Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

We have quite the storm going on in Buffalo, NY right now. I believe in the past two hours I have seen more lightning and heard more thunder than the rest of my life combined. It's crazy go nuts university out there. Luckily I made it home right before the sky opened up and all of the moisture in all of the air from the entire world dropped on my beloved city. What better way to experience this than by sitting under your covered porch, drinking a nice frosty root beer and listening to The Cure's Disintegration? Oh you don't have root beer? Well neither did I actually, and I'd a bit ashamed of that. AS a fill in I decided to go with a cool bottle of Fitz's grape pop. It might not be as comforting as root beer, and I may not be at a BBQ, but this is one fine bottle of soda. It's like someone took a standard grape soda and turned it up a few notches. I was actually questioning whether there was real juice in here; there's not. It just tastes bold and fruity in the right ways. This may be the best grape soda I've ever had that wasn't just sparkling grape juice. To bring this full circle, it's actually much better than their root beer, which was very standard without the amping up.

The storm is still raging, but my bottle is empty and the album is over. It's time to call it a night and read some comics. This is how everyone celebrates their birthday, right?

Hot…€¦so hot. I hear it got up to 94 degrees in Buffalo today. I know to you folks in the southwest that is nothing; I've been in 114 degrees out there. The difference is that with the heat here the air is like soup. Integrity once said that “Humanity is the devil,” but I think a more accurate phrase would be humidity is the devil. It's the type of heat that even a cold shower can't help, because as soon as you get out you're just sweating again. Ugh. It's the kind of heat that melts the ice cream that fills your cone before you can eat it and you're left unsatisfied with sticky hands. No one wants this.

I've drank more water over the past couple of days then any human could consume if they weren't sweating it all out immediately. I'm at a point where I feel like if I had a constant stream of water going into me I would still feel dehydrated. I decided that something stronger was needed, so I've turned to coconut water. I didn't want any sugar or any added flavoring garbage, so I chose Taste Nirvana. This is simply coconut water and coconut pulp, nothing else is needed. It tastes like if I took the three hundred hours it takes to actually crack open a coconut and drank it's liquid inners. It doesn't taste like it's been sitting in this bottle for months. It's actually sweeter than other “no sugar added” coconut waters I've had before. The label says it's because of the region they harvest their coconuts from. It's pleasant. I can enjoy it. It's refreshing.

While the chunks of coconut pulp would be a nice treat on other days, they are just getting in the way of me chugging this whole bottle. I guess that is to my advantage as they are letting me enjoy this longer. I bet I'm still going to feel dehydrated fifteen minutes after this is gone.

Somewhere in some universe teenager me is watching modern day me and shaking his head. He's thinking what has my life come to that not only am I drinking nutritional shakes that are high in protein, but that I am doing so with it's intended purpose in mind. The idea of working out at a gym is laughable to the kid who talked his phys ed teacher into letting kids play hacky sack instead of working out. He's a kid who believed that all the exercise one needed in life could be had by skateboarding and wandering around in the woods with your friends. It is also the same kid who thought he could subside forever on tacos, Pop Tarts and Quaker granola bars.

Here are some words of wisdom for me of two decades past; when you get older life gets in the way, and you won't be in the woods nearly as much as you used to, or want to, and when there's no one else to skate with anymore, and you realize that you can in fact hurt yourself, you only get on a board a couple times a year. As far as the food goes, keep eating those tacos, but Pop Tarts are just gross and you know it. The only reason you eat them is because your mom keeps buying them. As for the granola bars, you'll upgrade to higher quality ones and still eat them on the regular. The point of all of this is that when you're in your mid thirties things will start to catch up with your body, and you'll realize that you're not a scrawny little kid anymore, and you really need to get some exercise, which also actually makes you feel good and helps with that stupid depression that lingered around for most of your life because of the dumb music you listened to. Okay, you'll still be listening to that same dumb music, and loving it just as much, but the physical activity helps counteract it, so you're not up until dawn every night doing absolutely nothing, and rarely seeing the sun.

