Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

My sleep habits have been absolutely terrible lately. I blame this stupid cold that I got. It started with me waking up way early for no reason, and being completely awake for a few hours before exhaustion set it. As my sickness progressed I started waking up for periods of time in the middle of the night. Last night it got to the point where I just couldn't sleep. I forgot to pick up some more cold medicine, so I downed this little guy.

I think they forgot to list all of the ingredients on the packaging. I think that because I didn't see Rohypnol listed. If you didn't know Rohypnol is the clinical name for "roofies." I feel like it has to be in there, because I was wide-awake, I drank this bottle, I laid down and the next thing I knew it was 9:30am. This was the most effective "relaxation drink" that I have had yet. I was out pretty much instantly. It's a bit diety and medicinal tasting, but since it's only a shot I can deal with that for the effects it has. It doesn't taste like toxic sludge, but it's not something I would drink due to the taste.

If you're at a bar or party and you see these little bottles lying around don't drink those drinks. No one wants to wake up in a dude bros gross bed, or worse in a tub full of ice with a note that you're kidney has been removed. Beware the dark harvest!

When Dan and I purchased a four pack of this drink the cashier tried to have an intellectual conversation with us. She began by inquiring "Aren't all beverages three dimensional? What makes this drink special?" She was trying so hard to be witty. I humored her by stating that I was only interested in four-dimensional drinks. If a beverage did not span time as well as space, then it need not apply. That resulted in a fairly blank look with a forced smile that accompanied an "Enjoy your day." Oh well I tried. Maybe I should have made a Back to the Future reference. She may have been too young to get it though.

3D lists their three dimensions as super fruits, essential vitamins, and healthy white tea. That's a bit of a stretch as far an dimensions go. I think Stephen Hawking may take issue with it, but who knows maybe that's what all his research has been working towards.

As promised this is a white tea with a nice tart pomegranate flavoring. It had a weird smell when I first opened it, but it tasted pretty great. I don't think it's anything great enough for Marty McFly to go back in time for, but I could see Doc Brown downing a four pack working on the flux capacitor.

Hansen's, you know what you are doing when it comes to sodas. I don't care what Derek thinks. Mike and I love you for your fizzy greatness. Your canned smoothies left a lot to be desired. In fact I think your pineapple coconut one was the first drink we ever gave a "one-bottle" review to. I know we use the phrase "barf sauce" a decent amount on here, but that smoothie literally tasted like vomit. So you are up for pop, down for soda.

Here we venture forth into your third line of drinks, juice. This here is the tiebreaker and as it turns out, you come out on the winning team. This is some pretty great juice. It's good on it's own, but the fact that it's a diet juice puts it over the top. Rebiana is a great lo-cal sweetener that doesn't have a very strong diet taste. It tastes like pomegranate and blackberry, just the way it should. I wish it was more than 35% fruit juice, but as I said for a diet beverage, this has a lot going for it.

I don't understand how I can pass out at night as soon as my head hits the pillow; yet wake up exactly two hours later completely awake. I normally have no problems with my sleep patterns, but this has been happening for the past week or so. Last night after my sudden awakening and consequent tossing and turning, my girlfriend started talking in her sleep. She repeatedly asked me, "What's happening to the front right door?" I still don't know what she was talking about. When I asked her, "What door?" She just said, "This one." and fell into a deeper sleep. At that point I needed to fall asleep fast, so I downed this relaxation drink. I know this variety wasn't made to make me pass out, but it did help. It doesn't have melatonin in it, but the chamomile and Valerian did the trick. This tasted like carbonated Vitamin Water, specifically the guava one (which doesn't really taste like guava). I say thank you Ex. You made my nights sleep a lot better.

The name doesn't lie. This truly is "Awesome Root Beer." It's nice and creamy. Smooth like. It's also not crazily carbonated, which is a nice change of pace.

My only real question is, why does it say "Cane Sugar or High Fructose Corn Sweetener"? Do they really vary their recipe from batch to batch? I'm 99% certain I have a cane sugar version here.

