Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

Let's cut to the chase. There is far too much garbage in the food that we consume. We ingest so much junk that we would never even consider putting in our mouths if we saw it in its true form and not mixed in with our food. Hell, there are a whole bunch of ingredients that are allowed in food in the US that are completely banned in other parts of the world. We are poisoning ourselves, and for the most part we don't care. I know I eat tons of this junk without even thinking about it. It's just easier to be ignorant, or force yourself not to think about it. Will I die sooner because of it? Probably, but do I really want to be around when I'm 80+ years old? I'm less than half of that now and I don't know what to do with my time.

Okay, I went off on a death tangent. My point is that there is a cubic buttload of unnecessary ingredients in food that are more than likely harmful. We tend to think that they are there for a purpose, but then a drink like this comes around and proves you wrong. This lemonade soda is simply carbonated water, sugar and lemon (juice, fruit and flavoring). It has a decent shelf life and it tastes great. So what is the point of all the other junk companies use? This tastes like homemade lemonade that was put in a Soda Stream. It tastes like lemons and that is all I could ask for from this. This will not kill me, well unless I get diabetes from the sugar, but that's a different death altogether.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have a question that I would like to pose to all of you; who are these drinks for? I'm not trying to be a jerk; I just really want to know. Who are all of the people who are buying and consuming flavored sparkling waters that are sweetened with zero calorie sweeteners? I have never witnessed anyone buy anything like this, let alone drink it. There must be market though because there are a decent amount of companies making them, and you can find them all over the place, where they are not covered in decades of dust. In my experience when someone is looking to drink a diet beverage it's usually a Diet Coke. I have seen countless numbers of them being consumed across the country. Never once have a watched anyone drink one of these though. Are Americans ashamed that they enjoy these and they purchase/consume them in secret? Do they hide them in the center of their shopping cart so that they can surround them with other groceries so that their fellow shoppers are none the wiser?

My opinion on it is if you're looking to drink sparkling water and are watching your calories, just grab a seltzer. Of course who is going to listen to me though? Very few people that is who. Would I ever purchase this drink? No, but I am not the intended consumer. I can't get down with the taste of sucralose. This is actually right at the cusp of the proportion of sucralose to the intended flavor of a beverage. While I wouldn't buy this, I will drink it since it was given to me. I don't hate it, but it's certainly not my favorite. It has a decent strawberry taste that fade into a little lemon flavor. Both of which are combating the chemical taste of the sweetener.

I understand this is made for a certain demographic, and it must sell to them. I'm just not sure who they are.

Okay, let's see…€¦Shoes? Check. Bowtie? Check. Spats? Check. Cumberbund? Check. Coat w/ tails? Check. Oh and I almost forgot the top hat to round it out. There, now that I am dressed in the fanciest clothes I could possibly wear I am prepared to drink this bottle of Frisa. Since I won't ever be drinking champagne in my lifetime I think it is safe to say that this is the fanciest beverage I will ever consume, and I might as well dress accordingly. It's imported, it's simple and it's wonderful.

I was surprised when I unwrapped the bottle that there was a twist off cap and not a cork. I mean there really was no need for a cork, but for the way I'm dressed it would have been nice. I can't really hold that against the company. They have everything else perfect, and I'm sure that would just be a hassle and ruin the drink somehow anyway. I want nothing to ruin this drink. I want a lifetime supply of it. If I could make the taps in my home flow with sparkling elderflower beverage I would die a happy man, and probably sooner than I would otherwise.

I really can't get over how much I enjoy this. It may be the best beverage we have ever reviewed. If not, it is certainly in the top 3. It's sweet and floral in all the right ways. Nothing about this is like sucking on a perfume bottle. It's a totally different beast in the best possible way. I really don't know when the last time was that my taste buds were this happy. This is simply perfect. I expected the price tag to be much higher than it is as well. $10/bottle is not bad at all, especially for the magic you are receiving. I am going to insist that any fancy event I attend from here on out serves me this. If they turn me down I will just refuse to go. That is how much this means to me.

Now my bottle is empty. I feel like a glutton for consuming so much, and I feel ridiculous sitting at my computer in full formal wear, but yes, it was worth it.

Just Chill is quickly falling into the category of drinks that I wish didn't have an intended purpose, because I just like the way they taste. There are times in my life when it's probably not appropriate to chill, but does that mean I should be deprived of delicious beverages?

