Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

There are two types of cola in the world. The first is “cola,” which includes products such as Coke and Pepsi and it is the taste most people associate with this work. The other is “kola” and there are different ingredients at work, which leads to a slightly earthier taste. If you're into the whole craft soda thing, this is probably what you crave. It's not just one general taste. There are different elements at work and you can make them out separately in the taste. Don't get me wrong there are many times in my life where a Coke is exactly what I need to hit the spot, but more often than not I would prefer something like this.

Kola Nut is slightly bitter and gives the whole beverage a unique flavor. It tastes special, and that more care was put into your beverage. In my head small batches of Caleb's Kola are brewed and carbonated and it's not just a syrup that is added to sparkling water. If this were just a tad bit darker tasting, it would be perfect. As it is I still enjoy it to a great extent and I wish more companies would follow in their footsteps.

Part of me wants to trash this for being glorified carbonated sugar water and part of me wants to praise it for being a smallish local company (Detroit) that is still putting out soda in glass bottles that is sweetened with cane sugar. The thing is that this is neither terrible nor great. It simply falls in the grey area of life. Towne Club gets some points for making a strawberry melon soda, but the execution could be better. It tastes so sweet that it makes it hard to decipher the different fruit flavors. I was certainly not able to drink even half of this bottle. Saying I drank a third of it is being generous. I'm sure there is someone out there who loves this and swears by it. I can only assume that same person devours Pixie Stix and Sweet Tarts all day long. They also most definitely live in Michigan. No one outside the mitten can have that much love for this soda.

By naming their company Americana are they insinuation that that their products are artifacts of American history? Are these sodas a glimpse into our nation's past? If so, we've had one hell of a history of soda, because this is ridiculously delicious. Fruit sodas are a tough sell for me. They rarely turn out correctly and mostly taste like sugar water that is flavored nothing like fruit at all. This tastes distinctively like berries and I'm not talking about those of the straw-, rasp- or even blue- varieties. This is pure huckleberry, or so I'll assume as I don't think I've ever had the fruit in its natural form. It doesn't taste artificial at all, but rather like someone carbonated juice and added a bit of cane sugar. Sure it's fairly sweet, but some sodas call for that. If only America still tasted like this instead of like racism and hate I wouldn't feel so disgusting all the time. Okay I would still feel gross from consuming too much, but I wouldn't feel as bad.

I knew I was in for a wild ride when I didn't even have this cap completely off and I was blasted in the face by the familiar sent of anise/licorice. How is it that I hate black licorice/black jelly beans more than I have hated almost anything in this world, yet I kind of dig that flavor when it's in beverage form? Sure this tastes a bit like carbonated Nyquil, but it's still somehow pretty great.

There really isn't anything about this that would make me think sarsaparilla if I blind taste tested it. I would just assume it was supposed to be an anise soda, because that's all I'm getting. Perhaps sarsaparilla is something different in Australia, where this drink comes from.

This bottle is only 9.3oz, but I think it would be perfect at half that size. I really enjoy it, but it gets to be a bit too much for me at about the half way point. I really hope I stumble across this companies other flavors though, because I anticipate great things from them.

This, this was a pleasant surprise. I've been sitting on it awhile and I thought it was a boring old lemon soda. You know, the kind that only vaguely tastes like lemon and mainly tastes like sugar. At best I was hoping it would taste like a carbonated lemonade, since it's 4% real lemon juice. It was none of those things. Instead what I got was a boring seltzer water with lemon juice in it, which as it turns out isn't all that boring and rather tasty.

I find lemon water unnecessary. I'm the jerk that requests no lemon in my water when I go out to eat. I prefer plain old water. I love water; I don't need to spice it up with a fruit that has generally been ruined by household cleaners. Something about this is quite nice though. It thankfully doesn't taste like something I used to polish my furniture. It tastes like go ordered a plain seltzer and then instead of squeezing a single slice of lemon that was cut four hours ago into it, you grabbed one of those squeeze bottles that looks like the fruit and pressed it for longer than you are recommended to. Sometimes I look back on what I've been drinking lately and I don't recognize that man reflected in my glass anymore.