I also love the label. It looks like it was drawn with colored pencils, which holds a certain charm for me. It also brings about the conversations of all time top five desert islands (fill in the blank). You know, these conversations that nerds like myself have all the time. Typically they are about records or books. I'm going to compile my desert island list of root beers in no particular order: Virgil's Special Edition Bavarian Nutmeg, Weeping Radish, Gale's, Margo's Bark, and Sparky's. I know I will probably change this eventually, but as of now that's it right there.

Today a bunch of us met up at a friend's house to get some plans made for a trip to Hawaii we're taking next month. We were surprisingly productive and got a nice little outline of an itinerary put together. We are insanely cheesy, so we ordered Hawaiian pizza and had some of this soda. It's actually made right on the island of Hawaii that we're going to be visiting. Now that's pretty rad. I was wondering if I would be able to find any new drinks for Thirsty Dudes on that trip. I didn't realize this was from Kauai until I read the bottle today. I'm sure I'm going to be able to grab some other rad flavors there.

Let's start with the scent of this. It smells like a melted freezie pop. I feel like I use that analogy a lot on here, but it's something I can't escape. The flavor is similar to the smell, but it's not harsh at all. I can't say that for freezie pops. When those things warm up they are like sulfuric acid on your throat. This has a general sweet tropical flavor to it. There's a little mango in there, but I had expected more from it. I still enjoyed it and it went well with my pizza. What doesn't go well with pizza though?

100% juice is just the way I like it. There is some peach in this mix, but it really doesn't stand a chance with such an overbearing partner like apricot. If this were the DC universe, apricot would represent Batman and peach would be filling the role of Robin. I take that back. Everyone loves Batman, but who really cares about Robin? Peach is far too delicious of a fruit to be Robin. I need to come up with a better superhero team where the sidekick is better than the hero, but where the hero is the center of attention. (I know Batman is not a superhero. In fact, that's what makes him so much better than other heroes). How about Kato and the Green Hornet? I guess that works.

When I was a child I had a fixation on the Loch Ness Monster. I thought it was one of the coolest things ever. I blame that Time Life "Mysteries of the Unknown" series that was all the rage at that period in our nation's history. Seriously, as an impressionable youth those books were incredible. I then found out about the local "legend" of the Lake Erie Monster. I may not ever get to Scotland (I did), but to have a lesser legend in your backyard is pretty great. Later on in life I found out about "Champ" the monster in Lake Champlain, but it wasn't until I got this soda that I heard about the monster in Flathead Lake in Montana. This definitely got me interested. The fact that I have been re-watching X-Files helps as well. I'm sure I'm going to spend a good deal of time reading about it this evening.

My girlfriend says this soda tastes like medicine. She says that about way too many things. I rarely agree. This is no exception. To me it tastes like an overly sweet carbonated white grape juice. Okay, maybe not white grape juice, since this is pretty syrupy. But it has that specific white grape flavor to it. Quite an accomplishment seeing as there is no actual grape juice in this.

My soda is done. This review is done. Let the sea monster research begin!

Let's have a brief dialog about kombucha. It's absolutely putrid. The first time someone offered me some I thought they were trying to pull a prank on me. Imagine that you threw a raging party at your house. There were tons of people there and come dawn, people were still hanging out. Of course there's the obligatory guy who somehow passed out of the roof, and others passed out (you hope they aren't dead) all over the place. You're beat. You had a great time, but you just want to sleep forever. Unfortunately you're leaving for a family trip to the Grand Canyon at 5pm, so you really should start cleaning up. Okay, you can allow yourself a brief nap, but then you really need to get this place cleaned up before your family picks you up. Next thing you know there's knocking at the door. It scares the crap out of you. You've been dead to the world for hours. It's your great aunt Matilda. You're whole family is in the driveway waiting in the Deluxe Family Truckster. You quickly throw some clothes in a bag and jump in the car. Two weeks later you're getting dropped off in that same driveway. No one in your family is talking to each other. Things got a little hairy on the way home. You open your door and you suddenly remember you never cleaned up from the party. Half filled cups of randomness and bottles of beer are everywhere. You force yourself to clean up. You dump all of the remaining fluids into a giant mayonnaise jar (you really don't know where it came from). When it's all cleaned up, you go to take the jar out to the trash. As you're about to screw the cap on, you accidentally take a whiff. A rotting, fermenting, slightly fruity garbage smell is what graces your nasal cavities. It doesn't taste much better either.

