Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

It saddens me to say that I don't see this company lasting very long. I wish them nothing but a bright future, but I don't think America is ready for semi-sweet lemonade. Even health conscious people I know prefer their lemonade with a nice serving of sugar in it. This line of lemonades just doesn't meet the acceptable minimum sweetener that people are likely to embrace. Personally I enjoy it; it's nothing but water, lemon juice, Meyer lemon juice (a cross between a lemon and a mandarin), and evaporated cane juice, but it doesn't quite get me to where I want to go. I do appreciate the ever so faint orange taste from the Meyer lemon, but it's just not enough. As I have written about before I have preconceived notions when it comes to lemonade, and as much as I wish I could be satisfied with a lower sugar content, the junkie in me needs its fix.

Every time I drink one of these alertness beverages, Nawgan or other, I find myself wondering if there would be a time in my life when I would actually need one. I am long done with school; where this would have been greatly welcomed for late night study sessions. Okay who am I kidding I very rarely did school work outside of school, but I can see where kids would want this beverage for that. I have an accountant that does my taxes, due to my business, so I'm not going to be annoyingly trying to figure out what form mean. As much as I would like to pretend that I am at times, I'm certainly not an intellectual; logic rules my life. So where do such beverages fit into my life? The closest I can come to is when I'm figuring out how to play a bass line for a song, and that doesn't take too much concentration.

It looks like these drinks were not made for me in at current station in life. I do know many people who would benefit from them though. I wish I had something that I needed to concentrate on so I could have tested the true functionality of this, but as much as I think I felt more alert, it could have all been placebo.

I can write about the flavor though. This has a light strawberry kiwi flavor to it, and that is due to the fact that they thankfully did not go overboard with the sweetener. So many drinks of this flavor are so full of sugar that they taste like candy. This at least tastes minimally like fruit. The use of erythritol/stevia along with the cane sugar gives it a bit of that natural diet taste, but it's not very strong. The thing that will always through me for a loop with drinks in skinny cans is when they are not carbonated. I believe I've said that with each flavor of this I have tried, but I always expect bubbles, and when you don't get them it takes a bit to adjust. Flex your head.

I believe there is a point in every person who has somewhat working taste buds when milk chocolate loses its allure. Something about it isn't as magical as when you were younger. You don't exactly know what it is that has changed, but something is different and you are none too pleased. Then after decades of thinking it was gross and inferior you find yourself eating some dark chocolate and your love affair begins anew. You realize that this bitter, semi-sweet snack is what chocolate was meant to taste like and anything else is just a perversion of perfection. Christ, that sounds like some garbage white power rant there, but I assure you people and chocolate are two very different things.

After this metamorphosis in life whenever you see the words dark chocolate on a product and excitement builds. The thing is that the process of making dark chocolate into a liquid fit for drinking isn't quite the same as a version whose main ingredient is milk. It's very easy to lose the certain pizzazz that gives dark chocolate its allure, and I'm afraid Harvest Bay didn't quite capture it. There is still enjoyment to be had with this beverage, but it falls in a grey area where it doesn't quite taste like coconut water nor does it full taste like a chocolate drink. It's floating in an in-between realm where chocolate has a slightly fruity taste to it. I've been here before and I can tell you it's not where I want to be. For me it's either go heavy on the chocolate, or leave it out altogether.

When a beverage has pictures of honey combs all over it, as this one does, and it boasts to include organic honey, I expect a very, very strong honey flavoring to it. Actually I would be fine with a plain old very strong honey flavor to it. Unfortunately Purity Organic did not deliver. I went in expecting a thick, sticky tea and what I received was a pretty standard green tea with just a touch of honey added. I wanted them to go overboard with that particular ingredient, and it ended up being something that you could miss if you weren't looking for it. I still enjoyed the beverage, but I had high hopes that were not met. It tastes like a natural version of Arizona's green tea. We here at Thirsty Dudes will always have a soft spot for that particular beverage, so that is nothing but an improvement on a classic to us. Just up the honey, will ya?

How exactly does one get an essence of something, specifically fruit in this situation? The way I see it either it's with magic, or a lot of beakers and Bunsen burners are involved. I'm not sure which route Cascade Ice chose to go, but the results are right her in this bottle. This is nothing but water, carbonation, and organic essences from fruit oils and extracts. It doesn't taste like an entire grapefruit was scaled down to fit in this bottle, but the flavor of it is there lightly. The majority of the flavor in this bottle is just bubbly water and there is a hint of grapefruit flavor. I personally like more flavor in my drinks, but as I get older I see the appeal of lighter drinks more and more. Guys, I think I'm finally growing up.

Son, sit down, there is something that I need to say to you. Your mother and I wanted to apologize to you for an injustice that occurred many years ago. We didn't realize what we were doing, it just sort of happened. We didn't even know that what we were doing was wrong, until years later. Son, it was wrong of us to introduce you to the world of hibiscus through True Brew's hibiscus tea. You see they added a bunch of spices to their tea, much like a spiced apple cider, and it distorted your idea of what hibiscus should be. You see True Brew was the exception and not the rule, but the rule is also a very delicious place to be, you just can't expect the exception. Well, that just got confusing. See you need to learn to forget the spices and embrace the hibiscus for what it is, a fruity, lightly floral, slightly tart beverage that can almost always hit the spot when it is properly sweetened.

Take this bottle of Zone 8 and you'll see what I mean. It's not spiced at all, but it's still wonderful isn't it? It's just hibiscus, water, sugar and a bit of lime juice. Okay, the lime juice distracts from the taste of the hibiscus a bit, but it works great in tandem with it. Those spices you were used to are nice, but just look at these as two different flavored beverages that both have their merits. This version tastes like something you would be sipping on a tropical beach vacation. On top of that it is all natural, so what else could you ask for? If you say spices then you are grounded, and just wrong.

Sometimes I wish that nutritional/protein drinks came in a wider range of flavors. There are many fruits that would pair well with whey protein/milk type drinks. There is a whole world of flavors out there that are being neglected, but when a company comes along that is fruity in the back of my mind I'm always thinking, man I wish this were chocolate or vanilla. It's been programmed into my being that those are the only true satiating flavors that can be nutritional. It's dumb, but that's how I work.

Iconic has mixed protein, fiber, B12 (for energy) as well as choline and amino acids (to keep you focused) into a nice non-chalky vanilla beverage. It's like thick vanilla milk. The vanilla isn't too overwhelming, but it's there enough for you to say, “Hey, this is a decent vanilla drink.” I would have preferred it to be dairy free, but they went the whole soy, gluten and lactose free route, which I can respect. There are people out there who need their diets to be free of these things, while I just find dairy gross in theory (although I still eat far too much ice cream).

It seems like we've been reviewing a decent amount of beverages of this type lately and they each have their own specific attributes. Iconic is more milk-like than the others. There is no grit to it at all, and the use of agave as a sweetener was a great choice. Sure they use stevia as well, but it's nice and hidden.

Sometimes there just isn't much to say about a drink. I feel bad saying that because it makes it seems like the drink is bad or uninspiring. The thing is that this is just black tea, and what can you say about that other than it tastes like black tea. It's exactly what it should be, and I really enjoy it. It doesn't taste like cheap tea, and it doesn't taste like it's been steeped for too long. When I want an unsweetened black tea, this is exactly what I would hope I'd get. So there you go. It was a boring review for a product that may sound boring, but is just right.

One of my favorite Simpson's moments is when they can't afford to pay their bill at a Mexican restaurant and are forced to perform as the band to work off their debt. The entire reason why I find this hilarious is that the restaurant owner says, “Your playing, while technically proficient, lacks passion.” That makes me lose it every time. This drink? This drink certainly does not lack passion (fruit), even though this is mostly apple juice and water. Even as a minority the passion fruit truly shines as the major player in this juice. At first I was shocked that I couldn't even taste the apple juice, as it normally jumps out at me when it's used as a filler, but the more I drank the more I became aware of it. It really tastes like an infinitely better version of cran-apple, you know with passion fruit instead of cranberries. I know that's dumb, but it has the same ratio of flavors and I love it.


It's crazy that with no added sweetener there is still 46g of sugar in here that are due to the fruit. That is so much natural sugar, but you know what? You're worth it.

I can't bring myself to give a juice that is not 100%...well juice a 5 bottle review, but this is right on that line.

