Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

Honey is a wonderful thing. Think of all those millions of bees out there working their little stingers off for their queen and as a result leaving this sweet delicious waste behind. That's right, honey is essentially bee poop, and we all love it.

Ginseng on it's own is rather gross. Have you ever had one of those Asian energy drinks that are basically ginseng root floating in water? They taste like the water that is strained through a potted plant, or so I would assume. Ginseng mixed into other drinks can be pretty alright though.

The thing is when honey and ginseng are mixed together; all I can think of are cough drops. No one wants to be reminded of the things they need to ingest when they are ill. It just causes waves of gross feeling to wash all over you.

As a result of all I have written above, I fully expected this to taste like a cough drop bathed in a sea of chemical energy drink grossness with a hint of diet poison. I am very grateful that the Xyientists would never let that come to pass. They busted out their Erlenmeyer flasks and their Bunsen burners and burned the midnight oil (whilst listening to “Diesel and Dust”) to create a downright tasty drink that they themselves could have utilized on that late night.

This is firstly a green tea. It has a bit of a honey edge to it, but you can't really taste the “dirt” ginseng flavor. It comes nowhere near cough drop flavor, which is a huge plus. The flavor of the sucralose blends in well with the energy drink flavor, and it ends up not tasting too much like either. It's also non-carbonated, which is a nice direction for energy drinks to move in. These new lines of tea and lemonade Xyience beverages that come out have all put a nice twist on a beverage style that is becoming increasingly stale and boring.

The coffee machine at your office has been on the fritz all week, which means that you have had to bring your own caffeinated beverage into work. The thing is that today your alarm didn't go off for some reason. Luckily your internal clock woke you up, but with only 20 minutes to get to the office. So it was get up, brush your teeth, drag a comb through your hair, put on a suit and you're out the door. You didn't even have time to stop at a gas station for the sludge that they deem fit to call coffee. As a result of all of this you have been a wreck all day. You're sluggish and you can't concentrate because you haven't eaten since you grabbed Taco Bell on the way home from work the day before. You're a mess.

You know it's not something that any human should do, but you still go into the break room and look for some food to steal out of the communal fridge. Sure, it's not the most moral thing to do, but the GM is coming in shortly and if she sees you like this, it probably wouldn't bode well for your career. The fridge is full of Tupperware containers full of moldy leftovers. Doesn't anyone ever clean this thing out? Things are looking grim. You're about to give up when you move a container of soup that is dated seven months ago and behind it is this bottle of Havana diet vanilla cappuccino. You find yourself thinking that you should probably rethink your stance on the existence of god as you look around and grab the bottle. You scurry away to your cubicle and crack the seal. After a gulp you think that it isn't half bad. Sure the milk to coffee ratio seems about even, which is more than you usually like, but it has a nice vanilla flavor to it, so you feel a little fancy. After that each sip gets harder and harder to get down. The taste of the Splenda is getting stronger by the second. Diet coffee; is there anything worse for someone who normally drinks it black? By the time you finished the bottle you're feeling more normal. You're stomach has a little something in it, and you've got a little caffeine buzz going on. The only downfall is you can taste the Splenda seeping out of your gums, and that is something you never want to experience again. What do you expect from a drink that was abandoned at least seven months ago?

Glaceau, home of Vitamin Water and Smart Water, has decided to try its hand at sparkling beverages. When the dealer passed out the cards things we're looking good for them, but their hand just wasn't strong enough to make something spectacular. On first sip I thought this had the potential to be something like a Clearly Canadian, but then the sucralose kicked in and everything went downhill. Does anyone on this planet actually think that sucralose is acceptable? I mean I know people deal with it, but with stevia hitting the market, why would a company that uses real sugar in one of its other product lines use such a low level zero calorie sweetener? Next thing I know they'll be using aspartame. Ick.

Okay, so the base of this tastes like a nice light, non-syrupy raspberry soda (if such a thing exists). It's quite pleasant until the sweetener kicks in. With a different sweetener this could have been all the rage in my world. As it stands I didn't' finish the bottle.

If you are one of those imaginary people that actually like sucralose, I highly suggest you check this out. If not, stay away.

There are times when we here at Thirsty Dudes get a lot of different flavors of the same product. At first we get really excited, and have fun with the reviews. Obviously we drink the flavors we are the most excited about early on, which leaves us with the flavors we couldn't care less about, or those that we actually fear drinking. These tend to be our shorter reviews that are straight forward and boring to write and to read.

