Mike Literman - 1759 Reviews

Blueberry grape? Who has heard of such a thing? Blueberry is always paired with pomegranate and these two just shouldn't blend. Jones, the insane Canadians that they are, decided that they can do whatever they want. They put those guys together in one bottle and came up with...wait for it...a strange drink. It smells good and it invites you in. When you drink it, you get some blueberry and some grape juice but there is something else in there, something that I didn't like. I don't want to say bitter but it had a bit of that acai taste to it even though that wasn't an ingredient. I think it's actually the vegetable juice that they use for color that kind of snuck in some flavor. I've had this before with those drinks that are fruit flavored but have a days worth of vegetable intake in them. I'm fine with that, but know that it also delivers this strange aftertaste. If you know this stuff, you will be fine. I am the informer. Snow and I, we are informers.

Deep in the Alaskan wilderness lies a group of people exiled from civilization. They were misunderstood and should have never been banished like they were, in the middle of the night with pitchforks, flaming sticks, and arrows, like modern day Frankenstein monsters. They are occasionally air dropped supplies so that they can live. The people that put them there aren't bad people, just complete idiots because the people that they sent away were the smartest people in each of the towns. When they opened their mouths, genius came out and the townspeople didn't understand or felt threatened. Now there is a small town that is run by geniuses and has things that larger towns don't have like perpetual motion power, no government, friendly robots, fair trade, and a research and development facility that puts the drug companies to shame. Inside this facility they have a type of grape that is indigenous to only there and they dubbed it the "arctic grape." It is a marvel of science that only such smart people could create. Inside and unlike in regular grapes, there are vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes that could only previously be in sugary sports drinks. They use it in a juice that they drink all the time. It's a light purple color and tastes great. It doesn't have and calories so they can all stay as fit as they always were. It tastes a bit between a candy grape and a "real" grape and doesn't taste like a diet drink, which is a nice middle ground for both the adults and children at the town.

There is little to no communication between the people that sent them away and the townspeople so they aren't aware of such technological advances. They like it that way because it's their secret way of getting back at them. They live far better, richer lives among their own kind than with the likes of those dumb dummies.

Thirsty Dudes have a friend called "The Hammer." The Hammer is a great man who has affection for good, high quality chocolate. "Do you want to try a square?" he says to me. I never deny. Why? It's chocolate, number one, but it's always and definitely good chocolate because he only buys the good stuff. If he were with me right now, at my desk at work, I would have him drink this with me. This is chocolate milk for adults. It's bitterer than chocolate milk and has a natural taste to it. It's more woody and chalky than you would expect a generic chocolate milk to be so for that reason, you might not like it. I like it. The mint version is a bit more "entry level" if you ask me, but I think this one is good, too. The qualities of a good chocolate aren't always what make a good chocolate drink, though. Like I said, it's good, but it is going to be a bit more bitter than people might like. Still sweet but not as creamy as the kids would like. Hence chocolate milk for adults.

Who doesn't want to be fit? I'm not saying you have to go the whole nine yards, juice up, and become completely muscle bound, just toned at least. I do. I feel like I used to be due to my incredible metabolism but then the years started catching up to me and I had to be a bit more conscience about what I eat and drink. I've never gone crazy with food, which is why I'm not four hundred pounds, but I could have definitely done better with my food choices in my life.

In order to become more fit, I have taken up bike riding, which I have actually scaled down since having no time to casually ride my bike with a kid. That helped for a little bit. Now it's down to things like eating right since I don't really have time to go to the gym. Either that or I'm lazy and making excuses. If I were to go to the gym, I know that I would traditionally bring Gatorade but with all the other fitness drinks I've had since doing Thirsty Dudes that might not be the go-to anymore. This is another one that should be on your radar. It's diet, yes. It's sweetened with sucralose, but it's not poison like you might think. The flavor is actually pretty light, which you can control with how much you squeeze in to your glass but I followed directions and it was lighter than I expected. It's zero calories, though, and has everything that's going to energize, hydrate, and electrolyte you to get to your target weight. The flavor is that of a berry, whether it be a blueberry, you know, because it's blue, or a black berry or any nondescript berry. It could be raspberry, which it could be in hindsight because of its "blue" color. You know how that is the only blue food that exists in drink form. Whatever flavor it is, it's not bad and with no calories you could drink it all day, in or out of the gym. I've seriously got to think about something fitness related before my body just rejects what little I do to it for payback.

