Mike Literman - 1759 Reviews

Hey dad. Thanks for making me this peppermint hot cocoa. I really needed it after shoveling the driveway this morning. It's good. Are you using that syrup that you put in your coffee? Oh, you use it for mom's coffee? Why is that? Really? She burns it? You know, I have noticed lately that she has gotten really lazy and leaves it on the warmer for too long. It smells like a roastery in here sometimes. I don't know why they smell so bad. The smell of coffee is pretty good but the smell of making coffee is terrible. It smells like somewhere a coffee shop is on fire. Oh, shh. Dad. She's coming. Hey mom. Yeah, I did shovel the driveway. I got up about six this morning. I knew you guys had to go to work and I was already up for some reason. I am tired. No...Mom...I am not drinking coffee...this is...cocoa...mom...no. Oh, man. You got coffee in my hot cocoa and, yep, it's burnt. Ugh. No, mom. I'm not insulting you. I'm just saying that this coffee is burnt and now this drink tastes like mint hot cocoa with burnt coffee in it. No mom. I'm not saying that I can make a better cup myself. I'm just saying. Mom, don't get upset. I just said that this pot of coffee was burnt. I'm not disrespecting you. Oh, come on...jeez. Dad. She just stormed out. I think she just did a burnout in the driveway. Well, hopefully she won't burn the coffee any more, right dad? Grounded? What a jip.

If I had endless amounts of money, or even a handful of expendable income, I would try to recreate this drink using some classic science. Here is what I would do:

Step 1: Get a dozen oranges and a dozen mangoes.
Step 2: Court a lovely chemist.
Step 3: Gain the chemist's trust.
Step 4: Convince the gorgeous chemist to let me have a bucket of liquid nitrogen, "You know. For science."
Step 5: Put all the oranges and mangoes in a bowl.
Step 6: Pour the liquid nitrogen into the bowl to instantly freeze the fruit.
Step 7: Smash up the fruit using something like a hammer or a clean shoe.
Step 8: Put the fruit dust into a bottle with water.
Step 9: Put a pack or two of Stevia into the bottle.
Step 10: Stir and drink.
Step 11: Get broken up with because that was not "for science" and I am a "liar."
Step 12: Shrug it off.

Until then, I will have to just buy this like some sort of civilian. I have no problem with that since this isn't half bad. It's a Stevia sweetened mango and orange juice. It cannot be reviewed any differently than that. It is pretty truthful to it's fruit roots. Fruit root. That's fun. This, science aside, is a good drink. I've had two or three of them myself and might be slightly disappointed when they are all gone. That might be the most significant part of the review. It's that good. Fruity and not overwhelmingly Stevia'd. Fruity rooted.

Now this could be trouble. Here's what happens; I drink countless drinks per week, between ten and fifteen new drinks per week. That's a lot, right? Not many of them grab me but in the case that I do find one that grabs a hold of you like some sort of starving hawk in the middle of a desert, I crave it. A lot. I think about the next time I will be in the area and I can get some. Currently, I'm riding the proverbial horse of Panera's Tropical Hibiscus. I Just Can't Get Enough.

I bought this and didn't think much of it other than I was thirsty but a couple hours later and three quarters of a thirty three ounce bottle later, here I am trying to wonder when the next time myself or someone I can will be out at our new Trader Joe's to get me like four bottles of "the stuff."

Now this is not perfect but it's darn close. It's got the smell and the taste. The only thing it's missing is that little thing in green tea that people that like green tea like and people who claim they don't like green tea don't like. That strange, back of your tongue bitterness that makes your mouth water and crave more. It doesn't have that but it does have a very good taste and just tastes like an honest, home brewed green tea.

At two dollars, you have no reason not to at least try it. They have a fruit one, too that I will get next time I'm there stocking up on this habit. Darn it, Joe. You've caught me like a fish at some sort of fishing derby. A little secret about me, though? I'll get hooked so hard that when you stop selling it, you will miss me like the deserts miss the rain.

