Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

Obviously the first thing I am going to mention here is the totally rad container this comes in. It's a can/plastic bottle hybrid that is just really cool for some unknown reason. The only time I've come across this combo before was on some drink in an Asian supermarket. I don't even remember what it was because the taste was forgettable, but the container was rad. In case you can't tell from the picture this is a plastic bottle, shaped similarly to a Red Bull can, but it still has the normal can top. Metal up top plastic on the bottom, like some sort of dumb mullet joke.

Container aside, this tastes pretty much like I expected it to. Like most energy drinks it is flavored like some liquefied Wonka candy. In this case it just happens to be blue SweeTarts. It also tastes like a Slush Puppy. I believe the flavor I'm thinking of is called Bahama Mamma. Due to these two comparisons I would say that if there ever was an energy drink designed to please the taste buds of children, this is it. I'd like to make it clear that I think children have no place drinking energy drinks, and that in the future people are going to start having heart attacks a lot earlier in life because they drank energy drinks all the time when they were in their developmental years, because they had terrible parents. Seriously though, kids would love this. It's too bad they shouldn't be allowed to have it.

You know something is all the rage when grocery stores start selling their own version of it. Cold pressed juice has been on a steady climb in the world of popularity and now we have Trader Joes with three juices of their very own. I admit they are not your average grocery store, but this is still a big step. They have released onto the world a veritable Ethiopian flag of juice with their red, green, and yellow flavors.

This juice smells strongly of apples and yellow bell peppers. It's a weird combination of scents, but it lets you know exactly what you're in for. I took a sip and thought, “Wow this is amazing!” As I kept drinking I realized that while this is a good juice, I had gotten caught up in the cold pressed craze. I certainly enjoy this, but it's not over the top good. It's nothing that is going to make me salivate just thinking about. That exact response should be a requirement for beverages that get 5-Bottles on Thirsty Dudes. I mean if it were served to me I could pound bottle after bottle of this, but at the same time I could walk away after a couple of sips and not think about it again once the aftertaste faded away.

The contents of this juice are: 2 large apples, ¼ pineapple, 1 medium yellow pepper, 1/5 of a cucumber, 2 limes, and 3 mint leaves. For having so many ingredients that normally have such potent flavor, a bunch of them are very faint in the mix. The mint is only there as a coolness, and not as a flavor. I can't believe that two whole limes were squeezed to make this, because their flavor is so much in the background. In regards to flavor this is basically a hyped up apple juice. I want so badly for the pineapple to be stronger, but it doesn't quite get there. That yellow pepper is certainly there though. It's strange at first, but once you get used to it being mixed with the sweetness of the apples, it's quite nice.

I really have nothing bad to say about this at all, I just wanted more from it. It has all the health benefits you could ever want from a juice, along with a nice flavor. I'm just so hard to please these days.

So my computer up and died on me and here I am writing my first review on my new processor of ones and zeros. I would like to say that my old one fried because of this soda, but unfortunately that is not the case. Nothing again Begley or Bill, but I am simply not a fan of bananas at all, and to be honest I have been dreading drinking this. I fully expected to take a sip and want to spit it all over my computer in disgust, but you know what? These crazy folks someone made banana palatable, and in a diet version.

The secret to their success is that this doesn't taste like a gross mushy fruit. Instead it tastes like a not as sweet banana Runt candy with a little bit of caramel mixed in. This somehow doesn't taste diet at all, yet it has zero sugar and it's only 8 calories. They are truly onto something with this SweetenFX mixture they developed. It's healthy without having a specific taste that overpowers the real flavors of the soda.

If you are dumb and are a banana purist, this may not be for you, but if your taste buds work correctly and you find these yellow fruits to be utterly disgusting, don't write off this soda. This might be just what you need in your life.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Could one of you please clue me in as to when I started to actually enjoy the coconut flavor? I'm going to say for at least 30 years of my life it was the bane of my existence. Many a bake good were ruined with the shavings of this food stuff. Any beverage that it was associated with that I tried tasted like sun tan lotion to me. I simply hated it with every fiber of my being. Now here I am sipping on a sucralose sweetened coconut mango sparkling water, and flat out enjoying it. I don't know what has happened. Is there a tear in the fabric of the universe and I'm getting a glimpse of some opposite dimension? If me enjoying coconuts were the only thing this dimensional rift caused it would be the worst story line ever and would be too dumb for even a SyFy original movie.

I still hate toasted coconut, so not that much has changed, but I am enjoying this. There is mostly mango flavoring this thing (well mango and artificial sweetener), but there are nice little coconut tinges around the edges.

Actually let's ignore the whole coconut thing. The real question is how am I enjoying something that is sweetened with sucralose this much? I mean I wouldn't rush out to buy more, but I would happily drink it if someone handed me a bottle. It still tastes diet, but not in the classic gross way. That is the true accomplishment of this beverage. Stand proud Cascade Ice, you have made a breakthrough on two fronts.

If I know anything it's that this is a leftover promotional relic from the HBO show Dream On. To be fair, I don't know anything about said show. Up until now I thought that Larry Sanders was on it, which is apparently not true. There it is though, right at the top of the bottle, “Dream On.” Actually, maybe someone in Aerosmith owns this company. They did have that one song that sounded like nothing else in their catalog that had the same nomenclature.

Whoever is responsible, rock star or film star, they have come up with a decent shot beverage that doesn't taste too terribly disgusting. I mean with all shots there is a level of concentrate that causes the flavor to be a little off, but this has a nice berry flavor to it that tastes a bit like candy, even though it's sweetened with stevia. Since you would generally just slug this thing back I doubt anyone would even realize the stevia was there. It's more berry than poison-shot in the taste department, and there's not much else one could ask for. Oh it also definitely knocked me right out 10-15 minutes after downing it. I guess that functionality is something I could have asked for, and received.

Essentia sounds like the name of some sort of elixir from a fantasy realm. You defeat an enemy and pick up the satchel of Essentia that your vanquished foe has on his/her person. I guess that could be accurate. Water had to be like gold for those traveling across the lands in fantasy, and in the olden days. H2O is a heavy material, and there is only so much you can carry, or pack on your horse. Relying on finding lakes and streams had to be nerve wracking. Water is essential to life, and it is the true elixir in this world as well as any fantasy realm.

The modern Essentia is purified by reverse osmosis, infused with electrolytes, and restructured using Ionic Separation Technology in order to achieve a perfect 9.5pH that perfectly hydrates. I used to be one of the people who claimed that all bottled waters were the same, and why not just drink filtered tap water (you gotta avoid the junk that's in the tap if you can). That is before I was introduced to water with a higher pH. For those not in the know, normal bottled water is at 7, and this is at 9.5. The result is water that somehow tastes smoother and more pure. I don't really understand how this works, but the proof is in the pudding, or the aqua in this case.

I still don't buy bottled water, unless I'm out and I forgot my metal water bottle that I normally carry, but if I were I would definitely go for something like this. It blows the other generic garbage out of the water. Yes, pun intended.

I've finally made it to the end of my journey. I send two and a half weeks in Europe, where I drank 45 beverages that I wrote review notes for. I didn't expect it to take me three weeks to actually get around to writing all of said reviews, but here I am writing the last one of the bunch. I started this by writing about a bottle of Feel Good, so it seems only fitting that my last review would be for the same company.

One thing I have learned from my adventure is that people in the United Kingdom love their lemonade. On top of that they like adding bubbles to their bitter-sweet treat. Feel Good decided to take their beverage in a little bit of a different direction than the classic version by not adding sugar to it. Instead they have embraced the natural sweetness of apple juice and added that to the mix.

There is also a little bit of lime juice in here. You would think that the lemon and lime combo would make it taste like 7Up of Sprite, but this is far from those forgettable sodas. You see this actually tastes like real fruit and not generic fake flavoring. It's like neighborhood kids made some lemonade to sell at the corner, but the plumber was over so their water was shut off and they used their mother's bubbly water as a substitute. Those dumb kids also thought that the lime was a lemon that wasn't quite ripe so it got thrown into the pile. It's great. Their mistake is your gain as the lime gives it just the right twist.

Europe, you were good to me and I can't wait to return and drink far too many of your beverages in such a short span of time.

I think this Fritz character may have taken a trip to the UK at some point in his life. It was on this visit that he discovered the joy of carbonated lemonade and decided to bring it back to his home country. Actually as far as I know Fritz may have learned about making lemonade fizzy from his great-grandmother and then brought it with him to the UK on said trip. All I know for certain is that a trip was made, lemonade and bubbles were involved and the world is better for it.

