Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

These come in the tiniest bottles ever. 4oz= awesome for reviews. This is 100% juice, and 100% awesome. Okay so I lied, I wish it were bigger because it's pretty great. I am a sucker for orange mango juice.

Yang-mei is the official name for yum-berry. This is my first adventure in a straight up yum-berry beverage, and I have to tell you I'm not that impressed. It tastes like a foreign fruit punch. Does that make sense? Is that racist somehow? I don't know and I don't really care. It's insanely sweet. I can't even drink this entire 17oz bottle in one sitting. This is my third attempt at it. I think I'm looking at two more. I even had to check to make sure it wasn't a concentrate. It's not, just tons of sugar was involved with it's creation.

When I was growing up I loved spending time at my grandfathers house. There was a pool table, a barn with tons of sweet tools that we would use to make rad stuff, not one, but two incredible tire swings, and most importantly there was tons of fruit growing all over his property. There were gardens full of strawberries and raspberries, an apple orchard, and my possible favorite a giant cherry tree. I would wait all year for those cherries to be ripe. Then I would fill up bushels of cherries, hide somewhere and eat them until I got sick. Let me tell you fruit gut rot is no joking manner. This soda is made with organic cherry juice, and it reminds me of those days in late summer, sitting on top of the chicken coup listening to EMF on my Walkman and pounding cherries. It's not overly sweet or overly carbonated. It's pretty great. That cherry tree fell down a few years ago in a storm, but since then bats infested the barn. Then an owl chased them out and it lives there now. So that's pretty sweet.

Dry soda is such a strange thing. It's almost like seltzer water without the horrible aftertaste. This has such a great vanilla scent. It smells like the afterthought of when you take a big wiff of a bottle of vanilla extract. For how strong the smell is, the taste is surprisingly tame. It's definitely there, but it's not over the top. It's right up front. With each sip you are greeted with a pleasant mild vanilla, and then it's suddenly gone.

This is most definitely a soda for adults. If you ever gave this to a kid they would give you the "you gotta be kidding me" look. If they were young enough, it might even bring on some tears. If they were old enough your home would more than likely get TP'ed just like the old fogy's house that gave you popcorn balls for Halloween when you were a kid. If anyone in this world deserved the "you gotta be kidding me" look it was surely him.

They've done it again! Eleven for eleven! It's quality white tea, nicely sweetened and a wonderful melon flavor. This bottle contains the two distinct waves of flavor. First the honeydew washes over you until it's cleared out of the way for the slight bitterness of the tea. I do believe this company is infallible.

Oh Alo the wonderful drinks you make. To begin with, you are the only aloe beverage company that I have had that uses actual fruit juice instead of artificial flavor. That alone makes you stand out. The fact that your aloe chunks are about 5x bigger than your competitors also adds to your charm. After my recent adventure in the world of mangosteen, I can say this definitely tastes like the fruit. I just found out that a health food store in Buffalo now carries these, so I'm pretty excited that I'll be able to get them on the regular.

Shit Sandwich.

Mary Anna definitely took her time when developing her tea. She's made a very nice sweet tea here. It's not as sweet as traditional southern sweet tea, but it has its place. I don't think the lemon juice was necessary, but hey some people love their lemon tea. The bottle pictures a pretty rad old car and two ladies with a surfboard at the beach. I wish I were at the beach. Even more I wish I knew how to surf. Very few things are cooler than surfing. Seriously, has Keanu Reeves ever been as cool as he was in Point Break? Picture Keanu jumping out of a plane after Mr. Swayze, gun drawn. While in free fall they pull back their dead presidents masks, give each other a nod and start chugging down their Mary Anna's Summer Sweet Tea. I mean if the FBI and bank robbers can't put their differences aside in order to enjoy some tea, then there is no hope for this world.

Dear Rat Bastard Root Beer, you have a really stupid name. I mean come on Skeleteens, you have a quality line of sodas, but you just try to hard to be "alternative" and "in your face" with your titles. When I was a young teenager I thought it was funny, but now as a grown ass man, it just seems childish. Yes, yes I know I'm a 31 year old that reviews soda pop, and that is pretty childish in it's own rite. Like a disappointed mother I think you're better than that.

Even though this has most of the same ingredients as all of the Skeleteens' sodas, it doesn't have a huge bite to it. It's pretty straightforward for a root beer. It has jasmine and clove in it, but I didn't really notice them too much until the last sip. Even then it wasn't very strong. I really expected it to be a unique root beer, but it would fit right in with the rest of the gang. Now remember Skeleteens, you don't need to resort to cheap promotional tactics. Let your soda speak for itself. It can do it. I have faith in you and I love you. Now wash up. Dinner is almost ready.

After the ridiculous amounts of soda we've been drinking lately this is a nice change. Everything has been so overly sweet, and to be honest I've been getting some stomachaches. I need a bit of a break from the sugar. This is a soda with no sweeteners added. Now that is pretty awesome. The Sparkling Organics line is 70% juice. That is something I really appreciate. It's really light and bursting with citrus flavor. I need more drinks like this so I can kiss my gut rot goodbye.

With the exception of a couple of root beers, I don't think I ever had soda that was sweetened with honey. I never really thought about it, but now it seems strange to me that more companies don't use it in their pops. Thomas Kemper loves their honey. In fact it's part of their image. Like awkwardness in Michael Cera movies, honey is the unifying factor in their sodas. I don't care if he pretty much plays the same character in all his movies. He's entertaining and he makes me laugh. Honey doesn't make me laugh. There's nothing intrinsically funny about honey, or bees for that matter. Well maybe bee stings, like when Martin Short gets stung in Pure Luck. Now that was humor. See honey has gotten me off track.
This is one of the creamiest cream sodas I've ever had. That aforementioned honey makes it even smoother. That vanilla...wooooohooo that's some strong vanilla. It's like the essence of a dozen boxes of Nilla Wafers liquefied into one glorious little bottle. Thomas Kemper has their niche with this whole honey business. It's gives all their sodas a distinct flavor. I could totally pick them every time in one of those blind taste tests that were all the rage in the 80s.

I seem to be reviewing way more coffee drinks than I expected to. This one's not too bad. It has tons of milk and tons of sugar. Just what the non-coffee drinker ordered. It tastes like coffee flavored toffees. Latte, that means coffee for kids, right? Is it considered a gateway drink to harder coffees? Are there programs at elementary schools to warn against this? They tell horror stories of kids pushing lattes on their classmates on the playground. Then it's them in coffee shops trying mocha on the weekends with their friends. It then cuts to them working in a cubicle downing obscene amounts of black coffee just to make it through the day. A video like that would steer me away from the caffeinated devil.

This is my first mangosteen juice. I've had drinks that were flavored with it, but never an actual juice. I had expected it to be extremely harsh, like other "superfruit" juices I've drank in the past. It turns out it's pretty darn smooth. To me it tastes like a plum, if plums were a citrus fruit.
I didn't know it until today, but mangosteen is the "Queen of Fruit." Companies also claim it can cure cancer, dysentery, and bacterial infections. If any of that is actually true this certainly is a magical fruit with super powers. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for other mangosteen beverages.

Open this up. Take a sip. It's fairly normal root beer, nothing too fancy. Oh wait what is that? It has a strange aftertaste. It's like someone drank 1/3 of this and then refilled the bottle with Moxie. It's a flavor that I can't really put my finger on. In Moxie it's almost medicinal, but not quite. In this it doesn't even get that far. I think it's the yucca extract that gives it that taste. It's unique in that aspect, but the actual root beer flavor leaves a little to be desired. It's better than your standard root beer, but it doesn't hold up against some of the "classier" root beers I've had lately.

As Mike pointed out when we drank this, this tastes a bit like a mix between lemonade and a ginger ale. It's like a bizarro version of a "Brass Monkey," except instead of drinking half of a 40oz someone drank half of a bottle of ginger ale, and then they replaced the orange juice with lemonade. Not exactly worthy of a Beastie Boys song, but you do what you can. My only problem with this is that they used fermented ginger root. It gives it that apple cider about to turn. I can do without my drinks tasting vaguely alcoholic. It's not too bad, but the thought is in my head and that's enough to slightly turn me off. I could definitely see how other people would really enjoy this. I know I really wish I did more.

"That tastes like boring cereal!" That was our friend Dan's first response to trying this. He was totally right, but that's not all it tastes like. It's like someone got out their old pestle and mortar and ground up a handful of banana Runts into a fine powder. Then they used the self same tool and ground up a big ole box of Kix cereal. They made sure to mix it all together for consistencies sake and then dumped it in to some honey sweetened water. That's it. Oh wait no it's not. How could I have forgotten the hundreds of floating little amoeba looking chunks in the bottle? The manufacturer says they are basil seeds, but the weird slimy coating on them leads me to believe that they are in fact TADPOLE EGGS! Okay, I know they aren't really, but they really do look like them. It looks like tadpole eggs floating in the urine of someone who takes a lot of vitamins. It's a nice rich yellow color. It's unfortunate for the Caravelle company and myself that I like neither Kix nor bananas.

It's Tuesday. Let me rephrase that. It's Thirsty Tuesday (as all Tuesdays are. That means we go get burritos and then hit up stores in search of new drinks to review. Today we went to Wegmans. It's a slight point of controversy around Buffalo, but I claim they have the best burritos in the city. It's probably just because the tofu they use is delicious. You don't agree? We can easily settle this argument like gentlemen, with a round of Rock Paper Scissors.

Wegmans' burritos are meant to be enjoyed with unsweetened tea. I also go with the green jasmine. It's so nicely bitter, and jasmine is a great flavor to add to any tea. It cleans the palate so you can properly enjoy your burrito. Now I need to polish these chips and salsa that accompanied my meal.

This is one big bottle. It's supposed to be three servings, but I was feeling a bit gluttonous so I downed the whole bottle. Don't judge me. I was thirsty. It was delicious. I'm a grown ass man. I do what I do.

I love the amount of carbonation Bottle Green uses. The bubbles are so tiny and plentiful. Elderberry is the bandleader in this Broadway production of a sparkling drink. The pomegranate is present, but it's just a supporting role. I wish I had more knowledge of some Broadway shows so that I could make a more specific analogy, but I am an uncultured bumpkin. I prefer free-for-alls for hill people.

I'm going to hold back on the hippy jokes here. I mean I think we pretty much covered it in our last two Marley's Mellow Mood reviews.

For some reason last night I was wide awake at 2am. I tossed and turned for a little bit, until it hit me that I had this stashed away in the back of the fridge. As if here was an imaginary sign on it that said, "Crack open in case of emergency." Glug. Glug. Glug. A couple minutes later I was back in bed under the warmth of my comforter. Since it takes a little while to kick in, I decided to read while I waited. Unfortunately (?) for me, the book was way interesting and I fought through the sleepiness so that I could find out what happened in the storyline. Hours later I finally decided I had to give in and I passed out instantly. Keep in mind that I could have passed out twenty minutes after I drank the can, but that damn book just made me stay up. I was possessed I tell you!

This is supposed to be a carbonated berry flavor, and there is a strong berry flavor when you sip it. The problem is that the berry is quickly washed out by an aftertaste of fennel (which is not listed in the ingredients). I am not a fan of fennel by any means. I do enjoy a visit from its brother-in-law anise in my root beer, but I normally just can't do fennel. I was able to handle it in this. I made it through the can without being completely grossed out. The fruit flavor made it not as strong, and eased my tongue into it. I'm going to stick with the citrus variety myself, but if fennel is your thing I think you would love this.

There are so many Pacific teas with so many similar tastes. When a company does something well, they should stick to what they know. Pacific knows how to make a really good lightly sweetened tea drink. My hat off to them. They use high quality green tea leaves. Brew it up. Add a little organic fruit juice. Throw in a dash of cane juice, and call it a day. It's mostly tea with just a hint of fruit. It's great and it's consistent. Although I have enjoyed every flavor I've tried, every time I'm about to try a new one I find myself hoping that the fruit flavor is just a little bit stronger than the last one. I should just be grateful that there is a great tea out there that's not full of obscene amounts of sugar. So Pacific, my teeth and health thank you. My dentist and doctor do not.