Oh and while you're exercising to help make life more bearable (while listening to songs written in a minor key like a maniac) you might as well help your body recover by drinking some of these shakes. They do help, and nowadays they don't all taste like dust. This actually just tastes like something between a nice smoothie and a melting milkshake. You probably have no idea what pomegranate and acai are since it's the early/mid 90's where you are and they haven't invaded every facet of eating yet, but trust me…€¦you enjoy them. Well, maybe not acai too much, but when it's mixed with other stuff it's not bad at all. This doesn't taste overly like a protein drink at all, and it's nice that companies such as Mix 1 are expanding their lines into things other than chocolate, vanilla and strawberry banana. It's mellow. It's fruity. It's enjoyable.

Oh, and teenage self. Why don't you spend some of that time that you are awake all night and actually pick up that bass that's next to your bed? I know you think you're good, but I can tell you twenty years later you really should be much better than you are. As it is now, you're just faking your way through it, but hey at least we're still making music.

Hey Song likes to take your every day soda and turn it on end. Since I can only speak English and minimal Spanish, I have no idea what this was supposed to be or what the ingredients are. I went in with an open mind, eager for something weird. I expected it to be white gourd or guava flavored because the color scheme would match Hey Song's juices of those flavors. Secretly I was hoping, and praying that this was going to be a cucumber soda. The can is green and it says refreshing; what is more refreshing than cucumbers? The answer is nothing. To summarize I was expecting something out of the ordinary.

What I was not expecting was a lemon lime soda, which is what I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be. The first couple of sips I drank took me a moment to place the flavor, but that is where my palate landed. As I drank a little more I started to notice another flavor as well, something a bit on the bitter side. I believe it to be tea. This reminds me a lot of the early versions of Steaz. It has that same extra flavor that the Steaz root beer had. It's unexpected, but kind of nice. It's certainly much better than a plain lemon lime soda would have been.

If anyone out there knows what this flavor actually is, and can confirm or disprove my review, please let me know. I went into this one with blind taste buds.

Are you a weakling? Do you wish you were strong like the muscle men on the TV? Are you afraid of hair loss and shrinkage? Well do we have the steroid alternative for you! Powerade gives you the “aid” to need to get “powerful.” See what I did there? The dumbest spelling out of a name's origin you will ever see.

You may find yourself saying, sir I have seen Powerade around for years. Isn't it just a knock off of Gatorade? Yes you would be correct, but Gatorade does not have these fancy little concentrate bottles that you can keep in your purse/fanny pack. This way you don't have to worry about the bulk of the big bottles, and you can add it to water anywhere you go; your home, the gym, that fancy French restaurant you go to on your anniversary. Literally anywhere.

The real bonus of this product comes in the fact that you can squeeze to flavor it however you want. If you find regular Powerade too watery, you can just squeeze a little more in and make it a bit stronger. There are no calories and no sugar so there are no worries about how much you add.

This has that fake blue raspberry flavor that many drinks/candies have. You know what it tastes like, but it's got sucralose, so it's a tad on the diet side, but not much. It's actually much better than I expected and I will probably drink more than one cup of it before passing it on to someone else.

Hello, my name is Jason and I am an addict. I spent years of my life chasing the dragon, trying to grasp the unbeatable fix. I went from sketchy place to sketchy place looking for the best that the world could offer. I knew I had reached a low point when I found myself eating plants to get a fix. I was literally poisoning myself, and for what a taste of the good life. I realize now that I could never find a high sweet enough, or a chunk big enough. You see I am addicted to aloe drinks. I have kicked the habit, but I know that I will always be an addict. Actually that's not true…€¦I had kicked the habit, but I'm ashamed to admit that I have had a relapse. I just couldn't help myself. When a company like Alo released a drink that is watermelon and peach flavored, I feel like I have no choice but to submit to my urges. I mean it's made with real juice for crying out loud.

I am shamed, and going back to the …€˜lo wasn't even as sweet as I wanted it to be. I was a fool. I knew watermelon drinks tended to end up tasting like Jolly Ranchers, but the use of real fruit gave me hope. In a cruel twist of fate, I was correct that it did taste like watermelon, but I had forgotten how light and nearly unflavored the juice that comes from a watermelon could be. This tastes like the great seeded fruit, but it was so darn light. Peaches are a much stronger fruit, but for some reason in this it was light as well. In some sips it came out stronger than others, but ultimately I must admit this was a very light drink. That can be fine and actually preferably in some beverages, but when it comes to aloe one wants bold flavors.