Things I've recently learned about myself include the fact that if you make a coffee drink “Mexican” I will probably love it. Generally that means adding cinnamon and chilies to it. I also think of it as having to do with chocolate since my first forays into it were with Mexican hot chocolate. This does not have chocolate. Actually it doesn't have chilies either. That doesn't stop it from being amazing though. What it does contain is high quality cold brewed coffee, cane sugar, vanilla, almond and cinnamon. The results are flat out fantastic. It's one of the best coffee beverages I have ever tasted. Even with all of the added ingredients the coffee is still the main flavor, and it's smooth and delicious. The other things are just icing on an already delicious cake. There is something about this that makes me think of a drink from when I was younger, but I can't put my finger on what that drink is. I know it's the cinnamon that's pointing me in that direction though. While you could drink this at any point in the day, it would be perfect as a dessert beverage.

What exactly does the year 1922 have to do with ginger ale? A quick google search came up with nothing but a couple of ads that came out that year. Wikipedia tells me that ginger ale existed in a marketable form for decades before that. Perhaps, since this is a sugary beverage, they chose 1922 to celebrate the first successful insulin treatment of diabetes. Okay I dug deeper and it turns out that 1922 was the year that College Club Beverages (the company that makes Fiz) opened its soda streams. That makes more sense. Since I couldn't find any info, I'm guessing that ginger ale was one of, if not the first flavor they produced.

This is a nice little soda. It's sweet, but not in the “this is 99% sugar water and 1% flavor” way. It tastes like a fairly standard modern ginger ale. You don't actually taste the earthiness of the root, or the spice, but there is no mistaking that it's ginger ale.

So here we are, two for five with Sotea. Most of these flavors don't really work. Carbonating tea is always a crapshoot, and more likely than not turns out less than stellar. The same thing can be said for putting mint in drinks. I don't really want my drink to taste like I just brushed my teeth or I'm chewing gum while drinking it. Somehow this Mojito Mist beat both of those odds and is actually pretty darn good. It launches past acceptable into really enjoyable territory.

While I've never had a real mojito, every virgin version of one that I have drunk has been great. There is something about lime that counteracts the weirdness of mint and makes it acceptable for it to exist in beverage form. Neither are overly strong and blend together into a new uber flavor. The tea in this tastes a little weird, but it works with the lime and the mint. This is one unusual soda, but I find myself with an empty bottle wishing that there was more. That doesn't happen often these days.

Do you identify with the majority of Americans who ingest far too much sugar, but find it hard to give up soda pop? Do you just crave the bubbles, but seltzer doesn't taste right to you? At the same time do you think that artificial sweeteners are just the worst? I was once where you are friend. I wanted out of the sugar game, but I had my vices. For me the change came in the form of Polar vanilla seltzer. It bridged a gap for me and led me down a path where I drink an abundance of seltzer, to a point where I had to look it up if it was bad for me. I understand that this might not be the gateway beverage for everyone, but I have good news. Izze is here to hold your hand while you eliminate a lot of sugar from your diet, at least of the soda variety. Their Sparkling Water line is essentially seltzer water with 2g of sugar added. I know what you're thinking; 2g is not a lot when a can of Coke has 39g. The thing is that it's just enough to give a faint hint of sweetness and overpower the weirdness of seltzer and help you acclimate yourself to it.

This actually tastes sweet to me. I don't know if it's because I don't drink much sugar these days, or if it would taste like that to anyone. Would Coke taste sweet enough with only 1/3 of the sugar they use? I would really like to taste Coke with different levels of sugar and see where it really needs to fall. I feel like the current amount it a bit extreme. Whatever the case may be with that, I think there is enough sugar in here for anyone to enjoy. Then once their body gets used to the lower sugar content they can ween off of it. I know that's probably not the Izze plan, as they need to maintain sales, but it's probably for the betterment of our countries health. Hell, people could just stay with these instead of normal sodas and I bet the effects would be astounding.