When most drinks are named something citrus it's a pretty safe bet that orange or pineapple is going to be your forerunning flavors. This is not the case here though. This drink is chock full of lime that actually tastes like limes and I love it. There is a weird hint of lemongrass too. It threw me for a bit but after a few sips I was glad that it was there. I think I detect a slight amount of mint as well, but that could just be my taste buds dreaming of mojitos.

Something that sets Just Chill apart from other relaxation drinks is the exclusion of melatonin and valerian root. As a result you can just calm yourself without falling asleep. I swear the first time I had a Marley Mood I wasn't ready for it and I thought I was going to fall asleep in traffic. There is no fear of that with these drinks. They are simply delicious and calming, just as advertised.

The most important thing that I learned from this soda was that during the 50's in Wisconsin either bread was really expensive, or the mark up on soda pop was very low. The bottle tells a story of how the founder of Twigs would sell a case of soda and use the money he made to by a loaf of bread for his family. With modern production methods you can get a case of cans for more than double what a loaf of bread costs. Taking into consideration the time he put into it and the cost of the bottles that is some crazy math. Who knows maybe wheat was hard to come by in WI during that time. Maybe there was a yeast shortage. All we know is that Twig provided for his family and we applaud him for that.

I was hoping that this would be a lime soda that actually tasted like the green little pieces of citrus, but alas like most sodas this flavor it tastes like melted green freeze pops. Luckily for us there is not that harshness that comes along with that particular confection. Kids would love this, but it doesn't really have a place in my life. It may be the only lime soda I have ever had that uses cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup though, so that's something. I wonder if I could still buy this with bread.

If you are like Mike and I, then you probably resemble a child more than an adult and you also probably don't have a taste for coffee, but you have an affinity for mocha drinks. Just think about how we, and yes I'm including you in this mix up, would love to put that delicious chocolate-ness in a better base. The sky is the limit my friends and that is just what REBBL is reaching for.

For this mocha elixir coffee has been thrown to the curb. In it's place we have a mixture of coconut milk, chicory root, carob, maca extract, vanilla extract, pink salt, quillaja extract and stevia. I'm not ashamed to admit that I am a big dumb-dumb head and I assumed that maca was the same thing as macha, which it definitely is not. I thought this was going to be a chocolate green tea of sorts, but that it is not. Maca is actually a root vegetable that is known to enhance vitality, stamina and energy. I don't think that I can even taste the maca, but it's doing its job. Actually, besides from the ridiculously great chocolate flavor most of what I get is the coconut. It tastes a bit like toasted coconut but it's not too overpowering, which is great because I can't stand toasted coconut, and I can still love this beverage. I also get a bit of chicory, which I can only distinguish because I was forced to drink coffee in New Orleans where this root is mixed in with the beans. It, and I'm assuming the maca, give this elixir a nice earthy rooty undertone without distracting from the chocolate. Oh the chocolate, how we love you. How perfect you are.

My first thought when I went to drink this was, “Awesome, another company is using the bottle can hybrid design, and I love it.” The second thing I thought was “What the hell is levulose?” I can't remember where I picked this up, but there was a good chance it was from some strange bodega somewhere in the middle of America, or an Asian market so the origin of the what I assumed to be a sweetener was up in the air. The top of the can/bottle doesn't have any recycling info and just says “Please don't litter. Dispose of properly.” Something about that didn't put mea t ease either. I did learn that it was made is Las Vegas by actually reading the small print. See reading does make life better.

After all of that I still did not know a thing about levulose, so I took to the internet. I have no idea how I have never heard of it before because it is a monosaccharide that is found in honey and fruit. It is also known as fruit sugar. You would think something like that would make cherry flavored water great, but something went horribly wrong. It tastes like a new version of diet. It doesn't taste like sucralose, aspartame or even stevia but it still has a strange “off” taste to it that if I didn't know any better I might claim was someone trying to poison me.

I had expected it to me a lighter flavored beverage, but it's more like someone took a can of cherry pop and mixed it evenly with a bottle of unflavored seltzer. Well that and that weird not quite diet taste I mentioned earlier. I can appreciate companies trying new things, but sometimes they just don't land correctly.

Is it fair to judge this beverage against other ginger beers when it is meant to be a mixer? I mean it's pretty much just regular old ginger beer with a different marketing scheme behind it. Stoli is a Russian vodka company that is trying to sell the “Moscow Mule” with this beverage. If you don't know (like I didn't) that is vodka, ginger beer and lime juice mixed. Alcoholics prefer vodka when they are trying to be sneaky right? I think I remember that from some television show. I think it had something to do with it not making your breath smell. Either way, if you're going to be a sneaky alcoholic you might as well get some good flavor out of it and a Moscow Mule sounds like it would be delicious, minus the whole vodka thing (I will never understand the allure of the taste of alcohol).

