Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

What I have been drinking is possibly the least flavorful La Croix flavor. It stands tall with most other seltzer companies, but it doesn't have the strong flavor punch one comes to expect from this company. I had anticipated more from tangerine as it's a naturally strong flavor, but it just kind of hangs there like a sitcom will they won't they relationship.

If you are looking for a strong coffee drink, you might want to pass this one by. Since this boasts that it is made with two different types of coffee beans and is an espresso, there was no doubt in my mind that this was going to be coffee heavy. As it turns out it's more of a latte than any latte I have ever drunk. It tastes like someone maybe half a shot of coffee into a big glass of vanilla milk. I guess when a product ends up going from Aldi to Big Lots you probably shouldn't expect much from it. It gets a little less enticing with each sip as well. That could just be my distaste of milk though coloring my opinion. The can says it's rich and creamy. I guess being half right isn't all that bad.

Sap. I am drinking sap. It's not even sap from a maple tree. It's birch sap. I'm guessing drinking sap is something the majority of people in the United States would never imagine themselves doing, but it's a thing and it is apparently very popular in Scandinavia. When I was there I didn't see anyone drinking sap, but then again I wasn't looking for it. Here I am though sipping away at sap and it's not all that bad. It is very different tasting than maple, because you know different trees different tastes. It is somehow not syrupy, nor is it very sweet. Actually it pretty much has the consistency of water, which was unexpected. It is very refreshing and hydrating. I don't really know how to describe the flavor. I believe it is its own thing that has no real comparison. I can taste a light rosehips in here though. This is nothing what I expected, but it is a good thing. Give it a try and attempt to describe the flavor yourself.

I've spent 38 years of my life thinking that I didn't really like coffee. I didn't hate it and I would drink it from time to time when I needed some caffeine. Hell, my high school years were spent sitting in diners for hours just downing overly sweetened and creamed endless cups of it, just because that was what my friends did back then. I had to add so much to it to make it so I could continue to drink it. It's a miracle that I'm not insanely over weight. In the past couple of years I've realized that coffee isn't all that bad if you're drinking the right stuff. There are some great blends/roasts out there that can be downright tasty, but mostly I'm talking about cold brew. There is something special about cold brew that cuts the acidity and just makes it such a smooth drink. Also, coffee is so much better cold that hot to my taste buds.

While the carton here describes the true meaning of the name Cultivo, I will pretend that it is referring to the cult of coffee drinkers. You know the people out there who absolutely need their coffee to function, and for some I'm not even sure it's due to the caffeine. People love coffee, and I think this product is here to indoctrinate new people into the cult by giving them smooth, delicious coffee to ease them in. This is exactly what the beverage is. It's high quality coffee that is nice and creamy from the half & half (I can even forgive the use of real milk here, which normally disgusts me). It's mildly sweet from the 9g of sugar in it, but they took care not to overdo it so that it is still mostly coffee and not a sugar drink.
It's no shock here that this is a brand of Uncommon Coffee Roasters aka the best coffee I have ever drunk. They are a high quality company with ethics I can get behind. If only all companies had similar beliefs and practices while making such high quality products the world would be a much better (caffeinated) place.

What we have here could only be described as a tasty seltzer water. What we also have here might be the weakest of the Seltzer'ade line. If this had been released as a normal Polar flavor I would have thought it was quite pleasant. It has a cherry flavor that doesn't remind me of medicine or black cherries, and that is always a plus. It also has a light subtle lime flavor to it, which makes a great base for any seltzer. The only problem is that by throwing that Seltzer'ade branding on it, my expectations are instantly raised. The rest of the flavors are incredibly strong and bold, this lacks in both of those. That by no means makes this a bad product, but it's just not worthy of the title (and additional price). If Polar were to put this exact same product in their normal bottles I would be more prone to purchase it again.

