Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

Every couple of days when I finish up printing t-shirts I find a nice package waiting in my front hall for me. The drink companies of the United States have been very kind to us and we whole-heartedly appreciate it. Today was one such day and as it turns out there were two boxes waiting (This and one from Mountain Dew). Normally I'll bring the boxes inside, put them on the table and get cleaned up/make some food. After I'm all settled in and fed I'll see what gifts came in the post. I'll open them up, take some pictures and then put them in my “to-drink” pile. I'll usually get to them within a week, but I have such a backlog of things to review that occasionally it takes a bit longer. Today was a very different day. I saw that the box said perishable so I opened it as soon as I got inside. When I saw that what the box contained was hibiscus tea I was stoked. We had gotten an email about this drink and I knew that it also had ginger in it; I started salivating. It was in a cooler, and the drinks were still very cold, so I quickly took some pictures and opened one up before my camera could even save the file to it's memory card.

As soon as I took a sip I was filled with a deep sadness that could very well lead to a dark depression. You see this drink is so ridiculously good that knowing that I have so little of it, and that my willpower is weak, that it will soon be gone from my life. You see I can't get this drink around me. It's made in Georgia, and I believe it's only available in that self same state.

It's a fairly sweet tea that has the faint hint of floral hibiscus. Mike and I have argued over whether we love hibiscus or not. I kept telling him that in fact we were not we just had one hibiscus drink that blew our socks off and the rest were merely mediocre. I hereby take back everything I said. This drink showed me that when prepared properly hibiscus could be a gift given by the gods. You know what another one of their gifts was? That's right, ginger. I love ginger. I can't get enough. Mixed in with this already wonderful tea and I'm in heaven. This is real ginger, so it has the faintest of burns and the greatest of flavors. Throw in a few other spices and it's almost more than I can handle.

This drink is absolutely perfect. I just mapped it out and it would take me 14.5 hours to drive to Florida. If I leave now I can get there around 9am tomorrow. I also have two bottles left to give me a fix along the way. I may have to rent a Uhaul because I don't think I can fit as much as I would need in my tiny hatchback.

I've always had a great dislike of Powerade. No, that's not right. I have always had a great disinterest in Powerade. When it first hit the market in Western New York I was in high school and I remember getting one and thinking that it tasted like Gatorade, with even less flavor. Back then there weren't many varieties of Gatorade and I wasn't a huge fan of it to begin with, as it lacked in bursting flavor that my teenage taste buds craved. I curbed that craving by making my own iced tea at home with a mix and about seven times the recommended amount of sugar. I should have a giant hole in my head where my teeth should be. Back to the point though, I had Powerade once, wasn't impressed and this may be the first time since then that I've had it. You know what? I was wrong. This tastes pretty much exactly like blue Gatorade. It's a watery berry drink with a bunch of sugar in it, but not enough to think that it's insanely sweetened. I can assure you that there is probably 1/20 the amount of sugar in this than what I put in my high school tea. God, I'm so disgusted with myself for that. Ugh. I'm lucky I don't have diabetes.

I'm sure the company is sick of references to gangsters when it comes to their products, but how could you not with a name like Capone, and they are based out of Chicago? I for one am a sucker for movies on the subject. There is something about Chicago in the 20's that is insanely alluring to me. The decade as a whole is fascinating to me. I blame that mostly on the writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald. You couple that with organized crime and you have a romance that I'd love to be a part of. In reality it would probably have been terrible to live in that time, but if my current self could visit there I would do it in a second. I would especially do it if I had access to the stash of soda in the Capone warehouses. If this is bottle I have is any indication of what the original was like, I would be in heaven.

At first this seems like a very general root beer. It tastes how most people would describe the flavor of root beer when asked. The more you mull it over though, the most flavors seep out onto your taste buds. This has one of the strongest caramel flavors I've ever tastes in a soda. It doesn't taste like you're pouring caramel ice cream topping in your mouth, but it is smooth and flavorful. It also has some spices in the mix. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it works well with the caramel. The aftertaste is where the vanilla gets to shine and then the sun sets and you're finished with the bottle. That would be a sad time if I hadn't used a time machine to go back to the 20's and party down during prohibition.