Sick babies mean a lot of things. Number one is that you spend your days dealing with a kid who can't exactly express their discomfort. Number two through forty-five is that you lose a lot of sleep. Finally getting my little buddy to school was fantastic because I can work, feel like I've contributed something to society, and put me one step closer to knowing that we will both not be awakened by coughing, sniffing, and bi-hourly whining.

I found this little number on the limited line and got it. I was reluctant as I am not a coffee person but the combination of hazelnut and mocha can only mean one thing; Nutella, which I love. Oh, I know it's terrible for you, but who cares. Smoking is probably worse for you than a Nutella sandwich, or at least I'd like to think that it is. I was luckily correct and this guy was great. It was more like a Nutella hot chocolate with a little coffee in it. I got it in a small, rather incognito cup but there was some sort of chocolate whipped cream that you couldn't see which cooled it down, cut down on the coffee, and made it smoother so I could actually drink it. I thought it was good and although I couldn't do anything larger than a small, I wouldn't advise not getting something larger. I don't drink a lot of drink so I could do this little, ten-ish ounce guy without feeling the need to share it.

It's not true coffee, I know. I would never say that it is. It's a bastardization of a latte, too and, once again I'm not claiming that I'm an expert. This is one step away from being some garbage powder drink you make at a truck stop but it's something that will make you remember that truck stop for reasons other than the glory hole that was in the bathroom.

I'm in the process of dealing with what I can only describe as week-long carsickness that other people are telling me is vertigo. Whatever it is, it sucks and is unwelcome in my head. I've got constant spinning and slight nausea, which is enough to make me just sick enough in the head and stomach that my days totally suck. In order to combat this, I decided to recruit good old ginger ale to help me. Is it helping? No, unfortunately not.

For a ginger ale, this is as average as they come. "It's a mixer." you are wishing you could tell me but in reality, it's a drink all to itself and it is average. It's sweet and tastes like ginger ale. Ever since I've found ginger ale that has an essence of actual ginger, everything else is "just" ginger ale. Basic ginger ale is becoming increasingly difficult to review, as like orange juice, it really tastes the same.

I don't know what I'm going to do about this barrage of nausea, as it's exhausting. This ginger ale isn't helping. Sleep isn't helping. I might just have to taco it out. Honestly, it couldn't hurt at this point and sounds like the best treatment at this juncture.

On our tour de food, we have gone all around the world without leaving Western New York. We have been trying to not go to the same place (country) trice, especially twice in a row but we did last week. That exotic location? A Vietnamese restaurant in a Puerto Rican part of town. Jay and I fell in love with their bahn mi and we decided to give it a go two weeks in a row. I got the pho this time around and had “order regret” instantly. I like pho and I am no connoisseur, but this was bland. I added quite a bit of hoisen and Sriracha to give it something. In between disappointing bites of a seemingly endless dish, I washed it down with this fantastic treat.

I love honey. My aunt has a beehive in the country and it brought in around one hundred gallons of fresh honey. I use it on sandwiches all the time. Ham, too. Yeah, I know I'm Jewish, but I don't care about it. Ham is wonderful. This drink was chocked full of honey and lemon. Jay hates lemon tea and liked this. That speaks volumes. I have been milking this bottle for three days because it's very good. Sure that place is a mile or two away and I can go whenever I want to and get another but I've got this one and am going to get some length out of it. It's so honey-filled that I'm surprised that it's not thicker, like if you somehow liquefied honey lemon candy and drank that.

I will go back to that Vietnamese restaurant again and again as I have to try their vermicelli and will repeatedly eat their bahn mi. That pho, well that might as well just leave the menu. It's not your strong suit, friends.

Al Capone. You and your cronies have done a wonderful thing here. You have broken the correct legs to get to this diet root beer. All of those threats, violin cases filled with Tommy guns, guitar cases filled with machine guns, briefcases filled with handguns have allowed you to create one of the best diet root beers I have ever had. The slight taste of diet in this is quickly smoothed over with a nice root beer taste complete with vanilla. This is better than some regular root beers I have had and that is saying a lot.

I trust that with this review, we will be in your good graces so when I pass your men on the street, which, if I may be so frank, are blatant since normally I don't see a gaggle of men in pinstriped suits, they will give me a nod and be on their way. I will leave you to your business of smuggling rum into places, underground fighting rings, and other general cahoots that you and your men perform. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors. If I may be of any service, please let me know. Know in advance, I do have my limits. I might not be the best man for things like killing, poisoning, slashing tires, bomb installation, or anything in the "almost legal" category. If you want me to be a wheelman, I would love to do that, though.

