Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

This falls under the category of iced tea that doesn't taste like tea. It's sugar water with flavoring that is similar to tea. There is no way that “tea powder” could result in a beverage that actually tastes like real tea. This falls in the same category as Nestea and Brisk. Actually it tastes like someone made some tea at home from a powder mix and combined it with some Brisk. I'm sure that a majority of the consumers out there will like this just fine, but over the years of writing for Thirsty Dudes I've become a low level tea snob, and this really just doesn't cut it. I mean it's perfectly drinkable, but it's nothing like what I want an iced tea to be.

Some mornings you wake up and you inexplicably feel like garbage. You know, just run down and dehydrated. It's what I imagine a lesser hangover would feel like, except no alcohol was consumed. In fact, yesterday I didn't consume anything out of the ordinary, or do anything too crazy. Perhaps it's just that all the little stresses I put on my body have all collected and culminated in one day of feeling like doo doo.

To help combat this I'm taking it east and drinking some coconut water, as it's known for being a crazy hydrator. Luckily I had this carton of Cocozia on hand. It's all organic, and in fact the only ingredient is organic coconut water. There are no extraneous sweeteners added and no wacky flavors. This is 100% just pure coconut liquid. It's good, but to me there is not much difference between all of the non-sweetened coconut waters on the market, which keeps it from becoming outstanding. I would certainly drink it again, but in the increasingly competitive world of coconut water I'm afraid it would be lost in the crowd for normal consumers. I will say that it has helped me a bit in my time of need, and for that I will have some brand loyalty.

Step One: Buy a sugar free Red Bull.

Step Two: Buy a bunch of sucralose. In my world this would be tricky, because I believe it should be a controlled substance, but in reality you could probably pick some up at the corner store.

Step Three: Crack open the Red Bull and pour a heaping amount of the sucralose in it.

Step Four: Swirl it around.

Step Five: Take a sip.

Step Six: Make a weird face because this tastes way more diet than any other energy drink you've ever tried. So much in fact that the diet starts to overpower the chemical energy taste of candy.

Mission complete. You now know what sugar free Icon tastes like.

Mike's son, Max, refers to carbonated drinks as spicy water. That boy has apparently never had a bottle of Buchulife before. If he had he would know that this is the true spicy water. It's not spicy in a heat sort of way, but in a way that it smells as tastes of spice.

Out of everyone I had try this, I am the only one who actually enjoyed it. Friend of the site Dave said that it taste like carbonated anise water. While I don't agree, I can see where he's coming from. Mike says that it tastes like trees, and I can also see where he is getting that. This is herbal infused seltzer water, and the herbs give it a very specific taste that I simply can't place. It is also unsweetened, which lets all the weird flavors shine even more. It has a little bit of an anise flavor, but then again it also has the coolness of mint without any actual mint flavor. It's an odd taste for sure, but it's something that I enjoy more and more with every sip.

Supervillianry is a disease. It is not something that you can ever rid your life of. Once a supervillian, always a supervillian. The best one can hope is to be a supervillian in recovery. That is where Moloch the Mystic found himself in the early 80s; a supervillian in recovery. One important part of recovery is to keep oneself busy. Moloch did so by working on comparing lines of code for Adrian Veidt. When they proved to be not enough for his idle hands he created a beverage company, which he named after himself: Mistic.

In the beginning it was a huge deal. It was essentially wine coolers for kids ( you know non-alcoholic). Yes things were going well for Moloch, until that pesky cancer showed up and killed him dead. After that things kind of fell apart at the plant, but eventually they got their act together and production started anew. This time minus the bubbles.

Obviously the drinks aren't as good as they were in their heyday, but there is still a certain charm to them. Take this bottle of Tropical Fruit Punch for example. Sure they could have cheaped out and gone the Hawiian Punch route, but the folks at Mistic knew that their former president and CEO would never allow that. Instead they created a fruit punch that was a bit on the citrus side of things. It's a mixture of all things that would normally be thrown into a punch with slightly elevated levels of pineapple and orange. It really makes all the difference. Even though this is sweetened with HFCS, it is not too thick and syrupy.

It is a nice little treat that honors the legacy of a once terrible, then reformed man. Let us now bow our heads in remembrance of Moloch the Mystic, not for what he once was, but for the company he later created.

“Drops” are all over the place nowadays. Essentially they are a concentrate of the flavoring they use in their ready to drink products. These have to be a goldmine for the companies. Think about it, it's less packaging and less product, which means it doesn't take up as much warehouse space. On top of that shipping these things has to be dirt cheap when compared to 12-16 ounce bottles. Smart move companies.

