Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

So wait, you're telling me that Wolfgang Puck doesn't look like Mr. Food dressed up as a werewolf? You sir, have just blown my mind grapes. I have known the name for years, but have never seen a picture of the man, the chef, the legend. In my mind that is exactly what we looked like. For no other reason than I never really gave it much thought, and that's the first image to pop into my head. What I do know for sure is that he is a world-renowned chef and has some cookbooks and restaurants. Today I learned that he's tried his hand at coffee drinks.

I've never tried his cooking, or any of his other products, but if this is any indication it's going to be damn good. The blend of espresso and chocolate is nearly perfect. It's just a tad heavy on the coffee side, which is really how it should be. The chocolate used seems to be of a much higher quality than most mocha drinks as well. It says that it's Viennese chocolate, which I would now really like to try in bar form. I bet this would be completely incredible hot as well. Go Puck!

Mark, we have a problem. Friday night I was in a rush to get out of here and I didn't exactly close the door to the giant fridge all the way, and by all the way I mean at all. It was wide open all weekend. As a result almost everything has spoiled. I know it shouldn't have spoiled so quickly but I also left the heat up on high. Don't look at me like that. It was freezing in here, and I was soaking wet because you had me wash down all the produce in advance for some reason. That's right I'm blaming you Mark. If you wouldn't have tried to get ahead of the game, none of this would have happened. Due to that fact that we have just decided that you are to blame, I need you to go down to the grocery store and buy all the baby food they have. We'll whip that down and thin it out a bit. Our mangoes somehow made it through the weekend so we'll mix them with baby food. Can't you just see the new flavor "Mango Veggie."

This really does taste and have the consistency of thinned out baby food. Don't let that deter you though because it actually tastes great. It's initially sweet and fruity due to the mango and apple puree, but then it fades out into a subtle veggie flavor. You can make out the corn, carrots and chickpeas. It seems really strange, but I do like it. Don't be scared off. Give it a try. Mark needs all of your help since I blamed this all on him. If this shipment doesn't sell, he will surely be back at the unemployment line, and by that I mean watching talk shows on his couch all day. He doesn't deserve a vacation like that. It's up to you to stop him from enjoying life.

That little Sobe lizard has gone a long way. When they first popped up in the mid to late 90's I was a fan, but I never expected them to stay around very long. I worked in a grocery store and one of my jobs was to return items that people decided they didn't want, or returned to the shelves. The number of bottles of Sobe that I had to put back was a bit ridiculous. The number of Sobe bottles that I took into the back room and drank instead of putting them back on the shelves likes I was supposed to was also pretty ridiculous. On a similar note, one day I took a bottle of each kind of BBQ sauce we carried and took them to my secret area of the back room (where I knew there were no cameras) and tried them all to discover what brand it was that a local taco chain used on a limited burrito they had. Sadly it was none of the 20+ I tried and the possibly slow kid that took my money in exchange for tacos refused to tell me. I should probably find him and throw a water balloon full of BBQ sauce at him.

Now that I have been thoroughly sidetracked by my looting and burrito intake, back to the point. No one seemed to want Sobe. I loved it. It was a quasi energy drink / Gatorade. Since then they have tweaked their flavors and gone off into other worlds of beverages. With their Lifewater line I believe they have something that the masses will enjoy. It of course is in the vein of other vitamin enhanced water/sports drinks out there, but it has a bit more flavor. The more flavor it has the further it gets away from being a "water" drink in my eyes, but who am I to complain? Oh yeah, I am a professional drinkologist.

The orange tangerine flavor we have here unsurprisingly reminds me of Tang. This may be the future of space drinks. It's chock full of vitamins and minerals that every astronaut needs in his or her daily space life. I'd also like to point out that they did a good job of lowering the sugar, without compromising flavor by cutting it with erythritol. Now we just need a proper space BBQ shop and I can get a job on a space station and then loot it.

Being a werewolf isn't all that it's cracked up to be. You know how in movies and books people only change in to the beast on nights of the full moon, well that's a load of crap. You're a wolf all year around. The only thing different about the full moon is that you have an undying craving for banana peanut butter sandwiches. Let me tell you those things are gross any other time, but as soon as that moon is shining down, it's all you can think about.

So yeah, I have to live in hiding most of the time. It's annoying and I hate it. I have to order out for food all the time and leave money for the deliveryman so he'll leave the food at the door. I know what you are thinking and yes I do weigh nearly 300lbs from eating pizza and Chinese food every night, not to mention those stupid sandwiches. I don't even want to get in to how I get the money to pay for the food. Let's just say it involves a web cam and a razor. At least Halloween is right around the corner. It's the one time of year that I can go out and interact with people without them freaking out. I usually win some bar tabs for best costume as well. Pretty rad. I also love the candy of Halloween. I'm a fat wolf I've learned to deal with it. The bane (pun intended) of this festive candy is the candy corn. Everyone always has it out and without thinking I always throw a handful in my mouth, where I am reminded that it is gross and just a solid mass of sugar.

This year I saw this at a party and I had to grin and bear it as someone made a joke about me posing for the can. If I actually looked like that I would probably put a silver bullet right through my heart. That is one ugly creature. Well this was put in my hand, so I had to drink it. It really smelled like candy corn, so I was bracing for the worst. When I worked up the courage to take a sip I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it's a cream soda with a little extra something to it. It's 90% cream soda and 10% candy corn. It's a great ratio. It hints at the candy corn without the terrible texture. I wish I could find this throughout the year.

I really need to get out more. My people skills are at an all time low. I've snarled at my fair share of people tonight and I'm starting to get weird looks. I should probably head home soon. I really need to look into moving into a colony of "furries." I bet they wouldn't even notice that I wasn't wearing a costume.

When I bought this I had no idea what The Amazing Race was. I was then informed that it was some sort of reality television show. I need not know more to know that I was certainly not interested. I don't know the premise, and I don't really want to know. I will just assume that it is a giant race where teams have to go around the world and harvest ingredients to make special and unique teas. In the past some of the entrees were haggis-pickled avocado, tripe-kale, and calamari-poutine. Needless to say none of those were winners. The contestants were actually publicly ridiculed and a series of brutal pranks were played on them and their love ones for another spin off reality show "So You Suck at Making Iced Tea."

Apparently the winner of last season was India. I don't know if it was the entire country of India, or if it was someone's name. I can only assume the entire country of India brainstormed and came up with this wonderful tea. It's a dark sweet tea (nearly too sweet). It's like a classic mango tea with some exotic fruit and spices (there aren't any added, but it tastes subtly like their is). For a limited time specialty tea this is pretty incredible. Snapple has stepped up their game from the 90's in a big way.

I just left for tour a couple of days ago and our drummer has some sort of disease brewing in his throat. That along with the fact that it's finally starting to get cold and it's rainy and damp has led to all of us feeling like crap. I've been eating healthy and drinking a bunch of juice to make sure that I don't end up being completely sick and miserable (well at least not until after tour).

I found this in a health food store in MI. Passion fruit and wheat grass are two things that I really enjoy, so when I saw this it was a no-brainer. I always expected wheat grass to taste gross and like grass, but when I finally tried it it's actually kind of sweet and only slightly tastes like lawn clippings. Passion fruit on the other hand completely lives up to it's name and is one of the most delectable of off the fruits on this planet.

It smells like sludge, like health sludge to be exact. It turns out it kind of tastes that way too. It has the general flavor of something that just has to be good for you. It's like a variety of healthy things from a health food store were all mixed together in a green-brown swamp of fruity vitamins and minerals. The flavors all kind of blend together into a sweet fruity mess. Sometimes it tastes like passion fruit and others pineapple comes out to play. It doesn't taste like I wanted it to, but it tastes good enough and I'm sure it's going to help with my health.

I remember seeing this drink over in the UK. At the time I was on a pretty strict budget or basically no money, so I passed on trying it. This was also in the pre-Thirsty Dudes days, so I didn't feel the obligation to drink everything I saw. I didn't expect to run across it again in a small store in Lansing, MI. If you are also a scientist you will have come to the same conclusion I have; there is a warp point to the United Kingdom somewhere in central Michigan. I know your first thought is that we need to call immigration and get some border guards out here to tighten up security on this warp zone, but I'm pretty sure the terrorists don't know about it yet, so let's use it to our advantage. Think of all of the Jaffa cakes and Irn Bru we could bring over. On second thought those things are gross, let's tighten those borders!

Now that we're essentially closed off the point of entry let us sit back and sip on this bottle of Shloer. The way I've been pronouncing it, it sounds like a degrading term for women. Is that the way you're supposed to say it? If so what were you thinking UK? Enough of pronunciations. On to what's important, flavor. I expected this to be an overly sweet sparkling grape juice. While it is a sparkling grape juice, as is stated on the bottle, my scientific skills were not needed for that, it's not very sweet. It has a nice bitter grape taste to it. It was a nice surprise. I've been nursing the bottle for the better part of the day and I'm not sick of it yet. I kind of regret calling immigration on that warp point. Hopefully another one will open and I can score some more of these.

Sure Gatorade replenishes your electrolytes and brings the sodium levels in your body up to par, but what about giving you a little energy for after the big game. You worked hard. You exhausted yourself for the love of the game and the adoration of the fans. Now you are exhausted and you don't even know how you're going to make it to the locker room without passing out. Lucky for you Hydrive has created a sports and energy drink combo. It's non-carbonated which makes it kind of strange. It tastes more like a lemon lime sports drink than an energy drink. Actually it tastes more like Powerade than Gatorade. That makes it lose points. Powerade is gross. What elementary school cafeterias do to pizza is what Powerade did to sports drinks. Not a scene you want to be involved in.

Oh yeah, watch out when you dump this over your coach's head after winning the big game. It is still an energy drink after all, and it will absorb into his skin and cause heart stoppage.

For a company that was made famous for their teas, Honest sure knows how to make juice drinks as well. This falls under their "Ade" line. To me an Ade is a drink that is just fruit juice, sugar and water. If this was just pomegranate, blueberry, sugar and water I think it would be pretty out of control spectacular. Simple and effective. Honest added grape and lemon juice (probably to cut back on costs) and I think the flavor suffers a bit because of it. I still think it's a great drink, but you can definitely taste the grape sneaking it's way into the mixture. Pomegranates and blueberries have such distinct intense flavors that I just don't think it needed anything else. Perhaps I just need to find something to complain about with everything, because no matter what I say here I really do enjoy this drink. It's rare that Honest lets me down, and for that I am grateful.

Most drinks are "moons" or "goochers." Either they are all one general ingredient, or they are another. Bolthouse takes superstitious omens very seriously so they started making a line that is four servings of fruits and four servings of veggies. It's an even split so you don't have to worry about wiping out in your car on Weed Hill in Durham.

To be fair this is mostly fruit, as is evident in the flavor. The only veggie contained is the purple carrot. It is the first ingredient though, so there is as much of that as there is every fruit combined. Luckily it doesn't show up much, if at all, in the flavor. It really is just the berries that stand out. A nice mixture of blackberries, raspberries and blueberries. You can make out each berry in the mixture, which I always appreciate.

You still have a long walk ahead of you, so you better get moving. Sing some songs. Make some jokes. You're young, with your friends and summer is almost over. Make the most of it.

So ginseng, we meet again. In the past you have bested me with your filthy potted soil taste. You have disguised yourself many times in energy drinks and I never noticed you, but when you're a major player it's all earthworms and rainwater. Barons has harnessed you for the use of good. The good of the apples. Apple soda is a great thing (well as long as it's not sour apple, then it just tastes like gross candy). In this soda Barons got a proper apple taste. Specifically that of a nice ripe green apple, which is the best apple in my humble opinion. Each sip is like biting into that apple. An apple that you would expect to taste dirty because of our old nemesis ginseng. Fear not this apple has been washed and dried thoroughly. Okay not dried. That makes no sense since this is a drink. Seriously though this reminds me a lot of the apple Tango drink that I got in the UK. I wonder if this will cause apple flavoring to seep from my taste buds in the morning like Tango did. So gross and disturbing, yet so awesome.

Whoppers, the candy the world loves to hate. You know they are gross, but when they are put in front of you, at least one needs to be tasted. It could happen once a week and I would still try them and then think to myself "oh yeah these things are gross." What is this strange power the Hershey company holds over us? Have the Pennsylvanian candy billionaires delved into the black arts? Are malt balls summoned demons in candy form? They sure taste that way. If it's true then this is those self same demons in soda pop form. This tastes like someone took a mild ginger beer and dissolved a whole bunch of the centers of whoppers in it. I don't like it, but I keep sipping on it for some reason. The demons have me in their grip.

Oh a non-demonic note I feel like this is what a lot of fancier beers tastes like as a base. I bet someone who was into that sort of thing would really be into this. I could be completely wrong, but that's how I feel and I demand you respect my emotions!

Margaret, I've grown tired of lemonade! I know we're in our twilight years and that we moved down to Florida where is perpetually sunny and way too hot, but there has to be other ways to beat the heat. For the past eight months that we've been here, you're been pouring the stuff down my throat on a daily basis. I know you've tried to spice it up by switching brands, but after awhile a tongue can only take so much lemon. It's gotten to the point where I feel the same about you bringing me out a glass of lemonade as I do with taking my pills. Margaret, don't bring up those pills, I'm trying to keep this conversation G rated.

Yes I know that nothing beats the heat like a Slurpie, but at my age can I really afford to drink that much sugar on a daily basis? You'd be mistaking me for Wilford Brimley in no time. Aren't there any other "ades" out there? I had some orangeade before, but that was just gross sugar water. If it was made with real oranges then I could see it being good. Does that exist Margaret? Not that you know of, huh? Now Margaret why would you say such a thing as "It's good we live in such a Latin part of the country"? Are you turning out to be racist after all these years? I thought I knew you. Oh you meant it because that way more stores would carry Cintron and they make a guava ade. Now that sounds delicious, but I think that may still be racist somehow. Now this guava ade, it's not just sugar water is it? I want it to taste like lemonade, but with guava replacing the lemon flavor. I also want it sweet, but as I said not overly sugary. Is that what it's like? Well I'm glad it's exactly what I wanted. Now let's take our Rascals down to the corner store and pick a few up. Try not to give any Puerto Ricans the stink eye. I've got my eye on you, you hate monger.

As of today I have officially crossed the line into abusing energy drinks territory. I'm not at a point (and don't think I ever will be) where I need them to get my day moving, like a coffee addict. No, today I was out of "quick" food in my house before work so I drank this energy drink as an appetite suppressant. That's the whole concept of diet pills, right? They are chock full of caffeine so you don't feel hungry. I learned that from Saved By the Bell, and if you are between the ages of 25 and 35 you probably did too.

I have to say it worked. I didn't feel hungry the entire time I was working. Job well done Sentinel. I must also point out that this was the lightest energy drink I've ever had. To the extent that it felt like I wasn't really drinking anything. The flavor is really, really mild citrus, and the sucralose is down so far in the list of ingredients that it tastes like you have a glass of soda water with both an orange and lime slice in it that someone put just a tad bit of artificial sweetener in it. Very strange indeed.


I was going to write some dumb story about the Sentinels from X-Men, but then I got ashamed of my abuse. Just pretend I wrote something about how crushing mutants is a hard job, and even robots need a little pick me up from time to time.

