Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

Everyone knows about the Salem Witch Trials. Women were put through horrible ordeals to see if they were witches or not. The sad thing was most of the time the only way they could tell if someone was a witch was if they survived the ordeal. Oops, over a hundred women were tried and executed via drowning, burning and getting crushed with stones. When a tragedy occurs in most towns, the townsfolk usually try to forget about it, and keep things quiet. Salem decided to take things the other way and they have turned the whole ordeal into a money making machine. There are tours, museums, and souvenirs galore. The Salem Wax Museum even sells a variety of their own sodas as well as this iced tea. I do find it a bit odd that the label has a stereotypical Halloween witch on it, instead of a normal looking townsperson like the people who were tried. That's a little insensitive, but of well. It's a decent lemon iced tea. It's pretty sweet, but in the good way. The lemon flavor also wasn't too over powering. I was shocked to see that it was sweetened with HFCS and not cane sugar, as it wasn't very thick. I enjoyed this a great deal and if I'm ever back in that area of Massachusetts I'll make sure to pick up some more.

We've been told for years to “snap into a Slim Jim” (RIP Randal Savage), but now we're being told to rip into some energy fuel. I say no thank you. Sure this tastes like generic liquid fruit punch sugar candy, but as strange as it is, that is not something that I really want. If this were the first energy drink I ever tried I would think that something was wrong with the can. Since I am used to the flavor I can get past that weirdness, but it's just not that good quality wise. I guess that's why I found it at Big Lots, with hundreds more just like it.

This company has the brain down. They know ever nook and cranny of that gray shriveled grape that lives inside the skulls of the world. The know what to poke and prod to get the sought after effects. Want to make someone kick your assistant in their posterior? Just poke that little section there. Want to make them sing the Canadian national anthem in Cantonese? Give that little guy a squeeze. Seriously, Neuro can make us do whatever they want, that is if they could just get inside our skulls. Since we are grown ass adults, and they have no claims over our bodies, they have to do what seems to be the next best thing for them and that is to sell us drinks that will affect different parts of our mind grapes.

With this drink they figured out exactly what to mix together to put you to sleep and make it last all night. Normally with relaxation drinks I sleep sound and hard for about four hours. It's like I get a full night's sleep in a shorter span, but after that I wake up on and off. When I drank this I was out all night. It was magical. It doesn't taste too shabby either. It has a nice light citrus taste that clings to the orange side of the genre. It's non-carbonated, which for no reason at all, seems weird to me.

Science is a force to be reckoned with, and Neuro is nothing if not a group of scientists with a love for gray matter. It's terrifying if you think about it.

I took the day off of work so that I could fulfill my longtime interest in getting acupuncture. It was a weird/interesting experience. First of all it was one of the most relaxing things I've ever done. Secondly you don't feel the needles at all. I laid there for about an hour with a bunch of needles in my back and arms, and I had no problem with it. Afterwards the woman did cupping on me. If you're not familiar, basically they create a vacuum with cups on your back and it's supposed to suck out bad energy. It was pretty much like a reverse massage as it just pulls on your back skin. My back looks like it's covered in huge hickies from it. It was slightly uncomfortable at parts because the cups really pull a lot. Afterwards I was in a slight daze. I was told to drink a lot of water. No problem, I drink tons of water all day. Well apparently not enough. I felt dehydrated a few hours later, so I turned to the magical power of coconut water, and it did wonders.

This tastes like someone mixed a normal sports drink with coconut water, which I guess is what it is, so that's a good thing. This thing will hydrate you like no one's business. Plants will have all the electrolytes they could ever possibly crave. The tropical berry flavor tastes a bit heavy on the acai side of things. I don't even know if there's any in here, but it tastes like a bunch of berries and acai mixed together with a coconut aftertaste. I would have preferred it to just be your normal berries, but it's not a deal breaker.