Did I mention at some point in my tirade that it also tastes great? I don't really get much watermelon, but it has a nice berry flavor. It's light, due to the lack of sugar, but it's just where I want it to be. Nothing is disguising it and that is how I like things. Low sugar, great taste. It's like a 90's beer ad.

Towne Club started selling soda in the 60's and it was the prime rival to Faygo, decades before it was coopted by the clowns. I did not know that, but Wikipedia just informed me and I always have more respect for such long running companies. Sure, the company has changed hands throughout the years, but it's still bottled in burnt out Detroit. Do people in Detroit get upset when people talk about how their city is falling apart? I've been there many times and it is certainly one of, if not the most, run down cities I have ever been too, and I travel to a lot of garbage places. Oh well, I hope they have pride in their city. The crappiness of Buffalo is what made me love it and I kind of hate that it's starting to become nice, because it's taking away the things I loved about the city. Maybe the denizens of Detroit feel the same way. They can live cheaply, so they can do what they want with their lives and not be tethered to a job struggling to make rent. It could also just be a terrifying place to live. I have no idea.

I will say they have some decent local sodas. As an adult it would be very rare that I would reach for one of these, but in my younger years when I craved all the sugar I could get, I would have loved it. It's slightly fruity cream soda that reminds me of the pink Crush cream soda (soda mousse) in Canada. I loved that as a teenager, so logic follows that I would have loved this as well. This is mostly sugar flavored, but there is enough of a “cream soda” taste that shines through to make it interesting. It's nothing mind blowing, but it's a local soda made with cane sugar with a wide variety of flavors in a classic looking bottle. I can get behind those things.

I love grocery stores. I don't really know why, but when I'm traveling I love stopping in at local stores and different chains. Even when I don't need anything I just like wandering around in them. I live in the land of Wegmans, so it's hard to beat what I have at home, but I still enjoy the differences of other stores. I've always been a fan of Kroger. Their stores look pretty standard, but they generally carry some different and decent stuff, especially for vegetarians. I recently was told about their new Private Selection line and I couldn't wait until I was back in their territory to check it out. It is their fancy store brand stuff. They call it artisanal. I call it delicious, well at least this soda.

Some other things that I greatly enjoy besides supermarkets are huckleberry and hibiscus. I used to be a big fiend for cream soda in high school as well, even though I don't drink it too much these days. Actually I guess I drink the adult version of it every day in the way of drinking Polar's vanilla seltzer. This soda took three things I am a fan of and mixed them together into something that is greater as a whole. Real fruit juice is used and the cream soda doesn't taste even remotely cheap. The huckleberry and hibiscus mix together nicely leaving only the faintest tinges of floral. This all interacts with the vanilla in a way that couldn't be better.

The fact that this is as good as it is and is a store brand is kind of a game changer. Sure, it does have a higher price (I think it was $5 for a 4-pack), but it's on the cheap side of the quality that you receive. I do warn you that once you try this there is a chance you will never look at another cream soda the same way again.

I want someone to pull a prank on me. I want to order a nice cold lemonade and have one of my friends slip this shot into the mix. They will smile as they hand me the glass, stifling a giggle, but the joke will actually be on them because this could do nothing but improve any lemonade. Normally I'm not a huge fan of lemon (well except in perfect lemonade), it just seems like a boring flavor, but it always pairs perfectly with ginger, and boy oh boy is this some ginger. This is the most intense of the shots that we were sent. The sourness of the lemon somehow enhances the burn and I can't take a sip without making a ridiculous face, and I love every second of it. It is so, so sour. I'm making that cartoon puckered lip face that you see on lemon products that don't actually do that to you. This does it. This makes you pucker. I want to give this to Mike's soon and see how he responds. He'll probably hate me. Eh You win some you lose some.