This is the last bottle of Spartos that I have left. I'm not sure if the other guys have any other flavors to review, but this depletes my stock. I was not looking forward to this at all. While I like natural coconut water, when the flavor is mixed into other drinks it usually spells bad news for me. Add to that some zero calorie sweetener and whey protein and to me, that is a disaster waiting to happen.

It's nice to be wrong sometimes. This ended up being my favorite of the Spartos line. The strawberry and the whey protein mixed together nicely like a fancy dessert. Well, it's not as sweet as all that, but the stevia does do a nice job without tasting too off. You can tell it's there, but it's not running the show. That's all strawberries and cream. If I didn't know it was in here, I would never even think there was coconut in here, but as a child I learned that knowing is half the bottle, and I can taste it a bit. Luckily it's like a nice faint coconut water, and not some toasted garbage.

With this I bid you adieu Spartos. Maybe I'll see you again someday if you expand your line. I wish you the best, as you've made a handful of protein drinks that are interesting, and not chalky as all hell.

Your fruit, while technically proficient, lacks passion and in a world like ours, that simply won't due. Stop being so wishy washy and step up to the adults table and get yourself some passion fruit. It's the fruit of your dreams. It's sweet and tropical, just like those previously mentioned dreams of yours.

This can may contain only 6% juice, but it still is up to par with almost any sparkling fruit juice I've ever tasted. It tastes just like passion fruit. Slightly overly sweetened passion fruit, but passion fruit nonetheless. You could squeeze about 150 pieces of fruit (they are little, and you don't get much out of them) and mix in some sugar and carbonation and you would be close to this drink. You'd only be missing one little thing, and it's the only thing in this drink that is even remotely off putting; you need to add a little sucralose. Ugh. I don't know why they put it in here. It takes a drink that easily would have gotten full marks and drops it down one notch. It doesn't have a super diet taste, but you can definitely tell that there is something a little off. It's still a monumental beverage, but we're always reaching for the stars here at Thirsty Dudes

There is a royalty in the world of nectars. There are kings, queens, prince and princes in the juice world. The chin of command goes all the way down to the serfs (aka gallon gas station jugs of brine). Somewhere around the middle are the dukes and duchesses. These are the nectars that are still very tasty, but they do not have a pure bloodline. Get it? They aren't 100% juice. Appropriately named, Ducal, falls in this category. It has 25% juice in the form of mango pulp concentrate. It may not be as spectacular as the crown wearing juices, but it's nothing to scoff at. Taking a sip is what I imagine taking a big bite into mango covered in sugar. It's sweeter than you really need it to be, but you still enjoy it all the same. There is no reason to take a knee for it, but show a little respect and give it a nod of recognition.

So you've gone and done it. You've made a kid. Actually you made him/her a couple of years ago. The first couple of months were a living hell of crying and pooping. Finally the little tike started to recognize your face. Things were starting to look up. Then they started walking and everything got awesome. You could do all the cool stuff that you always wanted to do with kids and it was fun as all hell. I mean sure the tears came back out when they got tired, but it wasn't anything you couldn't handle. Suddenly that all changed. Around the 2-3 year mark your kid just became a flat out jerk. They became demanding, thinking everything was put on this planet for their amusement. You know, just a brat.

You find yourself at a point where you will do just about anything for a little peace and quiet away from this monster you created. You find yourself thinking back to the part in the Twilight Zone where the kid can do whatever it wants with it's mind, and changes someone into a Jack in the Box, and it dawns on you that the whole thing was a giant metaphor for the turds that kids can be at this age.

You always swore that you wouldn't let TV raise your kids, but you now understand the allure. It's a distraction, and you need all of those that you can get. You only let your child watch educational TV, you still have some standards. The problem is that it doesn't fully captivate them, so you need to give them some snacks as well. Included in that is a "juice box." Kids love juice. It's sweet and delicious, and they think it's a treat even though when done properly it's healthy for them. Like most parents you find yourself buying a box of Carpri Sun. It's juice in a single serving pouch, which is also fun for the kids. You don't realize until you get home that there is no actual juice in the pouches, that instead it is a "flavored water beverage," and it's sweetened with HFCS. There is essentially nothing healthy about this drink, but at this point you decide, "Screw it." You put the straw in the pouch, and hand it and the remote to your toddler. Let them watch what they want, who cares if it's Godzilla or American Horror Story? You just need some downtime for yourself. You drag yourself back into the kitchen, pop a Capri for yourself and notice that even though there is no juice in it, it still tastes strongly like a nice medley berries and it's got a decent sweetness. You go to the bedroom to read a little bit, but you only make it a couple of paragraphs in before you hear something come crashing down and you have to get up to see what your dumb kid has done now.