I know these things are, for the most part, intended to be used for “on the go,” but I'm not that type of guy. In fact, the only times I have ever drank any drop product is when I review it. After that it goes to Mike for his ladyfriend to use because she doesn't like water, like a crazy person.

I do like that it gives you the ability to make your beverage as light or strong as you wish it to be. One quick squirt and you have a nice light flavored water. A couple more squirts and you have a “juice drink,” or something like that. The more you squeeze the stronger your drink is, but the downside of that is that the stronger it gets, the more you can taste the sucralose. Flavorwise this actually pretty nice and accurate to it's name. You can taste both the cherries and the pomegranate, which I certainly did not expect.

Also, take my advice, as an idiot scientist I assure you that squirting it directly into your mouth is not a good idea. It's so strong…€¦so strong.

Can we all agree that almond's provide the greatest of all milks? Any milk that comes from animals involves some sort of gross bodily fluid mixed in. Rice milk…€¦well rice milk always tastes like rice. Soy milk is good, but you know too much soy can be bad for you, it also has a very specific taste to it. I do enjoy soy milk a great deal, but it simply cannot compare to the glory that is almonds. So basically what I'm saying is that not only are almonds the world's greatest nut, they also are the source of the world's greatest milk. I'm glad we're all in agreement here.

I'm into the idea of an almond milk based iced coffee. It's nice and smooth. The only thing is that this is 95% chocolate almond milk and 5% coffee. Now that is a nice treat for my personal taste buds, but for real coffee fans out there I'm sure it leaves them wanting. The coffee flavor is more of an aftertaste than anything. It almost has a malt like quality to it. I would like to try a stronger version of this, but until that exists I will enjoy this chocolate goodness.

Alright now, just ease back the cord of the bow. Hold the arrow back for a moment. Now, don't forget to breathe and relax. Once you feel confident that you have your target in your sites simply let go and let the pressure do the rest. Oh it looks like you missed the target. Speaking of, do you know what else missed the target: This bottle of Nature's Blends. I mean I guess it hit the target, but it certainly wasn't a bulls-eye. It hit somewhere in one of the outer circles.

The whole shtick of these drinks is that they are spring water and real juice. The thing is that if you add water to juice, you just get watered down juice. That is exciting for no one. So instead Poland Spring took some juice concentrate and added spring water, which would essentially make it juice again. They also added sugar and a couple of other ingredients that give it a slightly weird aftertaste. The thing is that instead of coming across like juice, this tastes like a Vitamin Water, minus the vitamins.

I'm pretty sure that nine times out of ten I would choose either plain water or just juice over this. It tastes perfectly satisfactory, but there are a handful of companies who do similar things better that are readily available.

Whenever I think about Muscle Milk all I can envision is a bunch of cows hanging out at Muscle Beach in Santa Monica just getting ripped. They are doing reps, they are doing sets and it is all for the tourists who watch from the other side of the fence. Seriously think about a cow bench pressing it's own bodyweight whist wearing a neon torn up tank top with a rad bandana on. I hope they have spotters. I wouldn't want any of them getting seriously injured.

Since the bottle clearly states that this contains no milk, and it is lactose free I can only assume that Muscle Milk is what those cows sweat out while they power lift on the beach. Obviously this flavor is the sweat from a brown cow. I never knew that sweat could be so thick. This actually tastes like high quality chocolate milk. You know the kind that someone actually melted chocolate into, instead of just mixing in a powder. It does a good job at not being chalky like protein shakes are prone to be. Now please sit back and giggle as you think about cows working out in the California sun.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it has been far too long since I have been in Wawa country. It's only been about six months, but that is half a year that I was denied the glory of soft pretzels and their delicious teas. You might find yourself saying something along the line of, “It's just gas station tea, how could you possibly miss it that much?” I will tell you why I do, it's because they sweeten it with real sugar and actually use fruit juice to flavor it. Show me another gas station that does that, and I will plan a road trip.

Since my last visit Wawa has released this new flavor. It's like they are taunting me. I mean every employee of every Wawa location must have heard me go off a dozen times about how blackberries are my favorite and how a blackberry tea would be a gift. It seems like they took note and then decided to release it whilst I was back home…€¦jerks.

Lucky for me Editor Dan took a vacation and stopped at a Wawa, or eight, and brought me home a bottle. It's almost exactly what I wanted. With 40g of sugar per bottle its more than a tad sweeter than I would have preferred, but I'll take what I can get and what I got was a nice sweetened tea that actually tastes like blackberries.

Take note Wawa, I will be visiting your various locations around Jersey and Philly come September, so stock up for me.