Okay, so that was a monologue, sue me. As you can see I have some opinions of that drink. When I saw this had it as a prime ingredient I really did not want to try it. Last night some friends were visiting from out of town, and we were staying up late. I had gotten up early and was getting sleepy, but I wanted to hang out, so I bit the bullet and downed this can. It's not even remotely as bad as kombucha I've tried in the past. It didn't taste like rotting at all. There was a faint hint of a kombucha flavor underneath it all, but it wasn't bad. It was pretty sweet in a weird way, since it contains natural beat sugar. It's all-natural, so it wasn't like other energy drinks. You know, like runoff from a nuclear plant. I would definitely try this again over most of the other energy drinks on the market. It also kept me up until 3:30am when I was yawn city around 10, so it seems to do its job as well.

First things first Dr. Tima. Do you in fact actually have a PHD? If so, what field is it in? Are you like our hero, Dr. Peter Venkman, and hold a degree in Parapsychology? I have other suspicions. I believe that you, Dr. Tima, are actually a giant bee sent by your queen to overthrow humankind. Don't think I didn't notice that little picture of that man-bee on the bottle. I know that is actually you with a fake smile. Those eyes are plotting I tell you!

After a quick internet search, I have learned that if my intuition is correct and you are a bee hell-bent on destroying the human race, your lifespan is only 40-50 days. I will assume that this bottle is older than two months, which means that you my insect friend are now dead. How does it feel to be rotting? That's what you get for trying to start a revolution!

You may not have succeeded in your plans, but you did leave the world with one delicious root beer. Sure Thomas Kemper uses honey to sweeten their sodas, but it's mostly for sweetness and there isn't a huge honey taste. The now deceased doctor took it way further. The honey flavor is right up front in your face. For a little bee, he also took a lot of time to actually brew his root beer with wintergreen, vanilla, sweet birch, anise, cloves, and yucca plant extract. This is a serious root beer with an added sweet bonus. After drinking this I can only say that Tima surely was truly a scientist. He left this world with a little bit of golden heaven for our tongues to enjoy.

I'm proud to say that we are the first people outside of the production team to try the new recipe for Main St. Cafe smoothies. I have never tried the old formula, but I can only assume this is a step up, because it's pretty great.

For the first 29 years of my life I detested yogurt. I thought it was so completely foul. I tried it again and again, but the consistency and the weird nondescript yogurt aftertaste were things I just could not get down with. By repeatedly trying it, I somehow acclimated myself to the issues I had with it. Now I eat it all the time. As it turns out, mixed berry yogurt is my favorite. Look here, this is basically a drink version of that.

I was warned that if I drank this when it was too cold that it would be insanely thick. I took that advice, I'm drinking it chilled, and let me tell you, it's still pretty darn thick. I like it. It's about half the viscosity of a cup of yogurt. The fruit is completely pureed into the drink, so there are no chunks in this. This is not the type of smoothie you would get in the mall, but it's not something to be overlooked. If you don't abhor yogurt, give this a try.

This is another member of the Skeleteen's line. I only vaguely remember this one from my high school days. It has the "classic" Skeleteen's tag lines on it. "Third time available in 399 years," "From Black's last raid," and "Drink up you scurry dog!"

Blood Red Cola = Cherry Cola with a pirates twist. The twist is really just the image and not much to do with the flavor (although it does have Brazilian guarana in it). It's a decent cherry cola. There's really nothing that stands out in it, but it's still very enjoyable.

