Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

Plum flavored drinks are not something that you see too often. Well, outside of an Asian market, and the plum drinks you find there are entirely different beasts that you simply want nothing to do with. They tend to taste like smoked mold. They are perhaps the worst beverages I have ever tried. I couldn't even swallow a single sip.

Real plums are great though. I went to a flea market a few weeks back and the fruit vender was closing up so he sold me 10 plums for a dollar. It was a good couple of days. I miss those days. Rob's does a great job with this drink and it actually tastes like you juiced a plum (well and then added some erythritol). I can't think of any other drink I've had that tastes so much like a plum plucked out of nature. The sweetener isn't too over powering and it actually gives it that specific bubble tea flavor. That is a taste that I will always love.

Rob's knows what they are doing with drinks, especially diet drinks. Diet no longer means absolutely terrible in this day and age. With the amount of obesity in this country it couldn't have come sooner.

I love that southern hip-hop culture is basically responsible for the entire existence of relaxation drinks. If you're not well versed on this, a lot of rappers talk about drinking cough syrup mixed with soda in their songs. It is commonly known as Drank, which I believe was also the name of the first relaxation drink. Lean named their various flavors of relaxation drinks after the different preferences different regions of the south had for their syrup. Lean cuts out the cough syrup and instead uses flavor syrup mixed with some pharmaceutical grade herbs. This way kids won't overdose on their syrup, and they can buy it over the counter.

Easta Pink was inspired by Lil Weezie. In it's original form it is cough syrup, Sprite, two Jolly Ranchers and some Skittles. The sounds like a sugar overload to me. While the Lean version is still very sweet, it has a very unique taste that doesn't remind me anything of Jolly Ranchers. If I had to pinpoint the flavor I would say that it was a can of Sprite that had those old timey strawberry hard candies melted into it. It's surprisingly tasty, and it will chill you right out. Here's to hoping that the reign of energy drinks is coming to an end and the world will just start to move in slow motion for a bit.

I sat down at my desk while I was drinking this pondering what exactly I had to say about this beverage when my decision was made for me. I had put it down after taking a sip to open up my browser and my cat, Other Barry, jumped up and instantly started licking it. After that there was no stopping him. It was like a killer dog getting itâ…‚¬…„¢s first taste of blood. Barry needed more and he needed it instantly. I kept pulling it away from him and he kept moving towards the bottle. I covered the top with my hand and he started pawing at me to get me to move it. When I finally put the cap back on, he just started gnawing at the bottle to get the sweet nectar that was inside. Heâ…‚¬…„¢s not the type of cat to eat â…‚¬Å“people food,â…‚¬Â so Fitness Edge should take it as a great compliment.

I donâ…‚¬…„¢t know if cats taste the same things us humans do, but to me this tastes like a decent berry juice with whole milk mixed in. Thatâ…‚¬…„¢s the whey protein doing its work. I normally not a fan of protein drinks, because I think milk is gross, and whey is grosser still. The berry in this does a good job masking the whey, but itâ…‚¬…„¢s still there. That weird thick chalky aftertaste as if itâ…‚¬…„¢s starting to spoil is just not for me. Keep in mind this drink isnâ…‚¬…„¢t as bad as others I have tried, so I will give it decent marks. I mean itâ…‚¬…„¢s a drink with a certain function, so you should expect some sort of weird taste to it. Iâ…‚¬…„¢d give this a three, but Other Barry would give it top marks. Heâ…‚¬…„¢s still trying to break into the bottle.

Mike scored some free tickets for us to go see Insane Clown Posse tonight. Now we both think that they resemble nothing close to good musically, but the whole culture is ridiculous and interesting. Mike compared us to Jane Goodall. We were going to interact with the "apes" in their natural habitat. All I can say is holy was that worth going to. As soon as we walked up to the club the ground was littered with empty Faygo bottles. We tried our hardest not to laugh and upset the natives. We got there right before ICP went on and took our place in the balcony. The show was complete insanity. The music was bad, but I didn't realize how much they ripped off 90's radio hip-hop beats, so that made it tolerable. The show was more than I ever could have expected. There were two huge tubs full of two-liters of Faygo (which creepy clowns kept coming out to refill) and Icp kept grabbing them to pour on the audience. Violent J had his move down. He held the mic with one hand, rapping, and with the other he would open the bottle of pop and shake it up spraying it on the crowd. He had it worked out that his thumb covered the hole, so after a few shakes he let go and the thing shot off like a goddamn rocket. Even in the balcony Mike and I got hit by flying Faygo. I can't imagine cleaning up the club after that. There was Faygo everywhere. They had to have gone through at least 200 two-liters of it. I'm not even exaggerating. I remember reading that Faygo doesn't work with them at all, so they are paying for all that soda, and that's ridiculous. On top of that there were streamers, confetti and feathers (who's going chicken huntin'?) everywhere. One great thing is that with all the "meth mouth" that was in the audience you would expect it to smell terrible at the show. Instead of horrible breath and body odor the entire place reeked of root beer. How great is that?