For those of you who grew up Southern Ontario, or Western New York any time from 1888 until 1989 probably remembers Crystal Beach (I can't believe it was around for a hundred years). It was a great amusement park, which was basically Coney Island on Lake Erie. Growing up in the 80's, the 1980's, we hand a handful of amusement parks within an hour drive of us. My favorite was always Crystal Beach. It had great rides, but on top of that it also had a beach, which gave the park a completely different feel than Darien Lake, Fantasy Island and the other smaller parks. It always felt like I was traveling back in time, or stepping into a completely different world when I was there. We would always go early, hit up some rides, and then head to the beach for a few hours before finishing up the night with some more rides. The world famous roller coaster The Comet was always ridden as much as possible. Every trip to the park would be concluded by getting one of the fancy suckers they sold there and going on the “umbrella ride” that carried us in a cart over the park and over part of the beach. Once I was on that ride I knew my day of fun was over, but it was always a fitting end to a great day.

Now I've hated coconut since I was a kid. I just recently started to like coconut water, but I did and still do despise the candied and toasted coconut flavors. For some reason I really liked the pina colada suckers they had at the park. I don't know if I just got them because I thought I was being a rebellious kid getting a sucker named after an alcoholic drink or what. All I know is for some unknown reason these suckers got a pass from my hatred. When I took a sip of this beverage my first thought was “oh gross candied coconut.” Then a second later I realized it tasted exactly like those suckers, and I was okay with it. It has a watered down pineapple flavor that gets overpowered by coconut at the end. It tastes nothing like coconut water though. In reality it has the coconut flavor that I can't stand in most cases, but it brought me back to some great family outings from my childhood, and I can't hold a flavor I don't like against it.

One of Mike's boss' once proposed the idea of him doing a Thirsty Dudes spin off based on hot sauce. You know to join the great spin offs such as Joanie Love Chachi, The Ropers, Just the Ten of Us, A Different World, Empty Nest, Daria, and to bring it back to the beginning: Laverne and Shirley. Knowing how Mike stores his drinks all over the floor at work I can only assume Kevin would store his hot sauce the same way. One would think that there would be no way that the two would ever be confused, that is until this bottle of Organic Thinkers Sorrel Root drink would enter the mix. At that point either Kevin is going to get a floral, herbal splash on his hot dogs or Mike is going to get a mouthful of some crazy hot sauce. I really hope it would be Mike's mistake, but only if it was videotaped. Something like that is just too funny to not be immortalized in a digital format. Lucky for one of them that “Hot Sauce Dudes” or whatever it was going to be called never got off the ground, because seriously this bottle looks exactly like it should contain liquid fire.

This bottle expressly says there is no alcohol added. If it didn't have that statement there is no way in hell I would have tried this as it smells like some sort of cocktail a grandfather would drink. I took the world's tiniest sip, and I think there is no alcohol added because the drink itself is alcoholic. Actually it wasn't even a sip I dabbed some on my finger and tasted it. Good-bye edge. This has to be alcohol. It smells like it, it has a slight burn (that could be from the ginger, and it tastes what I remember vodka or something like that tasting like, but with added sweetness. A drop on my finger is all I'm going to try and it was no good in my book. I'm sure it's great for you health wise, but it's not a flavor I can get down with at all, especially if it really does contain a substantial amount of alcohol from fermentation. Seriously I would rather take a shot of hot sauce than dump this on my food any day.

Mike gave me this can of sarsaparilla, and I thought it was the same as the one I had reviewed early on in the history of the site. The can looks pretty much identical, except it's orange instead of red. I can't read the writing so I don't know if there are any subtle differences. I had intended to just sit back and relax with this nice fizzy drink, but when I tried it, it tasted a lot different than I remember. The first can I had tasted very woodsy, with a generic root beer undertone. This one has a light bubblegum flavor with a healthy heaping of licorice root mixed in. It's a weird combo. Some sips I think it's okay and then others I absolutely love it. It's definitely a unique flavor that is worth checking out.