Look America, some things just aren't for you and your palate of hamburgers. There is an ever-growing population of people that aren't from "these here parts" and they are integrating into our great country because of the opportunities and potential for greater thing. In doing so, they are bringing their food and culture to our doorstep and although we might not fully understand it, we should embrace it and give it a try. For the most part, we are welcomed with open arms if we're not going to be ignorant about it. Sure, at first glance, some of the clothes, accessories, customs, and beliefs might seem strange, but I'm sure that ours seem that way to them.

No I did not grow up on rice and rose water. I don't have a taste for it, but this site has allows me to try out things that are normal in other cultures. This, for instance, is one of those things.

Given to me by a girl who grew up surrounded by ex-pats of India. She said that she drank this all the time and when she found out about the site, she generously brought this for me. I have sat on it for a long time but I quite literally dusted it off and made a glass tonight to ponder over while listening to Incognito's "Beneath The Surface" which is a work of art in itself.

I've had rose lassi and that simply is not for me. Oh I "get" it but it's just not for me. This, though...this I could get used to. Sipping in those hot summer months while mulling over different fruits and botanicals. It's lightly sweetened and highly concentrated. It has a bit of "rose" to it but there is more going on in this little glass of mine. It's rose, it's fruity, and although it doesn't have any in it, it almost has a taste of cinnamon or something. It is a very complex taste that is rose first but complex if you try to figure out what else is in there.

Now I just made this with water but there are plenty of other applications for this including mixing it with milk to make a creamier drink or put it on ice cream as a topping. I don't know if I would do that here in the States but if I was ever lucky enough to take a trip to India or date an Indian woman who's family made good Indian food, I would try it there all day long.

If you drink this fast enough, you can actually drink "through" the diet. It's true. Using our inherent ability to chug, you can actually ingest this drink so fast and with so much speed and disregard to your esophagus that you can out-run the diet.

Why would you do that? Well because if you sip it, it's pretty gross. It's just a super carbonated raspberry drink. It is strange that you can bypass the worst part of the drink. Like skipping the worst track on a record, or not eating dinner and going straight to dessert.

The taste, diet aside, isn't bad. It's like a less "dark," less syrupy black raspberry pop that has zero calories and isn't vile. Is that a win? It's got to be better than some of the black raspberry pop's I've had. Some of those blow. Trust me.

Enough. Enough, I say. Things have gotten out of control in my kingdom. I leave for two weeks with the queen to the seaside and when I return things are in shambles. I left all of you in charge and you have forsaken me. There are chickens running rampant for one. I stepped in chicken eggs and poop on my way up the stairs and there have never been chickens in the castle unless it was in the kitchen on their way to become dinner. The men are growing their hair out both on their heads and on their faces and they look like the cavemen that roamed our fine earth before us. More importantly, though, I would like to bring up someone's bright idea to marry our fine tea with flowers and sugar because they deserve to have their name and "guillotine" in the same sentence.

"What's wrong with it?" Well where do I start? It was a fine, red tea that we brought in from our trip to China to trade. The flowers, what did you say were in there? Chamomile and lavender? Look, the chamomile was fine. It was a nice relaxing tea but the lavender turned it into one of those baths that we take once a month. That or something we give the children to ease their throats when they are ill. That or a candle. Now all of these I could possibly take if it weren't for the sweetener that you have used. I have surveyed the sugar farmers and they said that they did use their sweetener but they also said that used something called Stevia. Now, I appreciate you using your skills as budding scientists to make new things but I might have to ratchet that down to things like alloys for armor and, I don't know, something crazy like air in the tires so that you don't feel every bump on those hard, wooden rims. It's too sweet and you know how I, the king, loves his sweets.

My faithful town, you have done me wrong and that is why the queen and I do not take trips. Now, to make things right, you must catch all the chickens, put most of them back in their cages and we shall have a triumphant feast in celebration of the dear queen and my return. That and that the food in Florida was quite bad.

Pete went to Italy to try to experience new things. He was a huge car fan and really wanted to see Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Alfa Romeos in their natural habitat. On the plane over he said that he wanted to see a Countach, 512 TR, and a GTV 6. Anything else was pure icing.

