Mike Literman - 1759 Reviews

Lemonade is great but man is there a lot of sugar in there. Kids don't know portioning or teaspoons from tablespoons. "Who cares?" they say as they dump a cup of sugar into a container that only needs two tablespoons of sugar. Kids are often adorable but their actions can cause grave consequences. This though, adults formulated this drink. People who can read a measuring cup and know how to weigh and properly distribute ingredients. The mix between lemon and sweet, brought to you by your friend the beet, is perfect. It's got a little bit of sour and bitter from the lemon but before you are taken to a citric wasteland, Captain Beets relieves your tongue with some fantastic sweetness. Beets and lemons: together at last.

As far as sweetened, canned, iced coffee drinks go, this is on the better side. I don't drink coffee. I only drink energy drinks when they have to be reviewed. My body doesn't know how to handle pure caffeine so I try and stick to what my body can tolerate which is, at most, small mochas and tea.

This is more coffee than I am used to in these drinks. It's one rung above "lightly sweetened" and you can really taste the coffee in it. Seeing as though I don't know my blends or regions of coffees, I will say rather objectively that I think this is on the lighter side of blends and that it was pretty good. A coffee drinker at the office sampled it and said that it tasted pretty true to a good Kona blend.

There you have it. Coffee drinkers and people who don't really drink coffee too much agree; this is a good canned coffee. What more could you ask for?

As he sat comfortably in his seat, Alan watches as the Hudson valley passed home. He had just spent a couple days in the city and while he was feeling more refreshed than before, he was excited to sleep in his own bed. He loved visiting the city any time he could get away from his responsibilities at home and just unwind with friends. This time was different, though.

Alan was at a club and was dancing by himself, the way he liked it. Some of the songs were not his favorite but as long as he kept his feet moving he knew he would make it through the night. A girl approached him and asked him his name and how he knew his circle of friends. He replied very courteously but short. He was in a relationship and took one look at this girl and knew she was trouble. She constantly grabbed him by the waist and grabbed his hands and put them on her hips as she swayed back and forth to the music. He was no longer having fun because he was constantly awaiting the inevitable time that would come where she would lean in for a drunken kiss and he would have to dodge it. Without fail and during one of his favorite songs, she leaned in, eyes closed, tongue protruding from her mouth, beer in hand as always, and he just appeared to vanish. He walked outside the club not looking back and popped into a bodega nearby to regroup. He scanned the shelves and decided to pick out a drink. He bought an iced tea that he had never seen before and sat outside the club and started drinking it. It was good. It was sweet but it was good. It tasted like a less sweet Arizona green tea but it almost tasted like an apple juice instead of just green tea. As he was sitting outside the girl approached him outside with a very angry face. She started yelling at him in front of all the people outside smoking and waiting for cabs. He got up and just walked around the building so as to non-verbally tell her to leave him alone. She followed him around the building, yelling the entire way. Alan turned around, faced the upset girl, put his drink down, walked towards her, put his hands on her waist and kissed her. She stopped talking and kissed back and Alan promptly stopped, picked up his drink, looked at the girl and said, "Alright. That's enough. Go back inside." and the girl, very confused went inside.

As the trees and hills and water passed Alan on the train he wondered what went through that girls head as he turned the tables on that girl and left her very confused in the parking lot. Part of him was curious and the other half couldn't care less. He took a sip of his coffee and just continued to look outside at the passing time.

Pineapple juice? Check. Orange juice? Check. Together? What is a half-check? That's just like a "v," right? This is fine. I'm making jokes about what half a check mark looks like. Ugh, terrible material. Some kid told me I should do comedy at a local bar. I hope he reads this and regrets ever even thinking it, let alone saying it.

This, although not a certified trip to Hawaii, is a decent liquid representation of what I assume Hawaii is. It's not too bad. It's not as great as Hawaii probably is, though. It's not super pineapple and it's really not "really orange." Together it's an acceptable blend of the two but nothing that should ever be considered an award winning drink. It is pulpless, gutless, and nothing to write home about. Once again, nothing like Hawaii. Just go to Hawaii and eat both of these fruits. It will be better.

There's nothing like drinking something and having no words to describe it other than an action. If that action was something like an overly dramatic slumping in your chair that would mean that it was a good drink. If you took a sip and gagged or spit it back out, that would be a bad drink. So what was this? Well this one was the most insulting of all.

