Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

Sometimes you wake up in the morning and you realize, "Holy crap I'm at the Grand Canyon." Okay, by sometimes I mean once in my life, and by once I mean this morning. I've been waiting to come to the Grand Canyon basically my whole life. I'm an outdoor kid and my favorite place in the world is Letchworth State Park aka the Grand Canyon of the East. Finally I was at the real thing and it melted my brain. I knew it was big, but it was the most expansive thing I have ever seen. Seriously my brains started to leak out of my ears and nose. I think I need to see a specialist.

The thing about the Grand Canyon that you don't think about is that there is nothing really around it, so food is super expensive. I knew I needed to keep up my energy, and seeing as I'm sure as hell not eating at McDonalds (no matter what Mike says) it was either burritos or buying a loaf of bread and peanut butter (the combination of the two which ran me $10). I also picked up this bottle of Odwalla to give me a little pick me up. It was a wise choice. The majority of the flavor came from the oranges, mango and peach in it, but it was the plum that really rounded things out. On a "vacation" where I have been eating fairly terribly it was welcomed to consume something that tasted and actually was good for you. I ate some peanut butter sandwiches, pounded this bottle of juice and then started hiking into the canyon. We made it to the first rest house (1.5 miles) before a lightning storm made us turn back. While I loved the canyon I had no interest in getting burnt to a crisp by natural electricity on the sides of it's walls.

Can I let you in on a secret? I love grocery stores. I find them comforting to walk around. I really love going into grocery stores in other cities to see how they compare to the ones back home. Yesterday we drove back from the awesomeness of the Grand Canyon to the wretchedness of Las Vegas. On the way we stopped off in Kingman, AZ for dinner. We also hit up a grocery store, and for a fairly small dessert town this store was packed. Their drink selection was one of the best I have ever seen in a grocery store outside of Whole Foods. On top of that almost all of it was on sale. Who can argue with Sobe for $.88? How could I argue with an $.88 Sobe that we haven't reviewed yet, and that I've never seen back home?

I thought this drink would be nice for the morning since orange and carrot juice are the 2nd and 3rd ingredients. I should have read the label more, because it turns out it only contains 9% juice. As a result it tastes more like a drink than a juice, and "drinks" are simply not fit for just waking up. I don't want to wake up to 56 grams of added sugar. I want to be in a waking dream of freshly squeezed juice at every turn. Instead I'm stuck with this that has that flavor that is distinct to Sobe drinks. It's definitely more orange than carrot. Actually, it's one of those drinks that if someone poured you a glass and didn't say what it was you would never suspect there to be carrots in it. I mean who ever suspects carrots? Well I guess shepherds pie would.

I am currently out in the middle of the desert on a spirit quest. Instead of being in a sweat lodge I'm in a air conditioned car. Also, instead of taking peyote I am drinking Peace Tea's cranberry tea. It has caused me to have an Epiphany, which is the desert is absolutely terrible and it doesn't matter if it's a dry heat, when the temperature is over 100 degrees it is still absolutely terrible. I normally hate air conditioning in cars, but it's a lifesaver in this circumstance. This tea is also helping to keep me refreshed. There are three servings in this can, but I downed the entire thing in less than ten minutes. It's your general cane sugar sweetened black tea with some cranberry juice thrown in the mix. It has all of the sweetness and flavor of a cranberry juice, but it lacks the bitterness and the harshness of the fruit.

Peace tea has stepped up with tallboy tea world. Now it's the other brands turn to respond. Eff the desert.

So I'm in Vegas for my sister's wedding. We spent three flights that were all delayed and took way, way too long. We thought we had missed our last connecting flight, because the one before it was late landing. We had to book it through the airport and made it to the terminal just in time. Once we finally made it to Vegas it took forever to get off our flight. When we made it to the car rental they said they were out of the cars we wanted, so they upgraded us to a Mustang convertible. For most people that would be awesome, but we are driving 5 hours to the Grand Canyon, and there is very little room in the car. Annoyances abound.

Finally we made it to our hotel, and they told us the only nonsmoking room they have left is right over where the bands play. I said whatever I just needed sleep. We dragged our bags to the room to find out that not only did they forget to turn on the air conditioning, so the room was a million degrees, but the band they spoke of was actually a DJ party that goes on until 4am with constant terrible beats. It was so damn loud.

I was so unbelievably tired, but due to the heat and the noise, I just couldn't fall asleep. I will be eternally grateful that I had packed this sleep shot, and not drank it for the plane (and read comics instead). I downed it, and I don't remember much after that until I awoke at 9am to a freezing room. The air conditioning decided to work properly. That is what I talk about a functional product. It has a diet pineapple sports drink flavor to it. It doesn't taste like poison, so I was thankful for that. It was light, with a decent flavor and after downing a shot I was out. Thank you Dream Water.

ps. We switched rooms in the morning after someone else checked out. Things may turn out okay after all.

This is basically the standard that all other apple juice is compared to. I'm sure it's not the original, but it might as well be. Motts reigned supreme in the 80's with their juice and applesauce, and it will always be the standard to me.

Once a year some friends of ours host “Goth Beach Day.” It's really not as funny as you would think. No one gets dressed up or anything. It's really just a bunch of overly pale people with a lot of tattoos taking over the beach. The most goth attire present was probably the sleeveless Bauhaus shirt I wore, a parasail and our friend Derek wore a stripped shirt that made him look like Pugsley. I can safely say that our little group used more sunscreen than the rest of the beach combined.

Let it be known that I love the beach, but only at night. The sun and I have been at war with each other for the past 33 years. I lose more often than not. Basically at these outings most people are enjoying the sun and the water, while I'm miserable trying my hardest to not get sunburn (I got some on the top of my head and my hand, not too bad). I also spent my time sipping on this bottle of Lemonade. A company in my hometown of West Seneca makes it. They are best known for their apple cider and in the fall their mill is open to the public. It's magical. Going to a cider mill in the fall with the chilly weather would be a more fitting outing for this group. I should propose that. So yeah, they are starting to expand their line and have released a series of flavored lemonades. Tastily flavored lemonades at that. I generally find that large bottle flavored lemonades such as this are better when watered down a bit, but Mayer Bros got it perfect. It's not too sweet. Nor is it too tart. It's simply refreshing lemonade with a decent bit of strawberry flavoring to it. Both lemon and strawberries living in perfect harmony. It's the goth dream. Wait…€¦.whhaaaaaaaatttttt?

We don't get around to reviewing too many large bottle juices. There are so many drinks out there for us to review, that it sometimes seems wasteful to drink the same thing more than once, even if it is different servings from the same bottle. In reality I drink mostly water or unsweetened iced tea that I brew. With all of the sugar that I intake doing reviews I try not to drink too many sweetened drinks for pleasure and refreshment if we have already reviewed them. Taking all of that into consideration I felt I had no choice but to buy this juice when I saw it sitting on the shelf. I love apple juice. Who doesn't? I don't think I could trust someone who told me they didn't like apple juice. They would have to be lying. So there we have it a fairly generic base, that you can't really alter much, but that I love. On top of that you mix in some passionfruit and mango juices and you have an instant party in a bottle. I've never tried anything to do with mango that I didn't like, and you obviously can never go wrong with passionfruit. The result of mixing this holy alliance is a fruit punch like you have never tasted. My initial thought was that they all blended together into one new flavor, but then I realized that if you swished it around in your mouth waves of each flavor rolled over your taste buds. Once you swallow the aftertaste is distinctly apple juice.

My only real complaint about the drink is that the bottle says that it is “naturally sweetened,” which led me to believe that it was sweetened by the fruit juice. It seems Old Orchard tried to pull a fast one on us. You see while they are still natural sweeteners they did add cane or beet sugar and stevia. The result is that there are 21g of sugar in an 8oz serving. It's my humble opinion that the drink would have tasted fine, if not better with no additional sweeteners added, or at the very least have the amount of sugar added cut down. The flavors of the fruit juices would have been enhanced even more, and I wouldn't have to feel guilty about downing half the bottle in a sitting. God I'm a glutton.

Jerry wasted much of his time trying to unlock the secret of the almond, mainly how to get “milk” from them. You see Jerry was absolutely disgusted by milk that came from animals. Rice milk tasted too much like rice for his liking. Soymilk was a good substitute for a while, but he soon learned that consuming a lot of it just wasn't healthy. It was at this point that almond milk entered his life. He loved the nuts, and he loved the milk. It just baffled him where the milk came from. The nuts were fairly dry themselves, but he did some experiments to compress moisture out of them and came up with failure. His next thought was that maybe the milk came from the almond plant, and not specifically from the nuts. He went to the local botanical gardens and checked out the trees. While he was able to get some liquid from them, it wasn't anything like what he bought at the grocer, and it wasn't anything that he would have liked to consume.

Disillusioned he finally gave in and looked it up on the internet. It was then that Jerry learned that almond milk was actually just ground up almonds in water. He felt like an idiot for not thinking of that, but it made sense. His favorite kind was the Silk unsweetened because it tasted the most like actually almonds, and really who needs extra sugar in their milk? Now that he knew how it was made, when he took a sip he could taste that it was exactly how it was made. It really just tasted like raw almonds in liquid form. It was wonderful.

That is the story of how almonds saved breakfast and how you can find out anything via the internet.

I had a lot of little things on my “To-Do” list that involved things I could do, sitting at a computer (color separations for screen printing) or just sitting around (cutting pants into shorts), so I decided to curl up on the couch with Temple of Doom and a nice frosty bottle of Doctor Jones. Now that is a winning pair if I've ever heard of one. Speaking of pairing do you think a high quality Dr Pepper knock off would go better with Snake Surprise, Black Beetles, Eyeball Soup or Chilled Monkey Brains? Yeah, you're probably right, a nice Doctor Jones/Monkey Brain float sounds just wonderful.

Jones really did a great job with this soda. Normally knock offs of this variety have something a little off about them that let's you know that they didn't get the recipe quite right. This on the other hand is so similar to Dublin Dr. Pepper that I don't know if I could taste the difference in a blind taste test. Remember those? Do any companies still do them? If so please get a hold of Mike and I because we would love to participate.

Here's a little insight into my psyche for you. When I was a pre-teen I was obsessed with Indiana Jones. I bought my mom's boyfriend a hat like the one Indy wears without even a thought as to whether or not he liked the movies (of course he did, he's not a communist). I also took a summer archeology class. It wasn't as exciting as I wanted it to be. I think they should have buried bottles of this soda out in a field and had us go dig them up, carefully as to not break the glass. I would have been more pumped about the class then. I'm more of a field agent instead of a classroom snoozer.

One final thought. Two of my biggest heroes (Indiana Jones and Peter Venkman) are both doctors. I really need to sign up for one of those online fake colleges where you can get real degrees that no one takes seriously. That way I can legally get Dr. Jason Draper put on my license. How sweet would that be? I could also carry around a sweet whip and a proton pack. Even sweeter.


ppppps. It would be criminal if I didn't say this. "No time for love Doctor Jones."

I dare you…€¦I double dog dare you…€¦I triple dog dare you to find me a better orange juice that is not made fresh in front of you. This is just orange juice and mango puree mixed together and poured into a bottle. It's all juice, and it's not cheap juice either. It's nothing if not high quality. Orange juice is great, but mango juice is better, so what better way to improve your orange juice than to mix in some of that great mango juice? There really is no other way to improve it that I know of. Mango and orange blend together so well.

I noticed that you didn't take me up on my dare. You're a baby. That's right a weak little baby. Don't you know the rules? You can't back down from a triple dog dare. Now get out there and try to find me a better orange juice!

I've talked about this before, but energy drinks had really overrun our society. I have so many friends who can't sleep at night because of their intake, and then in the morning they feel like a filth bin, and they drink more energy drinks just to get through the day. It's a sad cycle that can be cleared up by some detox time in which people will feel like complete garbage for a while.

I luckily am not in this camp, but I feel a lesser version of it. I've been lucky that at any point in my life I've been able to fall asleep within five minutes of my head hitting a pillow. This past week things have been different. The little sleep I've been able to get has been complete crap. I wake up feeling terrible. I keep saying I just need to buy a new bed, as I've had mine forever, but secretly I think that my sensitivity to caffeine is getting worse. It used to be if I drank anything with caffeine after 5PM I wouldn't get to sleep until 3 or 4 in the morning. My 5PM cut off seems to be getting much earlier now. I'm not at a point where I need to drink an energy drink, or coffee every morning to get through the day without being miserable. I really hope that I never get to that point. I did feel it would be a wise idea to drink this Function before I went for a little hike with some friends, seeing as my sleep was limited and poor.

This doesn't really fall under the same category for me because it doesn't have the chemical garbage like taurine to give you energy, that makes you crash like a kamikaze. Instead this has the natural stimulus' caffeine, muira puama root extract, epimedium extract, guarana seed extract, catuaba bark extract and yerba mate leaf extract. It doesn't taste like a normal energy drink, which the bottle boasts, but I mourn. It also leaves you with less of a crash. That is something I can get behind. Flavor-wise it does have a tropical fruit juice flavor, but there are no individually distinct fruits in there. It just has a general tropical flavor mixed with a bit of the yerba mate flavor. Expecting more of a sports drink type flavor the yerba mate can be a bit off-putting, but when you know to expect it, it's welcomed.

Over the past couple of months I have been brewing gallon vats of tea, chilling it in my fridge and enjoying my own unsweetened iced teas. 99% of said tea has been green tea, and it feels like it's been forever since I just sat back and enjoyed a nice black tea. This Teas' Tea perfectly satiated my taste buds.

It tastes like a traditional southern sweet tea with some peaches thrown in the mix. It really is a nice refreshing change of pace when you can actually taste that a company uses cane sugar. It almost gives the drink it's own texture. There are subtle hints that it should be gritty, but without any actual grit at all. I could go for a slightly stronger peach taste in this, but the level that it is currently at is not a deal breaker by any means. The label says it's a “classic” and who am I to argue. With the heat and humidity that Buffalo has been having lately I feel like if I was out on my porch sipping this I could close my eyes and be transported to the backwoods of Georgia. Where I can only assure horrid things would happen from the stories my friends who used to live down there have told me.

So I reviewed this a few weeks ago, and Honeydrop emailed us to let us know that they reworked the recipe and they think we will like it a lot more. They were right. They reduced the amount of honey in the drink, so you really taste the blueberry now. It still tastes like honey as well, but it's not so overpowering. They also took out the erythritol and use stevia instead. They said it helps bring out the flavors. I can't taste it at all, so good job on that one. You guys have taken a really good drink and made it even better. Thanks.



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So honey is waste from bees, correct? Bees are just puking up honey for our consumption. I find it odd that I am way more okay with eating bee puke than I am with drinking milk (there's a completely disgusting food). Okay so does all honey taste the same, or is it flavored by what the bee eats/what time of plant they get their pollen from? I'd like to think that if a bee got its pollen from some sort of fruit plant that the honey would have a hint of that fruit to it. Do fruit plants even produce pollen? Am I completely insane? I guess we will never know because the bees aren't talking no matter what sort of interrogation we put them through. All I know is that I want guava honey. That is my dream, and I would like for someone to turn it into a reality. Bees, I'm looking in your direction.

Until the bees find out a way to make me some fruit honey, the best we can do is to sweeten some fruit juice with copious amounts of honey. Honeydrop has been put in charge of that. Their drinks really, really smell like honey. They taste like it too, which can be pretty neat, but sometimes it's a bit too much. I would like a little more blueberry and a little less honey in this drink. It's really more honey than juice. It tastes like there is enough honey in this drink to put me into a diabetic coma, and I don't even have diabetes yet. The consistency of the drink is even thick due to the high concentrate of honey.

The thing that boggles me the most about this is that it is sweetened with honey, yet they also felt the need to add erythritol. Whosever idea that was, you're fired, for adding a completely unnecessary ingredient. All this needs to be is blueberry juice and honey (in proper percentages), and I would be perfectly content.

Alright, we're all set. All of the presents are wrapped and waiting in the car. We can pick up the ice cream cake on the way. That's everything right? Okay let's get in the car and head over…€¦..oh no! We forgot to make the punch for Sally's birthday party! Her mother was very specific that I was too make the punch. She's going to be so pissed at me. Ugh, the party is going to be ruined…€¦unless...yes that's it! Every down stairs to the deli!

Okay how much fruit do we have laying around? Well that is a lot of variety of fruit (an apple, pineapple, half a lime, a little guava, some mango, orange, a banana, apricot and one passionfruit), but there is not enough of the fruit to make more than a quart of juice. It looks like we're going to have to spread it out with some veggies. Okay grab some cucumber, spinach, carrots, beetroot, green pepper and celery. No Jimmy! Oh man why did you throw in an onion and some sauerkraut! That is going to be completely disgusting! Whatever it's too late now we need to bring this punch to the party. Blend it up!

Wow that really is green isn't it? It looks almost nuclear. It's so bright green. I can't get over it. It also doesn't smell bad at all either. Hopefully the taste is half of what the smell is. That way I think we'll be okay. Wow! This is seriously good. Not like, this is passable good, but this is so good that I wish we had written the quantities down so that I could make it again. You don't really taste the veggies at all. It tastes like apple and orange juice missed together with a pinch of passionfruit and a bit of cucumber. Even though we didn't add any sugar it's very sweet and refreshing. The kids at this party are going to love this, especially because of the color. We are going to be the hit of the party. No one mention what is in it! Jimmy, especially don't mention your blunder!

Yesterday was the 4th of July and to celebrate in style I grilled up far too many veggie dogs/sausage. I suppose that doesn't differ from about half of the days in any given week in the summer. Perhaps I'm just that American all summer long.

Everyone knows that the most proper way to celebrate your country is to stuff your face with a bunch of hot dogs and wash it all down with orange soda (okay I started doing that in Canada, but it was only because I was trying to show how American I was in that foreign land). My dogs were almost done, so I went into the fridge to get my orange soda, only to realize that there was none in there. I had let America down. The closest that I had was with bottle of Elvira's Orange Scream. It's a creamsicle in soda form. It may have not been totally appropriate, but Elvira told me to make do with the situation, and who am I to argue with a woman carrying a chainsaw? She actually looks like she's about to take that chainsaw to an orange the size of a recliner. I hope she puts on proper eyewear before cutting into that, because the citrus mist it would produce would be hell on anyone's retinas.

So there I was midday just pounding veggie dogs with all the fixings (minus sprinkles, as I unfortunately was out of Bacos) and sipping on this soda. While it is still a creamsicle soda, the orange is much heavier than the cream, so that worked out well for me. I'd say that the ratio was at 75% orange soda to 25% cream, if the normal percentages for such soda were 50-50.

The celebration of America came and it went and I didn't light off a single firework. These are sad times. I ended up at some parade before the fireworks display and as old men handed out tiny flags all I would think of was when our alien overlords would run for office and their platform would be, “Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!”

Barry, stop our crying. You know that every time you get eat ice cream you get distracted by something else and then it melts. Of course you then get upset and the crying and yelling starts. I'm sick of it. I don't care that you've been diagnosed with ADHD, you're just a big baby. If this keeps happening I hear the coach is going to stop inviting to you to get ice cream after our baseball games. Imagine that, life without ice cream from mini plastic baseball helmets. Well at least you didn't have a cone, so you can still spoon up the melted mess. By the way, who the hell gets berry ice cream? In a world of chocolate, peanut butter and mint, who chooses berry? You're not going to eat your melt? Well it looks like you really are a baby. Give it to me, I'll eat it you wasteful baby!

This tastes a lot like the drink my sister always has in the fridge. She's a vegan, so she always has weird stuff in there. Yeah this definitely tastes like that protein drink she always has, and always yells at me for drinking. I always sneak some because it reminds me of melted ice cream. Well, I guess melted “soy cream.” Basically it's a bunch of berry juice mixed with soymilk with some plant-based protein added. It's basically like a berry creamsicle. My sister always boasts that it doesn't taste chalky like other protein drinks, since there is no whey in it. Whatever it tastes good so I drink it, and she yells at me.

You really are a baby Barry. You're just lucky that you always hit homeruns. How did such a baby get so good at baseball?