Recently Naked settled a class action lawsuit out of court and agreed to pay nine million dollars as reparation. The reason for all of this was that the company claimed that some of their products were all natural and free of genetically modified ingredients. Apparently they were a bunch of little liars since some of their products contained ascorbic acid, beta carotene, and D-calcium panthothenate. I had no idea those weren't natural ingredients, but that is what the news told me and when has the internet ever steered anyone wrong?

Naked was always my readily available “quality” juice of choice. I always thought it was better than it's competitors, but perhaps I was wrong. I also don't really care because the juice is still delicious and even with those ingredients it's still better than garbage made from concentrate with a butt-ton of sugar added to it. Yes my friends, I will continue to drink Naked, as I am doing right now with this bottle of Orange Mango juice.

This little guy right here, he doesn't fall under the lawsuit. There is nothing weird and unnatural added to this juice, just fruit that has been squished to hell to get its delicious lifeblood. This is orange, apple, mango and banana rolled into one, but in a way that you can only really taste the orange and the mango. Normally in juices like that it's more of an orange juice with a splash of mango in it, but here it's more of a 60/40 split. You can definitely taste the mango in a very strong fashion, and isn't that what everyone wants from juice with mango in it. No one is out there saying, “Man this is okay, but I wish it tasted more like oranges.” This is a good juice. Nah, this is a great juice. Don't let the lawsuit hold you back from enjoying it.

Dear friends and colleagues, we don't need a “new water,” the current version is doing just fine thank you. If for some reason you needed something more, may I suggest one of those fancy alkalized ones? They are somehow way smoother than regular water, and I'm a person who normally says all waters are the same.

One thing I can say for certain is that in no way should anyone consider this line to be a new water, as its name hints. Water is essential. This is not. It in no way should be a replacement beverage, but I do think it could work well along side with water. It's chock full of vitamins and minerals, electrolytes and protein. I can understand what they are going for as it will certainly help the drinker rehydrate and refresh. Most importantly with it's pairing with water is that I think it needs to be watered down. It is one of those drinks that upon first sip you question in your mind if it is actually a concentrate. Okay, it's not that strong, but the flavors are a bit oppressive, and it would be hard for me to down a full bottle in a sitting. It has a candied peach mango flavor to it, and it tastes like someone put far too much of that flavor into the rest of this mix.

It's a slightly thicker beverage, but it doesn't have any trace of that traditional chalky protein taste. In all honesty if they had just held back a bit on the peach mango flavoring this could be a work of art. Well maybe the art that a teenager would do. You know they think it's all deep and meaningful, but you could go to any town in the US and find another teenager who drew the exact same thing. How is that relevant to this review? I honestly have no idea.

Welcome to Pineapple Pokopo where we make all of our food to Cokopo…€¦err coconuts. The thing is that the only things that are prevalent on our island are pineapples and sharks. Our president is very insistent on the whole coconut thing though, so he has trained sharks to go to neighboring islands and bully their residents into giving them coconuts to bring back to us here at Pineapple Pokopo!

I must say that using coconut and pineapple in everything definitely limits the food available for us. We do drink a lot of pina coladas though. Actually I'd say that 95% of the occupants of our island are drunk for most of their life. They say it is the only way they can force down the food we have, and deal with their crippling fear of sharks.

Glaceau has hired us to make them a new flavor of Vitamin Water due to our surplus of pineapples, and coconuts since the sharks have gone a little overboard with their bullying. We call it Coco-Refresh, and it is essentially a non-alcoholic pina colada that is rich in vitamins. The residents of the island actually drink them as soon as they awake to help combat the brutal hangover they invariably have until they start drinking again.

Since we do have more pineapples then coconut, regardless of the sharks being jerks, the drinks is heavier on the pineapple then the tree nut. Are coconuts really nuts, or did someone just give them a dumb name because of their hard shells? Either way the coconut that is in the beverage is more along the lines of actual coconut water and not tanning oil. I'll never understand how people can enjoy something that tastes like that. Oh well, our Vitamin Water is refreshing and tasty, like everything here at Pineapple Pokopo. Won't you come and visit?

Patrick! What is this garbage? I leave you alone with the business for two weeks so I can have my first vacation in twenty years and I come home to you ruining my company! I wrote you out very specific instructions on how to make our beverages. They were all layed out for you line by line, and it took up only half of a page, yet you still couldn't follow it. You think you know oats better than your brother? You think you know oats better than Pete!?!? I spent years working on this recipe to make sure everything was exactly right. You come in for two weeks, and decide you can do better and throw the instructions out the window? What made you think that making a vat of oatmeal with double the water and just throwing a handful of grapes into the mix would make for a good beverage? What you've created is a gross sludge that no one in their right minds would want to ingest.