Seriously though, if you have any interest in acupuncture, I say make the plunge. After one session my arm/shoulder feels worlds better. It'll cure what ails you. Then drink one of these puppies afterwards so you don't crash.

Part of me really thought that I was over aloe drinks. When I first discovered them a few years back (yes I am an explorer as well as a scientist) I couldn't get enough. I would buy the huge bottles and down them in one sitting, like some fat conquistador slob. I realized that the amount of sugar I was consuming was enough to give an elephant diabetes, so I “cooled my jets,” as the kids say. It's been awhile since I've had a bottle, and just like with most things, with time your feelings towards them fade. The refreshment that was once my love had become just another face in the crowd of thousands of drinks we've downed in the name of Thirsty Dudes.

Drinking this bottle was like renewing my wedding vows. One sip and I fell in love all over again. It's sweet, but it's more honey than cane sugar. Actually the whole bottle only has 16g of sugar, which is way lower than I expected. This is a perfect blend of the classic white grape-ish flavor of aloe mixed with pineapple. Both are present in their own ways and it's one hell of a ride of flavor.

Let's not forget about our friends the aloe chunks. It looked like there were a ton of them in the bottle, but when I was drinking it, it seemed like there were less than other companies use. Either way, they are still fun to drink and catch in your teeth.

Today I will make a vow to aloe that I will never again forever about how much I love you, and the enjoyment it brings to my life. I may stray to other drinks on a regular basis, but I will always come back to you when all is said and done.

Here's a warning for the world. If I'm ever in your presence and you are eating blackberries, never offer me any. Within two minutes you will be looking at an empty container where a heaping pile of berries once stood. When it comes to this fruit I have zero self control once someone opens the floodgates. It's the same thing with chips and salsa, but no one is going to make a drink based on that flavor, so that knowledge has no place here.

I was skeptical to try this drink because of my distaste for seltzer water. My love for blackberries won over and the next thing I know I am pounding a container of the previously mentioned chips and salsa and sipping on a bottle of this sparkling goodness. Lucky for me, and the world, the blackberry flavor is fairly strong (for it being unsweetened) and the seltzer zing is at a minimum. This isn't sweet in the least, but it has flavor and that's all you can ask for in a drink like this. It's light, it's clear and it's slightly fruity. There's just a hint of fruit as the name would suggest. These folks are no liars.

Mario had finally found his calling in life. For 24 years he was led to believe that cola should taste a certain way, the way of Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Sure they had their subtle differences, but for all purposes they were basically the same. The thing was Mario was okay with it. Sure he preferred Coke over Pepsi, but he had no problem drinking either if they were offered to him. He never really went out of his way to buy cola, because let's face it it's not root beer or ginger beer and those are his loves.

This morning Mario went to his local health food store to buy some vegetarian jerky (now there was a substance he was addicted to). He went to the cooler to grab a drink to wash down his salty, chewy treats, and that is when this little gem caught his eye. To be fair the store needed restocking and it was either this, coconut water or the dreaded kombucha. He made his purchases and headed out to his `88 Dodge Aries. He sat on the hood and tore into his bag of jerky until the saltiness overtook him and he needed to open the soda. Suddenly a whole new world opened up before Mario. Everything he knew about cola was wrong, starting with the fact that it should be spelled kola. He realized that kola was meant to be complex like a fine root beer. It was supposed to taste like waves of herbs and spices such as cinnamon, cloves, coriander and nutmeg. The taste of your everyday cola was meant to only be a base flavor that these spices would enhance. This soda wasn't overly syrupy sweet. In fact this kola is almost slightly bitter. Mario felt like he had been cheated his whole life and that he should have been drinking this his whole life. He knew then that it was his job in life to spread the word of the true kola. He would flyer supermarkets, create guerrilla campaigns where he would sabotage the enemy. He would take the soda world by storm and turn them on their ear…€¦..but first he was going to go back in the store and buy a couple more bottles, because it seriously was really good.