Woo. Where to start, where to start? From the start? Let's go there. Imagine a fully bearded man in his workshop. Now cover his entire body in a thin layer of sawdust. He's working on a pinewood derby car. It's not quiet, though. Oh no. It's laden with the sound of vacuums, dremels, drill and Howard Jones' "Dream Into Action" on the stereo. A man gets thirsty. When the only thing that is in the fridge is an aphrodisiac energy drink, who cares? That's what you will drink. That's what I did drink. I did not think that it would have done to me what it did.

Here is the back-story of the day for me, diet-wise. I had a bowl of cereal around nine and it is now around three and I have an empty stomach. Whatever. I do what I want. I grabbed that drink and slammed it. It was great, too. It was slightly fruity, slightly carbonated with just a touch of that "energy drink" taste. Enough that it was still good. Comparable to the new Red Bull drinks, if you've had those. This was good. Promptly, two things happened, though. At the snap of fingers, the caffeine started to course through me like all my blood was replaced with it. In addition to that I got that thirty-six hour flu that everyone got. So I've got awkward dizziness and nonstop shaking due to drinking an energy drink on an empty stomach. I was like that the rest of the day. Virtually out of commission. I couldn't get to sleep until about four in the morning. I just lay there watching the hands cruise through the clock.

Now if that was that than that would be that, but it wasn't. One more thing and this might have been psychosomatic but it's worth mentioning if only for it's humor. The day I drank this, I could have filled up the boner quota of a ninth grade boy. It's absolutely humiliating but they would come and go like waves on the shoreline. I mention this because if it was supposed to do this, holy crap did it work. I felt like I should have had an English textbook to cover my genitals with throughout the day.

Two incredible images wrapped into one review of a fantastic energy drink. If you are too tired to get it on with your significant other, drink this. Just make sure to eat some food first.

You know how I like my coconut drinks? When they don't taste like coconut. {pause for laughter} I like coconut just fine in small amounts shaven atop an iced cream but in drinks, unless they are ice friggin' cold, as far away as possible. They're typically just dusty, chalky messes of liquid that should have never been made in the first place. Yeah, I know it's harsh but I don't give a rip. Drink like a normal person and tell me you haven't had to refrigerate a drink to refresh it or just flat out thrown it in the filth can. Come on. Be honest. I don't care. I've dumped plenty of drinks because of those reasons. Sure, I drink more than the normal person, but in ratio, aren't we all the same?

This drink held on to its decency for longer than most. It had an "orange drink" taste more than an actual fruit but it wasn't a bad taste. The entire time it did taste like coconut but they don't make coconut drinks to completely disguise the core flavor. That's just stupid. It was almost like you watered down juice with some coconut water. Neither flavors are bold and in your face but rather subtle and, dare I say, nice.

Coconut, you're getting better. I now have the power to go into the blistering cold and get my little buddy from day care. Without you, I might have just left him there to fend for himself in the snow to take the bus home and be a friggin' man. You're almost two. Get a job and take the bus.

Do you think that Nu South was inspired by Nu Metal? I certainly hope so. Look, joke about nu metal all you want but seriously, some of those southern dudes can shred. Finger blistering solos, just destroying the neck. Calluses that could hold hot irons for an extended period of time. I wonder if the dudes from Slipknot, even though they are not from the South but are nu metal, blow the crowd away with an awesome set and then go backstage, sit on a couch together, all eight or nine of them, it's a sectional with a couple additional sections. What? It's in their rider. Anyhow, they sit down and the stagehand hands them a case of of Nu South?

On a hot summer day in the South, a cool glass of this would probably be pretty good. A lukewarm bottle on a nineteen-degree day after doing nothing in the North East doesn't do this drink justice. It's got that strange "is it carbonated or is some garbage ingredients just tickling my throat?" Slipknot doesn't care. They are all sweating from thrashing and wearing masks and jump suits in the hot, Southern sun. They just want to chug lemonade, I'm sure. It's not terrible lemonade. It's got the makings of something great and tastes good except for the questionable, sharp taste.

Look, Slipknot is good. Kids love them. I like them a lot. Honestly, their first LP was great, Iowa, not their best, but Volume 3 is incredible. Like them or don't like them. They are good. Just deal with it. Slipknot members zero through eight, any time you guys want to do a guest review, you know where to find us. Keep up the good work.

Vanilla, Licorice, Cinnamon, Clove, Spice, Pep, Pizzazz...Some root beers have these ingredients in them. They excel and are the ones that we, self-proclaimed professionals, enjoy the most. Root Beer is a dime a dozen, like a cola, but an exceptional one comes few and far between. We are always on the lookout for the next great drink. Most of the time we come up short. It's not a loss because we have to weed through stuff to get to the gems and we have found some in all categories of drink.

