Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

The moth caterpillars may be the species on this planet that produces the most products in comparison to its size. Not only are these little guys gathered together to harvest the silk they spin out of their butts to make fancy dresses (yes your designer dress once came from a bug's butt, charming isn't it) and sheets that are far to slippery for anyone to get a good nights sleep, but they also produce a high quality product from the other side of their body. While these little fellas are busy popping out smooth fabric, they are also puking up a sweet carbonated substance.

Avery's Soda has decided there was a market for the liquid that moth caterpillars vom all over themselves, and have created a soda using it as the base. It has a general cane sugar sweetened soda flavor to it, with some hints of kiwi and pineapple to it. It most certainly tastes like candied fruit, and for that fact little kids eat it up. I will advise that parents tell their children that it's just a funny name for the soda, and not what it actually is: insect puke.

Sir, I'm sorry to interrupt your meal at this $1000 a plate benefit, but I must ask you a very important question, are you crazy? No, huh? Well would you say that you are crazy about berries? You guess. Let's just pretend you said that you are. In fact let's say that you are very crazy about berries. Some might say that you are “berry loco.” Huh, Huh, see what I did there?

So since you are so loco for these berries and I can't seem to get you to shut up about them, how about you try some of this new Aquafina Flavorsplash? It's a berry flavored sparkling water with B vitamins added to it. Sounds great, right? Well what if I told you that we sweetened the deal, literally, and added sucralose? You would say that you have no interest in artificial sweeteners, wouldn't you? I'm right there with you, and I have no idea why they did it. Okay I'm lying I know; this is a diet drink aimed to help people who like soda pop drink something a little healthier. While I'm not a fan of sucralose, I must say that underneath that fake sweetness hides a nice tasting sparkling berry drink. It tastes like the Kool Aid I imagine you rich folks drink would taste like. I know you're Kool Aid tastes better than the version they sell us poor folks, you can't like to me! Fine, I'll leave! I bet you would have had no problem with this drink had I served it in a champagne flute. Snobby McSnobSnob!

Forgive me if I'm wrong but wasn't the whole point of blk that it was mineral water that was heavy on the fulvic acid, so it looked murky and dark? It was a clever marketing scheme to get a lot of people who would never in a million years buy mineral water to shell out some cash. I bought into it for at least one bottle. It tasted like water and was a nice gimmick.

With their new “+” line blk added some flavor to that water. Everything would be well and good except in addition to that flavoring they also added stevia. Why couldn't they have just stuck with the flavoring? This would actually be pretty tasty if they had. Sure, stevia is probably the most palatable zero calorie sweetener on the market, but the inclusion of any sweetener whatsoever in these drinks was unnecessary. Had they stuck to it being unsweetened flavored mineral water, I think I would truly enjoy it. As things stand the cool sting of the stevia overpowers the mango flavor. Things should have been kept mellow, instead they just taste diet.

When I bought this drink I was pretty sure it was going to be great, but the longer I thought about it, the greater my suspicions. On one hand it's a green tea that was orange pineapple flavored and that sounds great to me. In addition to that it comes in a glass bottle, which most of the time is a sign of quality tea. What company is going to spend the extra money on glass with an inferior product? On the other hand this is a protein drink, which could leave it weirdly chalky. It is also sweetened with stevia, which isn't absolutely terrible, but it's still not my sweetener of choice. There was no doubt that there was going to be an element of gambling involved with this one.

My original thoughts were not quite on the money. Actually they were a bit further away from it than I would have liked. This is a very, very light tea to the extent that it almost tastes like tea-flavored water. The flavoring has a vague citrusness around it, but it's more like the weakest Tang that has ever been made than orange and pineapple. That's stevia coldness isn't helping matters either. If that had been the drink it wouldn't have been horrible, but nothing I would spend my money on again. Blu-Dot took things further though and added whey protein in order to make the drink functional.

On some levels adding the protein made this drink seem better, because I always give functional drinks a bit of a break in the flavor category, because you can't expect that stuff to taste great. Then on the opposite levels it just makes an already mediocre flavor go even more down hill.

