolate covered ginger and this 16oz bottle of wonder.

Like the beach, lemonade is generally overrated. It's usually way too sweet, or too bland. Hubert's, which is a division of the wonderful Hansen company, knew they had to step up his game if they was to make a lemonade that would get people's attention. A feather should be stuck in the company's collective hats. They created lemonade that is sour, without making you pucker your face uncontrollably. The cane sugar is used sparingly in order to make that happen. If that wasn't enough they added some extract of raspberry to the mix in order to give it a slight hint of fruit.

This lemonade refreshed me better than most beverages could in my time of need this afternoon. I sipped the bottle, saw a sea turtle and then jumped out of some trees into the water that led to the ocean. Anything that happened after that today hardly matters.

I had a less than stellar experience with this companies mango soda, but I decided to give them another chance. It's locally made in Hawaii, and the label design is pretty great. We were driving around late last night with the windows down and the music up. Seeing as we have yet to have anything close to a warm night in Buffalo, it was pretty spectacular. The combination of the vegetation, ocean and the lack of industry makes the air smell amazing around here.

I twisted off the cap on the soda took a sniff, and it smelled like strong vanilla. Things were looking up. First sip, not so bad. The second sip is where things started to fall apart. I don't know what it is with this company, but both flavors I've tried have this weird undertone flavor. The main taste is a fairly decent vanilla, but then that other strange flavor creeps in and holds the soda hostage. I don't know what sort of ransom he's looking for but I think we should pay it. If it wasn't for that flavor terrorist this could be a great soda.

POG is one of the best drinks I've had from Hawaii. It's fruity and sweet in all the right ways. When I saw they had an offshoot called POG Power I thought I might have the world's most delicious energy drink on my hands. Like many times in my life I was wrong. Not in the flavor department, but in the fact that this is not an energy drink at all. It is in fact a sports drink. It's kind of like Gatorade and POG combined, except it's more flavorful than the prior. It's pretty good, but I see no reason for it when you can just be drinking the original POG.

Today I went on a long horseback ride through mountains and beaches. If I had long hair it would have been flowing through the breeze. Since I do not, I instead got a dusting of red dry mud. That's dirt for you amateurs out there. After my ride I settled down with a couple of very dusty dogs and I downed a can of this local iced tea.

The can boasts proudly that there is no HFCS contained with in and that they use the finest natural cane sugar. This got me pumped. I love tea in cans. I have a ridiculous theory that the tea continuously brews in the can making it more potent. It's also rare to find a cane sugar tea in a can.

I cracked this baby open and took a huge chug in the blistering sunlight. Then I wiped the dribble from my mouth using the back of my hand, thus creating wet dirt. Did I enjoy the refreshment? You betcha. Was it special? Not really. It was reminiscent of Nestea. I had hoped for something a little better, but it got the job done.

These Neuro drinks look so alluring on the shelves. I applaud the company for making a unique looking bottle with enticing colors (even though it looks like it should be some sort of adult toy).

Derek had reviewed one of these a while ago, but I had never seen them in stores. When I found them in a grocery store I felt compelled to buy them all, even though he had given his a terrible review. That, my friend, is proof that quality packaging can go a long way for a product. I convinced myself that I really only needed to buy one. I chose the one that is suppose to increase mental energy and focus. I chose this one because I'm on vacation, and when people are away from the real world for too long they tend to become morons. When you don't have to think or worry much about live everything seems great, and I know I tend to become vulnerable to making dumb decisions. So I'm taking the offensive here. Will it work? Who knows, but it's worth a try.

The first thing I have to say about this drink is "Holy diet!" It's hard to make out what flavor this is supposed to actually be. The taste I'm searching for is lost in a cloud of artificial sweeteners. I think it's supposed to be berry, but I couldn't testify in a court of law. Drink court....now that is an idea. Customers take companies to court for putting out terrible beverages. I'm smelling reality TV of the dumbest kind. I wonder if they would let us be the judges. We could be called in for our expert opinions. I mean Mike and I are scientists. I would even settle for being the thirsty jury. Someone pitch this to the networks. Quick!