The packaging on this was great. It's a can with a built in flip-top. Finally. I'm sure it's a little more expensive but a smart decision. No longer do I have to dump half full cans of drinks or drink flat pop. That or have to spend hard earned money on after market bottle toppers. We're not all made of money, people.

So what instinctive emotion and action did this evoke? A shrug. An effortless, emotionless shrug. Why? It's just mineral water. Just. Just mineral water. Tasteless, flavorless, so on and so forth. Do you like mineral water? Cool. I found one for you.

Initially this drink is pretty bitter. The coffee bean really takes control of the ship first and you don't know if you're going to like it. You promptly change your mind because the ship's captain relinquished his white-knuckle grip on the helm and handed it over to two adorable girls on board. The drink lighted up a bit and starts to taste like what you bought it for, orange and cranberry. Sixty, forty split, but who's counting. You don't get any of the sucralose taste either which is nice and the energy portion of the drink, unlike the tumultuous waves of the sea, isn't overwhelming and won't give you any jitters like an actual "energy drink" would.

Once girls have their fun, the captain gives the girls a smile that says, "Alright girls, move along." The ship makes it to it's destination and no one knows that for a brief second, their lives were in the hands of two little girls with no previous sailing experience outside of "fun in the tub". The captain knew and what the captain knows that no one else knows will go to his grave.

"If Benjamin were an ice cream flavor, he'd be pralines and..." well, you know the rest. Famous line. Famous actor. Famous movie. I would like to get the cast of Wayne's World to sit down with me in this cramped office and share in the splendor that is this praline cream soda. I was leery to drink this because I just had actual praline that isn't just a fixun in ice cream for the first time and it was a little too much. This tastes exactly like it, which actually is more impressive. It's too sweet for me to drink the whole thing but that doesn't lose it any points. It's wonderful. I feel like it's doing less damage to my teeth because I can gulp it down and not have to chew it like I would actual praline. The sweetness from the praline combined with the cream soda makes this a "must have" for cream soda fans. There are serious Southern roots inside of this bottle. They should be proud of this.

Swamp Pop. Party time. Excellent.

What better way to wash down fantastically delicious jerk chicken than with a spicy pop? Oh, none? That's what I thought. Jay and I went to local restaurant filled with hospitality and fantastic food, Dr. Bird's "Rastaraunt" and ordered food. They always have a good selection of things like Grace and DG but last time we went, they were all out of new things. It's fine. We don't expect everywhere to cater to us. Yesterday, though, they had this little number and we both "Oooo'd" at it.

We sit down. We eat. We drink. This is a very good drink and that is surprising because most pineapple pops are just too sweet. This was sweet but it tasted like the juice from a can of, you guessed it, pineapples. The ginger, while not as prevalent as in a ginger beer, still had a sharp little bit that accompanied the pineapple well. It did justice to the jerk chicken in a way that ice cream goes well after every meal or there is always room for Jell-O.

You know what, Joe? I have been taking care of your Bronco for years now and I think that it's time to get a new car. You've had a good run with her, man. It's good almost 200,000 miles on it and she's been pretty good to you. Sure, we've replaced everything but in the twenty plus years you've owned it, you have come out on top. This last inspection needs all new struts, the undercarriage is pretty well rusted, and there are holes that would cost a lot to patch up in order to pass inspection. What will it cost? Well, about seven grand and that's because I like you. Any other guy would cost about ten thousand. You want to sit and think about it? Alright, hey, I'll make you a cup of tea.

Here you go, Joe. It's this new stuff my wife bought for the shop. It's green tea tropical. Sure, not something you would typically find in a garage but sometimes you have to have the finer things in life. Yeah, I have had it. It smells great and tastes like a nice bitter green tea with notes of fruit. I think they said that there was guava and pineapple in the mix, which you can smell more than you can taste. The green tea is a really nice, authentic taste. I found the tea calming and thought that it's what you might want in this troubling time.

Joe, this is a tough decision to make and whatever you want to do, I'll do it. We are booking up fast though so you kind of have to make a decision soon. You want to scrap it? Alright? That's fine. You know what? You might make some money on the deal. Some of it can be salvages so instead of leaving seven thousand dollars lighter, I can actually give you five hundred dollars for the price of the car. If I get any more for the trade, I'll send it over. Let me know what you get. I can't wait to work on it for the next twenty years. You're a great guy, Joe. Sorry for your loss. Don't forget to take your Yosemite Sam mud flaps.

