Mike Literman - 1759 Reviews

If Old Faithful spewed something other than water, it would be more amazing than it already is, right? If it spewed something like pastrami sandwiches, that would be awesome. Legos? Wicked. Pez? Even better. If it spit this out, though...not so fantastic. It would be cool at first but then people would say things like, "What is this? Diet?" to which the manager of the park would say, "No, sir or madame. It is not diet. Sorry for the ambiguity but I can't tell which sex you are with that giant hat on."

This would decrease the attendance at the park since it would be spewing not-fantastic ginger ale. I mean, it's not every day that a geyser spews out something other than water but the argument would always be, "Yeah, but it's not good ginger ale." It's got a decent ginger taste and a light burn which is on the better side of ginger ales but something in it tastes diet-y and that's not good. It was was diet, it would be fine. It's not but it tastes like it is which unfortunately loses points.

Old Faithful, sir, I will see you someday perhaps. When I come, I will let you know that I'm coming so you can prepare your finest Gak or Floam or other 90's Nickelodeon kids product.

Hey you. Yeah you, over there running on the corner. Why don't you come over here for a drink? I've got just the thing for you. Yeah. You'll love it. It's new. It's alkalinized or whatever. It's good for you. It's low in calories and is good for something I think you kids are talking about; paleo or whatever. It doesn't taste half bad either. What does it taste like? Why don't you just come into the shop and grab one. It's on me. You look thirsty and very attractive. What? Was that out of line? I thought you would think it was a compliment. Sorry, I guess. Sorry I find you attractive. No, I mean it. Take it. It's for you. We just got them in. It's supposed to be really good for you.

Do you like it? It's good, right? It's lightly sweetened and tastes like an aloe coconut water even though there is no coconut water in it. It's also the biggest carton of a sports drink I think I've ever seen. No, I'm not creeping on you. Jesus, lady. Calm down. You were running and were clearly sweating and I thought I would be nice and give you a drink. You've got me all wrong and I'd like you to kindly leave my store and take your drink with you.

Pink lemonade on a day like today would make a normal man jump with glee. Me? No. This lemonade is not at all fantastic. It tastes fake and although it did taste like pink lemonade, pink lemonade it was not.

So what do we like. Let's make a compliment sandwich out of it. We like that it smells like pink lemonade. We do not like the way that the Stevia cuts through the one time fantastic flavor with a super sweet knife made of super sweet sugar. We do like that, for a limited time, you can treat your taste buds to a decent pink lemonade any time you want before the lies rush over your tongue like a tidal wave of garbage. It's not that bad, but it's not great.

Look at us, Arizona. We are growing up and we are doing it together. When I was a kid, you and I shared lemon tea and green tea outside of gas stations. Now I've got a career, kid, dog, mortgage and I'm drinking oak steeped tea. We are classy individuals. We went from a time of immaturity including but not limited to:

• lighting tennis balls on fire and playing street hockey
• Throwing cans of Raid into bonfires and having them explode.
• Making multi-floor treehouses in a friend's backyard
• Following friends down hills in cars while they rode street luges made out of old street signs

Together, we have turned into quasi-functional "adults" with responsibilities. Your responsibility was to make a calm, nice tasting tea and you did it, buddy. This tea is slightly lemony, slightly sweetened and has all the nice, woody qualities that would make a whisky drinker blush. Way to go. Now let's go be creepy dudes at the mall.

I will say this for the hundredth time. Deep breath. Here we go:

If you are going to flavor your drink, just commit to it.

Don't say that it tastes like ginger if it's not going to taste like ginger or burn like ginger. It's just kind of annoying. This drink tasted like hibiscus which was good but only tasted very, very slightly like ginger. No burn. So sad. I saved this one for last because it should have been a treat and a half.

It's not a total loss. Like I said, it's a fine hibiscus drink but if I told anyone else that this was ginger hibiscus they would call me a liar. I can't have that on my conscience.

Two kids in the office didn't ask for the punishment I gave them but oh did they enjoy it. One dude was sitting there and the other just walked in with a drink in his hands. Guess what? I don't give a rip. Everyone will enjoy this and there is nothing you can do about it. You know why? Because I'm older, that's why. I'm their mean older brother who bought them beer but instead of beer it was a spicy lemonade type drink.