I've had chai lattes. I've had yerba mate latte. I've even had a straight up black tea latte, but never in my days have I had, or even thought about a green tea latte. The idea of adding a cream substance to green tea just seems completely foreign to me. The taste of green tea is so specific in my mind that I couldn't fathom it being creamy. I just looked it up and apparently this is a normal thing in coffee shops. Guess I've just been unobservant as always.

This is basically just soy milk, matcha green tea and cane sugar, and it's wonderful. It tastes like what I would imagine vegan green tea ice cream would taste like. Now that I think of it, I have had green tea ice cream in the past, so I guess I have had creamy matcha. It definitely tastes like a culmination of its ingredients and it's wonderful. This was my first time seeing this in a store, and I hope it becomes available in the big bottles, because I love it and it makes me feel sophisticated for some reason. Looks like I'll have to break on the monocle and spats.

I've said it before, and I'm sure I will say it again; guavas have never let me down. From juices, to teas, to the actual fruit I like everything I have ever tried that it was involved with. I even like the Ween album “Pure Guava.” It's the magical fruit that can do no wrong.

In that same regard it seems that Runa is a tea company that can also do no harm. I've tried a couple of the products and have been impressed by all of them. I want more companies to use guayusa as their tea of choice. It has a more interesting flavor, and as much as I don't want to admit it, I've grown bored of black tea. Yerba mate and guayusa are now my teas of choice. It also helps that they have a decent amount of caffeine in them, as I never want to drink coffee, unless it's made up all nice and fancy, and I try to drink energy drinks very sparingly, as I don't want to have heart problems in the future, and there's a lot of unnatural chemical junk in them.

The thing I love the most about Runa and this tea is that they weren't afraid to forgo a sweetener. The tea alone would be great unsweetened, but adding the guava makes this perfect. It's fruity enough that it has it's own quasi sweetness. It also perfectly balances with the guayusa, so neither flavor overpowers the other. There is a Ying and Yang thing going on with this tea of two great flavors that can also live in perfect harmony together.

So you're having a backyard party and you want to make sure that you get the proper beverages for just such an occasion. It's not really your friends coming over; it's mostly family, so there's no need to splurge on any fancy sodas. Everyone knows that all backyard parties must have both orange and grape pop available by law. You recently took a trip up to Canada and brought back some C Plus, so you have the orange pop scene on lockdown. Now you just need to get some grape. Why spend the money on Crush, Faygo, Sunkist or Fanta. Sure they aren't really that much, but with Push available you get to save even more loot, and they all taste the same. Seriously, it has been scientifically proven that all grape soda that comes in a plastic bottle tastes the same. Use the extra money you saved to buy some nicer salsa for the adult table. They will be sure to thank you.

Did you know that Poland Spring is from an actual town in Maine, and obviously not from the country of Poland? I really hope you didn't think it was from Poland, because I'm sure it would cost more than $.30 per bottle if it were, you know with duties and taxes and all. Now don't you feel stupid?

Did you also know that Poland Spring is owned by Nestle? On top of that they own a buttload of other bottled water brands, which include Arrowhead, Calistoga, Deer Park, Ice Mountain, Ozarka and Zephyrhills. It's all crazy go nuts university in here.

Since these are all regional brands I wonder if any of the other brands are also releasing a "Nature's Blends" line? I'd be okay with that. This is a fairly simple beverage. It's water, cane sugar and white grape/raspberry juice concentrate. It has a decent fruit flavor, but I could do with even less sugar in it. I am a crotchety old man after all. There is only 5% juice in here, but they label it as spring water with real juice beverage, so it's okay. Basically it tastes like Vitamin Water without all the vitamins. It's really ridiculous that Vitamin Water has become my basis for comparison for so many drinks, but it's out there and everyone knows it. So there you have it.

Bigelow is basically Arizona's wiser, older brother. Actually Bigelow started in the late 40's and Arizona first burst onto the beverage scene in 1992, so does that make Bigelow the distinguished grandfather in this game? Whatever the genealogy is they decided to have a family outing in 2008, and it's still going to this day.