As far as chunks go, they are not as plentiful in Alo drinks as with other companies, but when you do get them, they are much larger than normal. It's a trade off you must make sure you are okay with. At my moment of weakness I would have accepted any chunks the Alo gods offered up.

I was weak, and my confidence was shattered. I came here to this group in search of help and strength. I hope that you fine people will allow me to lean on you as you fight your own demons. Wait…€¦what do you mean this has nothing to do with aloe? This is AA, right? Aloholics Anonymous? Oh…€¦well it looks like I'm in the wrong place. Thank you for your time anyway.

I did some research, because I wanted to make sure, and I was correct; the origin story of this soda has nothing to do with Native Americans. It's just name and image appropriation for the purpose of branding. Someone years ago thought they were clever in naming their cherry soda “Cherikee Red.”

To add to the offensiveness of it all, the soda is less than average. It's on the low side of store brand soda. It's cherry, but the flavor is not bold, it's just kind of there. It's certainly no Cheerwine.

Normally I would say that a rebranding was in order, but since the taste is nothing to write home about perhaps this soda should fade away into the racist history of our wonderful country.

We got some green teas. We got some blueberries. We got some cane juice crystals. We got some stevias. We got a whole bunch of other stuff too. Mix them all together and that that makes a good meal. That is if you are on a strict liquid diet. If not then it makes for a good beverage. Is it fair to say that I want to punch people in the throat who talk like that? I mean I would never actually hit them, but I find it infuriating. When I get to my boiling point, all I need to do is reach for one of these delicious iced teas and let the aggravation melt away. It's not a nice mild blueberry taste that accents the green tea. The stevia keeps to the peripheries. You can tell that it is there, but it's not right in your face. So it makes it an acceptable way to cut down on calories, as it doesn't detract from the taste of the beverage much at all. I mean I could still do without it, and have minimal to no sugar in here, but other people have different tastes, and I damn them everyday for it. Looks like I'm going to need another bottle.

To sum up this soda I give you The Decemberists' Valenica. It tells the tale of two star-crossed lovers, a man and his citrus of choice. The world couldn't accept their love, and it all ended it tears. What is not told in the song is that after the untimely death of his beloved orange, the protagonist of the tale collected her remains and used the juice they contained to create a soda that was worthy of praise.

He always found his love to have a wonderful dry humor, so he kept true to her memory, by not adding much sugar to ensure the soda would also be dry. The result fell somewhere between a sparkling water and soda pop as the world knows it. It was light yet still flavorful. With each sip our hero shed a tear for the love that he had lost, but yet regained in some form as a beverage.

Depending on what word you put the emphasis on this drink could have a unsavory name. I guess it all boils down to saying it as if it were a question. “THAT Indian drink?” makes it seem like the person can't believe that you would choose that drink above others, and is slightly disgusted by it. “That INDIAN drink?” just makes you sound racist, as if you want nothing to do with all things Indian. “That Indian DRINK?” just makes you seem like a moron and that you don't know what drinks are.

I would choose “THAT INDIAN DRINK!” because this is pretty darn good. It also acts as more of a dessert than a beverage, like a Indian milkshake if you will. For those of you who are uncultured buffoons who don't own a monocle, a lassi is a sweetened yogurt drink. So it's essentially raspberry yogurt, but thinned out, with a splash of cinnamon in it. I shook this a great deal, as the bottle recommended, but I didn't get much cinnamon flavor until I got to the bottom 1/3 of the bottle. When I got there it was all worth it though. It's thick and it's exotic. I'm glad it only comes in an 8oz bottle though, because I don't think I could handle much more than that.

So as you probably don't know, Coca Cola no longer works with Nestea. They don't bottle it, they don't' distribute it, it's as if their partnership never existed. I wonder who plays the role of the jilted lover in this scenario? Coke needed to fill their iced tea slot, so they are now working with Fuze.