The thing is that I don't think this stands up to other ginger beers. It has a nice ginger flavor, but only the most minimal of burns, which if we're being honest is one of the best parts of this specific soda type. There is also something in it that at first I thought was a zero calorie sweetener, but then realized it was salt. I don't know why it's in here as it has no place in soda. Perhaps it's part of the Mule mix, but if that were the case why wouldn't this be lime ginger beer? Speaking of, now I really want a bottle of that. It sounds delicious. The sale though…€¦yeah it's a bit distracting.

This is good on its own, but not in regards to other ginger beers. I'm sure it would work just perfectly for its intended mixer function. I will never find out though.

There are a whole mess of zero calorie, sweetened sparkling waters on the market. While that statement is a fact this may be the only one who's name isn't a reference to ice or being frozen. So for that, I thank you Claire Baie. Those names irrationally drove me crazy. Another difference is that this beverage has some juice in it, and as a result it is better than the rest, even though it is still sweetened with sucralose.

Oh how I wish this wasn't sweetened with sucralose. I understand it's a drink with a purpose, but tasting it I can tell how great this could have been. Actually, if they wanted to keep it zero calories they should have just forgone the sweetener altogether. I probably would have loved it that way. As it stands it's not horrible and is on the better side of the sucralose scale. It really tastes like berries and the diet taste is a bit hidden under that. It still has that coldness, which the other companies base their names off of. That coldness is simply not for me, but for what this is and compared to its contemporaries it's a clear winner.

I've been duped again. I see a larger bottle labeled “sparking water” and my mind goes to seltzer. I think, “Oh, this will be good to drink at band practice” only to take a sip and realize that it is sweetened with sucralose. This is the third or fourth time this has happened to me over the past year, and you'd think that I would learn to just look at the ingredients. Maybe I just like living on the edge. Maybe I crave the danger and excitement to breathe life into my veins. Maybe I am just dumb and I keep forgetting.

If this were a seltzer it would have a nice cherry flavor that doesn't resemble medicine too much. I would have been perfectly content with it. As it stands it is more diet than cherry, and that bodes well for no one.

I just thought to myself, “Who could ever drink all of this in one sitting?” Then I realized that it's meant for multiple servings. Yup, I was right at the end. I am in fact dumb.

You know how you get served a giant mound of pancakes and you pour that golden syrup all over it to give it a nice sticky sweetness that you love so much? Oh you do, well can you explain it to me because I think that it is disgusting. In fact I eat my pancakes completely dry. That's right, not even butter gets spread on my cakes. I'm sure that second fact makes me look like a sociopath of some sort, but I simply do not like syrup.

I've given many maple flavored products a chance over the years and they simply don't do it for me. When I picked this up I thought to myself, “Well, I have to do it.” Lucky for me I only get the faintest, if any, maple flavor in this bottle of root beer. Actually the most notable thing about this soda is that it may be the crispest root beer I have ever tried. It's like someone took a regular root beer and an unflavored soda that was pure crispness and mixed equal parts and put just the tiniest dab of maple syrup in it. The result is that even the root beer flavor isn't very strong, but it's there enough to be pleasant.

This is a different type of soda, and I can appreciate it for that, but if anyone got this and was excited to get some maple flavor they would be sorely disappointed.

Izze has expanded their grasp and now they have a line of “sparkling water beverages,” which is kind of just code for seltzer water. At least it would be if they didn't add just a touch of sugar (2g per bottle). It's a good marketing strategy. A lot of people are turned off when they hear the word seltzer, and when people see a drink is only 10 calories and it doesn't have stevia, erythritol, sucralose or any of those other guys in there I feel like they would be more likely to grab one.

It tastes like seltzer with the dryness rolled back just a little. I get a berry flavor, but no pear. There is a weird grain-esque aftertaste that I do not understand at all. Do pears taste like barley in some world that I am not a part of? It gives it a strange twist, but it's one of those flavors that you quickly become acclimated to and no longer notice.

What we have here is a beverage with an identity problem. It knows what it is as a beverage, but not where it's from. It most certainly is a sparkling blood orange juice with sugar added. That is obvious from one delicious taste of the bitter fruit whose edge has been taken off by something sweet. What of its origins? The bottle says that it is a product of Italy, the website says that it is from the UK, and yet I found it in a run of the mill grocery store in Lansing, MI of all places. Where does It's story start, and will it come to an end in Michigan? I can safely answer “no” to that as I traveled with it through Canada back to Buffalo, NY, where I consumed it. It's a drink of the world, and you can enjoy it wherever you happen to be.