To summarize this it tastes like a shot of green tea was dumped into the world's most watered down Tang and then a heap of whey protein was dropped in, which made it taste like it should be curdled. I am not a fan.

The beverage world, and the flavor world at large went crazy with pomegranate a few years back. It was everywhere. They started mixing it with other fruits and the results were largely positive. Then someone decided to throw acai in the mix because of the health benefits, and that's where I lost interest. Before long it seemed that everywhere you turned pom and acai were teamed up like the Justice League of antioxidants. The thing is acai doesn't taste all that great. Sure it's palatable, but it's nothing I would go out of my way for.

When I got this drink it brought a smile to my face that that dumb super fruit was nowhere to be found. I'm going to associate acai with Superman here. They both have powers, but they are overall dumb characters that always seem like they are cheating. I suppose that would make pomegranates Batman then. They are dark and mysterious with secrets hidden below their thick outer shell. I can get behind pomegranates. I was also glad to see that pom is working together with blueberries in this mix. We'll call them Nightwing because they are working together and not as a superhero/sidekick team.

This is a wonderful drink that fights antioxidants (crime) enough to keep them out of your body (Gotham) long enough for it to recuperate. They do it in a tasty and enjoyable way with a little bit of help from coconut water (Oracle…€¦see I told you Nightwing was more appropriate). This is actually more of a blueberry adventure with pomegranate backing it up. Speaking of which, why are there not more, if any, blueberry coconut waters. I would drink that up by the gallon.

This drink will leave you refreshed and rehydrated whilst leaving a sweet taste on your tongue. I'm going to assume that most of my references were lost on a majority of you, but just know that if I'm associating a beverage with Gotham's finest; I mean business.

I could go for some nice tropical rhythms. It's getting cold here in Buffalo and I started to get ready for the inevitable winter. I put away all of the lawn furniture and I started putting plastic up on the windows I live in an old apartment and the windows don't do much for keeping out the cold drafts). I could use a nice little island retreat before I get into the icy slump of winter.

Unfortunately this drink didn't give me the feeling of hanging out in the sun with the waves crashing and some weird birds cawing. The title would leave one to believe that this is a nice mango juice from concentrate. One sip and I knew that there was some carrot in the mix. It's not strong, but it's a flavor that I have grown to notice in drinks. I have no problem with carrots being added to beverages, as the health boost is appreciated. I just like knowing that it's in there beforehand. I do dislike the use of HFCS. All of the other Grace products I've tried have used real sugar, and that is always preferred. The sweetener in this gives it a weird syrupy taste that I could do without. I understand high fructose corn syrup in soda to an extent, but adding it to juice just seems completely unnecessary.

Had this been sweetened with sugar, or had no added sweeteners, and been labeled mango carrot I can guarantee I would have had a more pleasant ride with it. Now someone bring me more blankets. I refuse to turn my heat on before Thanksgiving.

Why don't you go ahead and make yourself a milkshake? Dump some vanilla ice cream in your blender. Then instead of adding cow milk, add some almond milk. You know what you had a nice workout at the gym, why not add a scoop of whey protein to the mix. Blend it up nice and smooth. Oh crap, you forgot to let the dog out. You better do that before he has another accident on the new carpet. Oh you're dog will only go toity if you walk him on a leash? You know what? Go ahead give him the walk he needs, I mean it will give your carpet the peace of mind it deserves.

Well, I'm sorry to say that I forgot to tell you to put your milkshake in the fridge. I mean I didn't think I had to dictate everything you did today. Oh wait, you did remember to pick up after your dog right? Man, your neighbors must really hate you. I suppose you should drink the shake anyways. It's a little melted, but it's still cold, and I'm sure it tastes exactly like a Coco Libre almond protein coconut water. Yes, I know that is the longest title for a beverage ever, but it tastes good, and so does your shake, so lay off.