If a poll was taken across the islands of Hawaii to determine what the state juice would be I'm pretty sure POG would be announced the winner of the silver medal. If you thought that it would get the gold then you my friend forgot about a little thing called the pineapple. Can anything really compete with the pineapple on Hawaii? If it ran I'm sure it would win the office of governor for the state. It has that much power.

Enough about pineapple, it has no place in this drink. Here the other Hawaiian fruits reign supreme. Passion fruit, orange and guava run this game. Sweet. Fruity. Refreshing. (On a side note I ate a guava straight from a tree yesterday and that was enough to make me want to move my entire life to the islands.) The carton tells a story of the Poflodytes, Furry little creatures that gather the fruit and make the juice. I believe this is a cover up created by the POG company so that people won't realize that all of their labor is provided by the obscene amount of feral cats that wander the islands. If you ever think you see a Poglodyte take a closer look and you will see the zipper on their costumes. Beware though. The chickens are not what they seem.

I made it to Hawaii alive. I was surprisingly not too miserable after 17 hours of traveling. To help refuel myself I drank a pineapple smoothie that was pretty astounding. Then I hit up a grocery store for rations for the week. I found a couple bottles of this aloe that is made in Hawaii. Pretty great, right? Want to know what's better? I realized there are huge aloe plants everywhere around here, and I'm going to attempt to eat it fresh.

This was very good. Average style chunks, with a strong aroma of honey. The honey flavor was also way stronger than I expected, which was nice. It's always great to find "irregular" flavors of aloe.

If I was an expert on such things, and being a scientist I would say I am an expert on all things, I would say that jasmine tea is the cleanest of all teas. Per capita I bet jasmine has less dirt and filth on it than any other tea. Do a study on it I dare you! You can tell by the taste. It's a tea made for germaphobes.

This in particular is one of the best jasmine iced teas I've ever tasted. Most that I've come by have been unsweetened, which is all well and good. Honest decided to sweeten it ever so slightly with agave, my hats off to them for that. It's just a little, but it evens out the bitterness to a perfect degree. With every sip the floweriness of jasmine hits you first and then it passes the torch onto the bitterness of the green tea. If they ran a relay race they would surely win the gold.

The flavor is called "Jasmine Green Energy Tea" not only because of the caffeine in the teas used (to be honest this whole bottle has the amount of caffeine as half a cup of coffee), but also because the company donates money towards renewable "green" energy. I missed Earth Day by 19 hours with this, but I will pretend it's still going on.

In about 14 hours I will be boarding a plane for a trip to Hawaii. Do you think I'm going to shut up about it in my reviews for the next week? I wouldn't hold your breath. In order to prepare myself for my adventures in the sun I'm drinking some nice lemonade (I really should have drank the pineapple one, but I think I'm going to be overdosing on that fruit very shortly).
The first thing I'm doing when I get to the island is to go hang out at the waterfall that is featured in Raiders of the Lost Ark. That's right I'm starting a bitchin' vacation with some Indiana Jones action.
As I drink this I'm closing my eyes and envisioning standing at the foot of the waterfall snapping a revolver out of someone's hand with a whip. Much like the lemonade itself, it's a pretty amazing vision. This is lemonade that tastes homemade. It's insanely tart almost to the point of drinking straight lemon juice. Luckily there's a decent amount of natural sugar in it to even that out. I never would have considered mixing orange juice in with lemonade, but luckily the fine folks at Calypso have a more open mind. The orange creates a nice accent. They were smart enough to put just a little in so that lemon is still the main flavor, with just a hint of its citrus brethren.

Yes I did just put the movie on after I wrote this. I'm getting way to excited. If there is really a cave by the falls my head is going to explode, and I will probably only be in Hawaii for an hour before I die from spiders, spike, pits or a giant boulder.