The thing is that I think there was some vats of Nestea's green tea and honey in some factory and they just slapped the Fuze label on it. As my ladyfriend pointed out, it tastes basically the same. It has that quasi bubble tea taste from the honey and the…€¦well green tea. It's really sweet, and if a true tea smith who used monkeys to gather their tea from the side of mountains tasted it they would sip and weep for how much of a bastardization it is from what green tea traditionally is. I say let them cry. I love real deal green tea, but this is gas station fodder and you can't hold it up to the same standards.

This may be the best that health has ever tasted. I've enjoyed many a juice in my day, but I'm pretty sure I could drink gallons of this without batting an eye. There are only three ingredients here and they are all listed in the flavor. Two of those three can be a little much when they are abused, but BluePrint knows exactly what they are doing. The pineapple has a nice strong, fresh taste, but it's not overly acidic in the way that some pineapple juices make you think of bile. In the same regard, they held back on the mint, making it more of an accent then a prime player. So many beverages overdo it with their mint, and it ends up tasting like you're sipping something whilst chewing gum. Here that is not even close to being the case. On this ride you get apple, pineapple, apple again and then mint leads you out. I personally love a juice where you can pinpoint each individual flavor instead of them all mixing together into some sort of amalgamation.

My birthday is in about a week, so I would like everyone to chip in and get me a year's supply of this juice. It may cost about a half million dollars, but my taste buds will thank you.

It's been sad times out on the old horse farm. You see horse thieves have come by and done what they do and now the farm is horseless. I know horse thieves in this day and age? It's a sad but true reality in the world that we live in. Without the ridiculous amounts of money that the owners pulled in from all of those 4H shows at county fairs, they don't know how they are going to make ends meet. The mortgage is due, the electricity is in fear of being shut off and everyone's bellies are rumbling. One would think that a farm would have some sort of food growing, but you would be wrong. The only edible things on the entire farm are the bins of oats that were once used to feed the horses before they were thieved in the night.

They have been staving off hunger with a steady diet of oatmeal, but Teddy decided to use the oats to add a little something-something to his beverage. To begin with his drink was really nothing more that water, stevia and some natural peach flavoring (aka the ruminants of a can of peaches that he has been stretching for weeks. He was getting no nutritional value out of the drink, so he pureed a bunch of oats and mixed them in for fiber. As we all know fiber is a very important thing when your life is on a farm.

The results of his experiment were shocking. He had expected it to be a thick drink, with chunks of oats in it, kind of like the milk at the end of a bowl of granola. Apparently the house had a super blender, because it was pure liquid; there was not a single chunk to be found. The oat flavor was to a minimum as well; perhaps it was because it had been drying out in the bins for so long. It really just tasted like peaches and stevia albeit lightly. There was a slight oat flavor that could have been turned up a little bit more. It would have been nice for it to taste a little bit like oatmeal. Even though it was not what he expected Teddy proclaimed it to be “Oatstanding!,” to which all of the rest of the farms hands just shook their head and continues to bale hay for the ghost of horses past.

I do believe the trickster has been at it again. He certainly must have come in the dead of night and drank my Odwalla orange juice and then replaced it with a lesser juice. That is the only conclusion I can come to since there is nothing spectacular about the contents of this bottle of juice. It's not bad, in fact it's on the higher side of average, but for the cost of it, and the power behind the brand I expected more. In fact I could buy a half-gallon of comparable orange juice for the same price.

When I go out and get one of these “special” juices from companies like Odwalla, Naked or Bolthouse I expect a little pizzazz. I know there are more, better companies, but these are the big names for people to have a point of reference. I expected this to taste like I was biting into a perfectly ripe orange on a warm summer morning. Instead it tastes like every other 100% juice orange juice. Give me more or give me death! Wait, I take it back, I would rather drink this instead of death, because like I said, it's pretty good, just not over the top good like I had wanted/expected.