Now the only questions are, “Is this the same stuff as I had before? Am I crazy to think it tastes so wildly different?

“…€¦that brings in the whole category of countries. Where to start? Well, the obvious one. The birthplace of spaghetti and pasta, all the oily stuff... Italy.” Very smooth Coop, but you forgot one thing; Italy also produces one hell of a peach ice tea under the Paradiso company. I don't know if this would really pair well with pasta, but it would certainly be great to be sipping on a bottle of this while strolling through some Italian city or another, just taking it all in.
It says that it's made with tea flavor, but it does taste more like real tea than any other “tea flavor” teas I've tried. The really star of this drink is the peach though. It has both peach juice and peach flavor in it. That means that while you're drinking it your mouth is filled with the flavor of real peaches. Then when you swallow you get a hint of peach gummy candy. It's be best of both worlds (even though the gummy candy flavor is only faint). The peach flavor is strong. I would prefer a little more tea in the ratio, but I'll take what I can get. Now if you'll excuse me I told Coop I would help him clean up some goat turds. How did I get suckered into this?

Did you know that Beavis and Butthead was set in Texas? I had no idea until I just read that online. Did they ever come out and say that in the show, or is it something that Mike Judge just proclaimed? Either way I bet living down in the south like that must be a real bummer for them. Sure it can be rainy and kind of cold, but it's the good kind of cold, and autumn in the northeast is the best smelling time of year. On top of that I bet those troubled boys have never had apple cider in their life, well at least not anything decent.

A nice glass of cider is really the heart of the season if you ask an expert like myself. Dr. B's understands this and wanted to make a drink that the entire world could enjoy, even if they were thousands of miles away from a cider mill. At first sip this just tastes like watered down cider, or more specifically what a Cider flavored Vitamin Water would taste like. The more you drink the more the subtlety of the tea comes out. This is in fact a tea that is flavored with spiced apple juice. So it's not watered down at all. It's just not overly flavored, which is a different thing all together. If you don't go into this expecting a full-bodied cider then you won't have any disappointments. It is what it claims to be and it does it well. I wish I could try this without any sweetener added. The taste of the Xylitol is faint, and does not interfere with the flavor much, but I've grown to love completely unsweetened drinks lately.

A few years ago I stayed with a friend in Florida. Early in the morning he woke up, walked into the back yard and plucked some oranges from a tree. HE then juiced them so that my traveling companions and myself would have some fresh squeezed orange juice when we woke up. It was the freshest juice one could drink, and it was more than likely the best orange juice I have ever tasted.

Unfortunately this is as far as you can get from that juice and still legally call it orange juice. The label claims it's 100% orange juice (from concentrate), but it tastes like the wrong part of the orange. It's watered down and it tastes like the oranges weren't ripe yet when they were juiced.

Stick to what you know Welch's: all things grape.

Mike hates FRS. I think it's probably in his top five most hated drinks. Up until now the only flavor I had tried was the orange protein one. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. It's a functional drink and those generally have issues. I gave it the benefit of the doubt. Mike thought maybe he was mistaken about the company, so he tried another one and absolutely hated it yet again. I still did not think this could be all that terrible, so today I cracked this open before I went to the gym. The first sip was decent enough. It had a nice berry flavor that I couldn't argue with. The problem started when I kept drinking it. Some flavor I had never tasted before kept getting stronger and grosser. I can only imagine that it was the quercetin. I hope I never have to taste that again. I was able to drink the whole bottle, but by the third sip I was not enjoying it at all. Actually I just looked it up and quercetin is found in tea, so I'm sure I will be having it again. It must be something else in here. It smells like the milk that a wheat heavy cereal had soaked in. Now that I realize that I feel like it kind of tastes like overly sweetened wheat, which is really gross. This will not enter my body again.