Well this isn't what I thought it was going to be at all. I'm guessing that I'm not the only one out there that thinks of a combination of iced tea and lemonade when they hear “half & half.” There wasn't an ounce of my being that didn't think this was going to be peach flavored green tea and lemonade in equal increments. Looks like every ounce of my being was wrong. How does it feel to be wrong, self? Oh nevermind, you're used to the feeling.

The truth is there is no lemonade in this drink at all. When Teas' Tea says that it is a half & half, what they mean is that the beverage is half green tea and half peach juice. To be honest I'm glad that I was wrong. This year everyone is going crazy with the lemonade tea combos and I'm getting a bit tired of it. One thing that I will never get tired of is lightly sweetened quality tea, and that is what we have right here. It has the classic Teas' Tea green tea taste juiced up with a heaving amount of peach. They could have just called this peach green tea, because it doesn't taste crazy different than their normal teas. Okay, it is a tad sweeter than their other flavors, but not by much. I guess marketing had to get their grubby hands in there, and they figured calling it something new might catch people's eyes.

Oh, and this trend of companies using cane sugar and stevia because they say it helps bring out the flavor? Cut it out. Luckily with this drink you cant' taste the stevia, but in most of the other ones I've tried the stevia is distracting and takes away from a great beverage.

As far as I'm concerned if you're not sweetening your beverage with real sugar, the only other option should be agave. Everything else is either gross of unnecessary. Everyone knows the joys of real sugar, well maybe not diabetics, but not everyone is familiar with agave. It comes from a cactus looking plant (the same one tequila is made from) and it's sweet, slightly syrupy and wonderful tasting. Oogave understands this and they created a brand specifically to showcase this wonderful sweetener. They have been making a nice array of unusual soda flavors and the results have been great. With their grapefruit they missed the mark a little. It's a pretty decent soda and for normal people this might be great, but I am a lover of grapefruit sodas and it doesn't have that quasi-sour kick that I like in this particular flavor. It tastes just like grapefruit minus the tartness. I imagine it was the agave that neutralized it and made it into a smooth grapefruit soda. I would drink it again, but I'm just not as excited about it as I was when I purchased it.

Stephen was obsessed with looking like a troublemaker from the 1950s. He cuffed his jeans, wore Doc Martins (he knew it was more a modern adaptation of the greaser look, but he liked the way they looked), he wore his hair short with a slight wave to the side in front and always wore plain white shirts. In his mind he looked exactly like Kiefer Sutherland when he played Ace in Stand By Me. The only thing he needed to make his look complete was a leather motorcycle jacket. In his mind nothing would look cooler than him in his jacket. It was late July when he finally saved up enough money to buy the old broken in jacket he had been eyeing at the thrift store. His look was now complete and even though the weather was in the 90's every day he wouldn't take off his jacket. He felt he had to suffer for his image to prove how tough he was. He sure did sweat a lot though, and he felt dehydrated all of the time.

He decided he really needed to hydrate himself, so he went to the corner store and picked up a bottle of Gatorade. He decided that while raspberry melon didn't sound like the toughest flavor, it did sound like it would taste wonderful. He glared at the clerk and paid for his drink and a pack of smokes. He didn't really smoke, but he liked how the guys in Stand By Me rolled them up in their sleeves. Also, it gave him an excuse to take off the jacket for a few minutes and cool down. He went outside, through his coat over a railing and leaned against the building with one foot, all cool like. He cracked open his drink and took a big gulp. Man the drink was good. He hadn't realized that he had grabbed a low calorie drink, but it wasn't that bad. It was sweetened with sucralose as well as regular sucrose, but it didn't taste diet much at all. It had a nice subtle melon taste that was somewhere between a honeydew and a cantaloupe, just where a melon flavor should be. He didn't realize until he was drinking it how raspberry was an overlooked flavor in sports drinks. Sure it was around plenty in teas, but not in anything like this. This was one the best Gatorades that Stephen had ever tried. He was halfway through with the bottle and he decided it would look cool if he chugged the rest. Being the klutz that he was he spilled it all over his white shirt. He looked down in disgust at his once pristine white shirt that had instantly been dyed pink. He didn't look touch at all. He looked like the turd that he really was. Shamed he road his Huffy bike that was made to look like a motorcycle home. Life sure is hard for this 27 year old.