I'm not going to kid myself; the majority of the people in at the world are going to scoff at the idea of a beverage flavored to taste like flowers. Joe and Jill Everyman are going to have no interest in such a drink, and if it were to show up in convenient store all over the country, there would be a lot of dusty bottles laying around just waiting to spoil. I guess that would be true until the stores decided to mark them down to close to nothing and I would go and buy them up, because they are delicious. If people were willing to give it a try, chances are they would also love it.

The contents of this bottle mostly taste like an agave sweetened, very light grapefruit juice (there's erythritol in there as well, but try as I might I can't taste it). The main flavor of the grapefruit is there, but the tartness is nowhere to be found. Slightly below that is the floral taste of the lilac. It's not floral in a perfume or soap sort of way. It's there in its most calming form. If I sit with the aftertaste I get the taste of the smell of lilacs on my mind. To some that may sound absolutely horrible, but to me it is perfect.

This drink has a flavor that I associate with not having a care in the world. It makes me think about relaxing outside under the shade of a tree, perhaps reading a book. It gives the hope of warmer weather on a day that is blustery and cold. If you see this, don't be a prude. Give it a try and hopefully you'll fall in love.

What's so funny `bout peace, love and Georgia Peach Tea? The answer is nothing, at least for the latter bit. I can't believe it has taken Peace Tea so long to come out with a peach flavored iced tea. I feel like lemon, raspberry and peach are the staple flavors of iced tea. I could see if they were trying to go against the grain, but lemon and Razzleberry have been on the shelves for years. I can assure you it was worth the wait though.

When you're getting 23oz of tea for 99 cents, it's easy to assume that you're not going to be getting quality tea. Can we all agree that Arizona is great for the price, but it's not a quality tea by any means? I love the stuff, but it doesn't compare to companies that flavor their tea before they brew it rather than adding flavoring to a uniform batch of black or green tea. Peace Tea falls into the same category as Arizona, but at least they sweeten their teas with real sugar (and a little sucralose to keep the sugar levels down).

This actually tastes like canned peaches, instead of some candy flavored syrup that a lot of the bigger companies use. It may not be the best peach tea I've ever tasted, but it's better than most, and for the cost how can you say no? Things are a little bit slower down in Georgia, so take your time sipping on this tall can.

If such a thing as a old timey pop shop existed in my town, would anyone actually visit it on the regular? I don't even know if I would and I am a Thirsty Dude. Sure I would go on grand opening and have a nice root beer or some such thing, but I think it would have to offer me something more. You know what I just had a great idea. “Barcades” are all the rage these days. What if we took that a step further? Why not have an arcade that is also a pop shop during the day and then at 9 or 10PM all the youngin's get ushered out and the alcohol can flow for the older crowd? Seems like you're doubling your market with little extra work. (Mike, if you're reading this, you're welcome.)

During the day I would hope that they would serve some nice high quality fountain drinks as well as a nice array of bottled fares. I would be remiss if Pop Shoppe was not served at my local pop shop. Their soda is always on the better side of normal/average. They aren't going out of their way to recreate the wheel, but they aren't cheaping out either. Well, I guess they are a little since they use high fructose corn syrup. This cola is fairly standard. I would say flavorwise it falls somewhere in between Coke and Pepsi, but it is light years better than generic brand. Also, the bottle would work well for a retro feel. If this idea doesn't come into fruition in Buffalo in the next two years…€¦well…€¦I'll be pretty bummed. I need somewhere to play Galaga and drink soda. It would also be the reason I need to go out to bars to hang out with friends.

Back when things on this planet were younger and simpler there was no such thing as money. Sure gold and jewels were precious and held value, but for normal transactions a barter system was used. If you're like me an image of Mad Max and Master Blaster just floated through the sea of your thoughts. While that may have been a utopian society in the making, it is nothing but fantasy. In the real world bartering did occur, and I'd like to think that the king of bartering was Joe, or the Trader fame.

Joe was the master trader. He was able to tell the way the winds of favor would blow, so he knew what to trade and when. It was like a predecessor of Wall Street. He would trade grapes for cherries in a town where cherries were prevalent. Then he would move on and trade those cherries in a pit free village for some animal furs. He was always trading up and eventually he trader for land and opened a store. Since he knew where he could get all of the highest quality products for the cheapest, his stores prices were low. It was the birth of an empire.