Sometimes in life you just want a nice cold bottle of cream soda. When the vanilla hits your taste buds, sometimes it's just what you need. It's not often that I get these cravings, but when I do, it feels so good to have that itch scratched. When an descriptor is added to a soda flavor that you don't normally hear, it intrigues me. When I read “dark cream” my mind wandered to two places. A soda that is very intensely vanilla and secondly, and more probably a cream soda that is heavy on caramel. I didn't quite get either. Actually I'm not sure what exactly is making this cream soda dark. It's actually a little light on the vanilla and there is an aftertaste that I cannot place. That unknown flavor may actually be stronger than the vanilla. I find it distracting, but it could be one of those things that once someone tells me what it is, it will all make sense and I will enjoy it more. Right now, it's just not doing much for me.

There is a hierarchy in the world of sparkling beverages. Much like in karate you have to go on a “journey” and complete tasks in order to reach the next tier. Wait, do you have to perform certain tasks to move onto the next belt in karate, or does it just depend on the amount of time you spend in the classes? I mean what if you have a natural talent and within the first month you can just destroy everyone in class, but show the reserve not to, do you move up the belt ranks faster? Let's just say you need to work for it and gain wisdom to move up.

You start off as a child and someone puts a garbage cup of pop in front of you. It's insanely sweet because it's full of high fructose corn syrup. You're little mind and taste buds aren't developed enough, so you think it's the greatest thing in the world. Any brand, any flavor they are all incredible to you. As time goes on you decide you prefer certain flavors and certain brands just taste better. Look at you, you've gained a new color belt. Later on in life you discover that soda sweetened with cane sugar is far superior to that with HFCS and you don't' really want to touch the garbage stuff anymore. Level up my friend. Before you know it you're an adult and your tastes have continued to evolve. Before you know it you find yourself saying things like, “Oh no thanks that is just too sweet for me.” You'll get a can of soda and drink half of it at most. You realize that there is something to flavored seltzer water and that it calms your craving for carbonation without making you feel like garbage. As you don your new imaginary soda belt you think to yourself, “This is it. I've finally reached adulthood.” You may not realize it but there is another belt. That belt is called tonic and bitters, and I for one am not quite there yet. Maybe I will when I'm in my 50's as it took me 35 years to accept seltzer as my lord and savior. Perhaps when I reach a half century on this planet I will raise a glass of bitters take a sip and say, “This certainly hits the spot, and I can die peacefully now because I know tranquility.” All of the meditation in the world cannot get you to the place of inner peace that you reach when you let tonic and bitters into your life. It is the true enlightenment, or so I can only imagine.

I hope to someday reach the final belt, but until then I will just have to sip these drinks and wonder desperately what it is about them that is alluring. I don't hate them, but I don't think I really enjoy them either. If you take a sip of this and don't breathe out it's like you're drinking a nice white peach seltzer. The fruit flavor is soft and light. It's pleasant. Then you exhale and the bitterness sets in. That aftertaste is so specific and strange to me. I will someday comprehend and enjoy it, or I will have failed as a Thirsty Dude.

Drink this in. I received a case of Just Chill in the mail. I excitedly put a couple in the fridge to cool down and then went about my day. The next morning I am woken up by my ladyfriend who is crying hysterically because she fell down the stairs. I somehow assumed the role of decent boyfriend and jumped to make sure that she was not seriously hurt. I mean I'm not a monster, but after discovering that no real harm had been done I could see myself going back to sleep. I did not play the part of the jerk that day and I consoled her, as she was really shook up. She was pretty worked up, as any normal human being would be after tumbling down a full set of stairs at 7am. I really, really wanted to have her drink one of these to help calm her nerves, but as soon as the thought crossed my mind I instantly knew that if I uttered the phrase, “You should drink a Just Chill” all she would hear is the word chill and assume I was telling her she needed to chill out. In hindsight I should have just gone and grabbed her a can, but it was early and I am part monster, and the warm bed won out. Eventually she calmed down and went to work and I did the same. It's a longwinded story, but the fact is that these drinks do what they are supposed to and it actually would have been appropriate for her to drink one at that time. I feared getting stabbed so I didn't' bring it up. No one likes to be stabbed.