Dear Self,
I hate to be the one to break this to us, but we really just don't like the way ginseng tastes. Sure it's fine as a minor player in some drinks, but as soon as it steps into the limelight it all goes downhill. I know you're going to say it's not its fault. It's a root; of course it tastes like dirt. Then what about ginger? It's also a root and it's completely delicious. Ginseng is just a bad seed and I don't think we should hang out with it anymore.

Look what it did to this drink. It took a completely mediocre raspberry ginger ale and it made is associate (aka less than). It tastes like a run of the mill 2 liter of fruity ginger ale was strained through some dirt. What were they using it to pan for gold? Good luck with that.

Since Buffalo has apparently skipped three seasons and gone directly back into winter I thought it would be fitting to review a Xmas themed beverage. When I showed people this soda I was surprised that no one mentioned anything about it causing the drinker to go on a kissing spree. For that I'd like to thank my friends for not being as idiotic as myself, or at least to have the restraint to not say stupid things aloud.

Due to it being a season drink I expected this to have a bunch of spices in it, or to be minty for some reason (I blame the leaves on the label). Neither of those things were true at all. In fact it tastes more like it should be a summer beverage. It has a flavor that is similar to lemonade. It's like someone made a lemon lime soda but actually used lemonade and limeade. Then they decided to put in just a dash of berry for good measure. It's not bad by any means. In fact it's a damn good alternative to 7Up or Sprite. I just don't understand why it's marketed the way it is.

I'm backup up on drinks to review. Seriously backed up, like over 100 drinks sitting in my fridge/back hall waiting to be tasted and sub-sequentially have prose written about it. It's getting to the point where it's overwhelming. Even though I have enough drinks to last me for a couple of months, when a package from Prometheus Springs arrived on my front porch I let out a squeaky noise of pure excitement. I tore apart the packaging and this drink shot to the number one spot on my "to drink" queue.

My friend Pat Bolger stopped by to work on artwork for his band's 7". He is one of the most wonderfully insane/brilliant pieces of human meat I have ever come across. Life is always interesting when he is around. Today was his birthday (also the date of the end of the world according to Terminator legend). To celebrate I decided to share this beverage with him.

At first smell it smells like pear juice, but as you pull it away a burning sensation fills your nostrils. I have a problem in that whenever I first try a new drink I take a huge sip. I thought I was fine. It had a mild pear taste while it was in my mouth. I'm not the world's biggest pear supporter (I feel like they are apples with genetic problems), but it's a quick flavor in this drink. It doesn't linger around long and I can enjoy that. The issue was that as it started flowing down my throat the burning started. It's not as strong as the older flavors I had tried from this company, but it definitely burns. I passed it off to Pat, and although he knew it would have a kick I don't think he was prepared for its fury. His face was pretty priceless, and he said he thought it was eating a hole in his stomach. He couldn't get down more than one sip.

The burn from the capsaicin in this is something that can be quite a shock if you're not ready for it. When I first tried Prometheus Springs drinks I thought of it more of a novelty and wasn't a big fan. The more I drink them the more I appreciate it. I now look forward to the burn. It's not a drink that you can chug down, but if you slowly sip it over a few hours it can be really enjoyable.

I've been doing way more research than any one person needs to in order to follow the trail of Ecto-Cooler. If you don't remember it I feel sorry for you. It was a flavor that Hi-C put out in the 80's in celebration of the masterpiece that is Ghostbusters. It's the least they could do for the movie changed the entire world. Well my world at least. Either way it was a green citrus juice drink and it was wonderful. Sadly it was discontinued (although brought back for a bit under the name "Shoutin' Orange Tangergreen"). It's probably the drink I miss the most in the world. I might just be feeling nostalgic, but this tastes like Ecto Cooler to me. The Sweet Leaf Citrus Green Tea had me thinking the same thing. Maybe it's just something with green tea and citrus (this has mandarin juice in it). Even without my history of loving Ecto Cooler this drink is incredible. It's some of the best tasting juice tea combos I've ever encountered. Goji Berry is something that I'm going to have to look into more.

Now I feel like I need to watch both Ghostbusters movies for the 900th time in my life. I'm not complaining.