I'm just going to go ahead and say what I can only assume everyone is thinking; 10 hours is one heck of a long time. That's longer than a typical work day. It's so long that you have to plan out when you are going to drink this shot, or else you can say goodbye to you regularly scheduled sleep. Personally, if I drink any sort of energy drink past 5 or 6pm I'm not falling asleep until somewhere in the range of 3-5 in the morning. I'm an extreme case because I apparently have sensitivity to uppers. Seriously though, if you're driving late at night and you just need a push to make it through, this is probably not the product for you. The only uses I can think for this would be if you wanted to stay up all night having adventures, or if you were looking for a push to help you through the work day. Okay, I'm an idiot and didn't reads the blub on the bottle until now, and this was in fact developed to help people get through a full work day. This whole thing makes sense now. People now have the ability to down one shot instead of drinking more than a handful of overly sugared energy drinks to push them through the work they hate.

This certainly has the same concentrated chemical taste that all energy shots seem to have. No one said the basis of energy tasted good. Eternal Energy did do a good job covering it up with a berry flavor and a whole mess of fake sugar, actually the fake sugar may have made it worse, but so long empty calories. As far as I can remember I've never enjoyed the taste of an energy shot, but at lease this one is somewhat palatable. Oh yeah, I also literally climbed a mountain after I drank this, and even though my body was aching an extreme amount I was still focused and the energy this shot gave me kept me moving, so I'll say it works just fine.

When you promise cream soda, you better deliver on some cream soda. Like root beer it is a special flavor, that when you want it, you're body seems to think it needs it to survive. You will feel weird and jittery until your need is satiated. Sadly this bottle of Zuberfizz will leave you with the shakes, as it doesn't taste like cream soda at all. It's a strange thing because the other two cream sodas we've had from this company were quite nice, but the base of this just tastes like generic sweetened soda water.

Do you want to talk about Key Lime? Well this soda has you covered there. It tastes like real key lime, without being overly, intensely sweet. If this were labeled a key lime soda with no mention of cream soda I would think that it was great, but man were my expectations not met. Like Sprecher, it also has that strange flavor that accompanies soda that has been fire brewed in a kettle. It's not unpleasant, but it something that takes a little acclimation.

Zuberfizz, you nailed it with the key lime, but you failed on the cream soda part of the exam. I think that means you have to go to summer school. Give Mark Harmon my love.

The folks at Arizona are preparing for the worst. No, they are not in financial straights (at least as far as I know), they are simply doing what every smart company does, and that is prepare for the worst and come up with an exit strategy. Some companies figure out how they could sell all of their assets, and what they could get for everything if the worst finally hit. Others, more likely in less legal pursuits, bury bags of money random places so that they have something to fall back on in case they need to go fast. Arizona has forgone all of the traditional routes and has purchased a surplus of oaken barrels. They have chosen to ride the iced tea wave until the end, and if that leaves them homeless and penniless, at least they won't be naked and will show their sense of humor, by going the classic editorial cartoon route of wearing nothing but a barrel with shoulder straps.

While these barrels were originally bought as a joke, some quick thinker on the R&D team realized that until the day came when their last tea leaf was brewed and all of their clothing was sold off to the Richie Richs of the world, these barrels could serve another purpose; they could be used to brew a special blend of tea. You see if you brew the tea in the barrels some of the oak's flavor is absorbed into the tea giving it a more refined taste. The same method is often used in making wine, except with the tea it doesn't taste like death and rot, it tastes sophisticated. Add a little honey and maple syrup to that brew and you're good to go. Make sure you don't add too much though. Those are strong flavors that could easily distract one's taste buds from the oak notes. Luckily Arizona got it right on the nose. You can taste the tea, the oak, the honey and the maple and none of the flavors are fighting for dominance. This lightly sweetened version of this tea has a little sugar added as well (8g per serving, 20g per bottle). There's more sugar in here than I would expect in something that is lightly sweet, but to me it does have the perfect amount of sweetness for when I'm not looking for a straight tea, no sugar.

Unfortunately for the future of Arizona, some rookie, smashed up the barrels and brewed the chunks in the tea. Sure it has the same results on the flavor, but what about when the market falls out? What will the employees wear?