Pete was there for a couple days and didn't see any of the main cars on his list. Sure, he saw some Alfa 164s, some newer Murcielagos and a Ferrari Mondial but he saw those in the States a fair amount. He was only there for one day and he decided to get something to drink. He stopped at an Italian cafe and rather than drink some coffee, he decided to get something local to where he was, which was lemonade. He sat down with his lemonade and watched as his final hours passed him. He was happy, though. He got to relax and now he was relaxing with a pretty good lemonade. It was lightly sweetened enough to let the sourness of the lemon to come through. Also, it made him feel good that there was pulp in there. It made him feel like it was handmade.

Just as he was finishing up, he heard something loud coming around the corner. He looked up and a gorgeous, red Ferrari F40 sped past him. He never though he'd see one and thought that it was alright that he didn't see the other ones. Maybe next time, he thought.

I regret me decision to wait to long to try this. I can assure you that it was not intentional. It was just a bottle so big that it wouldn't fit in my frequently accessed cache of drinks. Not to mention this is a concentrate and I would have had to go through the "trouble" of mixing it and blah, blah, blah. I can now admit that I made a mistake and the general public, as well as Bottle Green who was so generous to send us this drinks, should know that I was wrong.

This is a pretty strong concentrate. No, I did drink it straight like some sort of idiot kid or dare devil. I just am basing this on the 10:1 ratio that you mix it. I bet it would taste like the wrath of a hundred angry limes if you took a quick swig of this. I mixed it accurately and measured exactly what I was supposed to and I was gifted the delightful drink that I am enjoying this afternoon.

"Aromatic lime" is an understatement. This is more than "smells a little like lime." This is as if a lime has made his bed inside whatever receptacle you used to mix this drink. Also, that is a good thing. It's wonderfully sweetened; lightly enough that you still get to have your taste buds predominately washed out with the tasty taste of lime all while basking in the scent of a garden of limes. I know, I know. A garden of limes is a boring garden but if it makes a drink like this, where do I sign up. Sure, Buffalo is not zoned for limes, but I can always greenhouse the daylights out of my backyard in hopes to be able to grow them. Since this exists, I won't be doing this. Bottle Green got the mix right and as long as you can read directions, you'll be just fine.

Honey, it's so nice out here at the hotel pool. I know I've been depressed, even during our vacation. It's just that it's been really tough at work and I feel like everyone is coming down on me. It's nice to just relax and sit with my feet dangling in the pool with my sunglasses on, the sound of the ocean in the background, babes in bikinis...what? We're on vacation! Don't think I didn't see you turning it on when we were at the bar last night. We're just here to have fun and unwind, right? Right.

Oh, what's this? Aloe and iced green tea? That sounds pretty good. Honey, um, why is that kid looking across the pool at me doing that fingers to eye thing like Robert Di Niro does in all those Focker's movies? Do you think he heard my remark about fat kids wearing shirts in pools? I think he did. What's he doing? Oh...oh no. He's going to do a cannonball. Ahhhh!!!!!

Oh come on, kid. I'm finally relaxing and you got me all wet. I know it's a pool but sometimes you just want to dangle your feet. I am not an old man. I'm thirty one. What a jerk. He got pool water all over me and, oh man, he got it in my drink. I'm sorry, honey. I saw him coming and I should have covered my drink. Well maybe he didn't get that much in there. Let me see. Bleh, he did the damage. This tastes exactly like you would expect it to. It tastes like aloe green tea with pool water in it. The green tea is trying to poke his little head out and you can taste it and you can taste and see the aloe bits but then that strange, plastic, chemical water taste is there to ruin it.

You know what, honey? I think I'm just going to go up to the room and see what's on TV. Now all I can think about is Meet The Fockers and I think I would like to do that. You go turn that charm on and get yourself a free drink. Sorry I'm such a pretty literal wet blanket. If I'm sleeping, wake me up for dinner. I want a sloppy joe.