Let me start off by saying that I don't like reviewing mix drinks. When we started doing this site, I wanted it to be for ready to drink beverages only. I don't like that there can be so many variables that can affect the taste of a mix drink. Mike started reviewing some, then we got sent a couple more, and here I am reviewing a drink mix. I know that just blew your collective minds.

I figured since this was just going into a specific sized bottle of water (160z) there really isn't much that could go wrong. Well there was my first problem. The Powercap didn't attach correctly to the top of my water bottle. It has one of those shorter caps that use less plastic, and it apparently didn't leave enough room for the cap to latch on. I held it in place, pushed the thumb dispenser and when I was certain all of the powder had made it into the bottle I replaced the Powercap with the original cap and shook it up. Problem = overcome.

I like the idea of these caps, because you can easily bring them everywhere without having to carry around bulky bottles. My problem with them is that they are generally all 0 calories so the sweeteners they use are of the diet variety. This cap used stevia, which is the least offensive 0 calorie sweetener in my eyes. That doesn't mean that I thoroughly enjoy the taste of it though. While the contents of the cap do give the drink a mild pomegranate/acai taste (more than I expected) the stevia aftertaste turns me off. It's pretty strong and it overpowers the actual flavor the drink it supposed to have. My ladyfriend thinks that it tastes like medicine, but if you're used to diet drinks, you probably wouldn't mind it at all.

Join me on a rocket ride to Russia! Oh wait this soda is actually made in California. Well that makes things a lot easier. Join me on a regular airplane ride to the west coast so we can stop off in Camarillo for some tasty soda pops.

The apple of the eye of nearly every bar patron who chooses not to imbibe alcohol is a little lady by the name of Shirley Temple. She is generally composed of a lemon-lime soda and grenadine (aka cherry syrup). I can't even tell you the quantity of these bar tenders have prepared for me over the years. The only pre-bottled version I have ever seen before is made by Saranac and it is way, way syrupy. Rocket Fizz didn't make that mistake. Instead of sweetening their soda with HFCS they used straight up sugar, which was a wise decision. It's not nearly as syrupy, which makes it way more enjoyable. It's a light and flavorful cherry-citrus soda. It actually has a vague cherry Twizzler taste to it, which is strange because the Rocket Fizz licorice soda was a big disappointment.

Bartenders everywhere are raising their glasses in salute to this soda for being as good, if not better, than any version they could have concocted.

Today I spent another day tracking in the studio for the "new" album Failures' Union has been recording for almost two years. We apparently work slow as can be. I was early getting to the studio, so I hit up a supermarket that was close by and I bought a bunch of strawberries and this lemonade for everyone to enjoy. As it turns out everyone else were fools and I ended up eating all of the strawberries myself. It was really a whole mess of strawberries. Surely more than one person should eat in a single day.
I also apparently cannot be satiated when it comes to berries. I ate obscene amount of berries and then very happily delved into 64oz of berry flavored lemonade. I have no regrets. My lack of regrets could also be do to the fact that this is a spectacular beverage. The lemonade flavor isn't lost under the added fruit flavor. In fact the berries let the lemon shine in a whole knew way. The label shows a picture of a strawberry and a raspberry, but neither are present on the ingredients list (unless it's under natural flavors). Instead chokeberry juice is listed. I have no idea what that is, but it's apparently delicious. This is a distinctly berried flavored lemonade, and it's perfect for a hot summer day, or for spending 11 hours in a climate controlled room.

Drinking this on July 1st may have been a bit of a mistake. It's nearly the furthest one can get away from Christmas, and this is certainly a winter/Christmas soda if ever there was one. It smells and tastes like liquid gingerbread cookies. Actually it tastes like the gingerbread equivalent of vanilla extract. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the essence that came in a little glass bottle that was added to cookies to make them taste like gingerbread. It's a bit much. I did enjoy the taste, but it was so strong that I couldn't get through half of the bottle, and I ended up sharing the rest with everyone.

On a separate note, do you think they got the picture on the label submitted to them before they had the idea for this flavor? Did the picture inspire the flavor? I'd like to think so.