Bigelow is older, thus they are wiser and always use cane sugar in their ready to drink teas. It's a little thing that I love and respect them for. They also like to take chances with weird flavors, like this mango lychee. I guess Bigelow does come out as the grandfather in this little family tree, as we all know lychee tastes like old lady perfume smells, so perhaps he used it in homage to his late wife. Now let's take a moment of silence for the dearly departed.

This plays out like an Arizona green tea, with cane sugar instead of HFCS. It's uncanny how similar it tastes. You even get the same taste when you inhale after swallowing. I really with Arizona had a green tea tall boy with real sugar. The world would be a better place if that existed. It doesn't so I'll just default to grandpa B.

The mango and lychee flavors aren't overpowering at all. This is firstly a green tea, and secondly a fruit tea. I love it and wish it were more readily available, but you know those darn kids today.

As Mike loves to point out, I am not the largest supporter of lemons. When I get water in a restaurant, I never ask for them. If they get put in anyways I always take them out without giving them a squeeze. This makes my ladyfriend happy, as she loves them and doubles up in her drink. I also prefer my iced teas sans lemon, which according to “big tea” is unheard of. They are always putting lemon juice in their teas, and I think a lot of the time it is distracting, and I would just rather taste the tea.

Even though I have a general disinterest in lemons, I will always have a soft spot for decent lemonade. I think my problem is that in most drinks there is either just a little bit of lemon that makes it annoying (I would rather have the flavor be strong) or they use some weird lemon that makes the beverage taste like cleaner. Lemonade suffers from neither of those things. When done properly it is tart/sour with a nice pleasant sweetness to it. It sounds like those are conflicting things, but I'm sure you all know what I mean.

Calypso makes lemonade the way I like it. They concentrate on a great tasting base that could stand on it's own as a quality lemonade. That is a very important concept that many companies overlook. They cheap out on their lemonade or tea, and just expect the extraneous flavor to work overtime. Calypso starts with a great lemonade and adds great flavoring on top of that. In this specific flavor they add mango puree concentrate, so it actually tastes like mangos and not fake.

As your drink doctor I must insist that if they temperate is ever over 90 degrees that you drinks lemonade, and specifically Calypso when it is available.

There is a certain specialness that comes along with yerba mate tea. It has its very own earthy flavor that you just don't get with normal tea. When you get a drink that tastes this way, and you know exactly what the flavor is, you feel like you're in the inner circle, and all the dullards are on the outside looking at you slack jawed. In that moment, you know tea and you understand it completely.

Unfortunately you don't get to be in that moment with this iced tea. It is made yerba mate, but it's blended with black tea and 55g of cane sugar. The glorious taste of mate is nowhere to be found. It tastes like a slightly upscale, regular raspberry iced tea. There is nothing wrong with the flavor per say, I just feel a little disappointed that I didn't get to be all snooty while drinking mate.

In the burned out city of Detroit it's good to know they still have a couple of things going for them. Okay, all I can really think of is the Motown museum, and tons of rad abandoned places to explore, if you are in to that sort of thing. I guess they also have this somewhat decent line of sodas that is made right in the 48234. (Oh yeah, they also have Faygo, which to paraphrase 7 Seconds is "Not just clowns fun.")

If this came in a can or plastic bottle it would be nothing but a generic, run of the mill cream soda. There is really nothing remarkable about it at all, but something about it coming in a glass bottle that makes it seem a little more special. It's pretty syrupy and has a fairly strong vanilla flavor, but it's pretty much what you would expect. The picture of a float on the label really makes me wish I had some vanilla ice cream, as I bet this would make one hell of a dessert beverage.

The stories and teachings have it all wrong. The tree that Gautama sat under that led him to become the Buddha was not a Bodhi tree as it was taught. In fact, the fat man was sitting under a coconut tree when he reached enlightenment. It's a good thing too, since reaching enlightenment can be truly dehydrating. Lucky for him the most hydrating beverage in the world hung directly over his head. So there you go: from enlightened to shaking a tree and dodging the fruits that descended towards his head within a couple of moments.