This looked like a dream. I wasn't even thirsty when I saw it in Whole Foods, but I had a Pavlovian response and there was no choice but for me to purchase it and try it immediately. Cinnamon iced tea with ginger in it sounded like exactly what I didn't know I was looking for. When I picked it up I could see the cinnamon swirling around in the tea and the mouthwatering increased. There was one thing that I didn't take into account though, and that is that cinnamon, and ginger to an extent, don't have the same effect without a little bit of sweetener added to them. This tastes like someone made some rooibos tea and while it was brewing through in some ground up cinnamon and ginger root. In fact that is exactly what happened and what it is. As anyone who has ever been dumb enough to take the cinnamon challenge can tell you, cinnamon has a drying effect. The way it's in the tea does make it feel oddly dry, and the ginger only shows p around the edges. I drink about a gallon of unsweetened tea a day, because I have no self-control, and I love the stuff. I'm at a point in my life now where sweetened tea tasted wrong a lot of the time. In this instance I think the tea could have benefited from just a touch of sugar, may be 10g in the entire bottle. It would have combated that dryness and pushed the cinnamon flavor forward a bit more. Again, this is just me searching for an ideal. As it is this tea is wonderful and I could happily drink a ton of it. Is a liquid ton a real thing?

I know I can be a stickler, but I really would prefer if companies named their products in the order of the prominent flavors. For example, this is labeled peach ginger, but in my mind it should be ginger peach. That's correct, for the first time ever a beverage has peach in it and it is not the flavor that is smacking you a good one, right in the kisser. In fact both flavors in here are fairly tame, but of the two, ginger is what I am getting the most of. They are not kidding when they say this is lightly sweet. Even though it's 20g of sugar, it tastes on the border of being unsweetened, which is where I like my iced tea to reside. So it's a black tea with a tad bit of sugar in it that tastes like it was steeped with a bunch of ginger in it (not enough to give it a burn, but enough for the flavor to be there) and then a single slice of peach was allowed to soak in it while it cooled down. I know I was complaining earlier, but this really is a nice tea, and I apparently just like to complain about something in every situation. I need help.

To quote my ladyfriend, “Well, this is just delightful.” It is the lightest flavored passion fruit beverage I have ever had. It still has plenty of flavor too it, but this particular flavor normally punched you right in your taste buds. Hobbi just gives you a little “how you doing?” caress. It's more in the aftertaste than in the sip. The basil seeds are nice and slippery and give the drink an interesting texture. If you drink this like a normal human they just slide right down your throat and are easily forgotten. If you want to be a child, like myself, you can strain them through your teeth and play with them for a bit to give the beverage a little bit of a fun edge.

For camping in this chilly autumn weather I really wanted a bottle of Reed's Spiced Apple Brew to sip while I sat at a fire. There is something wonderful about sipping some spiced sparkling apple juice while fire consumes everything it touches in a controlled setting while chatting with some good friends. At the store I discovered that they no longer seemed to stock that particular product (I am more than slightly concerned that it has been discontinued and I need to do some research). While I didn't find what I was looking for I did find this bottle which appeared to be similar, but with pumpkin added to the mix.

So I sat at my campsite and threw a rouge pumpkin I found on the fire and cracked this bottle open. As the fire distorted the face carved into the gourd I sipped on a glass of this sweet treat. It turns out it is very similar to what is one of my favorite drinks that I was bummed I couldn't find. The pumpkin isn't too overpowering and I'd have to say that it is mostly a sparkling apple drink. It is fairly sweet tasting. I could only drink a smallish glass (which is what a human should drink, we don't need to be the gluttons we tend to be). It was very enjoyable for that glass, but I can't imagine drinking more than that in a sitting (or even over an extended period of time). It's good that it's a seasonal product. I hope to enjoy it again next year.

Do you like teas the taste vaguely, and lightly, like raspberry? Do you want the same amount of energy you would get from drinking almost any old iced tea, but only have to drink half the quantity? If you fall into this category you are someone who lives a very specific life and good news, this tea is for you!

I really have nothing bad about this. Nor do I have anything really great to say about it either. See my complaints in my other reviews of their products for non-taste related things. Flavorwise it's pretty unremarkable, but again there is nothing bad about it. It's just there and sometimes that is what a drink needs to be.