This one will be dumped in the "the rest" bucket. It tastes like root beer and nothing else. I know, if you are drinking a root beer you want it to taste like a root beer but who is happy with a C? Yeah, I passed, what more do you want from me? It might and probably is the "diet" of this drink that makes it just an average thing. The sucralose really takes a dump on the potential of this drink, figuratively speaking. Sucralose has no digestive system and still sucks without it.

Growing up, my best friend's parents were from England, right off the boat. Liverpool, if you must know. I would spend many nights and most weekends over there whether it be playing video games, listening to music, making fake radio shows on cassette tapes, or other kid stuff.

Being British, they stereotypically love tea. They drank it all the time. They also loved 70's prog-rock, which I wish now I could tell fourteen year old me to pay attention to. They bought me loose tea, which to this day, I prefer to bagged tea, and would keep it "local" and get me Earl Gray. I went a decade without drinking it after I went to college but now we have a Keurig and it came with this tea. I like this stuff. Yes, I add a smidge of sugar to it, but it's still keeping in the British way. This tea has a pretty nice lemon taste, which I don't really remember in my old cups of tea. It's good though and I have made multiple cups of it since we got the box of it. I might be the only one.

Growing up I never talked about the queen but we talked primarily of the Queen as in Freddie Mercury. Phil Collins, Genesis, Yes, Jimi Hendrix, and the like. They listened to their music loud, too. I miss that house. Maybe I'll pay a visit next time I visit my parent's. My son loves the mom because she always gives him ice cream. How could you not?

Look. Everyone knows that one of my favorite pops is Hansen's Cherry Vanilla Cream. Hansen's owns Blue Sky. This is cherry vanilla cream and that is cherry vanilla cream. So why isn't this as good? I don't know. This is great. No doubt about it. It doesn't have as many calories, still has a great taste, and is actually pretty easy for me to find. I think that the one thing that is different is that this is less smooth, probably less cream or creme depending on where you live. French? Creme. American? Cream.

It's odd. They had it. It also seems strange that a subsidiary company would make such an iconic, specific drink as their parent, but they did. It's not far off and it's definitely not a failure, it's just not my baby.

My mom always jokes around. I clearly get my sense of humor from her and my money management skills from my (Jewish) dad. I'm fine with that. I like it that way. If you asked my mom how she likes her coffee, she would say, "Black. Like I like my men." which is funny because it's funny but also funny because the man she married is so white…€¦ so white. My dad. My dad is so white, and Jewish. My white, Jewish dad is very white.

This coffee, like my mom's faux preference in men, is "extra bold" which is just black. "Black like the night" as my (Jewish) grandma would say about her hair, which was more brown than black but her eyes were bad. Lay off. You know how Jewish women love that black bob haircut. My grandma would always ask for it but somehow left the salon with a mouth full of gossip and brown hair. I do not remember her choice in coffee but her husband, like my mom's husband, my daddy, was a pasty white, Jewish dude.

Back to the coffee. It's dark and less sweet than you would expect. These Nescafe drinks are nice because it's right at the limit where I can take coffee before it gets too much. I strongly dislike actual coffee but these drinks are great. It's darker and less sweet than the regular one that I drank.

Grandma, if you're reading this from beyond the grave, know that I am inside wearing a jacket. Mom, if you are reading this in between handing out milk and opening brat kid's Capri Suns, I'm talking about you behind your back. Deal with it.

Cathy, sometimes the things you do at dinner really upset me. No, I am being serious. You really embarrassed me in front of our friends. I don't know why you feel like you can just say those things in front of them. Do you feel like you are protected and that I'm not going to say anything? If you have something to say, just say it. I would much rather hear it from you in the privacy of our own home than have you express your issues in front of people.

Look, I don't know why I'm being so hard on you. It's almost February and I haven't seen the sun in months. It really sucks, Cathy. It's not your fault. What's that? You bought me something at the market before we went to dinner? That's sweet of you. What is it? Oh, lemonade. That's awesome, Cath. Thank you so much. I'm going to dive into this right now.

Oh, Cathy. My dear sweet Cathy. You are an absolute angel. This is perfect right now. Lemonade is a summertime drink and I now have a glimmer of hope of making it through another winter. It's tart and sweet but not too much of either. It doesn't have any aftertaste of anything and has all natural ingredients, too. You really thought this through. Good pick, Cathy. I'm sorry about what I said earlier. You know how this weather gets to me. Come over here and let me give you a big smooch. Here, let me whisper something in your ear. Come here......I know you've been cheating on me.