In addition to their functionality these drinks really do taste great. They do the whole mixture of sugar (crystalline fructose) and stevia thing to keep calories low, but retain a decent taste. I don't know how they do it, but I would never guess that stevia was involved at all just by the flavor. I have not ruled out sorcery. Rio Berry is light, but realistically fruity. I appreciate a beverage that actually tastes like berries and not artificial garbage that we are told taste like fruit.

Yes, it is January. Yes, it is cold and snowy. Yes, it is the time of year when people get sick. No, Voodoo Donuts no longer serves donuts that have cough syrup mixed in with the jelly. Yes, I think that is a great idea if not abused. Finally, no, I do not want my cherry soda to taste like cold medicine.

I often wonder if I would find such distaste in this version of cherry flavoring if it wasn't for medicine. Has it always been a gross flavor, or has it become tainted in our minds because we associate it with being sick. I guess it doesn't really matter because with every sip of this I feel like I should be swaddled in blankets blowing my nose.

There is a wide variety of flavors that have been called cherry in the world. Most cherry sodas gravitate towards one of those extremes. Baumeister tried to take things in a different direction and while I think that is great they took a wrong turn and ended up at Medicinal Blvd. We're looking for Fruit St here people. How hard is it to have a soda taste like the actual fruit it is named after?

We live in a world where there is a bear in New Jersey that just walks around erect on its hind legs all of the time. It's not someone in a costume; it's just the coolest bear ever. It's just a matter of time until more bears adopt this mode of conveyance and that will most certainly lead to bears riding skateboards, as seen on this can. This portrayal of our furry friend is the peak coolness that any bear could hope to achieve. It makes sense that it should adorn the can of one of the best ginger beers I have tasted in a long time.

Now I love a good burn in my ginger beer, which you may know as I never shut up about it. This soda has somehow surpassed that love of mine. There is definitely some heat to this drink, but it's more on the mild side and it does not overpower the actual delicious flavor of this soda. There is a ridiculous amount of ginger flavor in here with some burn at the end. It's very, very good and the kicker is that this is “cheap” soda in Scotland. The cans are like 40p each. If I lived there it wouldn't just be the deep fried everything that would make me fat.

I'm deep in the forest. The forest is actually a swamp. The swamp is actually made up of soda. I want to enjoy this experience and get lost in it all, but there is a problem. The problem is monk fruit. I don't know how it actually grows, but for the sake of this review it is covering the surface of the swamp a la cranberries. This is causing a problem because for the life of me I can't get past the monk fruit to figure out if this is a cherry cola, or just a plain ole' cherry soda. I'm pretty sure it's cherry cola, but nothing on the cane denotes that. I'm not sure if it's the taste of the monk fruit that is giving it a quasi-taste of cola, or if that flavor is distracting from the pure cola taste. This soda is floating in some weird dream state limbo where it doesn't know what it wants to be. I can't say that I really enjoyed it, but at the same time I also did not dislike it. It is low in sugar, thus low in calories, which more likely than not is going to put it at some sort of disadvantage taste wise. I really just want to know what the flavor is supposed to be. I feel like that would make it easier to form a more solid opinion.

Getting older is a strange thing. Your priorities change, well sometimes, and even your tastes evolve. Less than 10 years ago I was an adult by any cultures standards. I was 26, I lived in an apartment, I supported myself and I did what I wanted. It just happens that what I apparently wanted to do was drink obscene amounts of iced tea. The thing is that what I was drinking was more sugar water than tea, and the fact that I am not obese with some disease and shocking. On an average day I would say I drank more Arizona tall boys than I am comfortable admitting. Those days are long gone though. I would have to struggle to get through one full can of Arizona at this point, and my drink of choice is unsweetened iced tea that I brew at home.

Bigelow understands this and believes that it's ”about time tea drinkers had that home brewed tea experience in a bottle.” Now I always assumed that Arizona and Bigelow were connected in some way because of their similar bottles, but the 5 seconds of research I just did provided me with no info to back that up. Whether they are or not, doesn't matter, but this bottle of tea is definitely far closer to what I brew at home than a tallboy of Arizona. This actually tastes like tea and not the sugary goodness that youth craves. There is about half the amount of sugar in this that what I used to drink. It kind of tastes like what sweet tea would be if you made it with green tea (and a little less sugar). It's nice to still have a touch of the bitterness from the tea. The mango and lychee flavors are both there and identifiable, with the lychee being the stronger of the two, but neither of them take away from the green tea taste and pair nicely with it.

I wish I would have jut accepted beverages like this as superior when I was younger. It would have saved me from a lot of dumb calorie consumption.