With the popularity of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies a few years ago, I'm kind of shocked these didn't become more popular. I think people would have eaten it up during the whole pirate craze. You know, all of the terrible "dad jokes" that were going around about the sea dogs. Remember kids, dressing like a pirate never looks cool. Don't ever do it, even on Halloween. Don't disrespect the pirates in that way. Just drink the soda. Celebrate their life and times that way.

Up until recently I had no idea that there was a world of protein based fitness drinks out there. You would think I would be aware of such a thing being a professional drinkologist and all, yet it eluded me.

XAPP says to drink this beverage to "Refresh, Refuel, Repair and Recover." Basically the ingredients will do wonders for helping you with muscle growth for working out. You know it's something that Arnold would have drunk all the time before he became a governor, and even before he was an actor. Man, after a brief Wiki check I found out that was back in 1967. He is way older than I ever thought. Regardless, I can see him as a teenager at the gym talking to a higher power, "XAPP, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad. Why we fought, or why we died. All that matters is that two stood against many. That's what's important! Valor pleases you, XAPP... so grant me one request. Grant me PROTEIN! And if you do not listen, then to HELL with you!" It may have been 50 years later, but the gods listened.

This is a carbonated light fruit punch that is sweetened with sucralose. It tastes like a better version of diet energy drinks. I had expected it to be grainy and thicker being a protein drink, but I was happy to find out I was wrong.

I'm pretty sure there was a secret conference somewhere in the past year or two where it was voted that acai would be the new hip fruit. For a couple of years before that pomegranate ruled the school. It was obviously time for it to pass on the torch, and it seems that acai was voted into office. It's all over the place lately. Antioxidants are all the rage and acai is at the top of the charts.

Acai Roots decided to step up the game. Unlike most, if not all other companies, Acai Roots does not mix other fruit juices in with their acai juice. It's water, acai puree, and cane sugar. I can get behind that. If you were spotlighting a certain fruit, why would you want to muddy up the flavor with other ingredients?

It's a strong juice. It has that specific acidic taste that let's you know "This is a juice that is exceptionally good for me." It's not something the average person could drink a big 16oz glass of, but a nice smaller glass a day is not out of the question. The bottle also recommends putting the juice into a smoothie or a shake. Both of those sound pretty incredible.

If there is one thing I've learned during my time on this planet, it is that you should never train a seal for the purposes of magic tricks. If you do so, it will inevitably don a bow tie and bite off your younger brothers hand. Sure he will get some prosthetic hands/claws, but he will spend the rest of his life screaming about how he's a "monster". It seems like the fine folks at Gosling knew that information as well. They kept their seal away from magic and let him balance some balls on his nose like every little seal dreams. I call him Stormy and he's a great little mascot. He also adorns a great looking can of soda.

The drink itself is also impressive. It has a great flavor that hits you right in the nose. Just like Stormy's ball will if you ever annoy him. There is a "ginger burn", but it's not out of control. While I do like the craziest of burns in my ginger beer, I understand that the majority of the public probably does not. The pain is decent, but it fades very quickly. That way it is more acceptable for the masses, unlike a one armed brother who has emotional issues as intense as the fiercest ginger beer.

If this drink were the television show My Two Dad's, the black tea would be Paul Reiser and the lemonade would be that other guy. No one remembers the other guys name. He really could have been anyone. I feel the same way about this drink. The tea has a strong memorable flavor while the lemon is forgettable like Greg Evigan (I had to look up his name). This would be a very good lemon tea, but if it ever expects to be a proper co-star the lemonade really needs to step up it's game.

Wait, that show was terrible. This tea is still pretty good. Let's pretend I made this entire analogy about Bosom Buddies instead. Switch Mr Reiser for Tom Hanks and the other guy for.....you know....the other guy.