I occasionally, well...more than occasionally get behind in my drinks and start "taking from the front." Anyone who has ever restocked shelves knows that is a no-no. Yogurt is expiring, milk is curdling, children are crying because of the results of my actions. Jay came over and set me straight by spending ten minutes in my back room, pulling out all my old stock, organizing my current back stock, stealing a couple drinks for himself, and being a generally great dude as per usual.

Among the old stock was this drink, which I had no idea I had. A chocolate cola: can you imagine? It's two great inventions in one bottle, ready for my drinking pleasure. Forgotten like it never happened. Poor, dusty bottle. I took everything Jay said needed to be reviewed due to companies sending it to us or expiration date to work and here we are, finally, after all these cold nights alone, together at last. Two objects, looking deep into each other's eyes, wanting each other. Desire. I took off the bottle's top lustfully only to be delivered with what I can only describe in the current context as "me doing most of the work." You feel me, ladies and gentlemen? It's not a great cola in itself. It's not a great chocolate taste in itself. Together cancels each other out more so leaving me looking to find pleasure elsewhere. It smells like a bowl of Tootsie Pops but it only tastes slightly like chocolate. The cola is non-existent.

While I'm not having actual sex with a bottle of pop, if it were good enough, I might at least think about it. This is a regrettable one night stand who is nice outside of the bedroom. She smells good, is a great person to talk to, but you should have never taken it further than that.

I'll tell you something. I have never seen a mangosteen and if you ask me if it's a "real fruit," I couldn't tell you. Sure there is a convincing picture of it on the front of this can but it kind of looks like someone took an orange, colored it pink, and opened it from the top like an idiot. No one talks about it as "their favorite fruit" but I can at least see why it's called "mangosteen" because someone is terribly unoriginal and decided to integrate the word "mango" with a possibly made up fruit that tastes like a mango. Darwinian theory makes me wonder how this fruit exists. We have mangoes and they are pretty good but then this guy comes along and tastes like it but do we really need more of the same thing? One or the other friends and scientists and scientist friends. You make a drink like this which is possibly at it's core of what this tastes like as the ingredients are what you would hope and expect; water, mangosteen puree, and cane sugar. How much better could it get? Oh, I don't know. Use a real fruit? I'm skeptical of this guy and I have my eyes on it. Don't lie to me fruit.

What a day, right? I got a new phone that doesn't really work well, I have an old lady next door that doesn't want to call the insurance company about her house falling apart onto my fence and car, and I have juice. Great. Is it a great juice? Eh, it's good. It's kind of thick, if I may be so blunt. It's appley tangy and if I may be blunter, I like a little more fruit in my punch. This is a simple punch. The model, if you will. Grapes, apples, crappy pears, cherry. If I went to a party, I would dig in and leave a quarter of the fruit, i.e.: pears, in the bowl. It's good, though. Simple. Elegant. If you went to a black tie affair, this is the punch you would have. If you are wearing a black tie, you're too good for things like mangoes and/or pineapples. Please. Import fruit. This is a fancy affair. Look at the women wearing hats. This is fancy. If you're eating passion fruit, you get downstairs with the help. We're drinking punch up here.

What is there to be surprised about? You like green apples and you like jalapenos. Together how could it be bad? Sure, it's strange. You get green apple, which is sour and sweet, and you've got jalapeno, which is spicy hot. Where it gets strange is that the tastes are close but not totally accurate.

The green apple doesn't take like a green apple or even what candy green apple tastes like. It tastes like a green apple Airhead where it's delicious but almost a green apple flavored soft plastic. The jalapeno is not jalapeno at all as much as it is the burn from a ginger beer. It's spicy so in the sense that peppers are hot, this is hot, but you know what? Lemons and bananas are the same color but taste different. A red car and a red apple are the same color but taste different. It seems a bit misleading but I will accept the argument of "hot is hot" and I can throw down my gloves and accept a truce.

This is good. If you had a ginger beer but replaced the ginger with a green apple Jolly Rancher, you'd be on the right track. It's got a nice burn after a childish, green apple flavor. I bet kids would like this more than adults for that reason. A spicy pop is great for adults but the candiness of it knocks it down to the kid-zone. Regardless of age, if you see this try it because it's totally different than any pop you've ever tried. Sure I broke it down pretty simply so you know what to expect but still, you aren't going to see it coming.