With every sip I am enticed by the smell, but to drink this is really nothing more than a red tea that has a hint of cinnamon. Just a hint. No burn, just more of an infused cinnamon scent. It's not "sweet" either. I understand when they say "sweet cinnamon" and this smells it a bit but taste wise is just kind of like someone made a cup of tea and put a cinnamon stick in it. Look, this doesn't suck. It's calming, but from the smell I took yesterday and the actual sip I took today, ehhhhhhhhhh I wanted a little more. Just a little more spice, you know? Spice. That sweet cinnamon spice. Call me greedy, but I just want more. I'll drink more tea, believe you me, but I want more flavor.

James had a rough day. He couldn't pinpoint what was wrong but he was in a bad mood. His boss noticed and asked him to come out behind the office. James reluctantly went back and his boss handed him boxing gloves. He put them on and his boss hit his gloves against James' and it was on. A couple right jabs and left hooks later and they were both sitting in the parking lot a little more bruised than they were five minutes prior. James thanked his boss for letting him blow off some steam and when he did, his boss handed him a bottle of tea.

James looked at it, cracked it open, and took a big chug. He was instantly calm. It was a slightly sweetened tea with a hint of mint. It was sweetened with honey and it was so lightly flavored that you could taste it. The black tea was strong and everything was well proportioned. James could finally relax with a black eye in the parking lot with his boss who had some slightly bruised ribs. James was fixed. Every couple months they would look at each other when they were having a bad day and just have at each other in the parking lot. It kept them together as friends and kept the office working smoothly. An odd work environment indeed, but it worked.

Pomegranates? Love them. I just found out that fifty percent of my boss' do not like pomegranates. What's not to like? Is it the work? There are a couple tricks but I think, like most things, if you put forth some time and effort, the reward, in this case little exploding balls of juice, they pay off. I don't know what his problem is about pomegranates.

Geraniums? I've had chrysanthemum tea before so what's a geranium got that's any different?

I thought this would be a light floral tea but I was a bit off. It's teetering on the fence between light flavored water and grandma bathwater. I am giving it the benefit of the doubt because I think this was a bit expensive. I don't want to spend like three dollars on a drink and be wishy-washy on it. Therefore, not bath water.

Tasting it with the grain of salt I have given it, it's not too bad. It tastes like a pomegranate flavored water with a hint of floral stuff mixed in for fun. It is as good as that can be. It's different and I feel like big companies don't play with flavors like this. Jay drank the grapefruit lilac and gave it a top rating. I wish I could have drunk it because I find this a bit lacking.

People know that I am straight edge but many of them don't know why. I will give you the short reason why.

My friends growing up didn't really drink so it was fine to almost have a beer here and there. My entire lifetime, I might have drank two beers, one glass of champagne and a glass of wine. Total. People I know drink more than that in one night. That is not why I don't drink.

I don't drink because I went away to college and saw people on their own for the first time drinking so much that before the fifth of vodka hit their system, they knew what was about to happen and asked people to punch them in the stomach to make them puke. I saved female friends in parks from being felt up because everyone was drunk and no one wants to hear the next day that ten creeps touched your boobs. I saw people abandoned on park benches because they were too drunk to deal with. That's why I don't drink. I have fun doing a lot of dumb stuff and don't need to get any dumber. I'm not saying that you can't drink responsibly and have a good time, I'm just saying that I don't need it in my life and I don't feel that it will enhance anything and I don't feel like I'm missing anything.

That being said, this champagne strawberry seltzer is pretty good and pretty close to what I remember champagne to taste like. It's still got that "seltzer" taste, sure, but it actually has a good, faint strawberry taste, and a frighteningly accurate "alcohol" aftertaste. It's good enough that I probably drank thirty ounces of it. Alcohol taste and all. Something about these Polar bottles keep me coming back for more every time I drink them.