Don't quote me on this like I'm quoting someone else on this, but don't they say that if you do acid four times you can be considered certifiably insane? I would say the same thing about anyone who eats Cinnabon four times. Cinnabon is great the first two times and anything after that is masochistic and just gluttonous. If you took a Cinnabon, made it not "Andre The Giant" sized and scraped ninety-six percent of the frosting off, you might have yourself a nice treat.

This drink was a bit reminiscent of those painful experiences of being really hungry while simultaneously having a gnarly sweet tooth and being stuck on the interstate. It smells good and tastes good but a couple sips in you feel that feeling of "Wait...did I just eat my fourth slice of pizza?" or "Hold on, was this bag of chips half way empty when I started or did I just eat a whole bag of chips myself?" Guilt and shame. This is a sweet drink. Oh, sure it tastes like cinnamon buns but are drinks really supposed to taste like cinnamon buns? It might not be hard to imagine if Tim Horton's came forward and said, "Well what we do is put coffee and a cinnamon bun into a blender, set it to liquefy, have a handful of Timbits, and come back five minutes later and serve it to the customer."

Cinnabon, I may have retired from "Cinnabonning", but I will commend you with a medal of honor for somehow holding strong through many diet fads. You have always been twelve plus times more unhealthy than Krispy Kreme and they couldn't hack it. You are still here and I commend you. I can only assume that there are some fat politicians on your side for undisclosed, not really legal reasons.

Blah blah blah. Thirsty Dudes don't drinks beers. Are we militant about it? No sirs and madams. We just keep to ourselves, talk about how smoking is gross, constantly refuse people giving us beers, answer the same question of "Why don't you drink." and promptly allude to it not being family related. We just don't and we don't need it.

This has hops in it. Beer has hops in it. I did not want this to be another Caveman Foods fiasco where I feel like I drank beer and feel a decade and a half of guilt. Turds. This does taste a little like beer. Let it be known. It does not taste alcoholic but it does have a hint of pilsner according to Dan, my resident bouncing wall of opinions. The hops just kind of liven it up a bit and it's pretty good. It's too sweet to let the hops taste alcoholic and, if anything, just tastes more floral and fresh that some dusty old beer.

You can continue to ask us if we want a drink. We will always turn it down. Maybe if you invite us to a party we will bring this and at least our taste buds will be closer than when we normally go to parties and bring some strange craft iced tea and people treat us like lepers. Happens every time.

On recommendation of the generous woman that gave us this drink, I mixed this with seltzer water. Now what did I think of it. Let me think...how would you feel if someone gave you a hand-crafted tea mixed with your favorite ingredients? Huh? Tough one, right? How much could it possibly suck to have something like a darjeeling tea with hibiscus, strawberry, and lemon peel in it? Hmm. That's a good one. These are tough questions you are asking, brain. You can tell, because you're my brain, that I am being facetious…€Ž because clearly it's freaking awesome.

Starting from the outside in, this is a piece of art as much as it is delicious. It comes in a heavy-duty matte black, glass bottle. You open that bad boy up and it is fruity and floral and inviting. I did what they said which was two parts Owl's Brew to one part sparkling water. I drank a glass of it without even flinching. It tastes like it smells like, and it smells how it tastes, back and forth. It is a true gift for many of your senses.

You can buy this online. I encourage you to do so. If you are in the New York City region, this can be found on shelves. It might seem like a lot but come on. Be honest. You've spent more on dumber things. This is worth it. Split it with a friend if you can't seem to make ends meet on it. You can sit and talk about how the job market blows together over your high echelon tea mix and feel like you are working that dreadful office job you don't want but if they call you back, you know you're going to take it. Hey, they've got cheap vending machines in the office, free garbage coffee, casual Friday's, and the receptionist you saw when you walked in for the interview is at least a seven. Sevens count when times are tough, man. We can't all be hanging around with dimes all the time. Got to put it into perspective.

Ahh green tea. Ahh coffee fruit. Two antioxidant powerhouses teaming up to fight disease and make you healthier. This is like a Marvel/DC Comics crossover episode. You know, like when the Flintstones and Jetsons got together and blew each other's minds as well as most of America's. Ironically, Wilma and Betty were trying to convince Fred to go to Honalurock. Anyhow, so, I don't know, Spiderman and Batman and Superman for good measure or something get together and destroy all the bad guys in one action packed afternoon.

That's what happening here. Coffee fruit, which doesn't have a strong taste and whatever taste it does have tastes nothing like coffee, and green tea, a taste you should know and love, mush up together in order to bring you a lightly sweetened drink with all the benefits of the ingredients. I wish this little bottle was bigger but I suppose I shouldn't overload on antioxidants. My body might not know what to do with all of the troops at arms.