You see when done correctly, following my instructions I might add, the oatmeal is not the base for the drink. It's more of a watery juice. Don't get me wrong it has a strong white grape flavor that almost tastes like “original” aloe juice, it just has to be fairly liquidy because when you add in the powdered oats, it needs a little extra fluid to absorb them, so the drink doesn't become too thick. Actually when done correctly the results shouldn't have a consistency all that different from peach juice, you know just a little thicker than water.

If what you created wasn't bad enough, you also didn't even properly mix in the sweetener. I use a mixture of erythritol, evaporated cane juice and stevia in my products It gives it less calories, without tasting too diet. In yours you just through in regular sugar and it's in there in big clumps. Everything about what you have done is wrong and gross.

I wish I could divorce you from being my brother. If this was some sort of retribution prank, you have done terribly. Pranks need to be smarter and well thought out, you know sneaky like I would do. That is why I am called Sneaky Pete. Maybe we should just start calling you Mean Spirited, Lazy Patrick. How would you like that?

Ugh. I'll have to dump this all out and start over. Grab one of the bottles I made before I left from the cooler. See how this is actually a drink and not just slop that isn't fit to feed a pig? You really are the worst Patrick, now get out of my factory and tell mom it looks like I'm going to be late for family dinner, and that she has you to thank for that.

Dear Energy Drink World,
I know your secret, your big, dark secret about your lineage that you don't want the world to find out about. You know what, I'm going to tell the world, and expose you for what you are. I know who the father of energy drinks is. He was once a boy who found a golden ticket that granted him and his conman grandfather access to the world's greatest candy factory. Once they were inside they tricked the kind, gentle owner/operator of the factory into signing the deed for everything over to them.

At first it was business as usual, making all of the candy the factory always produced, but in secret that boy who was quickly becoming a man performed savage experiments with the candy and added chemicals to them for various results. It wasn't until the original owner of the candy factory passed on that the boy who was now a devious man unleashed his new creations upon the world under various names so it couldn't be traced back to him and his lucrative candy business. He took the world by storm with what he called energy drinks.

You see when he was young he realized that sugar candy made kids go bonkers so he decided to up the ante and add taurine, caffeine and various other ingredients to make a beverage that would be the same to adults, but with greater effects. He started various companies, each of which used a different candy base for the energy chemicals to be added to. They all had similar but unique flavors.

One such company was Icon. For this formula he added the usual suspects of energy infused ingredients to a base that was made primarily of blue raspberry sweet tarts, heavy on the blue aspect of it. The result was very similar to his other companies, but it had a slightly different candy flavor to it, that actually stood out more than was expected. It was essentially a blue raspberry version of his flagship energy company, Red Bull.

Now you see the world knows your secrets, but I fear I am too late. Your drinks have been embraced by society and they consume and enjoy them to such an extent that they won't even care that you bastardized a wholesome candy company. It look like you win this time Charles.

Here we are with the last one. Four cans, four flavors, four ridiculous pictures of Shaq's face and four drinks left ¾ unfinished. As has been said about the other flavors, these should be great. They are all natural, and Arizona is a company with a pretty good track record. These just fall short though. The first couple of sips are decent enough, but then it all just goes downhill and the good aspects of the flavor get lost. Seriously, this is an orange cream soda that is made with actual orange juice; it should be amazing and not this fizzy can of sub-mediocrity that site before me.

I've narrowed it down and the problem with these is that the taste of the vanilla and whatever fruit is flavoring it (in this case it's orange) doesn't stick around long enough. They remain on your tongue for but a brief moment and then you're just left with a sweet fizzyness that has hints of honey. It needs a stronger, long lasting flavor to pull you through such a large can.

I know a lot of people who were excited when these came out, but not a single one of them have enjoyed the soda. I'm sure once the summer ends these will fade into obscurity and never resurface again.

Trudy is one heck of a heifer. At first glance she looks like any other cow on the market, but a closer look shows that she has a David Bowie thing going on where she has two different color eyes. The thing is that she one's up the Thin White Duke as her right eyes looks like a rainbow. I bet that would drive Mr. Stardust insane that he didn't have that back in the 70's. Looks aside Trudy is also special because of the milk that comes out of her utters, you see it's pre-sweetened and tastes kind of fruity. Weird, right? I mean it's common knowledge that chocolate milk comes from brown cows, but who would have guessed that fruity milk comes from a cow with a rainbow eye?