Now the season is about us where people drink a lot. Maybe calm down a little this season and drink some of this. It tastes like what you're drinking anyhow and you can drink and drive with this all day. If you like it, maybe kick in the New Year with the resolution of not pretending you're still nineteen. Unless, of course you are nineteen, which in that case you probably drank when you were reading this. Keep up the good work, nineteen year old. Better study for that Math 101 final next week. Start by multiplying the amount of empty Genny Cream Ale cans you have scattered throughout your apartment by five to find out how you're going to afford pizza tonight.

Does "naturally flavored" mean anything at all when you are not naturally sweetening something? I mean, "all natural" has weight but natural flavors kind of only covers some of your bases. I mean, it's a good try but it's really a pathetic effort and calling out the fact that you haven't completed your whole job. With a fake sweetener, you're kind of taking a theoretical dump on your efforts at keeping the flavors tasting natural. You wouldn't do that now, would you? Take a dump on your science project? No. You wouldn't do that. You're better than that.

Now that I've got that out of the way, we can talk about this for what it really is. What is it? It's a sparkling lemon lime drink. It's not a juice and it certainly is sparkling. It's highly carbonated and I am going to have to subtly burp all the way through the day. Lemon lime? Yes. It really just tastes like a less sweet Sierra Mist. Is the sweetener offensive? No. Does it taste diet? A little but not too bad.

What is the difference between this, Sparkling Ice or Cascade Ice? Not much. This might be less diet. That's a pretty win when it comes to the fact that most people drink things for the taste. If you drink those, you know what you're in for.

There are two kind of mint hot chocolate and this is the better one. What makes one better than the other? Well, and I'm dropping names here like some old tart that lived it up in the rock scene of the dirty, dirty seventies. Tim Horton's mint hot chocolate is a pretty pathetic, although accurate, portrayal of the model. It is the same hot chocolate that they would serve you if you ordered it any other time of the year but with one, unwrapped little secret. They drop a starlight mint in there. It's, and I don't mean to offend anyone with this, a pretty "poor person's" mint chocolate.

Now I am quite sure that Starbucks uses some fancy syrup to both sweeten and flavor their drink. Whatever they use, it doesn't make the drink taste:
A: Like candy in an otherwise basic drink.
B: Like toothpaste.

These two "nots" together add up to a decent mint hot chocolate. It is strong but not as strong as I like to think that Starbucks drinks are. It's a good, heavy cup of hot chocolate made with more decent ingredients than your powder garbage in the cupboard. I don't know what the Italian name for the twelve-or-so ounce cup I had was, but it was about the maximum I could have taken. I love chocolate and I love hot chocolate but add mint in there and it cuts my kid-like ability to eat endless amounts of chocolate down significantly. It was, while it lasted, a very good drink, though. Now I didn't buy it but I'm sure that I would not have been fully comfortable at whatever the purchase price was but hey, I don't make a lot of money and therefore will buy many more "poor person" renditions of drinks than someone in tax brackets above mine will. Jay and I live well beneath our means and that includes frivolous purchases like five-dollar small hot chocolates. I downright don't think I'm worth it but that's my own internal struggle I've got to deal with.

Pastrami and hot mustard is a wonderful sandwich. It wasn't until I was an adult that I enjoyed the more "fancy" lunchmeats. All growing up I was filled to the brim with white bread and either bologna or salami. Now, as an adult, I can get "nicer" things like hot mustards, multi-grain bread, and the most erotic of all the salted meats.

One problem with this super mature sandwich is that it is pretty violent on your breath. What better way to combat the unfortunate effect of dangerously pungent sandwiches than to drink a pop that tastes like candy canes? Lucky for me, Jay bought me a bottle of this probably not knowing that I would use it as a temporary, mid-day toothpaste.

I was surprised that this tasted like a candy cane seltzer and when I read the ingredients, it was made with "sparkling water" and not whatever regular pop is made out of. You can taste that seltzery taste. The drink itself tastes like a candy cane but I didn't get much "shake" out of it. I thought it was going to taste like a peppermint cream soda, which would have been fine but Taylor's doesn't cop out like that. There is erythritol in the bottle, too, but you don't get any of the associated taste that accompanies it.