I can feel myself getting stronger. I feel like I can...lift...this...table...oh I think I pulled something.

I want a divorce. I just can't take it anymore. We have grown apart and I don't know if we have anything in common anymore. We've had a good run though, right? Seventeen years? Our kids are pretty well grounded and I think they'll take it well. It just kind of seems like we don't like the same things. I like pop and you like rock. I like red wine and you like white. I like going to parties and you like going to concerts. I like oranges and you hate them. Wait...you...you what? You like oranges now? When did this happen? How did this happen? What's this? This is chamomile tea. I know that it says that there is citrus in the title but that doesn't mean that you like actual oranges. Try it? Alright, considering all we've been through I will drink this tea. Wow. Daryl, you are right. This is good tea. It's calming but very citrusy. It is like someone just filled a teapot with chamomile tea and orange zest.

Where did you go? Daryl?! I was talking about how good this tea is. Where are you? In the kitchen? Alright, I was just...Daryl. What are you doing? Are you...are you eating an orange. Daryl, I'm so attracted to you. You can disregard what I said about the divorce earlier. This tea and you sensually eating that orange has saved our marriage. We've got twenty minutes before the kids get home from school. Let's take care of sexy business.

If you drink enough tea like me, you really get a feel for quality. For instance, a tea that comes in a tin that you can see the fruits (if applicable) or leaves or any sort of additives, that's a good tea. It's proof that what they say is in there is in there. You can see it. That's a chunk of chocolate. That's a dried strawberry. That's a strand of dried green tea leaves. That's tea.

This tea is not terrible but it is most certainly of a lower quality than a lot of the hot tea I have been drinking as of late. What's good about it? Well it tastes pretty good is what's good. It's a black tea that actually does have some natural tea taste with some cinnamon and I think some vanilla for good measure. It is certainly a "black tea with cinnamon" versus Good Earth's Sweet & Spicy, which is like a fantastic Fireball. It's not bad. It's certainly not a summer tea because something about the taste just reminds me of winter. In this state of what winter has done to my psyche, I want winter to be as far away from me as possible.

Personal sentiments aside, it really isn't bad at all. Whoever I "borrowed" this from at my office, thank you. I will repay you with one bag the seemingly endless tea bags upon my desk of your choice.

We are lucky enough to have a McDonald's with a Playplace pretty close to our house. It's nice because when it's terrible outside it's close and my son loves it. He loves the slides and loves the tubes. We went only to discover that it's gone. They have since turned the Playplace into a dining area. Bummer. He and I both agreed that it was a bummer. We went in and decided since we made the drive we should at least get something to eat. I got a McGriddle, which was nothing short of a masterpiece, and my buddy got a parfait, which he might have taken three bites of.

I also got the "limited time only" Chocolate Covered Strawberry Frappe. I enjoy their frappes. This one though, I wish it wasn't a limited time so everyone could enjoy it. I mean it. This thing was great. It had tons of whipped cream with strawberry sauce on it atop of a strawberry chocolate frosty treat. The icing on the cake? Chocolate chips jammed all upside in it; Little bits here and there of fantastic, chocolaty goodness.

I really liked it. It was sweet it really tasted like strawberries and it was just something wonderful. Which brings me to the painful reality that is real life. I opened the door and my buddy was splashing around in a puddle, which I naturally disapproved of. I put the parfait and the frappe, two rhyming foods, on the roof while I got him in the car and in the split second it took me to do it, a gust of wind came from the heavens and knocked my food off the roof. "Son of a gun!" I exclaimed. It was alright. I got him in the car. Then, as luck, which I do not believe in, would have it, another gust of wind came and blew everything off the roof again. My mistake. Happens once; fool on you. Happens twice; fool on me. Then, a 180 happened when I saw none other than The Hamburglar. Everything was instantly fine again and I got to teach my little buddy who the Hamburglar was. An important lesson a father can pass down to his son.

Calm down America, there is a lot going on but there always is, isn't there? Fights about fracking, missing airplanes, large airplane mergers, government spying, Russia, The Rapture just broke up, Acura discontinued the ZDX and so much more. Calm down. Have a cup of tea. Did you know that tea isn't just for the British? It's true. Take a listen here.