All right fellas, it's time to make a batch of our mixed fruit juice. What do we have extra laying around? Okay, we have guavas and red guavas. Well that's not very eclectic. Sure I love guava as much as the next guy, but we already have these cans printed up and they say mixed fruit. If we just go with guava, even though it's two different types, we should really just call it guava juice. So, what else do we have? Tomatoes? Seriously Bonny? Tomatoes aren't a fruit; they are a gross vegetable! What do you mean they are a fruit not a vegetable? You know what I will Google it! Well, would you look at that, tomatoes are officially considered a fruit…€¦ who knew? You're all telling me that you knew they were considered fruit and not a vegetable? You're all a bunch of dirty liars, that's what you are. Anyway it looks like tomatoes are the only other fruit we have, so throw it in with the guavas.

Well that turned out much better than I thought. We may have gone overboard with the sweeteners, but I really didn't want this to taste like V8 at all, and we succeeded with that. People will never know that the other fruit involved is tomato, as no one ever reads ingredients anyways. Taste wise this ended up being a really thick guava juice. Actually, I would say it tastes like sugar water with guava juice mixed in. It's not the finest work that we have done here at Hey Song, but it could have turned out a lot worse with the ingredients we were left to manage with.

Sparkling waters are generally not my thing. The carbon dioxide in the bubbles does something to the flavor that does not work well with my palate. It just makes the water dry and I want to say bitter, even though I know that is not the right word.

Knowing what my body does and does not like I went into this expecting to drink a few sips and then discarding the rest. The actuality of it is that I ended up drinking the entire bottle and really enjoying it. This is not your normal sparkling water. It has a nice light black currant flavor that is a little more than a hint, but nothing close to overbearing. I've had flavored sparkling water before and it still always has that distinct flavor that I can't get down with. Since that flavor is very underplayed in this beverage I have to attribute it to the Buchu Oil. Of course you've never heard of it before, neither had I. It's an extract from a South African Herb that is packed with antioxidants. It works wonders.

For those of you out there like myself who's body craves carbonation to scratch their throat at times, and don't want all of the sugar from soda, yet have a distaste for seltzer and tonic waters, this is the solution you've been looking for.

I'm fairly certain there was a mix up with shipping at the plant where 989 is made. You see each week they normally get a shipment in of the oddly tasty Flintstone chewable children's vitamins. They then dump them into this gigantic electronic pestle and mortar that they have in the back and it turns them into a nice fine powder to which they add their personal blend of ionic minerals and electrolytes. From the smell/taste of this I think someone screwed up in the shipping department and ordered a bunch of old people vitamins instead. You know, the kind that always smells stale, and you don't want their taste on your tongue at all. Whoever accepted the shipment must have just shrugged and loaded them in anyways.

The rest of this line has ranged from acceptable to tasty, with very few real complaints from us. This grape unfortunately does not cut it. It smells like a mixture of white grape juice and Centrum. Actually that's pretty much how it tastes as well, except there is also a more than heaping serving of stevia in there as well, so you have a cooling adult vitamin flavor. It's not something that I can say I enjoy.

I would also like to point out that I was with a three year old when I drank this, and they were so completely excited about it. The twisting of the cap so that the vitamin powder mixed it elicited cheering and clapping. She could not get this drink to her lips fat enough to drink it down. Then as soon as mouth contact was made, she immediately stopped, handed the bottle back to me, whilst making a grossed out looking face and simply said, “I don't like that.” Even kids can tell there is something wrong here.

Seeing as Derek is vegan and Mike doesn't believe in strenuous activity I have become the de facto protein shake reviewer here at the offices of Thirsty Dudes. Of course by offices I mean my computer room in my apartment, Mike's desk at his day job and wherever it is what Derek does his writing. We live the glamorous lives of the beverage reviewer and there is no one that can take that away from us.

I got done with my work for the day early, but no one else was around, so I decided to go on a bike ride. I meant to just ride around for an hour or so, and maybe check out some neighborhoods that I've never been to around my house. That led to a much longer ride that took me over nearly 30 miles of road. Did I mention it was ridiculously hot and humid as well? I don't know if I have ever sweat so much in my life. I was literally able to ring sweat out of my clothes after I got home. After bringing my bike into the house I dragged myself to the kitchen and grabbed this out of the fridge, because of course what you want when you're ridiculously dehydrated and are so tired that you don't think you'll be able to move much more is a nice milkshake that has bananas in it aka the worst fruit ever.