When climbing to the peak of some mountain or another there is only one clear choice for hydration and that is Owater. Wait what do you mean that the contents of this bottle would freeze in those temperatures? No one is looking to get their electrolytes and antioxidants from popsicles, while they may be tasty, they wouldn't be refreshing at all, and that is what we want at high altitudes and low temperatures. I suppose one could pour the contents of a bottle of Owater into a container that would keep it from freezing, but then how would that work for promotions? No one would recognize the bottles in the ads. They would just see some guy on a mountain drinking from a canteen. I guess we could slap a sticker onto it, but that doesn't help people recognize the product in the stores. Maybe we should just start packaging it in canteens.

We have a decent product here people. It has a taste that mixes the electrolyte flavor of Gatorade and the actual flavor of Vitamin Water. It really sits right in the middle of those two brands and I truly think there is a big market for it. I mean we use real blueberry flavor, so that puts us ahead of the competition. We just need to think of a better way to promote it. This whole ice mountain climber shtick really isn't going to work out. What do we want our products to end up in a Big Lots or some such store? Of course not, but that is exactly where we're going to end up if we keep with this ad campaign…€¦.ooops.

Over the past decade or so it seems that America has become a more health conscious country. Sure there are still fast food restaurants all over the place, but to me it seems like less people are visiting them, and even when they do there are much healthier items on the menu. Actually I could be completely wrong here. Maybe it's just the people I associate with. I mean people have to still be going to those places for them to stay open, but with the exception of Subway or Taco Bell (it's a guilty pleasure that I can not and will not pass up) it's extremely rare that I hear about someone that I associate with eating fast food. I hope I'm not crazy, because I am proud of people. It's great that people are watching what they eat. I'm not a complete health nut, but I'd like to think that I eat healthy and for the most part watch what I consume on a regular basis.

To further people's interest a bunch of companies are popping up offering healthier alternatives. One such company is Lo-Gly. I had no idea what the glycemic index as until I got my hands on this little guy here. It's a way to measure how different foods cause your blood sugar to increase due to carbohydrate consumption. Foods with a low glycemic index (most fruits and vegetables) release glucose more slowly and steadily so they make you feel fuller for longer. Now that is a diet in the making. You can't argue with science.

Foods like a low GI fall in the range of 55 or under. Lo-Gly was able to make this juice that lands at 23 on the chart, not too shabby. Everything in this bottle is organic, and mostly straight up juice. It's a bouquet of antioxidant rich fruits. The pomegranate and acai make it fairly tart, but I'm okay with that. For some reason they felt they needed to sweeten it a little more than the blue agave was doing, so they added some stevia. Maybe it was even tarter than it is now, which would have been a bit insane. You can taste the stevia in the aftertaste, but the fruit juice mostly covers it up.

As far as beverages go that are marketed towards keeping a healthy diet and weight loss, this is one of the better ones I've ever tried. If it had just said it was Acai Blueberry flavored without listing any diet aspects I wouldn't have noticed, with the exception of detecting the stevia at the end.

If you don't think that a nice quiet night out in the woods watching a fire is relaxing enough, perhaps you should try a can of Lean. There is something hysterical to me about drinking a beverage that was obviously conceived of for an urban setting out in the middle of nowhere, but hey you can drink one and lean on anything to fall asleep, even a tree or a dilapidated barn. Hell, I bet you could lean against a beavers tail and not be disturbed all night.