This is a fantastic, entry-level tea. It's not bitter, kind of floral, and not really offensive in any way. Some might call that "boring" but listen, dude, listen, it is great tea. It smells like drinking tea in a garden, which just oozes laziness and placid times. It hits you in all the right places that you would want a tea to. It's warm, smooth and welcoming.

People. Look, I know things suck. These are trying times but you've got to remember that you can't control everything and you can't fix everything. You know what can fix you, though? A nice cup of tea. Now shut up, turn off your phone for fifteen minutes, and sit in that nice chair you just had to have, turn down the lights, look out the window and drink some tea.

Johnny was a gamer. Big time. He was a terrible student at the same time. Reason being is because he would always do the minimum he could do just to get it done so that he could play video games. He handed his stuff in on time but it was never very good. He focused all his attention on games. Shooters mostly. He would get home from school, crank through math, science, history, and English, run downstairs and slam a hot pocket and run upstairs to retire to his room where he would have his headphones on with microphone just headshotting left and right. He would always have his Mountain Dew with him, too. Always. He drank a lot of it and loved the way that he could go all night and not get tired. Sure his schoolwork would suffer but he didn't care because he was leveling up.

One day the town he lived in had a pretty brutal snowstorm and the shelves in the supermarket were left barren except for things like rat traps, wooden spoons, and expensive olive oils. The Mountain Dew was gone and he was very distraught. He didn't know what to do so he scoured the shelves for what felt like an eternity until he came across a lone bottle of Towne Club that was left in a bin of dog toys. He thought that it looked like Mountain Dew enough that he had to at least give it a try.

At home, he put in his game, put on his headphones, and started playing. Shortly thereafter, he was thirsty and decided that now was the time to break open his drink. He opened it, took a sip and put it down and continued to game. He didn't think twice about it until the third or fourth sip where he noticed that he really liked it. He thought it tasted like a Mountain Dew but less sweet and with more of a lime or lychee taste. He looked at the scoreboard to his deathmatch and he was actually winning. Johnny found his new secret weapon against the enemy and it wasn't dual pistols with incendiary rounds, it was a tall bottle of Town Club City Rush.

It's always strange living somewhere where a staple restaurant closes and reopens as something else. Down the street from my office, which I have worked at for six years, there has been an Arby's. Now look, this is not a debate about the quality of Arby's. I personally think that Jamocha shakes are great. Their chocolate turnovers are fantastic and a good old-fashioned roast beef is a fine sandwich. A few months back, it closed abruptly and all was silent about what was going to happen. A month later, rumors started circulating about a Tim Horton's taking its place. A couple months later, late last week, it reopened as a Tim Horton's - Cold Stone combo.

I braved a "blizzard" today to get lunch and I got this little number to drink. It doesn't matter how many inches per hour we're getting, sweet tea is always a sound choice. Especially when it's decent sweet tea as this is, luckily. It's approachably sweet. What do I mean by that? Well some sweet teas are too sweet and people can't handle it. It's fine. It's just that they can't handle it. A 670 horsepower Black Series Mercedes Benz SL63 AMG is a gorgeous car but it's simply too much car for some people to handle.

This tea has a good tea taste and I bet that if I asked, it's one of those large metal brewers that makes over a hundred ounces of tea with sugar in it. That's all it needs to be and I think that's all it is. Now I want to imagine what it's like to drive that Merc. I bet it's life altering. Could I handle all that power? My car has 158 horsepower. What's four times that?

Don't tell Jay I'm drinking this. While he's on a juice cleanse provided to us by our friends over at Love Grace, I get to eat solids. I'm not bragging. Heck, if we would have gotten more, not only would that company been twice as generous, but I would have done it. I would have missed out on things like awful, reheated chicken fingers, fries, carrots, a Mediterranean wrap and a heckload of almonds. Jay and I eat copious amounts of almonds.

This drink though, throttled down to only eight calories with no trace of "diet." Not only is Mr. Begley an environmentalist, he's also got quite a palate on him because this is a fine, fine cherry cola. It's not just a cherry pop. This is split right down the middle between a cola and a cherry pop. It's very refreshing and is not at all gross. I didn't know it was only eight calories until I "guilt checked" the calorie count and couldn't believe it.

Ed and whomever Bill is, you guys must keep right on this path because you have stumbled onto something that many have tried and almost that many have failed. Your proprietary SweetenFX is a success in my book and I hope that you, Ed, make enough to take this company totally off the grid and make it fully sustainable. See? We know about people. You should know that I constantly think about putting solar panels and adding wind power to my house. The thought of me thinking of you when I think about making my house a net zero house.