The milk that comes from her actually kind of tastes like what is leftover after you eat the cereal from a bowl of Fruity Pebbles. It's not for me personally, but the kids sure seem to love it. I'm not a fan of milk to begin with, and on top of that it's a bit sweeter than I would ever want, but as I said I'm a grown ass man and this is a drink for the children of the world. Well, at least the children of the middle class in the United States.

Here is another one of those times where I just can not get down with a drink, but I give it an decent review simply because I know there are a lot of people out there who would truly enjoy it. Everything thing about this drink is organic and perfectly fine, so it would be unfair for me to give it a bad review simply because I do not like this aspect of coconuts.

If coconuts were to be portrayed as a character in the DC universe, they would be Two Face. The Harvey Dent, unscarred side of Two Face would represent coconut water. It's clean and refreshing tasting. It makes you feel good and there is hope for the fruit. I believe in Harvey Dent, or at least his side of the coconut. Then there is the other dark side of the tropical fake nut. It's the side that is toasted and burned, much like the face of this adversary. It's also the side that makes you think of the beach and tanning oil. It's something I certainly cannot get behind. I kind of wish it was thrown into Arkham once and for all.

This beverage does not taste like toasted coconuts, but it unfortunately really tastes like you're trying to catch some rays and you lick a little too far past your lips and taste your tanning oil. It actually is like someone took that oil and really sweetened it up. There is erythritol in here, so it's a cool, sweetened tanning oil. It's strange. It has the makings of some sort of candy that half the population would absolutely love and the rest of us rational people would hate.

We can all agree that green tea is great, correct? Out of all the teas in the world that I have tasted it can stand the highest on it's own; no sweeteners, no added flavors, just tea leaves boiled in water and left to cool. It's wonderful, it's refreshing and it's all I really need. I mean I like more, but I don't need it.

I'm assuming with their Tea Water line Arizona is trying to make a lighter tea, that doesn't have as many calories as their regular line, but doing so without using zero calorie sweeteners that effect the taste a lot, no matter what anyone says. I appreciate what they are going for here. There is almost always far too much sugar in drinks these days, and I certainly enjoy a light tea. What I have a problem with was the solution they came up with. They may have started using a lower tea to water ratio so that it was a weaker tea and added less sugar to the result, but I'm willing to wager that they brewed a regular batch of their green tea and watered it down to nearly nothing. The end result is a watered down tea that is slightly sweet, but in the way that tastes like you watered it down yourself, not before it was sweetened. The small amount of sugar used tastes stretched out. I imagine the sugar feels like Marty McFly when his hand starts fading away. It's uncertain as to whether it will still exist at all by the end of the bottle.

I myself prefer a stronger tea, but I have no major qualms with the weaker variety. It is my humble belief that they should have forgone the sweetener altogether. The use of no sweetener as compared to very little washed out sweetener would have made this far more enjoying. It wouldn't have seemed like they were trying to pull one over on the consumer by just stretching their beverages. They could have watered down the tea a bit more to keep the Tea Water name. I'm sure that was a marketing ploy. In a world where Vitamin Water reigns supreme at gas stations, something called “Tea Water” would probably spark more interest then something that says “Unsweetened Tea.”

I will say that I do really enjoy the yumberry flavor to this. Light everything in the drink it's light. I appreciate that this is all organic and it's really that trace amount of sugar that is bringing this whole line down.

Oh that little guy right there? Yeah I like those little guys. Well, except for that raspberry half & half; something about that just wasn't quite right. Hubert, a company that makes some of the best ready to drink lemonade your mouth buds will ever encounter, is made by Hansens, who make some of the best natural soda those self same mouth buds most certainly love. I must admit that I don't think they use the same lemonade in their half & halfs as they do in their glass bottle versions, but that is acceptable. Their lemonade is pretty darn sour, and to mix it with tea would require a whole lot more sugar than I am prepared to digest. My hypothesis is that they take that lemonade and go 50/50 with it and water. Then they mix it in with some black tea and let the party begin.

This is what I want all lemon tea to taste like. Far too often it tastes like cleaner to me, but this is perfect. It's more tea than lemonade. It's probably in the 60/40 range, which is just fine with me. The folks at Hubert's didn't go overboard with the sugar either as any companies are prone to do. There is a bunch in there, but it still taste like tea and lemons and not sugar water. Plus city.

Look at that little guy on the label. He's giving you a quick little wink to let you know that he understands everything you've been going through. You had a rough week at work and now that you have time off it's sweltering hot and you need to cool down to enjoy your day. He's just saying don't worry the contents of my body are here to refresh you. Just imbibe me and everything will be just fine…€¦.well that turned unexpectedly creepy.