Look at being preemptive and getting their winter flavors out before the snow has even begun to fall. Hell, I'm still reviewing summer flavors and they are two seasons ahead.

When I heard this was an upcoming flavor I was beyond excited. Lime is the basis for most of the seltzer I drink and ginger is my weakness. I would probably purchase any beverage that had ginger in the flavor name. This, unfortunately, leaves something to be desired. The lime is right where I want it to be, but the ginger simply isn't strong enough and tastes more like ginger flavoring than the actual root. Ginger is a flavor that is meant to be bold and in your face (as well as burning your throat). This is just not that. It's still good, and I would buy it from time to time, but it is by no means a new favorite. I suppose it's good that it's seasonal. Maybe I will grow to miss it by next winter's release.

This tastes like you took a heaping spoonful of matcha powder and mixed it into a glass of water and then added a tad of honey (almost a negligible amount). It definitely tastes strongly of matcha, but it almost feels powdery still, like you made yourself a protein shake and didn't shake up your little bottle enough. You're quite the exercise fanatic aren't you? You're not like me who uses their matcha powder to mix in with vanilla ice cream. We are opposites you and I. PS. I totally shook the hell out of this and it didn't make a difference.

Have you ever gone to a fast food restaurant and asked for a glass of water with your meal and they just give you a cup to fill up with water at the fountain machine using the honor system that you won't actually get soda? Obviously when you are younger the honor system is out the window and you fill that cup to the brim with syrupy, carbonated goodness, but as an adult I actually really just want water. Sometimes when you push the button for the water there is a little residual soda left in the nozzle and you end up getting a very light soda flavor (it always seems to be root beer) added to your water. That is exactly what this tastes like. It's as if someone poured a glass of sparkling water and then added a splash of cola to it. I feel like to some the lightness of a flavor that is normally so strong could be off-putting, but I enjoyed it a great deal. I love a good cola, but rarely want to deal with all the sugar that comes along with it(and diet cola has never been good, don't trust anyone who says otherwise).

This is a light sparkling treat that hints at a cola taste. Sure it tastes like watered down Coke, but it's so watered down that it doesn't taste gross and wrong. It taste refreshing and like something they would feed you at a spa, or so I would assume because I don't live that lifestyle. It's marketed for kids, but I don't think it has a strong enough flavor for most children I know. I do think it would be advantageous in helping adults I know who should kick their soda habits.

You call it snickerdoodle. I call it horchata. This is tastes more like the traditional beverage than it does a fancy cookie I would spend far too much money on in a coffee shop in the late 90s. The difference s is that Instead of rice it's made from almonds and pea protein. It's a tad sweeter than I wanted, but it is flavorful. It goes beyond the "this tastes like the milk left over after I ate cereal" I into more of its own thing. It's vanilla. It's cinnamon. It's almonds. It's quite tasty.

This may in fact be the best seltzer ever created. All other seltzers were given inferiority complexes when this was released. They all lay awake at night, looking at a 4am ceiling wondering where they went wrong in their lives. The poor things never stood a chance.

The mango smell that permeates from this is so strong that in a blind sniff test there is no way I would have guessed it was a seltzer. The flavor rivals that scent and is so strong and pleasant. The lime sits perfectly under the mango for a tropical treat. My senses are treated so well by this beverage that my mind is tricked into thinking I was drinking something that is laden with sugar. In reality there is not a speck of it.

Come on Polar, you obviously have the means, so why not make all of your seltzers this flavorful? Why save it for a specialized line? Has there been a new breakthrough in the sugarless flavoring world that has allowed you to up the taste? Going back to your classic flavors after drinking the Seltzer'ade line just leaves me wanting now. I mean I am still drinking a ton of the stuff, but the magic is gone. I have been shown that the world is more than I thought it was and I want it all. This is bursting with flavor, well at least as much as seltzer can be. Or, can there be more? I never would have expected it could have been before, but I was proven wrong).Give me more Polar. Give me it all.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, where do I even begin with this beverage? Is it wonderful? It is horrendous? Even though base logic show us that one thing cannot be both, this somehow is. This beverage defies logic, and perhaps other sciences. One thing that I can say for certain about this is that it is intriguing and unlike anything I have ever encountered before.