Several thousand years have passed since the glorious event and a company called Thirsty Buddha has arisen for a grand celebration in liquid form. All that is contained in this can is 100% all natural coconut water. There are no added sweeteners or preservatives, simply because they are not needed. This is delicious and refreshing; everything the Buddha needed on the day of his enlightenment. There are a lot of companies out there nowadays selling their versions of this "holy" drink, but most of them add extraneous ingredients that take away from the purity of what they create. They made mistakes, Thirsty Buddha did not.

To further offend the followers of Buddhism I shall leave you with the following perversion of faith an pop culture. Imagine the chorus of Destiny's Child's hit single Bootylicious with the lyrics changed to, "I don't think you're ready for this belly, cause his body's too Buddhalicious for ya babe."

Zero calories, zero sugar and very little diet flavor. How do they do it? Science, that's how. Or should I say Xyience? Non-carbonated energy drinks always throw me for a loop, but this one really works. It tastes like light lemonade, with just a touch of raspberry in it. If this were served to me on a hot summer day from a pitcher into a glass full of ice, I might think there was something a little weird about it, but I would never expect it to be an energy drink, and that is something that companies strive for, but rarely achieve. Leave it Xyience to come through.

Oh and by the way, it's April in Buffalo and I already have my second sunburn of the year. There is going to be an epic battle this summer.

Okay, let's take the juice of a fruit that tastes like a tart insanely concentrated grape juice and mix it with the sour citrus juice of the grapefruit. That doesn't sound too appealing does it? In my mind I imagined some sort of dull pain from drinking this, like it would just overload my taste buds in all the wrong ways. I guess I'm lucky that I am an idiot, because in reality it is more than pleasant. Both of the flavors are those fruits are extremely present, but in a dulled down way. I would never describe this as neither tart nor sour. It's just a good, smooth juice. It's probably due to grape, chokeberry and apple juice being listed on the ingredient list above grapefruit and cranberry, or it could be that there has been sugar added. Either way it all blends together in just the right way that leaves me wanting more. I always go on and on about how juice shouldn't have sweeteners added to it, but in this case, I really think it made the drink. Sure it made it less healthy, but it made it way more enjoyable than the vision that danced on my brain's taste buds.

What we have here is a bottle of water, reverse osmosis water. On top of that bottle site a little cap full of secrets, or are they mysteries? No, I'm fairly certain they are secrets that it will whisper in your ear if you ask in the right way. By the right way I mean if you look at their website, or just take the time to read the label. The secret is that within the cap is syrup that contains 9 vitamins, 84 ionic mineral, 5 electrolytes and some naturally zero calorie sweetened fruit punch flavoring. You add that all up, with some strange math, and that gives you 989. I'd like to say I'm sorry to the folks at the company that I told your secret to the entirety of the internet, but if they are smart enough to read this, then I think they could have read the label.

All you do is twist the cap one-way, and the syrup drops into the water. You just shake it up, twist the cap the other way and you have a nice little beverage to get you through your day. I will say that it is strange having a zero calorie fruit punch. All of my life I've thought of that type of beverage as a sweet syrupy hell that is produced solely for children. 989 challenge that mindset with their use of stevia. It's fruit punch for adults, and I'm okay with that. It's light with a classic fruit punch flavor. Most of this turn cap vitamin drinks have a base that tastes like Flintstone chewable vitamins. The stevia in this counteracts that flavor, and you get a natural diet fruit punch drink that you don't have to feel terrible about drinking.

One suggestion to the company, have you ever considered selling just the caps for people to put on any old bottle of water? Think about the money you would save on shipping, not to mention everything else. Let's face it; water is water, no matter how you talk it up. It's the cap contents that really matter. That is all.

90% Hydrated Chia. 90%. Do you realize how many chia seeds that is. Can you even comprehend how many green coats that could grow for porcelain sheep? Well, the answer is probably one. It takes a buttload of those seeds to grow a healthy coat, but still that is such a high percentage of a “solid” to be in a beverage. I say solid, but they are extremely fluid. It still feels like your drinking something with a thicker consistency than most drinks. You don't even realize the chia seeds are solid until you stop them with your tongue and press on them. You know, like a child playing with their food, which is what I always like to do.

This is mostly honey and secondarily pineapple. I would have preferred it the other way, but I have no real complaints. The honey taste isn't like eating straight honey, but it's more like when you use honey to sweeten tea; you know the flavor involved is honey, but it tastes different than that last spoonful you put directly into your mouth instead of your teacup.

It's fun. It's tasty. It's healthy. What else could you want, well except for a stronger pineapple flavor? Now I'm just being picky.