Whether Fritz's people invented this, or they borrowed it is inconsequential, as no matter what the origin, this will remain the best sparkling lemonade I have ever had the pleasure of tasting. It's nice and bitter, the way this type of beverage should be. It actually tastes like lemonade was made and the carbonation was added after the fact. A lot of other brands taste like they tried to do it all at once and it ends up having the flavor of some garbage lemon soda pop.

Germany, you've made some mistakes in the past, but I will always hold a place for you in my heart for your wonderful carbonated beverages.

To break up a 20 hour drive from the UK to Italy, we stopped in a town right outside of Dijon, France. I was one hungry little boy since the only vegetarian food I was able to find (that wasn't candy or chips) since we crossed into France was baguettes at a gas station. For the record they were warm and cost 60 cents each, in short they were wonderful, but I was starving. We finally got to our stop and hit up a grocery store. Let me tell you non-meat eaters/pseudo vegans of the world, when you can't read labels France is no place for our kind. Everything was meats and cheeses. I ended up getting a couple more baguettes and a handful of avocados for my day's meals. It some that may seem ridiculous, but it's actually what I eat a lot at home, so I was comfortable with my situation. While in the store I also picked up this bottle of soda on the cheap and I was very excited about it.

With this fancy bottle I really thought I was in for something special. Then I remembered that things just look fancier in Europe than they do back home in the US. It wasn't bad at all; it just didn't have that special pizzazz that I was hoping for. According to my traveling companions it tasted like a generic cola that they have back in Wales. I wish I remember what it was called, but the name escapes me. The thing is that even though it may be budget cola to them, it's made with beet sugar so it already has a leg up in my world. One would think that such a sweetener would give the cola an unusual flavor, but it tastes just like it was sweetened with cane sugar.

Had this been the first cola I had in France i probably would have enjoyed it immensely, but I had drunk a Coke earlier in our travels, and that blew the American version out of the water. A fountain Coke in Italy is better than most artisan sodas in the US. We're doing something wrong people.

When I'm in my homeland and I order a lemon iced tea I know exactly what I'm getting myself into. A sweetened black tea that has far too much lemon in it for it's own good. Keep in mind that I am not a fan of lemons (except in lemonade form, try to figure that one out), and I always think that people go overboard when adding this flavor. While walking the streets of Turin, Italy I didn't expect much of a difference for what I was used to. I'm always assuming too much that that is my problem. When I assume, I'm more often than not, wrong.

For starters this did not have a standard black tea for a base. I can't read the ingredients, but from the floral taste I will say that it is some sort of herbal tea. It certainly didn't taste like black, white or green tea. It wasn't floral like jasmine tea; it was closer to something rose flavored, but not as specific and strong. That on it's own gave it immediate points. I love different varieties of tea. To make matters even better the lemon flavoring wasn't over the top, and neither was the amount of sweetener used. Overall it was a pretty mellow, slightly floral tea. It was a nice treat from the basic lemon black tea that I had expected to hit my lips.

There's nothing like spending a day at the beach and keeping cool with a nice tall glass of tanning oil. Wait…€¦No that is disgusting. Unfortunately that is how nearly all pina colada drinks smell/taste; A potentially great drink is ruined by olfactory association.

Lucky for everyone involved that this soda breaks free from that mold. This company is taking pina colada back for you, the common (wo)man. In fact, this may be the tastiest pina colada I have ever tasted (keep in mind I don't drink alcohol, so I've never had “the real thing.”). The flavor here is mostly pineapple, but the coconut smooths it out, and I do mean smoothed out. The coconut in here is almost like vanilla is in cream soda. It almost tastes like candy, but not in a “this tastes cheap, like candy” sort of way. It reminds me of those giant suckers you could get at amusement parks (specifically Crystal Beach) in the 80s/early 90s.

For a flavor that I don't normally get into, this really hit the spot on a nice hot day.

This smells like a showgirl's dressing room in a retirement home. Let me tell you that would not be a pleasant place to be if such a place in fact did exist. This beverage has the scent of far too much perfume and old ladies. It's horrible, but two be expected when two different flowers are mixed together. Luckily the flavor is infinitely better than the nose on this thing.

The elderflower is the stronger of the two flavors, but there is definitely some rose in the planning hijinks. It's right on the cusp of going overboard and taking things to far. It seems like it's going to just up and throw a pie in your face (that's what showgirls do, right?), but at the last minute it decides better of it, gets ashamed and hides in with the scenery. I'm pretty sure that it's the lemon juice in here that is the moral compass that the drink needs. It keeps everyone in line and brings the best out of all flavors involved.

This is one of those drinks that you are unsure of after a sip, but the more you drink it the more you learn to enjoy it's intricacies. Don't be put off by that smell. Think of all the wonderful things your grandmother did for you over the years, and then forgive the scent, and the unwrapped pocket candies and learn to love it like you love her.

I don't know why John is so moody. What does he have to complain about when he's created drinks such as that perfect raspberry ginger soda, and now this traditional ginger beer? Also, the guy lives in Scotland, which is one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited, and also the place where I have come the closest to losing my life. I know that John has something against me, so I thought that knowing how I nearly tumbled down a cliff side onto the jagged rocks below might bring a smile to his crabby face. Alas it did not. He's still complaining about everything. I don't know how to get him out of his slump. Then again if it's his disposition that caused him to create this fantastic ginger beer, maybe we should just let him be.

This is the smoothest ginger beer I have ever had the pleasure of tasting, and I've had quite a lot. Normally I prefer more of a burn to my ginger sodas, but there is something about this that just sits perfectly with me. It has enough of a burn to keep me happy, but at the same time it manages to be so damn smooth that 90's R&B songs should be written about it. John, you keep doing what you're doing, and I'll keep reaping the rewards of your unhappiness.

Feeling good is something I think everyone can get behind. I mean unless you're a masochist, no one is sitting around thinking of things they can ingest in order to make themselves feel terrible. Who out there has said something along the line of “Oh man I can't wait to get home and eat that deep fried pizza that has been dipped in hot chocolate and covered in powdered sugar. It's going to make me feel like such garbage, it's going to be great!”

This company makes beverages that you can feel good about drinking. There is no added sugar, or artificial garbage to make you feel run down and gross. They are simply juice and sparkling water. This one in particular is mango, orange, passionfruit, apple and lemon juice all melded together into a perfectly unique flavor. It has just the perfect amount of carbonation and it's lightly sweetened due to the natural sugar in the fruit. I could drink this constantly and not feel a bit of regret. It's near perfect. American companies take note. If you don't want to see that dystopian future that is in all those movies, start making juices like this. It could in fact save mankind.

This is a stupendous idea that I can't believe hasn't been thought up before. With companies constantly reaching to find new pairings of flavors, this is a great way to group them together. I've never met a stone fruit that I haven't liked: peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, and cherries. Heck, you can even through avocados into that mix, since they are technically a fruit (Bolthouse chose not to though). All of those are excellent fruits that I could eat all day long. Why not mix them all together?

This ended up being a good juice, but it didn't live up to the expectations that were swimming around in my brain fluids. The cause of this is the inclusion of other fruit juices. I understand that some fruits are more costly than others, and Bolthouse likes to keep their juice slightly lower priced than its competitors, so they use “filler fruit.” Pear, apple, and banana are used to round things out and make the drink a little sweeter while keeping it 100% juice. I would much rather this then adding sugar, or other ingredients to fill the juice out, but it does take away from the flavor a bit, making the whole thing a bit mellow.

I had expected the main flavor in the juice to be peach. It's a strongly flavored fruit, with a low price point. As it turns out the peach is there, but the apricot is carrying most of the flavor weight. One forgets how prominent apricots can be, the rest of the fruits kind of blend together. You can make them out if you concentrate, but it's mostly a general flavor. There is also some “finely ground chia” in here, but I don't think they effected the flavor at all, and you certainly can't feel them in the texture.

I enjoyed this, but I was hoping for something a bit more formidable with such heavy hitters of the fruit world.

Welcome to the international belching competition. This year we have a lot of top notch competitors and we're hoping to break some records for decibels and for length of belches. Before reigning champion Michelle Dowanowa produces the ceremonial first burp we'd like to announce that our sponsor for this years games is Rockstar Energy. Each of our contestants will be given a can of the new “Sparkling” line of Rockstar in order to produce the largest ball of gas that they can muster from their mouth.

Now I know what you're thinking, “Aren't all Rockstar drinks carbonated, why do they need a Sparkling line?” Well that would have been true a few short years ago, but since then the company has delved into teas, sports drinks and various other styles of beverages that are bubble free.

Let me tell you the reign of still energy drinks will come to an end as soon as you crack one of these cans open. They are one of the most carbonated drinks that this announcer has encountered in a long, long time. I took one sip and I was a regular Barney Gumble. We are all in for an auditory treat once the contestants down their cans.

Life is not all burps and games, and we are contractually obligated to give you a bit for information about these energy drinks. First off this is the least diet tasting, sucralose sweetened drink I have ever tasted. You can tell that something is up with the flavor, and that they didn't use real sugar, but it doesn't taste like diet first, and cherry citrus second. Overall the flavor is very light. The ridiculous amount of carbonation distracts from the flavor a bit, but that is what some people want. I can certainly think of times in my life where this would be exactly what I need to satiate me. A nice light cherry limeade with a little orange thrown into the mix.

Now if you will all stand as our team of past champions will burp the national anthem's of all of the participants home countries.

I just don't know what happened here. There are only two ingredients that make up this beverage and one of them is Coco Libre's original coconut water, which is delicious. The other is simply organic pineapple juice from concentrate. Now I just can't see how pineapple juice could be bad. I've drunk it in all its forms and consistencies and I have been a fan of each and every one of them. For some reason though, when they were combined something went awry.

Now the pina colada is a well known drink that people all over the place love. I myself have been known to be a fan. If it weren't for this knowledge that I possess I would assume that the problem with this drink was that pineapples and coconuts were simply not meant to mix. Science has proved that an inaccurate statement, so what went wrong?

The pineapple doesn't really taste like pineapple in here. It has a sweet, fruity flavor, but it's not quite pineapple. Also, the coconut has a weird oats and grains type aftertaste that I would assume has something to do with the shell. Overall it wasn't enjoyable, nor refreshing. It just tasted like something was starting to spoil in the drink, even though it was well in the expiration time frame. Something is afoot in the world of paradise drinks.

Oh you can't drive “double nickels on the dime?” When you say that do you mean that you always drive slower than the 55 mph speed limit, or are you a speed demon, a lead foot?

This is just dumb. What am I even trying to talk about here? Minutemen and Sammy Hagar references? Complete nonsense.

Let's get down to the real business. Hydrive is a diet, uncarbonated energy drink. Some of their other flavors seem to also be hybrids of energy and sports drinks, but there is no mention of electrolytes anywhere on this label, so I'm going to assume this is straight energy. Even if it's not a sports/vitamin supplement beverage, it still tastes like some version of diet vitamin water.

If there was one thing I thought I knew in this world it was that anything diet that was also peach flavored was doomed for failure. Those two components don't interact very well, but in here I don't hate it. I certainly don't love it, because I don't think I could ever love anything that contained sucralose, but I made it through the entire bottle with no complaints. It definitely has that fake peach flavor, but the mango softens it up a bit, and it's not insanely fake sweet. You can tell the fake sugar is there, but it doesn't fully control the flavor, like it does in a lot of drinks.

If you're on a diet you could certainly do a lot worse than this.

After I drank the Levi Roots' Mango N Pineapple soda I had some reservations about giving a different flavor a try. There are some pluses to the soda, I mean it does contain some actual juice, but then again there are artificial sweeteners that just ruin it all.

This appears to be the same soda, except with the apple juice mixed out for grapefruit. I'll tell you that the grapefruit is the real game changer. It really cuts through the flavor and helps mask most of the artificial sweetener flavor. With some sips you get more of a pineapple taste, but one thing that is constant is that the orange flavor is always just mellowing out in the background. It is the roots rock rhythm of this soda.

With the use of real sugar this could have been fantastic, but as much as you try to cover it up the taste of sucralose/acesulfame is going to be there in the undertaste. Did I make that word up? I'm going to start using it, because I like it and I think it should be a real word, if it isn't already.

“I got OJ, purple stuff, soda…€¦Bravo?” That is the Italian version of the classic Sunny D commercial. Like Sunny Delight this is an overly thick juice drink that impersonates orange juice. At least in Italy they have a blood (red) orange version. Other than that I could be served this blindfolded and I would think it was something from the American company.

I was told that I needed to try this, as it was something unusual. It may be unusual in Europe, but it just tastes like a junk American fake juice to me, albeit with a little twist.