Twice during the set there were "Faygo Breaks." During this time an army of clowns came out and just poured buckets of Faygo into the audience and tossed out two liters like they were nothing. There were accompanied by an insane strobe light, carnival music and the creepiest chant of "Get some Faygo" that I have ever heard.

I grabbed a stray bottle of diet root beer as it flew by, took a swig and passed it to Mike. He did the same and passed it to the gentleman next to him in the 5XL hockey jersey who had more face paint on than anyone ever should. The dude pounded the rest of the bottle smiled and just said "FAM-A-LY" (yes they pronounce it "A" and not "I"). I can't make this stuff up. The root beer itself was better than I expected. It had a general generic root beer flavor and it didn't taste overly diet.

On our way out we grabbed a 1/4 full bottle of cola and got a video of some down Juggalos chugging it and pouring it on each other. This is a night that we shall not forget, especially since we're legally changing our names to Mikey 2 Dope and Violent J Draper.

Thirsty Dudes. ICP. FAM-A-LY.

I saw this in every rest stop and convenience store that I went to while in the UK. Nothing about it looked appealing to me, so I passed it by every single time (take note that this was before Thirsty Dudes, so I had no contractual obligation to drink it). The label looks childish and not appetizing. As my ladyfriend pointed out something about it is reminiscent of Irn Bru, which I am also not a fan of.

I don't know where Mike got this from, but when he handed it to me I sighed and said, “Fine I'll do it.” I really expected this to be bubble gum flavored, which would have been infinitely worse than what it actually tastes like. It really tastes like carbonated sugar water with a little bit of lemon in it. There is that weird Gatorade flavor in there as well. What I expected to be some sort of weird, crazy British energy drink turns out to be a slightly carbonated sports drink. There isn't even any caffeine in it. All of its “energy” seems to come from sugar and lactose acid. Now I have no idea why athletes would want to drink something carbonated immediately before or after crushing it on the field, but I guess that's what people do “across the pond.” Man I hate that phrase.

Since I don't watch Canadian television much I'm not sure if this has happened or not, but it really should. Picture this: a fade in with some synth bass and a drum machine playing in the background. The scene is young women's bedroom and she's laying in her bed wearing a ripped up shirt and way too much jewelry. As it pans in we realize that it's Madonna (well a 1986 Madonna look alike) and she's getting frustrated playing around with a keyboard and sheets of music and lyrics litter the room. She just can't seem to write her next big hit. She decides she needs to take a break so she goes over to the fridge and pulls out a bottle of juice. She takes a sip and inspiration hits her. Just like that. She runs over to her bed aka workstation with a big goofy grin and starts working feverishly. By the end she's playing along and singing with the song that has been playing in the background and just as it gets to the end of the chorus and she sings the line “True Blue baby I love you,” the camera zooms in on the now mostly finished bottle of juice on her nightstand. It doesn't get better than that ladies and gentlemen. You get one hell of a song, one hell of a drink and a nice 80's throwback that all the kids are raving about these days.

I know what you're thinking and yes I am available to write ads for you as well, just get a hold of my agent. Oh, that's not what you were thinking at all? You actually want to know what the juice tastes like? Well, it certainly tastes blue, with a little purple in the mix. You see True Blue went a bit out of their color spectrum and used grape juice as filler in this drink. You can really taste both the blue and blackberries in this, but the taste of grape is always lingering in the background. I have no problem with that uninvited little fruit. It's actually kind of nice. It's also not as sweet as you would expect it to be. There is still 29g of sugar in this, but it doesn't taste that sweet. It's always a nice treat to not have an overly sweetened juice. Oh and if you spill any of this on a carpet or a couch, forget about ever getting it out. This blue is true and is staining forever.

I've been a big fan of the other two Capone sodas I've had, and while this is not bad by any means it leaves a bit to be desired. The vanilla and sweet soda flavors are both there, but they are both just kind of …€¦ separate. They don't really blend together the way I want them to. It is certainly better than any sort of store brand cream soda, but for what I was expecting from the ginger beer and root beer it's just not quite there. I'm guessing that everyone out there will probably enjoy this a great deal. Comparison and expectations will just be the death of me.

With the exception of grape soda are there any other purple colored drinks out there? I mean even grape juice is more of a dark red than purple. This on the other hand is very purple. It looks like it could be just juiced pickled beats (that would be gross). What is in the bottle you may ask? Well let me tell you, as Naked very thoughtfully puts a comprehensive list on their juices of what, and how many, items of produce their bottles contain. This has 6.5 strawberries, 15 sweet cherries, ¼ plum, 1/5 apple, 1 ½ purple carrots (ahh that's where the color comes from), 1/3 red beat (even more purple fun), 1/8 sweet potato, 91 kernels of sweet corn (so specific), 18 chick peas and a hint of lemon. That is a whole lot to be jammed into one little bottle. As a result this is nothing but healthy. Naked juice is a little on the costly side of things, but it's worth it when you take into account their superiority to their competitors Bolthouse and Odwalla.

While you can taste each individual item that has been juiced to make this beverage, it does have a wide variety of flavors. A combination of the strawberries and cherries is the first thing that you taste when you take a sip. From there it slips into a strange sweetened veggie medley. They all kind of just mix together into their own unique flavor. It's strange, but it's enjoyable. It has a pretty general juice aftertaste with nothing specific being the prominent flavor.

This isn't the kind of juice that you sip whilst hanging out with friends, but it is the kind of beverage that you would enjoy and benefit from drinking at breakfast. With all of the vitamins it contains it would be a nice way to kick start your day.

I don't know how the Power Coco company will feel about this, but I think they make coconut water for kids. I don't mean that is any sort of negative way though. Let's face it, coconut water is generally an adult drink. It's flavors are usually subtle and I just can't see many children drinking it. This company on the other hand flavors their coconut water in bold ways. This is way more of a grape drink than coconut water, even though it still has all the benefits of it. It even only has 5g of sugar per serving. That is way low in this day and age, especially in a drink that is this flavorful. It has a very dark grape flavor, some sips seem a bit too dark, but I'm okay with it.

If you want some sort of hydration for your kids during sports practice, but don't want to give them obscene sugar, try one of these. It will more than likely seem exotic and fun to them, and they can brag to their little dirty friends.

We've entered a whole new world here people, a wonderful crazy new world. This is a carton of sweetened coconut water with a shot of espresso in it. Note to self it is espresso and not "expresso." I pronounced it wrong for most of my life, well the chunk of my life that occurred after the great coffee shop uprising in the 90s. In my mind coffee only existed as crappy gas station/diner/home brewed garbage until the 90s. Then slacker culture took over and coffee culture arose out of this. I'm proud of slacker culture for creating a place for people to hang out that wasn't a bar. I spent a good portion of my teenage years/early 20s hanging out in coffee shops and it was time well spent. Like that time this is pretty great. Neither the coffee nor the coconut water's flavor are overpowering. They blend together incredibly and somehow a slightly chocolate taste is created. I don't know if anyone else would get that out of this, but I certainly did, and I apparently am the drink expert if 2500+ reviews mean anything.

A lot of my friends pound coconut water after a night of drinking to fend off hangovers. Those same people love their coffee, so I think this drink was created just for them. It's a one-two punch so to speak. I can't wait for the other two Thirsty Duders to give this a try, and back me up on its greatness.

You know what would be great? If the two "famous" Mike Judges were actually the same person. You know in the late 80's he played in the straight edge hardcore band "Judge." Then he decided that the whole edge thing just wasn't for him and he started drinking and such, thus leading to "Mike Judge and the Old Smoke." I don't know if that's the real tale but that's what I always heard. How rad would it be if during that time he created Beavis & Butthead, Daria and Office Space? I'd have to say that he was much better at comedy than making music if that was the case. Why does any of this matter? It matters because the crossed hammers on this can make me think of Judge and nothing else. In the world of 80's hardcore and modern day energy drinks I would have to say I feel the exact same way about both of them. There were a whole lotta bands from that era that blew Judge out of the water and there are an obscene amount of energy drinks that do the same to this. It's insanely tart and not all that pleasant to drink. It's "Triple Citrus," which I assume from that flavor means it's tangerine, orange and a mystery citrus. I wanna say pineapple, but I don't really think that is it. It basically like someone took a whole bunch of unripe citrus fruit, juiced it (poorly) and added that famous energy drink cocktail. I'm sure Judge era Mike would never drink this, just as I'm sure that comedy era wouldn't as well. I bet that at his lowest (aka Old Smoke) he would have downed can after can of this in self loathing. Oh wait, you mean he is two different people? Well at least I appreciate one of them.

Sometimes you find yourself on tour with a bunch of your friends. You (they) play a bunch of shows and it's fun and awesome and everyone has a good time. Sometimes you don't have as place to stay at the end of the night and that is a bummer. Sometimes while you're standing around trying to figure out what you're going to do you get a call that friends are playing a show down the street, so you go to check it out. Sometimes you wind up on Lagwagon's tour bus at two in the morning. Sometimes you get handed a drink and you would normally turn it down because you don't drink, but then you look at it and you realize it's a ginger ale that you haven't reviewed on your dumb drink review website.

It was a fun night, and even though I don't particularly care about the band, everyone who was around was really nice and we had a good time. The ginger ale was fairly standard. It tasted like pretty much every no name ginger ale out there. If you've had a ginger ale in a restaurant or at a family party you know what this tastes like. The can is graphically appealing though. It's got a nice logo and a pleasant color scheme.

Deep in the not so frozen tundra of Worcester, MA there is a factory where the locals have imprisoned a team of polar bears and they force them to make soda pop. They originally made their own beverages, but they realized that they weren't quite up to snuff. So traps and snares were laid and polar bears were transported to the north east of America. Hence he Polar premium line was born. Those bears worked tirelessly on different formulas and recipes until they had created a surprisingly dark root beer with a huge head on it (due to the addition of quiaia extract). It has a nice vanilla flavor, and you can taste bits of caramel in the aftertaste. The problem wasn't making the soda. It was getting people to give it a try. You see, their old line was seen by people as more or less on par with store brand. It was cheap and available everywhere. They knew it would take some time and some marketing, but once people tried the soda they would be hooked, or so the bears told them. As we all know, bears know best. They whispered in my ear what to write in this review. It probably just comes off as the ramblings of a mad man, but who am I to argue with some gigantic polar bears?

I just spent four days traveling across Canada searching bodegas high and low for new drinks. It wasn't until days later in a pizza shop in Philadelphia that I came across some bottles of Canadian Dry Vanilla Cream. I had never heard of such a flavor existing, and I would never have expected top find it in as sea of cheesecakes and peanut chews. Myself and everyone I was with, were super pumped for a vanilla ginger ale. Think about that for a second. How incredibly awesome of a soda would that be? Unfortunately Canadian Dry didn't have the vision to make such a drink. This is nothing more than a cream soda. It's on of the best HFCS sweetened cream sodas I've ever tasted, but it's still just a cream soda and the lack of ginger is a disappointment.

It has quite a strong vanilla smell that reminds me of vanilla extract. The flavor is about the same, but it is pretty thick and syrupy. If this was sweetened with cane sugar it would probably be through the roof good. Dear Canada, America has stolen your company and used inferior sweeteners. You should stand up for yourself.

It's not often that most Americans find themselves in the state of Maine. I certainly do not find myself often enough. It's a great state full of awesome nature and apparently awesome drinks such as those made by the Oakhurst Dairy.

This is labeled as raspberry flavored lemonade, but it's really a glorious lemonade flavored raspberry drink. There is a whole lotta sugar in this drink, but that is the way lemonade should be. I love this way more than I expected to. The raspberry flavor is great. I wish it was still blazing hot summer out and this would beat the heat like nobodies business.

I am out on tour again and this is the first time since we started Thirsty Dudes that I am not coming across an obscene amount of drinks that we have yet to review. Where the van would normally be ankle deep in assorted beverages only bottled water takes its place. I was wandering around Montreal, going in various shops and coming up empty handed. You see I was a man with a thirst, but it's been so programmed into my brain that if I'm out of town I can only purchase unreviewed drinks that I could not settle for less. After about five bodegas I found this can of guava juice. Not a bad find at all. I believe guava has actually taken over the top spot in my list of fruits. Yes, I make top five lists for everything. I am a thirty something year old man who is obsessed with music, dumb movies, comics and non-alcoholic drinks; would you expect anything else?

This is a light guava juice. Normally they are very thick and nectar like, but this is very fluid and not as overly sweet as others I've had. I'm just waiting for this fruit to have it's day in the sun. Pomegranate and acai have been in the spotlight for far too long. They need to discover some crazy health benefits for guava so that everything can be flavored with it. The world needs more guava in it. Pray for Mojo.

Next Sunday Mike and I will be going to see Insane Clown Posse. Mike was given tickets for some unknown reason, so we're going as scientists to watch the Juggalos in their native habitat. We certainly would never have spent money to go to see them, but when it's free why not? Hopefully we'll get to witness the rare mating ritual of a "down Juggalette" eating a hot dog, whilst her face make up drips all over it. Okay, now that I have made myself vom, let's talk about this drink. In order to mentally prepare myself for the voyage ahead I decided to drink some Moon Mist. Actually back to ICP. Do they have a specific flavor of Faygo that they spray everyone with, or are they non-discriminatory about it? I would guess they would use Red Pop for the most visible coverage. Oh well.

So yeah, Moon Mist. It tastes like crab juice...err Mountain Dew, as is to be expected. The twist is that it has slightly more lemon-lime flavor to it than it's major corporation big brother. Not being a fan of original Mountain Dew this didn't do much for me, but if that's your cup of tea this would be a nice alternative to mix things up a bit.

This is an energy drink that is put out/sponsored by NASCAR driver Robby Gordon. Is that even close to a good idea? I feel like driving in a circle at high speeds requires intense concentration. All of the garbage in energy drinks tends to make people jittery or jumpy, at least I know that's how I get. This doesn't seem to be a specially formulated drink that helps with concentration like NERD (aka the steroids of NASCAR). It's the opposite actually. This was the cheapest energy drink the gas station had, and I was expecting the taste to reflect the cost. I was happily wrong and this has a decent citrus taste. It's reminiscent of the Monster Khaos drink, except this one has no actual juice in it. It has a flavor that I would describe as orange drink and tangerine drink mixed together, but not as thick. There's something about citrus flavor in energy drinks that helps to block out the chemical flavor in them. I'm very surprised that I liked this as much as I did, and I would drink it again if I found myself in a gas station needing a pick-me-up. Let's just hope the number of crashes in NASCAR isn't proportionate to the spike of energy drink use. I know the crashes are probably the only exciting thing about a race, but there are real people in those cars and I don't want to see anyone getting seriously hurt.

I think I've reached my limit with stevia. I know it's healthier because it's a zero calorie sweetener and it tastes much better than the dreaded aspartame and sucralose, but I feel like it's in 80% of the new drinks that have come out this year. I'm just getting sick of it.

I really wish I could try this drink with real sugar. I think I would absolutely love it. A lightly passionfruit flavored water drink with some vitamins added to it sounds great. Unfortunately the stevia cuts through a little too much. I've heard that stevia helps bring out the natural flavors in a drink, but to me it has a very specific flavor that can combat the actual flavor of the drink a bit too much for my liking. The aftertaste of this is too stevia for me. The entire passionfruit flavor is lost after you swallow. It's unfortunate. Minus the stevia this is a great drink. I would truly enjoy this other than that.

You've slurped down a bunch of packets of “Prime” Gatorade to get you pumped for the big game. You downed gallons of “Perform” on your breaks from the big plays to keep you going. It certainly was a big day all around. You're sports team scored big points and made big moves. Now it's time for the big celebration, but you want to take big precautions to ensure that you aren't big-time sore tomorrow. Now is the time to drink some “Recover' Gatorade.

The base of this is your general berry Gatorade flavor. Added to that is the weird thick/semi chalkiness of whey protein to help your muscles recover. It's thicker than the Perform line, but not as thick as the Prime. It's sweetened with sucralose, but it doesn't have an overly diet taste. It's not something I can't see anyone drinking this for enjoyment. It's a functional beverage and it tastes such in a big way.