So…€¦I knew I had a Martinelli's lemonade in my fridge. Earlier I grabbed a drink quick whilst I was working, and since it was a nice day out and my shop was sweltering hot I decided that lemonade would hit the spot. When I grabbed it I saw that it was blood orange flavored, but in my head that meant that it was blood orange flavored lemonade, not just blood orange juice. I drank most of it and saved a couple of sips for when I wrote the review, aka now. The entire time I was drinking this earlier the idea of it not being flavored lemonade never crossed my mind. It wasn't until I was just checking the sweetener on the ingredient list that I saw that there was no lemon in it at all. I then checked the rest of the packaging and realized that it was just juice, not lemonade.

Now sure orange juice can be bitter, but when it has 31g of sugar in it, it generally isn't. This on the other hand has the sugar and the juice and it is sour like lemonade. Knowing that is not what it is supposed to be is a bit of a let down. It would be a decent orange lemonade, but as a blood orange juice it leaves something to be desired. Generally blood orange has a very strong flavor, and this is a bit weak and watered down. I guess it is only 11% juice. I'm just going to go back to pretending it's a time when I thought that it was flavored lemonade and I was really enjoying it.

After high school all of Stan's friends went to college to become teachers and businessmen. He knew from an early age that he would not follow the same path. He wasn't dumb or anything. He actually got high marks in school, but he just had no interest in higher education. As soon as he got his diploma at the end of his senior year he enrolled in clown school. Clowning seemed like a dream come true. His classes failed to hold his attention though, and after a semester he dropped out. He then spent a few months just hanging out, working at his uncle's shop. Then one afternoon he was on break flipping through the local arts paper and he saw an ad that would change his life forever. He had been close with clown college, but he now knew that his true calling was to be a magician. He emptied his bank account and took a three week crash course in magicianery. It was there that his instructor gave his the stage name of Zevia the Magnificent, a title that the whole world would soon know.

While he loved being a magician, he really wasn't very good at it. His rabbit would always end up in an audience members purse instead of his hat, and he could never keep a firm grasp on those darn rings, what did they polish them with anyways, lard? One trick that he did master was to hypnotize people into thinking that diet pop tasted good. His secret was that he would make his own soda and sweeten it with a natural zero calorie sweetener caller stevia. This was in the late 90's when everyone was trying to keep the pounds off with aspartame and sucralose. They never knew what hit them. One flavor that he worked hard on was a diet ginger ale. Even though there weren't many diet ginger ales on the market, and people weren't familiar with it, he still thought it was integral to his act. It didn't really taste like the other ginger ales he had drank in the past. It was more like slightly sweet seltzer water with a slight ginger taste to it. He prided himself on using real ginger, but not enough to have any sort of heat to it. It was a completely non-offensive soda that he drank all the time, and why not when it had no sugar and no calories. Sure it could have used a bit more flavor, but who was going to argue with it' healthiness compared to the leading brands?

It was during the portion of his act when he was convincing people that diet soda could taste good when his infamy began. The prime minister of China was in the audience that evening for some unknown reason. Zevia's helper monkey became irate and flung his dung at the prime minister before shaking up a can of soda and spraying it in the foreign dignitaries face. As you well know that was the catalyst for World War 3. Zevia the Magnificent, and his monkey, were later tried for war crimes, and we all know the outcome of that.

It looks like Blink worked out most of the kinks with this flavor. They put together a flavor (blueberries and pomegranate) that does a decent job of masking most of the taste of the added caffeine. Where the lemon-lime and peach flavors were more gross caffeine flavor than the actual flavor that the drink was supposed to be, this is way more fruity. The sucralose taste isn't even all that strong, which is a rarity with drinks that use that sweetener.

It didn't take much effort to drink this. Unfortunately I can't say the same about the other flavors I have tried of this line. I suppose it's nice to have an alternative energy drink other than you're run of the mill candy flavored soda versions and coffee. I know there has to be some people out there who would enjoy and appreciate this. I just don't happen to be one of them.

Global warming is running rampant. You don't believe me? Well then perhaps you should look at the shifting weather patterns and talk to your local displaced penguin. As a result of it glaciers are melting left and right and scientists have headed north on a mission to find all sorts of things left in their soggy wake. Some of the greatest rewards discovered during “Operation: Encino Man” have been bottles of Kuang Chuan green tea. I mean the government is keeping the whole thing hush hush, but that is the only explanation I can think of as to why this would be called “frozen green tea.” It tastes just like a decent quality unsweetened green tea. There is nothing out of the ordinary about it, but you now what? It doesn't need anything new or different. This is a classic taste that is perfect the way it is. Drinking it right out of the fridge is like pulling it straight from the semi-solid melting ice of the glacier. It's cool, refreshing and just a bit bitter. Who could ask for anything else from a green tea?

You know how mob guys always have names like “Fat Tony” and are always overweight from living a life of excess, or so television and movies always tell us? Well some of the higher ups in the “family” got together and started a drink company a few years back. They decided to call it Made, because they thought they were clever. Okay I'll give it to them, that's a good name. Well after a bunch of people starting having heart attacks from each a case of cannolis a day they decided to make a low calorie version, to help prolong the lives near and dear to them so that they may continue of causing “boaking accidents.”

As I said these guys were used to a certain standard of living, and just any diet drink wasn't going to cut it. They needed to make it just right so that the family would enjoy it and want to drink it. The only way they could make this work was to use real juice in their beverages, even if it was from concentrate. Artificial flavor has no place in the mob. They also decided erythritol was the sweetener to go with, as to avoid the stereotypical chemical diet taste. The result was a blueberry green tea that hardly tasted diet at all. There was so much flavor from the juice that it covered up any hint of the erythritol. They added pomegranate juice as well for added antioxidants, but it doesn't show up much in the flavor. It is blueberry through and through.

You know what this drink would go great with? Soft pretzels. It's a good thing that the mob is involved with a vender.

“I'm afraid I must insist. You see, my wife, she has been most vocal on the subject of the pretzel monies. …€˜Where's the money?' …€˜When are you going to get the money?' …€˜Why aren't you getting the money now?' And so on.”

I don't know if you're aware of this, but ancient Native Americans used super sweet iced tea to help with fertility. Skateboards and roller blades were also used in the ritual. That's right hundreds of years before Dogtown was even a thought the rightful owners of this country were shredding. I know it sounds completely insane, but that's all that I can gather from the label on this bottle. The figures on here look ridiculously similar to the fertility deity Kokopelli (For some reason I think my dad has a tattoo of him. That's just weird). I don't know what Kokopelli has to do with southern style iced tea, but it must be something for this subsidiary of the Canada Dry corporation to place him in a bunch of scenarios on this bottle.

I would like to come out and say that I would expect a god to endorse a much better tea. This tastes like it should be the Brisk take on southern sweet tea aka heavily sugared water with just a hint of tea. I didn't really expect much for a 99cent plastic bottle, so I guess I'm not let down. Nothing about this packaging screams “good tea” so I doubt anyone would be duped into expecting anything grand. Maybe this is just what Kokopelli drinks when he's taking a break from getting the women pregnant. I feel sorry for him. He puts in the real work and he deserves better.

I have a severe problem. I am straight up addicted to Taco Bell. I don't eat there all that often, but that is solely because it would take me 20 minutes to drive there, and a 40 minute round trip ride is not worth 2-3 99 cent burritos. The thing is that whenever I pass by one, or even see a sign for the “restaurant” I get an undying need for craptastic fake Mexican food. I could have just eaten the biggest meal of my life and then I'll pass by one and think, “yeah I could really go for a burrito now.” It's absolutely disgusting and I wish I could break myself from it.

While I love the garbage burritos that Taco Bell serves me, there is another item on their menu that I repeatedly try and always regret. That is the Taco Bell exclusive that is Mountain Dew Baja Blast. It is by far my least favorite flavor of Mountain Dew. It's supposed to be lime, you know to accent the flavors in the burritos, but it comes off as something that should not be ingested. It has an almost chemical taste that is somehow different than that of energy drinks. If someone told me that it could also be used as coolant in a car, I would not be surprised.

I know a lot of people rave over this flavor, but I don't get it at all. It's borderline undrinkable in my book. In the future when I order my three fresco bean burritos I'll accompany them with a glass of water.

I like dry sodas. They are a nice alternative when you don't want to drink a lot of sugar. The flavors generally aren't overly strong, but I can get over it for the trade off. Fruit flavors generally make the best dry sodas. Unfortunately root beer does not. Root beer is meant to be robust and full bodied, two things you just can't get with a dry soda. In essence this is some seltzer water with some root beer flavoring added to it (plus the tiniest amount of cane sugar). To be fair it does have birch oil and vanilla in it, so it is all natural. It's unfortunate that it doesn't really work for root beer, as the flavor isn't very apparent and it tastes like watered down root beer.

Granny knows best and she thinks it's about darn time you stopped eating so much sugar. She knows you sneak out to the kitchen in the middle of the night and eat spoonfuls of sugar out of the jar. She can tell by the way you're getting paunchy, well that and the sugar you leave everywhere including encrusted onto the spoons you just put back in the drawer. Seriously, that's how you get ants. As of now she's put locks on the cupboards so you can't get to her sweet, sweet sugar, and she's going to start feeding you unsweetened iced tea. Sure at first you might think unsweetened tea is bitter and not for you who loves granulated sugar a mouthful at a time, but after a few classes you will warm up to it, and get used to your unsweetened life. Have we mentioned how you look paunchy and unhealthy?

Don't worry kiddo; she's not just going to put a glass of straight black tea with ice cubes in it in front of you. She knows you love your flavor, so she mixed in some black currant juice with the tea. It's a tart fruit mixed in with a bitter tea, but they do commingle nicely. Granny knew you would still complain a bit about it, so she also put in a squirt of lime juice to spice it up, and spice it up she did. At first sip the lime stands out more than anything, but as your palate gets used to it all of the flavors settle together into a nice sugar free family. Don't you want to get to know this family and lose your paunch? You don't? Well it's too bad because it's what granny wants you to do and she makes the rules! Also, it's a delicious drink. Seriously, just get used to unsweetened tea. You're body will thank you later.

It had been a long day for Mark. His boss had made him come in an hour early and then was on him all day to get this or that done in some ridiculously small amount of time. It was nonstop chaos and he didn't even have time to take a lunch. Take it from my boy Mark, Ritz crackers from the vending machine a meal does not make. By the time he got out of work, late of course, his stomach was screaming to be filled. On the walk to his car he ordered a pizza. That's right Mark ordered a large cheese pizza and he planned on eating it all himself, in one sitting. We're not talking about those 14” or 16” pizzas they have down south. This was a real deal 18” large cheese pizza that was greasy and doughy with just a hint of flour on the bottom of the crust. When he got to the pizza joint it wasn't quite ready so he checked out the little shop next door as he needed a drink to go along with his “za” and a two-liter of 7Up did not sound appealing. When he came across this can of Colombiana he knew he was in for a treat. You see Mark was a huge supporter of Cola and he loved trying the underdogs in the “Cola Wars.” What Mark didn't know was that cola and kola were not the same thing, and it was a realization that wouldn't hit him until he was two slices deep into his dinner. He cracked open the can and took a big sip, instantly realizing that it was not the soda he expected. Where he expected a heavy harsh cola flavor he was instead met by a slightly bubble gum flavored soda. It was then that the K in the flavor made sense to him. This was not cola at all, but instead it was kola champagne a drink popular in Puerto Rico. He had read the flavor described as a vanilla banana mixture, but to him it always tasted like bubble gum, and was always overly sweet and too much to handle. Colombiana's version wasn't so flavorful and he got where people had gotten the description before. This was a version of the soda that he could actually finish an entire bottle of. It didn't compliment his pizza as much as say an RC Cola would have, but it didn't ruin his meal either. He did learn his lesson though, and would never again confuse kola for the sticky sweet brown beverage that held a grip on his heart.