This just may be the oddest drink we've ever reviewed, at least the oddest “functional” beverage. This is a 3.38oz bottle of a beverage whose sole purpose is to promote hair health care. According to their website this beverage is supposed to help with the reduction of greying and thinning hair. They tell of the science behind this through the use of broken English on their page. I personally do not suffer from thinning hair nor am I going grey, so I can't attest to whether it works or not, but who am I to argue with science.

What I can report is on taste and I am happy to tell you that it is not nearly as bad as I had anticipated. Like with most shot beverages I expected it to taste like runoff from a nuclear plant, luckily it just tastes like some weird cranberry juice. It definitely has a cranberry base, but it's not overly tart and there is something else that that I can't pin down. It reminds me of something I had in my childhood, but I can't remember what, which is vaguely infuriating. It could just be the sucralose making it weird, but not completely diet tasting. I want to say it tastes like something I won at a pizza place/arcade like Major Magics or Chuck E Cheese, because those sorts of places keep popping in my mind. Perhaps Charles Cheese used to down these things. He always did have a nice coat of fur on him.

As a side note there is a weird notation on the bottle that says, “Hair King Drink does not prevent intoxication.” I would really like to know the circumstances that led them to including that little message.

Sometimes your preconceived notions on how something should be are not always the best. In the world I have embraced lemonade is a beverage that is overly sweet and at the same time also tart. It's the child in me that craves this as a refreshing summer beverage. The thing is who decided that is what lemonade should be? We've been conditioned to expect that, the same with the sweetness of soda. If from a young age we were given versions of these beverage with little to no sugar, that is what we would see as the norm, and I'm sure it's what we would crave.

This bottle of Sweet'tauk is how I wish lemonade was introduced to me. If you take out the added blackberry and ginger flavors, all that is in this bottle is water, lemon juice and evaporated cane juice. The results are very different than what you are used to. There is more of a tartness to it, but it's not even close to an extent that would make it hard to drink. It tastes like lemonade with less sugar, because that it what it is. I'd be lying if I said my body didn't wish there was more sugar in here, but my brain, who runs the show, knows that I don't need all that excess sweetener and it's happy for the lack of it. I want to have grown up on this. I want this to be what my body expects when it wants lemonade. I certainly have a sweet tooth that I'm working on kicking, and this would fit right into my ideal sugar-intake world.

A downfall of their being less sugar is that the berry flavor is not as exaggerated. Again this is something I could get used to, and there is enough berry in there for me not to question its naming. I do wish the ginger was more present in burn as it is in flavor, but you can't always get what you want. I understand that the majority of people out there don't want their beverages to hurt them when they drink them, so I can accept it for what it is and what is it is what our past should have been.

Sometimes I hate myself. I currently hold ill will against me because all I can think of while drinking this root beer is a non-existent radio edit of the Sophie B Hawkins song Damn Dang I Wish I Was Your Lover. Actually I don't even know if I hate that song. I don't think I have any opinion about it either way, it simply exists. That is not a feeling I want to have when I drink a root beer and luckily Dang! root beer does not leave me apathetic. It's on the smoother side of most brews and that is something I like from time to time. Luckily, this happens to be one of those times. I'm really enjoying this it's a traditional style brew. Sometimes you're looking for something more than that, something new and exciting, but then you drink a soda like this and you remember why it is the go to for most root beer, it's just great. I don't mean to say that this is a clone of everyday root beer. It's in the same ballpark as that, but it's playing for the majors, not that done AA team.

Now, decide for yourself.

Folks, I think it's finally happened. We were sent samples in the mail and it must have been a company we gave a bad review to in the past getting back to us, because I'm 99.9% sure that what I drank was poison. If I get to the end of this review without blood leaving from every orifice in my head it will be a miracle.

This little pouch that apparently contains my undoing was developed to be a cognitive enhancer, meaning that it's meant to be a study aid. Tons of students down energy drink after energy drink in order to stay up and study. Unfortunately all of the junks in the typical beverages give you the jitters and make it harder to concentrate. TruBrain was created to help with concentration and to get the best bang for your buck when it comes to brain use. I personally plan on doing some research in the stock market, because I want to pretend I'm a real human adult that is if this truly is a “think drink” and not just poison all gussied up for the party.

Seriously people this did not taste like anything you should consume. If I didn't know better I would have sworn there should have been a Mr Yuck sticker on this and I should have found it under the kitchen sink. I don't even know what flavor it's supposed to be. Perhaps they were going for the diet poison route because that's what I'm getting here.

It's been about 15 minutes since I drank this and I appear to still be alive with no negative effects, so I'm going to wager that truBrain is not just a shell corporation for Young Energy Source getting back at us for the having the audacity to think that their beverage is the worst thing we've ever tasted on this planet. I still think this is a horrible tasting “beverage” but I do feel a sense of clarity, so it works for its function, and since when do those drinks ever taste good?

This…€¦smells…€¦weird. It's like unbaked bread and vitamins had a baby that a liquid. Sometimes working your way past a smell can lead to great enjoyment for your other senses though. I woke up this moment feeling like doo-doo for some unknown reason. I was just worn out and achy. One would think I had a hangover, but that certainly wasn't the case. I did some things around the house and still felt like garbage, so I decided to take a nap. Of course it was this time that my sleep paralysis decided to come out for the first time in months (For those of you who don't know it's when you're sleep rhythms mess up and you get stuck between slumber and waking. You are aware of our surroundings and know that you're asleep, but can't move or fully wake up. It's the worst). When I finally convinced my brain to wake up 100% I felt even worse. I was just in a haze. That's when I remembered this was in the fridge. I started drinking it and within 10 minutes I was feeling noticeably better. Not only was my predicament improving but I was also really enjoying the taste, minus the weird smell.

This is carbonated lemonade, if lemonade has made with lemongrass as well as regular old lemons. Now I don't know if there is actually any lemon juice in here, but it certainly tastes like it is. There is also a nice ginger flavor to it, but without any hint of a burn. Around the edges there is some hints of the vitamins and other such things that help with recovery, but they are mainly just hanging around in the background. One thing I need to point out is that this is ridiculously carbonated. If you're entering into a belching competition, it would be wise to slam a can of this right before you go on. Then you'll be burping like an angel. Seriously though, look past the strange scent of this beverage and you may find yourself with a new little friend.

In a world where flavored beverages are overly heavy on the flavor, to an extent that the taste of the base is lost, it's nice when a company takes it easy on the old flavor tasters. Pearl Royal does just that with this delicious coconut water. There is but a hint of lemon and lime flavor. I wouldn't be surprised if they stumbled upon this when someone didn't properly rinse a glass that has been used to house some sort of lemon lime beverage and then refilled it with coconut water. It's such a minor addition of flavor, but it goes a long way in making your refreshment experience just a tad different. Oh yeah it also comes in this awesome container, so that's a bonus.

When Armageddon finally comes and those of us who survive are hidden away in different pockets of world figuring out how to survive technology will not be our savior. I realize that sounds a bit evangelical, but I don't believe any sort of omnipotent being will save us either. What will keep the survivors alive is reverting to the old ways. Working the earth with our hands and learning how to build things, instead of relying on contractors. If there's something that you want you will have to figure out how to produce it yourself, or barter with someone who does. If you ignore all of the death and the end of civilization as we know it, this actually sounds appealing.

When I'm living in my mountain residence that my friends and I have constructed I hope one of us had good enough sense to learn iron work so that they could forge us a kettle to make our own root beer. This bottle of soda is exactly what I hope/expect our home brew would taste like. It's heavy on the wintergreen and the sassafras, just as any good mountain brew should be. It's a nice herbal root beer that screams of the mountains…€¦and licorice. This is by no means a standard “store brand” root beer. Care was put into brewing this, not just adding flavor syrup to carbonated water.

I wonder how many batches it would take our survivor crew to get our soda to this level. I hope not too many because I the idea of enjoying my own root beer that I brewed in a metal pot over a bonfire is so appealing that it's killing me.

While I appreciate that True Brew is trying to give people an alternative to typical energy drinks the truth of the matter is that this juice doesn't even come close to packing the same punch as one of the countless slim cans you find in gas stations across the country. Yes this tastes great, albeit more like apples and acerola cherries than watermelon and kiwi (the kiwi is hidden in the mix and the watermelon is there as an aftertaste if anything), but it doesn't give you an energy boost that you can feel. That is what most people are looking for. This probably gives you a prolonged minimal energy burst that will help you through your day, but without caffeine and taurine the majority of people just aren't going to jump on this bus. It's sad that people's mentality is along the lines of “who needs to worry about health when you need to go go go!”