The protein gods were shining down upon me as this is the first beverage that I have ever had that contains banana that didn't taste exactly like the grossest of all fruit. This has more of a creamy base with a nice strawberry flavor added to it. It's light in flavor, but for some reason the banana flavor is hardly there. I certainly wish it would have been just strawberry in flavor, but I can't complain about the minimum banana that I was presented with. It's also sweetened with stevia, so perhaps it was that natural zero calorie sweetener that hid the banana for me. It also didn't end up tasting very diet at all. This was actually down right enjoyable for a protein drink. I'm sure I would have liked it even more had I had more moisture in my body.

Of course as soon as I was done with this I downed a gigantic coconut water to rehydrate. It took about a half hour after that for my muscles to work again and then I was ready for new adventures.

I don't get it. I just don't get it. Arizona is a company that makes decent beverages. Sure, most of the time they taste a little cheap, but you know what you're getting into, and for the size to price ratio, it's great. They decided to move into the soda world, and did a nice job with their Lime Rickey line. Then they decided to make a variety of cream sodas that are endorsed by Shaq. They even used real sugar to sweeten them, which is rare for the company. Actually it's an all natural soda. All of these things pointed towards a truly enjoyable drinking experience. So, what went wrong?

I've tasted a plethora of cream sodas in my day, and I think this may be the first one I've ever met that I just couldn't finish. Of course this is a much larger quantity, but I couldn't even make it through a third of the can. That's less than 8oz. Like the blueberry variety I thought it tasted nice enough of the first few sips, but then I just couldn't handle any more. Also like the blueberry I blame the honey, which is strange because I love honey in pop. The problem with it is the aftertaste of the honey is almost as strong as the initial vanilla flavor. Maybe it's just that the vanilla flavor is too weak. If they increased the vanilla, the honey wouldn't stand out so much. It's also doesn't taste as sweet as cream soda normally does, which is strange because there is a decent amount of sugar in here (way more than one should ingest in one sitting).

This is a soda that had me excited, but in the end it just left me wanting more. Well, not wanting more of it, but wanting a better version of it. Shaq retired from basketball, and not perhaps it's time for him to retire from soda as well, after a very short time in the limelight.

Juice cleanses are becoming more and more popular these days. An old roommate did one a few years ago where for four days he only ingested water and a mixture of lemon juice and cayenne pepper. I have never seen someone's complexion go down the tubes so fast in my life, but he said that afterwards he felt great. It's something that I've always wanted to try, but I fear that I wouldn't be able to stick with it. I am fairly weak willed when it comes to food, and when I get hungry I get extremely irritable. I suppose if I ever do decide to suck it up and do it, I should wait until my ladyfriend is out of town for some reason, or she may kill me for being an ass to her due to hunger.

BluePrint's juice cleanse has made it's way to Buffalo from Long Island, and the company was nice enough to send us some vouchers so we could review their products without paying the hefty fee.

While I'm not completely investing in a cleanse yet, I can say that I am truly enjoying these juices. Those of you who are used to drinking juices from concentrate, or beverages that call themselves juice, but are mostly sugar water may be in for a shock when you drink these. They are a whole new world, and the only way you're going to get fresher is if you juice the fruit yourself. The only ingredients in this bottle are what is listed in the flavor and a little water. You can make out every single ingredient if you hold it in your mouth and mull over the flavor. It has a nice earthy flavor from the beets, carrots and ginger that I could see turning off some people, but to me it's excellence. There are no sweeteners added to this but it still has 37g of sugar from the natural ingredients, so it is still nice and sweet.

Okay, I will admit it I absolutely love this juice. I wish that there were lower quality versions of it that were in larger containers, and less expensive. I know the company sells them for a very specific purpose, but it's a juice I would drink for the taste, not even taking the healthiness into consideration.

Once I start my juice cleanse, I'm sure everyone reading this will be able to tell, as within twelve house of starting I'm sure anything I write would be extremely negative, but then again I won't be drinking anything that I can review, unless it's other BluePrint products, so it will more than likely be radio silence from me.