We've all got glasses of our drinks and we take our first sips. Ahhhh, we all say. Ahhhh. That there was a sipping drink, one to mull over whilst looking across the water as the sun sets on yet another beautiful day at the cabin. Fish are jumping out of the water. Birds are chirping all around. Bears aren't murdering you but instead sitting beside you on the dock with their bear feat danglin' in the water.

What's so G.D. great about it? It's like lemonade with bits and grits in it. Accompanying that would be a strong, strong ginger taste that is something to call your mama about. Everything is alright. The burn. The lemon.

Kids hate vegetables and with good cause. Sometimes they smell. Brussels sprouts? Please. They stank. Fruit almost always looks good. Only weird kids like V8. I was a weird kid if that's the case but kids would much rather drink something like an apple juice or a fruit punch than a V8. Sorry, V8. You're almost the enemy. If they had drinks like this when I was a kid, I don't know. I don't know if I'd be mad because I would feel like someone was poisoning me with vegetables against my will or if I would say, "Oh, you know what? I have been dumb. Turns out vegetables are not the devil."

This is not the devil, contains fruit, and contains vegetables. It's naturally sweetened and doesn't taste like half of its ingredients. The ignorant kid in me enjoy it because I can't taste the vegetables but hey, if I could taste some celery, that might not have been so bad. It tastes like a pretty strong grape juice and that's it. Surprise kid, you've been had and you just ate vegetables. You are as dumb as you look.

Vanilla? Inherently smooth. Like a fine cream soda, this drink really doesn't have any other job aside from being smooth. There are no ingredients getting in the way, like every corgi in the history of time that is in the kitchen when you're making dinner. They are always in the way. Not here, though, this is just vanilla and seltzer water. It has a pretty strong vanilla taste so you don't get any of that bitter seltzer taste that many people hate.

Polar is doing something right here. Sure, it's not their cinnamon but it's something. It's almost time for their cinnamon one. What a glorious day that will be. A cream soda-esque seltzer is great and I would probably buy this again, but let's get real for a second. Cinnamon trumps vanilla.

Climbing to the top of the Grand Teton Mountains, you have to remember one thing; bring a basket. You have to earn your keep so on your trip up, you have to pick berries of all shapes and sizes to get juiced. People live atop the mountain. You didn't know that? Yeah. Some people who are scared of heights live up there. They climbed it to try and beat their fear of heights but forgot that climbing is only half the voyage. They got scared, acted resourcefully, and set up a little tiny town. Now, everyone who climbs has to, by law, bring up food and drinks for the people. Trouble is, they're vegetarians so you can forget bringing any meat. For those that forget, you have to strap a basket to yourself and you and everyone around you picks berries on their way up the mountain for the people.

When you bring it up, they've got a little operation of people that juice them and for the thousands of dollars you spend on the trip up, they will make you a bottle of pop with it. It's not bad either. It's a bit fruity but they don't have a lot to work with. Huckleberry, Blueberry and Blackberry together would make a better juice than it does a pop but don't tell them. They work really hard. It's fruity and pretty sweet but it just seems like if you didn't carbonate it and left in some of the pulp from the fruit you could have a really great juice.

Next time you climb, if you do, don't forget a couple of cans and jars of food. They're picky. They also don't like lima beans as a community. They voted on it. It's weird.

Recent studies suggest that coconuts kill five times more people than sharks. In an effort to curb these nauseating results, Harvest Bay went back to the drawing board and decided that they would mix their coconut water with iced coffee so that you can be faster and have more pep in your step so that you can avoid those pesky falling coconuts. Sure, they had to do a lot of testing and kill a lot of test subjects but they were murdering thieves so, you know, who cares? They would give them regular coconut water and throw coconuts at them. Then they would give them coconut water with iced coffee and they were faster for longer to help them avoid those dreaded coconuts.

The felons that lived described the coconut water with iced coffee in it as "Still pretty coconutty" and "lightly coffee'd." Criminals love to make up their own words. It wasn't sweetened but still had a pretty genuine coffee and coconut taste. The coconut was stronger than the coffee but nonetheless, a pretty decent drink.

Thanks to the criminals that will earn a gold star and an extra day out of "The Hole" before they have to go to "The Chair." Everyone wins.

Arizona is becoming a man. We don't need to go into the whole "What makes a man a man?" discussion? We all know. We either are a man, know a man, or have watched that sex-ed video about male "parts."

Why are they a man? Well they are maturing. No more filthy garbage sweetener. No giant, metal cans for a dollar. They are charging decent money for a quality product. Black tea steeped in American Oak mixed with honey and maple sugar. You can taste everything, too and it's great. The honey is more of a flavor than a sweetener and as a result of our recent reviews of maple waters, you can taste the maple as well.

You end up with a fantastic, unsweet tea with the flavors of things that are sweet but aren't sweetening the drink. Flavor, essence, honey, oak. Do not hesitate to buy this and please, keep buying it. It would be a shame if something happened to this drink and they didn't continue making it. A low down, dirty shame.

Why don't more hibiscus drinks exist? Sometimes you get a strange one in there but for the most part, they fill me with pleasure like a kid's first trip to a Chuck 'E Cheese or the last time I, at thirty-one, went to Chuck E' Cheese and discovered that they have French hot dogs. Oh the glee.

This is a good drink. It's teetering on the theoretical tether line of tea and juice but whatever you want to call it; it's a nice, light, floral drink. It's sweetened well and I honestly wouldn't change a thing with it. Why isn't it getting five bottles then? Hey, they can't all be golden, right? If I knew what it took to make a five bottle beverage, I would be a rich and happy man.

Back to Hibiscus Alley. It's nice in there. I only have one packet of that and it went by too fast. It's an easy mix that doesn't chunk or gross up. I really milked it, too. I have been drinking the same bottle for the last four hours and it was as if it was never a mix. The wonders of science. The wonders of hibiscus.

This is good. I don't really need to beat around the bush with this. It's got a great lemonade flavor. It's got a decent iced tea flavor. The lemonade is "overpowering" but not bad, it just over shadows, a better word that I don't know why I didn't use, the iced tea. There is no pulp, which is fine. I'm reviewing it full. There is no pulp. It's in writing. If you told me there was a trace of cinnamon I wouldn't call you a liar. There is a secret ingredient in there somewhere and I don't care if I don't know what it is. It's there and it's special. Is it "love?" Maybe. Is it cinnamon? Like I said, maybe.

This company is doing well with us. Will they stay there? Stay tuned to find out.

I'm not a betting man but if you asked me ten years ago if you should invest in coconut futures, future Mike would say that you should. Previously only known as a topping for ice cream and a filling for Mounds and Almond Joy, now it's everywhere. Everywhere includes the homebase of one of our favorite juice companies, Purity.

Problem with all these coconut waters is that the point of it is to just have 100% pure, clean, unaltered coconut water. What does that do to the drinks? It makes them all the same. Coconut water is turning into orange juice and apple juice where it all tastes the same. What does this taste like? Oh, it tastes like if you cracked open a coconut with a machete and dumped it in a cup. Well what does that one taste like? It tastes like if you broke open a coconut on a rock and poured it into a cup. How about that one over there? It tastes like you put a nail into it, pulled the nail out and put in a straw and a little umbrella.

This is good. It's clean and crisp. It's clearly naturally sweetened and there is nothing in there you would second-guess giving to your kids, although I don't know any kids that would rather drink coconut water than, say, chocolate milk. That is a crowd pleaser. Coconut water? It's fine. Just fine. This? It's fine.

Listen, Diet Pepsi is no longer your only option for "great tasting" drinks which clock in at zero calories. Now there are two options, the second of which is Crystal Light. That's right. All your favorite lemonades are now zero calories which will get you looking great and feeling great. Now you can drink until your heart is content because at zero calories, the only think you are going to have to worry about is the copious amount of trips to the bathroom. Oh, and spilling drinks. It's a matter of ratio. You can't drink forever and not spill something. That's why at kid's parties there is always one person that spills a drink. It's just their time.

How does Crystal Light taste? It tastes like non-offensive, non-threatening, entry-level lemonade. Chunkless, pulpless and lightly tart lemonade. Perfect for those hot summer days but nothing that is going to win you any awards.

Wait, I'm sorry. This just in, I'm not reviewing Crystal Light. I'm reviewing Crystal Light. I'm reviewing Nawgan's Lemonade. Welp. Could have fooled me.

Oh turmeric. We meet again. Back about four years ago when we had under 200 reviews, I reviewed a turmeric drink that was putrid which you can read here. Since then, we have reviewed multiple turmeric drinks with multiple different results. This, from a company that has been very good to us in both their generosity and their quality of drinks, is not that drink I drank many moons ago. This is something different.

This drink is a wonderful blend of the ingredients stated in the flavor list which I will refresh here; orange, carrot, turmeric and mango. Everything aside from the turmeric is a pretty basic fruit juice but that turmeric brings a pretty fantastic, light burn that is not at all reminiscent of Indian food and just a flavor, and a good one at that. It's also more of a puree than it is a straightforward juice because there are bits and grits in there.

Some people in the office did not like this, which isn't surprising, but it is something new that if I could find around here, I would most defiantly buy again.

I feel like "bee pollen" is something you could be wildly allergic to. I'm no doctor but just the thought of people being deadly allergic to bees and annoyingly allergic pollen doesn't sound like something that is going to push a lot of product.

Since I am not allergic to either of the aforementioned allergens I dove headfirst into the world of bee pollen. Now I love honey. I love it. Horchata, namely this brand of horchata has been a bit iffy because of its watery nature. All the same, I took a small, beginners sip and it wasn't half bad. You can taste the honey first followed by the strange, bland taste of the horchata. Now before you hit "Send" on the angry email you are writing to me, listen. This is what it is. If you're going to have a dairy-free, gluten free drink primarily based on something that, I'm pretty sure, is supposed to be gluten-full, you're going to have to make some changes. The change they made was adding a pretty fantastic, albeit short lived, honey flavor. Fine. I get it. It's healthy and there are no additional sugars or anything fake in. Credit where credit is due, this is a honey flavored, strangely viscous drink. I know Jay and I sound like broken records when we're reviewing these products but when you base product leaves a bit to be desired, you're going to have similar results in the end. You can also chalk this up to any of the following:

• Different Strokes for different folks
• It's not for everyone
• Every rose has it's thorn
• A rabbi and a nun walk into a bar
• I want to say "Mason"

Why am I drinking this? I have fine hair? How do I have such wonderful hair? Well for one, I hardly ever wash it. Call it gross but look at my hair. It's just fine. It's never thirsty and doesn't have any product in it ever. I am drinking this to review and if it gives me even better hair I shall pass the benefits off to you so that we all may have glorious locks day in and day out.

What do I think of how it tastes, though? Well let's see. With every sip I feel like I'm drinking something I shouldn't be. Sure, it's lemon lime but you can get lemon lime Pledge and that's not edible at all. This is right on the cusp of being called "syrupy" so to have it have a strange viscosity and taste a bit like a mix between a kids lemon lime Huggy and a floor cleaner, that's a dangerous place. A dangerous place much like lying in bed with me with the fear of getting your hands caught in my impending more glorious “do”.

Well, well, look what we've got here: Juice. You're nothing juice. You used to be all that but now you've just turned in to a zero percent juice abomination. You offer nothing to people other than a lie to those who cannot or do not read your labels. Now you just sit there and suck all day and night. What do you have to say for yourself?

You what? No. I don't believe it. You can't be made from both fruits and vegetables. That's gross. What do you mean you can't taste the carrots, beets, or potatoes? Are you lying again? You're not? Alright, hand yourself over. I'm drinking some of you. Just unscrew your hat and I'll take a little sip.

You know what, man? You are pretty right. I should add that I can taste a little strangeness just from there being something not of fruit descent but you can get a lot of cherry and a bit of limeade. I suppose that I owe you a bit of an apology since I ragged on you pretty hard before about not being the genuine article. Sorry, dude. Can I get another sip of you before you put your little cap hat on? How do you expect me to drink it? I'm not waiting for you to pee. I know that's how juice is made but to me, that's still gross.

If I had a doppelganger, I assume he would live eternally on the other side of the world so we can never meet. Whenever I go to Australia, he comes to the states. We can never and will never be in the same place at once. If I moved to Argentina, my doppelganger would live in China. Why do I mention myself? Well I drink copious amounts of unsweetened black tea. Copious. I wouldn't be surprised if I drink a gallon a week. My Chinese counterpart would be drinking unsweetened green tea, naturally.

If I would be stuck on an island, this wouldn't be a bad iced tea to have. It's bitter and tastes like a nice, solid green tea but is still refreshing. The bitterness of a green tea is something special. It pulls out some sweetness from somewhere (magic) that makes it all come together.

If I drink that much black tea and it makes me as happy as it does, I'd like to think that there is a happy kid on the other side of the world that is just as happy drinking green tea buy the quarter gallon.

It doesn't matter, but you should know that I did my "hole through the center of the world" research on this site which is pretty cool.