Nowadays things are run differently but Trader Joes remains. One actually just opened up in Buffalo. For those who don't know the company buys products from other companies in bulk and then slaps their own label on it. It's a lot cheaper than buying and running a factory to make each individual foodstuff. I'm not sure who originally made this spiced apple cider, but my hats off to them. It's just apples and spices to flavor. There is nothing artificial, and there is no added sugar. They have bottled the taste of autumn.

I'm from the area of the country where cider flows like water during these months. I am very picky about my cider and normally I do not like any that was not made at a local mill. This though, this is wonderful. The levels of the spices are at a perfect balance with the apple flavoring. It's a dangerous drink in that I could easily be a glutton and drink all 64oz in one sitting. I'm going to do my best not to do that, even though I just finished my second glass.

I cannot express my excitement when I came across this in a gas station in Richmond, VA. Actually that is a lie, I can very much express it by saying that I was slightly more than mildly interested. You see, I saw Canada Dry and my mind instantly went to thoughts of ginger ale. When I read pineapple, I assumed this was a pineapple ginger ale. As you can probably guess, this was no such thing. It is simply a pineapple soda. How great would pineapple ginger ale be though? I think I might just dump some pineapple juice in a bottle of regular Canada Dry and see how it turns out.

If there ever was a standard for pineapple pop, I assume this would be it. It has a general sparkling sugar water flavor with a mild taste of candied pineapple to it. I've had other sodas this flavor that the pineapple flavor is much stronger, and I have to admit, I prefer them. This is perfectly fine though, although while I was drinking it I proclaimed that I always feel trashy drinking pop from a plastic bottle. That's on me though.

Oh look, another Moxie energy drink that tastes absolutely nothing like their classic soda. At least the citrus one had a decent taste. This just tastes like overly, overly diet carbonated fruit punch. This taste like what I imagine diet Tahitian Treat would taste like. It doesn't even have an energy drink taste to it. That would normally be a nice change up, but all I get is the diet taste of sucralose. I don't know what demographic this energy drink is for, but I am certainly not it.

You know the park down the street from where you live? You know how occasionally you'll see a deer on the side of the road near there at dusk, and it will quickly run away? Well, that is because it just remembered that it's going to be late for the nightly deer meeting. That's right after everyone heads home from the part, and before the local trouble makers show up, the deer gather in the clearing in the little patch of trees that the little kids call the forest and discuss the news of the day. You know, things like which houses have gardens that aren't fenced off and where the best areas to sleep during the day are. Seriously where do they go? I have been in the woods, and in suburban fields that are the only areas where deer could go to sleep, and I have never come across them. Are they like Einstein and only sleep 15 minutes at a time?

Recently a point of contention at these meetings has been about where they should get their antioxidants. You see one of them came across a health magazine that had been left in the park by some turd and read the benefits of antioxidants. The deer realized they had been missing out on a crucial part of their diet, but none of the fruits mentioned in the article could be found in their area.

Ultimately they decided to ransack a convenience store after it had closed. One of the elders with larger antlers smashed the window and they all stepped right in. They tried a bunch of different beverages, but the majority of them preferred the acai grape flavored one. They thought it was fairly similar to another company called Vitamin Water (yes deer can read when they are from space, oh didn't I mention that part?) The drink was sweet, but light. It mostly tasted like the grapes they found on vines in the fall, but it had a little extra (light) kick to it. The best part was that this beverage wasn't nearly as sweet as the others. It was like fruit and water mixed.

Content, they headed back to the “forest” to get ready for the day of secret, hidden sleep ahead of them. Maybe they just slept in a spaceship since they were space deer.

Children of the 80's rejoice! We have discovered the source of the Glo Worm glow. It was not batteries and light bulbs like we always suspected. In reality the glow from those weird toys was mass quantities of aloe juice concentrated down. Seriously though, what was with those toys? They were stuffed animals that had hard bulky insides, so they weren't cuddly at all. In addition to that they were dolls based on creepy insects that glow. I would water that 95% of all of the children who owned a Glow Worm would have been super grossed out had they come in contact with the real thing.