I have never known a blueberry to be florescent blue, and I've known quite a few in my day. Most notably, I've known Blueberry Johnson. He was a wonderful gentleman who had an idea for a television show for kids called "Blueberry Muffins in the Morning with Blueberry Johnson." It was a great idea, but the executives just couldn't figure out a way for him to host the show, even though he literally looked exactly like a human blueberry. Tragically he ended his life when the show didn't work out for him. It was completely horrible. The important thing is that he was not neon blue, nor was his bodily fluids.

I don't know why there are so many beverages out there that look like windshield washer fluid when the fruits they are meant to taste like are a dark blue. Truth be told, this doesn't taste like blueberries at all. It's lemonade that has been over saturated with sweetener and a little bit of "fruity" flavor. There is no bitterness left at all in this bottle. It's a liquid candy. It has its place in the drink world. I do enjoy the way it tastes, but it's just not what I'm looking for in lemonade.

When we were up at Soda Pop Central on Saturday, this soda pretty much jumped out at me. It was the first soda I saw on the first shelf I looked at. As you can see from this website we are huge fans of the Thomas Kemper line so, any new flavors are always a treat. As an added bonus, both ginger and peach are among my favorite flavors. After being slightly disappointed by the Flying Bison Ginger Soda I was pretty pumped to have Thomas Kemper step up to the plate.

I wanted so badly for this to have an intense ginger burn with a slight hint of peach to it. It turns out that the opposite was true. It's primarily a peach soda with a slight hint of ginger. I actually found myself doing some research to see if "Ginger" was a specific type of peach. The ginger is that low in the mix. I would describe it as a really peachy light ginger ale. They actually use real peach juice, so that flavor is pretty incredible. Even though I was disappointed that the ginger levels didn't meet my expectations, this is still a stand out soda. I just think they should have named it "Peach Ginger" with the current recipe.

Melon, it is not just filler for fruit salads. I'm a staunch supporter of these underrated fruits. I've hand numerous conversations in my life about how there should be more melon drinks available, especially cantaloupe. It's one of the most refreshing flavors out there. Unfortunately, the few melon flavored things I've found have all been artificially flavored by some scientist in a lab mixing chemicals together until they have the desired taste. Things done that way rarely hit their mark. This little German treat, on the other hand, hit a bulls-eye. I'm talking the center of the bulls-eye, not that cheater outer ring.

As you might gather from the name, this has a lemon lime base with melon added to it. Let me tell you, they mix together incredibly. I once heard some wise men having a conversation. Upon facing an inevitable death one proclaimed, "Aw, we're going to die and I never tasted cantaloupe." The others reply held the wisdom of sages. He calmly stated, "Eh, you didn't miss much. Honeydew is the money melon." I believe the Fritz company took said money melon and mixed in some cantaloupe to appease both parties involved. The result could have gotten someone burned at the stake in olden times for witchcraft.

Our friend Nina just got home from a trip to Germany and we are very gracious that she brought us back a handful of drinks. I opened this pretty much as soon as she handed it to me (okay I put it in the freezer for like 15 minutes to cool it down). When I read "Black Cola" I instantly thought of black metal, because I had watched the documentary "Until the Light Takes Us" a few nights earlier. I was expecting an extremely intense cola. Visions of Burzum, Dark Throne, and Mayhem sitting in dingy basements downing cases of this stuff, floated through my mind. Were they in corpse paint as if they were going to war for Satan? Of course they were! How else would you enjoy such an extreme soda? In my mind, this soda was specifically brewed to be enjoyed on a day trip out to the country, to burn down some churches and perhaps stop off in a neighboring town to stab the guy who runs your record label in the skull.

I really need to stop letting my imagination run away from me before I try a beverage. There is nothing really intense about this cola. I should have known better because of the little green lizard guy on the bottle, but all it takes is .2 seconds for my mind to come up with ridiculous scenarios. It's 100% organic, but has a pretty standard cola flavor. It does have guarana in it for a little extra caffeine kick. If you ever find yourself over in Germany you should pick some up.