When I downed this last night I was greeted by a pleasant pineapple flavor that fell somewhere between the fruit and overly sugary candy. It was quite delicious. So much in fact that I had pounded the entire can before I even knew what was happening. About ten minutes later some friends asked me if I was okay because I was looking really dazed. Yes I was feeling fine, I just happened to be falling asleep with my eyes open. I made my way to my tent and slept like a baby bear cub, which I did not see like I wanted to.

This beverage tasted great and its functionality was just as good.

Is it weird that the first thing I think of when I hear the words “key lime” is Natural Born Killers? You know a couple enters a diner orders some pie and then shoots up the place. That's a little bit of America right there, or is it? You're probably right. It's pretty disgusting. That doesn't change the fact that a movie made when I was in high school will pop into my head whenever anyone mentions this particular pie.

I don't think there will ever be another beverage made on this planet that will taste as much like a key like pie as this does. It's like ol' Mickey Knox ordered his pie, but had the nice waitress put it in the blender for say a good ten minutes. I think she may have snuck in a green freezie pop as well, because there is a bit of that flavor mixed in.

Fitness Edge hit a stroke of genius with this one. Protein drinks always have a slightly weird dairy flavor to them that is a little off putting. What better way to combat that than to make it so that the drink is supposed to taste like something that has that flavor already. Whoever came up with the idea better have gotten a raise.

Give this key lime protein drink it's day in court and see what you think about it. Me? I'm definitely sold.

You put the orange in the mango and you drink them both up…€¦wait…€¦that's not right. Oh well they are already mixed together so I might as well go with it. I mean I already checked out and the cashier gave me the weirdest look because I was singing. I didn't really want anything coconut flavored anyways.

Okay, now that I've tried this I'm pretty happy that I messed up. It tastes like tiny mandarin oranges were juiced and then filtered through some mango puree. The flavor starts off completely orange and by the time the aftertaste has faded away it had gotten to a point of pure mango. Somewhere in the middle it tastes like someone spritzed in a little lemon juice, you know the way you add limejuice to guacamole so it doesn't turn brown. No one wants their sparkling juice to turn brown, so make sure you add a little lemon.

As an after thought what the heck was Harry Nilsson talking about? Who wants to have lime and coconut mixed together? It just seems like it would curdle and that is way gross.

Once again Mike and I are on the same wavelength. We both randomly drank and reviewed Sonoma Sparklers today. We know each otherâ…‚¬…„¢s bodies. He said his raspberry was pretty tasty, and I can verify that the natural peach flavored one is out of this world. It tastes exactly like Looza peach nectar if it were carbonated (and not so thick). Itâ…‚¬…„¢s out of control good. Itâ…‚¬…„¢s like someone took the worldâ…‚¬…„¢s most perfectly ripe peach and injected it with a syringe full of carbon dioxide. Itâ…‚¬…„¢s apparently mostly apple juice with peach concentrate added, but I really only taste peach. There was no need to add sweeteners, so they didnâ…‚¬…„¢t. When I say Iâ…‚¬…„¢m in love you best believe Iâ…‚¬…„¢m in love, and I am 100% in love with this sparkling juice.

Oh I get it. Nawgan, it's like noggin. You know, your head. I'll give them points for being cheesily clever, seeing as this beverage is supposed to boost brainpower and help you concentrate. I picture young nerdy kids in grade school saving up to buy can after can of this so that they can become smart enough to be an astronaut or a nuclear physicist. That's a cool job, right?

The “secret” ingredient in here is citicoline, which according to the never wrong Wikipedia, increases dopamine receptor densities. It also helps to improve focus and mental energy. It also says that it may be useful in the treatment of ADD. Does that mean that this is basically Ritalin in beverage form? From what I gather, they do the same thing.