When Mellow Mood first came out there were insane. I almost died because I didn't know how strong they were and I drank one before a twenty minute drive home. Shortly thereafter they apparently changed the formula and lowered the effective dosage. I no longer feared going from completely awake to asleep in a few short minutes, but they definitely relaxed me and helped me to get to sleep on many a restless night. My brain tends to go into overdrive sometimes and when that happens my chances of organically falling asleep are slim. Mellow Mood allowed me to have following days that weren't completely miserable due to lack of sleep. It was a lifesaver.

Now there's a new can, and kind of new flavors (there was a light version of this available in the past), but this can did not have the same effect on me as they have in recent times. I'm afraid they changed the formulation again and it no longer works the way I want it to. I blame the lack of melatonin. I ended up lying in bed all night and I remember light creeping around my curtains before I finally fell asleep. I really hope this is still available in the old formula because this simply won't do. I mean this is really delicious, but that was never a problem with these drinks. It tastes like a perfect Arnold Palmer with a little bit of raspberry mixed in. I still don't know what that has to do with Bob Marley, but I love the way it tastes. I just wish it still helped me get to sleep.

If your company makes an apple soda, it's more than likely that you are doing it all wrong. Chances are you have loaded it with sugar, or even worse, tried to make it sour apple. You needn't bother my friends. There are only two ingredients needed for an apple soda and they are apple juice and sparkling water. I mean you could probably directly carbonate the juice and it would turn out just as good. The people at Apple Rush are smart folks. They know that sometimes people crave carbonation, but at the same time they don't need loads of added sugar (there are 36g of sugar in this bottle, but it's all from the fruit directly).

This is fantastic. It tastes like high quality apple juice with bubbles in it. Why would anyone need anything else out of an apple soda? I mean sure maybe you want to throw some other fruit in there, or perhaps some spices, but if you're looking for straight up apple pop, look no further. I'm going to come close to guaranteeing that you won't find a company who does it better.

Spindrift has been good to me. For the past five years I have enjoyed their sparkling beverages with no added sugar. At first they proved to me that soda can exist in a delicious way without being full of sweetener. Then they were a gateway for me to start enjoying seltzer, which I drink constantly now. I thank them for helping keep me on a healthy track. I didn't always have their products available to me in Buffalo, but because of them I found other companies that filled the void. I cut a ton of soda out of my diet, and transitioned to drinking a lot of unsweetened iced tea.

Now it's summer and it's the most humid it's ever been in Buffalo (not an exaggeration, records have been broken). The heat is nearly unbearable, but I have my beverages to help me get through it, which I promptly sweat out.

I love watermelon, but I never get it for some reason. It's probably due to laziness, or maybe it's because eating it outside of a picnic/beach type scenario seems off. I was excited for this drink. It's in their sparkling water line and not the seltzer one because there is juice added to the sparkling water and that leads to a whopping 3g of sugar. This is the first time Spindrift has really left me wanting. Overall this would be great, except for one thing. The watermelon tastes more like the rind than it does the red mushy fruit part. I don't know if they just ground up the whole melon, but it's not really what I'm looking for when I think of watermelon. It's not horrible, but I wanted something different that they did not deliver. Oh well, one misstep does not ruin a company for me and I will continue to enjoy their other products.

Who doesn't love the most refreshing beverage in the universe, vinegar? You douse your French fries in it. You use it to color Easter eggs. You use it as a cleaning agent. Sometimes when you don't shower for a week you smell like a combination of it and old onions. Wait, vinegar is horrible and I never want to ingest it outside of it being used in salsa. It's actually one of my most hated flavors and many a food has been ruined by it, yet here I am consciously drinking a bottle of it. The things I do for Thirsty Dudes.
When you first take a sip of this a wonderful honey and cinnamon taste washes through your mouth. I thought, holy crap this is actually really, really good. It tastes very natural and I can't believe I'm enjoyi…€¦. Before I could finish my thought the vinegar was there, ruining the party like it always does. I had other people try this and they said it was pretty mild and they enjoyed it. Me, as a sworn enemy of vinegar couldn't do more than a couple sips. I'll let my friend's enjoyment weigh on my rating though. If you don't mind vinegar then this is probably awesome. I mean the cinnamon flavor was possibly the best I've ever had in a beverage and the honey was quite good as well. I wish I could enjoy the rest of the ingredients, but nope, it's not for me. I'm sure it's super healthy though. People drink vinegar for health, right?

So here we are. We have finally completely the trifecta of drinks. When we first started Thirsty Dudes we stated that there were three drinks that were no longer in production that we wished we could get our hands on to review; Orbits (which we found be sold in Canada 14 years expired), Ecto Cooler (which got a re-release with the new movie being out), and now Crystal Pepsi is in our hands. Nostalgia for the 90's is high right now. I mean I snuck into an En Vogue concert last week in Michigan and alternative bands are on the rise once again. Pepsi knew that if there was ever going to be a time to bring this back it was now, and let me tell you, people are talking. Well, there is a slight murmur on the internet about it.

We shot a video of us drinking a bottle and discussing our thoughts on it. The conclusion is that is tastes like re-carbonated flat Pepsi with a hint of 7Up mixed in. It's odd, but still enjoyable. Sure the video cuts off after 5 minutes, and sure we probably kept rambling nonsense for five more without realizing it, but do you really need to hear more of us pretending we aren't awkward by pretending to be awkward?

Folks, I think this is it. I believe we have finally reached the bottom of our cache of Claire Baie beverages. I can't say it has all been enjoyable, but at least I went out with something pleasant.
It's in the mid 90's now and it's so humid that you can feel the air move when you walk through it. It's kind of disturbing, and it really, really just needs to rain to get all of the water out of the air. I wonder how much of the humidity is just from people's sweat? Ugh, that's gross. How much of the moisture you feel in the air is other human's grossness? I needed to cool off and drink something cold and refreshing. What better beverage to fight the summer miserableness than lemonade? This is made with real sugar, and it is sweet. I really want this to taste like fresh strawberries squeezed into classic lemonade, and well about half of that came true. I would say it has a “strawberry” flavor, but it doesn't taste like perfectly ripe fruit. Most people would never complain about this, but I get picky. Regardless , it helped me pretend I was dehydrated from sweating so much, and it had a decent taste. I can't really complain. I'm sure you'll love it.

Whenever someone offers me a fruit flavored soda that I have never tried before this is what I secretly hope it will be like. I'm in my late 30's and I have no need for sparkly sugar water anymore. If I drank that stuff the way I used to I would be way overweight and feel like garbage all of the time. This though, this is the dream. This is just sparkling juice with no sugar added. The base is very much apple juice, which makes me wish it was autumn, well that and I'm sick of these obscenely humid 90+ degree days. So they start off with a sparkling apple juice, which would be great on its own, then they added a bunch of straight up blueberry juice, and sent the thing through the roof. When was the last time you had a blueberry beverage that actually tastes like you had a mouth full of berries instead of a mouthful of dumb candy? Like dry land (and dry air) delicious fruit sodas are not a myth. They can be found and are produced in Florida of all places. Oh man, I just imagined how humid it must be down there right now. How are there not mass suicides? My thoughts go out to you denizens of the south.

Around two o'clock today I started sneezing. By 4 o'clock my nose was stuffy. Come 6 o'clock I started to feel really weak. My question is who gets sick in August when it's 90+ degrees out? Apparently this guy right here, and it couldn't come at a worse time. In order to combat this illness I drank one of these Ginger Shots and I will probably drink a handful more over the next 24 hours. The way the ginger in these feels makes me think that it could destroy anything unhealthy in the body. I'm probably wrong, but I'll let the placebo effect run its course.
Out of all of the ones I've tried this one has the most non-ginger flavor to it. The apple in this is very pleasant and its flavor isn't completely decimated once the ginger takes over. They interweave with each other and I absolutely love it. The ginger still has a ridiculous burn that isn't for the faint of heart, but there is more flavor to this one than the others. Dare I say that this is perfection?