When I came across this in a Brooklyn deli, I grabbed it without a thought and put my money on the counter for it and a delicious jerk sandwich. It wasn't until I got a couple of blocks away that I realized that what I bought actually sounded terrible. Sparkling coffee is something that can be acceptable when it is done right, so more than likely no problem there. I can totally see mint in coffee. Actually it sounds like it would be delicious and it's probably something that exists in most coffee shops. So far, so good. Then we get to the grapefruit and everything gets thrown out the window. Grapefruit and coffee sounds like one of the strangest combinations I could think of, and it very much is in reality. It's unlike anything I have ever tasted before. The grapefruit isn't subtle. It's right out in the front. I would say this is 42% coffee, 42% grapefruit, and 6% mint. It's a wild ride in your mouth, and my taste buds are very confused. So much citrus and bitter coffee; I think I may be short circuiting.

With each sip, I hate it, yet a few seconds later I find myself taking another drink. By the end of this I think I may truly love it. I hate myself for it, but it's kind of fantastic in the worst possible way. It's like an ex that you know is bad for you and who you never feel good about hanging out with afterwards, but somehow in the moment things work and nothing else matters. This drink may be the best bad decision you ever make that will have zero consequences. I need to try the other flavors. Good thing Mike and I are going back to NYC in a few weeks.

Dear Readers,
I am a slacker and I am waaaaayyyy behind the times. This summer Polar released their Seltzer'ade line and here I sit in autumn's grasp and I have only reviewed one of them. To be fair, the blueberry lemonade was the only one of the five flavors that I actually saw in the stores around Buffalo during the actual summer. Now that a Whole Foods finally opened here a couple of weeks ago I was able to pick up some cases of three of the remaining flavors (the tart cherry is still elusive). Summer may be behind us, but I certainly hope Polar leaves these available all year around. As much as I hate to admit it, they are superior to the classic Polar flavors that I live off of. The flavors are way more pronounced, to an extent that several times I have found myself checking to make sure there isn't any sugar involved (there isn't).

I would best describe the watermelon lemonade as someone dissolved a handful of Jolly Ranchers in a glass of carbonated water, and then somehow removed all the sugar. It doesn't taste particularly like an actual watermelon, but it is uncannily similar to the pre mentioned candy without the sweetness. That blows my mind because that candy is probably 99% sugar, yet this tastes exactly like it.

This particular flavor isn't something I would drink all of the time, but I wish I would have had it during the summer. I also think this line is the key to weening children off soda. Slowly replace their soda with cans of this and they will be off the sugar in no time, to the dismay of the Dental Association of America.

It's fairly sad that walking through the grocery store and a new fancy juice presents itself to you, and that is the highlight of your day. I guess it is understandable when the juice is guava flavored, one of the elusive fruits that doesn't make its way into beverage form nearly enough. I personally can't get enough of this tropical treat.

This is a cold pressed juice from the Dominican Republic. It is simply cane juice, guava puree and filtered water. I shook this bottle with all my might, but the first half of the bottle was fairly weak and was more like a guava flavored water drink rather than a juice. As I pressed on, the taste got stronger with each sip. By the end it tastes like a great guava juice. I was hoping that the entire bottle was going to be a flavorful guava puree, but I will take what I can get when it comes to the world of guava.

Sometimes I feel like companies are taking things a bit too far with calling things energy drinks. This is just a mixture of black and green tea. Yes, I know that caffeine gives you energy, but with that logic every tea should be labeled an energy drink. The X2 name also makes it seem like it's going to be a crazy ride, when really it's just 106 mg of caffeine per can.

All of that nonsense aside it tastes like a fairly light tea that is very heavy on the lemon. The combination of the two teas is nice, but I would have liked it to be a bit stronger.