Aloe Gloe is an organic aloe vera based beverage that aims to help with digestion, the immune system and skin health. It is unlike most other aloe drinks I've tried before because it is not overly sweet (a mixture of cane sugar and stevia leaves it at 4g of sugar), and it does not have any chunks in it. It's a whole different world from the sugary treats I normally associate with the plant. Since it's going for a healthier approach that makes a lot of sense. The white grape flavor that I have come to associate with aloe is barely there, and everything tastes a bit watered down. It is a called “Organic Aloe Water” so that makes perfect sense.

This is an aloe drink for the grown ups who actually take their health into consideration when they eat and drink. I with that either the aloe flavor was a bit stronger, or that the stevia flavor was a bit weaker. Either would improve this beverage in my eyes.

Can we all agree that your everyday energy drinks make you feel like garbage in the aftermath? There is too much sugar and too many weird chemicals in them, and as a result you crash and you either need to drink another one like a junky, or you deal with the “shakes,” or should I call them anti-shakes? For me at least they are a “break glass in case of emergency” type item, or at least they were until we started up Thirsty Dudes. Now I have a civic duty to feel like moose trampled me.

The main, and classic alternative to energy drinks is to drink coffee. That is also not for me. I can enjoy it if there are tons of chocolate and sugar in the mix, but I just do not like regular coffee. Again, I really don't need all that sugar into my life either.

Runa is giving people another option. It is a sparkling juice beverage that uses the Amazon guayusa as a delivery method for natural caffeine and polyphenols. Each 8.4oz can contains 120mg of caffeine, which is more than in a regular cup of coffee. We're talking more energy per square inch here people. On top of that it actually tastes great. It has a never rainforest berry flavor going on. You know if acai actually tasted the way you wanted it too, and wasn't so intense.

Sure these cans cost more than a gas station coffee, but they are cheaper than you would pay for a coffee shop coffee, so why not go for the switch and drink healthier.

I like that Arizona has been associating their new products with various “celebrities.” I have to be honest, I'm not a big art guy by any means, and I had no idea who Richard Prince was. The can (and Wikipedia) inform me that he was a photographer and painter who created pop culture-inspired art for decades. Apparently he is mostly known for “rephotographing.” If you want to know what that is; you're on a computer and Google is but a click away.

Prince also did a series of nurse paintings, which used the covers of pulp romance novels. This is where I tie in with the artist. Sonic Youth used one of these paintings for the cover of their Sonic Nurse album. It's ridiculous that learning that fact made me feel like I had a connection with the artist. It's not even a record that I like terribly much, but it is from a band that I once held very dearly.

Whatever. This isn't about an artist this is about a beverage. Apparently Prince approached Arizona with a soda he wanted to collaborate with them on, and ended up being apart of the Lemon Fizz release. The artist designed the can himself, so you're essentially buying a Richard Prince print for only 99 cents. What a steal.

Back to the beverage: This is carbonated lemonade, and it is great. I had such low expectations for this, as I expected a lemon lime soda (the most boring of all the pops) minus the lime (making it infinitely more boring). Arizona succeeded in creating a soda that actually tastes like lemonade with bubbles, and what harsh bubbles they are. It's very strong, so unlike most Arizona drinks it's a sipping drink and not a gulper. I don't think it really needs to be in such a large can, but hey that's Arizona's thing, so I'll let them have it.

It's no secret that the three of us here at Thirsty Dudes do not partake in alcoholic beverages. We're not jerks about it, it's just not for us. To paraphrase, “You're fun is not our fun.” When RESQWATER sent us some samples, we contemplated what to do. In the past we have had some friends get wasted and drink the product and give us a review of how it worked with us touching base about the flavor. It was a fun exercise, but to be honest it took a long time to come to fruition. People are busy, and our friends are older and not getting wasted all the time, we get it.