This was a smooth transition into Christmastime. A much smoother transition than every time I take my headphones off for the past two weeks the kid that works next to me is listening to Christmas music. He loves the stuff. We could never be gay lovers because I would straight murder him over it. Great dude. I would murder him.

There is time to play games and there is time to be serious. Now is not the time to talk about butts, cats in glasses, sandwiches with both meats and cheese in them, or corgi stuff. Now is the time to talk about things like third quarter investment strategies, medicine directions, model instructions, mathematical equations, and the complex relationship between Turkey and Sudan.

Green tea, and I mean real green tea, not canned green tea that should only be displayed in quotes, is a complex beast. It's an adult drink. A true drink for adults. It is a bitter beast that can only be tamed by an open mind and a clean palate. Once you embrace it, you really can get into it. This tea is splendid and I don't use that term lightly or at all, really. It is bitter but does something to your taste buds where it makes them crave more. Every sip is just bitter enough that you aren't offended and has a great taste at all times. It's bold and is complex and takes time to take it all in.

Look, if you're looking for just another tea to drink and chug, this is not for you. If you had a hard day and just want to go home, put on some music, sit in the dark and sip some tea, this is for you. Wait, what? You don't like to sit in the dark and listen to music and drink tea? Hmm, now I bet you're looking at me like I'm the crazy one. You are the crazy one. In the dark you can really take things in without the pesky, intrusive light bothering you.

What a tease. Here I thought I was going to get a delicious, non-carbonated drink birch beer but come on. This tastes like some sort of agave juice. It's smooth, has no definition and won't really offend anyone.

Now that my clear disappointment is out of the way, yeah, this is pretty average. It is from the birch tree. Giants came from the sea and the sky and squeezed birch trees into tiny bottles. This being the "original" flavor is the base in which the rest of the flavors in this line are based. How does it stand up? It's fine. It's non-offensive and therefore a tad lackluster.

Did I know that you could drink that lifeblood of a birch tree? No. Will I try it next time I can identify a birch tree and have a tool to stab said tree to let the juice out? Maybe. Probably.

Part of having a special drink is to make it special, right? Otherwise it's just a regular drink. There is nothing apparently special with this aside from the bottle, a bottle that only energy drink nerds and computer programmers would give two rips about. It tastes like a grape, Jay says "white grape" Monster. It's not terrible, but it most certainly isn't worth the five dollars I paid for it.

Want to see what we really thought? We thought you would so we made a little video of ourselves. Please to enjoy.

Ahh the blender: one of the least used appliances in my kitchen. I've got a novelty hot dog maker that I use tenfold over the blender. I've got a food processor that I use predominantly to mix up cooked vegetables to hide in Mac & Cheese so my dumb son will eat healthy. I know I said that I'm against it, but kids nowadays. Jesus Christ. What a bunch of idiots. Eat some damn peas.

Blender...right...prep for this couldn't be easier. A little bit of milk in the blender, pour in the contents of the bag, mix, done. Well, yes, it is kind of like that but not really. I thought we had a good mixer. My girlfriend makes healthy smoothies like four days a week with it but when it comes to frozen chunks of chocolate this thing threw the ingredients to the side like an Italian mother throws properly cooked spaghetti at the wall. I had to blend, push down with a wooden spoon, blend, spoon, blend, spoon, to the point where I said, "Screw this. It's done." I poured it into a cup where there was no way in hell I was ever going to get it through a straw so I had to use a spoon. I almost shouldn't be reviewing this since I couldn't drink it but since it is technically a drink, a review had to be performed.

Was it good? Yeah. It was like a whipped chocolate ice cream that has a small hint of coffee to it. Disappointing? A bit. I would have liked this jerk to blend properly and I would have liked to actually drink it rather than eat it with a spoon out of a cup like I don't know how to operate any piece of silverware, appliance, and glassware in my whole house. Don't make me feel that way, bro.

You know who agrees with me but in a nicer, more photo-friendly way? Our dogg Marvo at The Impulsive Buy.