Since Bob went away to school he constantly complains about juice. Whenever he bought some from the store it was always too sweet, and it hardly tasted like the fruits it was supposed to. It was far too processed. He was accustomed to walking around his families farm and plucking fruit right from the trees whenever he felt a pang of hunger. Also his uncles constantly made the best juices he had ever had. He missed those days, and was sick of his studies. He was just about to pack it in and move back to the farm when he got a package from his brother Walter. Enclosed was a mess of bottles of Walter's new juice blend. Two ingredients. Two wonderful ingredients. Apple juice and tart cherry juice were all that Walter put in those bottles. It doesn't need a single thing else and Water was smart enough to realize that. No sugar. No preservatives. All the world needs is pure juice. It tastes exactly like fresh fruit. Why would anyone want anything else? Bob certainly didn't, so he went on to get his degree in paranormal psychology.

Dear Europe, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your "soda pops." I know a lot of Americans probably wouldn't like them, but to me that are what I want most of the time when I am hankering for a soda. While the American version of soda is thick, syrupy and overly sweet, you take things ta-other way. Yours are light and nice and bubbly. You understand that drinks don't need to drenched in sweetener to be enjoyable. Most of the time your sodas are closer to sparkling juice than American soda.

This is the lightest orange soda I've ever tasted. It also has actual orange juice in it, which is a major plus. It's not insanely orange juice tasting like Orangina, but it's in that vein. In a blind taste test I could tell you this was a European soda. It tastes somehow fresh. This has been the worst explanation of a soda ever, but that's what you get. Oggu has done it right, yet again.

Mark, I asked you to get me a flavored water. What is this crap you brought me? Sure its got water in it's name, but this tastes more like a juice than water. It's so darn sweet. It's absolutely nothing like what I wanted. I wanted something as light as can be, very crisp and just slightly flavored. Well I want it flavored enough that it doesn't taste like someone spit a little juice in my water, but what I want is 98% water. I want it to be like I took a nice frigid pitcher of water out of the fridge, poured myself a nice tall glass. I want that, but lightly flavored, like I said. I want the flavoring to be more of an aftertaste than the actual flavor of the drink. Water first. Flavor second. You have another bottle? That thing looks comically bad. Its label is just screaming artificial sweetener. It's sweetened with agave syrup you say? Well I'll give it a try. Wow this is exactly what I wanted. Now my only problem is that since it's like water I could probably drink ten bottles. Looks like you're going back out in that blizzard to pick up some more. Thanks Mark, you're a doll.

In my book Goose Island is now four for four when it comes to quality pop. They have the ability to take fairly standard soda pop flavors and push them to a higher level. If I was taking a survey after getting off the phone with tech support and they asked me from 1 to 10 what this soda tasted like with 1 being your standard candy tasting grape soda and 10 being sparkling grape juice I would have to give this a 7. It's not totally grape juice, there's still a bit of that sticky sweet candy flavor to it, but it's very minimal. I wish this was the standard for grape pop, but alas 9 times out of 10 you're going to end up with that fake grape flavor.

Snapple going all-natural was a wonderful thing to see in my lifetime. To be able to enjoy their teas and juices again was like being reunited with family from the other side of town. A town that had a giant wall running down it. That's right, to my stomach the removal of corn syrup from their drinks was like the wall being torn down in Berlin (side note: corn syrup completely destroys my stomach for some reason).

My main complaint about this drink isn't even a complaint at all. It's merely confusion. The third ingredient listed is kiwi juice, yet it's not in the name of the drink. Using actual kiwi juice is a big deal people. Most kiwi flavored things are artificial and gross. When you have the real deal in product you should flaunt it. I dare say that this actually tastes more like kiwi than mango. They could have named it something terrible like "Krazy Kiwi Mango Madness." Of course that would make me never want to buy a bottle. Maybe Mango Madness was the right title, but underneath it they should have wrote something about the kiwi in there. "A Ki-winning Combination." And that is why I do not write ads.

It's been awhile since I've had an aloe drink. I didn't realize how much I missed them until I started drinking this bottle of Paldo. No matter what flavor they are they all have such a specific underlying flavor. It's almost a white grape flavor, but it's slightly crisper. So this tastes like a crisp white grape and mango hybrid. If it was a juice it would be great on it's own, but when you add the aloe chunks into the mix things get even better. Paldo uses smaller chunks than other companies, but they make up for it in flavor.