For this review we decided to take it another way. If I understand things correctly, a big part of what makes a hangover is dehydration. To mimic this, I ate obscene amounts of salsa with chips that were far to salty to be anything close to healthy, but tasted so darn good. In the past this combination has led me to feeling like crap the following morning, and I was told that I had the same symptoms of a hangover. So I did what I had to in order to replicate the scenario, you know like a reenactment on some crime show that is always on the TV. Yes, I know this is not exactly the same, but it's what we did, so deal with it.

I can tell you, my experiment worked. After being a complete glutton last night, I woke up feeling like cold diarrhea on a paper plate. Ugh. I got up sat around for a short while and then downed a bottle of RESQWATER.

First off, this does not smell pleasant. Actually maybe it's not all that unpleasant of a scent, but it's not what I want to smell when I'm about to drink something. It's something like a combination of fruit, vitamins, some sort of marinade and possibly meat. It's a weird smell that I was not expecting at all. The smell vaguely translates into the taste, but luckily it's not in a vomit inducing way. Mostly it tastes like a Vitamin Water version of prickly pear, but with a slightly stronger flavor. There is a bit of an adult vitamin taste to it as well, but it's sweet enough to mostly bury it.

This could be much worse, but overall it's nothing that I would drink for pleasure, which I assume wouldn't be the healthiest decision anyways. I would certainly drink it again if I ever woke up feeling like I did today. It didn't take all that long for my body to start feeling normal again after downing this. For all of you prone to hangovers due to your late night decisions, I suggest you keep a supply of this on hand.

Deep in the Hollywood Hills children need to step up their game with roadside stands. Kids grow up fast these days, and growing up and being popular requires money that they don't have. The days of the standard lemonade stand are long gone; the profits just weren't enough. These days the kids need to up the ante, or they will just have to kiss those new premium apps goodbye. As a result a new wave of suburban roadside beverages has risen.

It all started when some daring eight year old used her mother's seltzer water instead of the Evian that was customarily used (hey this is Hollywood, land of the yuppies). People were abuzz about this new development and there was a line around the block. From that point the children kept trying to outdo each other. They would flavor their lemonades in various ways to lure customers away from other stands. Some say there were a lot of backroom dealing and sabotage going on during this time, but there is no definitive documentation.

Then came the day that the Earth stood still. One little dreamer changed everything. That day a 100% Organic sparkling lemonade hit the streets. Since then the street stand game has never been the same. People came from miles just to sample this child's creation, and to feel good about themselves whilst doing so.

Limonitz attempts to recreate that greatness with their products. They use filtered sparkling water, organic lemon juice concentrate and organic sugar to make the finest carbonated lemonades this world has ever seen. On it's own it would be quite a product, but the company took it a step further with this drink and added organic ginger extract. The results are mind blowing. Here we have a sparkling lemonade, that not only tastes like real lemons without a hint of cleaning fluid, but also that actually has a real ginger flavor to it. It has a mind ginger burn to it, it's very mild to me, but my ladyfriend said that it had a decent bearable burn. Every ingredient is present in the taste, and there for a specific reason. It's simple, it's organic, and it's delicious. Needless to say this is going to put all of those dumb kids stands out of business before they can buy whatever it is kids “need” to have these days.

I believe there is a flaw in the basic nature of this beverage. How I see it is that you would want to drink an energy drink prior to doing strenuous activity that would require hydration. Wouldn't you want that extra boost to help you push through whatever it is that you're doing? Does added hydration do anything previous to any sort of workout? I suppose you could sip this while you are in the process of whatever it is that you are doing. Would the energy boost hit you in time though? I certainly don't get it.

Another thing that I don't get is the flavor. Grape has got to be one of the easiest flavors ever (right along side orange), yet they have somehow messed it up with this. What little non-diet/energy flavor that is present almost tastes more berry than grape. Whatever it is, it's not very pleasant. It's certainly doesn't taste good enough to denote a 24oz can.

I'm going to stick to the one serving out of the three that are in this can, and introduce the rest to the drainage system in my house. It has no place in my person.