I like the ideas that are behind this drink. I would much rather have kids drinking something like this than normal energy drinks. It's just too bad that the flavor is fairly mediocre. It tastes just like any other orange drink. You know the kind that doesn't taste like orange juice, but it doesn't taste like orange pop either. I don't know who decided to call the flavor orange, but it has been around for a long time and it's not going anywhere. Also, the skinny can fooled me again. I expected this to be carbonated, but it was just an orange drink with quasi Ritalin in it.

I think I found this soda in a little Mexican mart in Philly. There is no flavor listed on it, nor are their ingredients listed. I always assumed that it was a pineapple soda, and since that is something I love I've been saving it for an appropriate time. When I finally drank it last night I felt I had taken a one-way train ride to disappointment city. Where I had expected an uber sweet candied pineapple flavor, all I got was the taste of over sweetened bubbly water, with only the faintest tinge of some sort of citrus. I don't even know if this was supposed to be pineapple anymore. I only made it a quarter way through the bottle when I decided that drinking this wasn't worth it.

As a beverage it's not gross, it's just there, and not what I look for in a soda at all. This is sub-store brand quality. On the other hand it does have a really cool bottle that I enjoy a great deal. Still, that is not enough to save this soda.

Seeing as neither Mike nor I can stand bananas and Derek lives on the other side of the country, this has been sitting in my fridge for at least four months. It just stares at me every time I open the door, taunting me. You know just smirking because it knows that I have to drink it eventually and even though it is being consumed, it ultimately wins because I'm drinking something that I dislike so much. Today I took a deep sigh, opened up the fridge and grabbed the bottle, preparing for its victory.

You often see strawberry banana drinks and strawberry kiwi drinks, but it's rare for all three to be hanging out in the same bottle. I prayed to whatever deity I don't believe in that it would be heavier on the kiwi front. Santa Claus must have heard my mumblings because this drink doesn't taste like bananas at all. Seriously, I swished it around my mouth, just held it there, swallowed and concentrated really hard, but I cant' detect even the faintest taste of that wretched fruit. It's mainly kiwi, with a bit of strawberry in there and then it has that taste that all drinks have when fruits and vegetables are mixed together. It should be a gross taste, you know mixing cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes and beets in a juice, but I kind of dig it. On top of all of that there are no added sweeteners. Fave let the natural sugars in the fruits do the talking, and its as sweet as any juice needs to be with only 12g of sugar per serving.

Fave you have made a fairly tasty juice here, but you may want to change the name of the flavor. Actually maybe you don't. Maybe this tastes even better to me because I thought it was going to be all gross and banana ridden. This way I was so pumped that I drank two glasses. No I think it's the juice on it's own that made me do that.

You gotta free your mind maaaaaaaannnn. Open up your third eye and see the world for what it really is. It's beautiful maaaaaannnnn. You gotta see the trees for the forest maaaaaaan. No maaaaaaan I got it right. It's not “see the forest for the trees,” that doesn't make any sense maaaaaaaaaannnn. You can't have a forest without trees and trees are beautiful maaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnn, just like life.

You know what else is beautiful maaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnn? Guayaki yerba mate, that's what. The stuff is delicious. It's so beautiful maaaaaaaaaannnnnn. It's like the trees. They have this one flavor called Pure Mind, and whenever I drink it I just feel like I'm one with the planet. There are these little birds on the label and they are just so beautiful maaaaaaaaannnnn. It has that wonderful earthy, slightly bitter mate flavor to it, but the bitterness isn't really there because it's sweetened and it has all of this beautiful pomegranate juice in it. Antioxidants maaaaaaaaannnnn, now there's a mind trip. This is seriously one of the best tea drinks I've ever tried maaaaaaannnnnn. The thing is maaaaaaaaaannnnn that it doesn't taste overpoweringly like mate or pomegranate. The two just live in harmony like the trees and the forest maaaaaaaaannnnn. That's where the saying comes from anyways. Some shaman drank this tea and thought of the awesome harmony that it contains and creates and just thought of trees and forests, and little birds. You really just need to drink this and free your mind maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnn.