Mike Literman - 1759 Reviews

The Fonz, and for that matter, his predecessor and inspiration, the Gorch, are the epitome of smooth. They were classy, rude, inspirational, rebellion, and kind all at the same time. Well, the Fonz moreso than the Gorch. That chain kind of keeps him out of everything "kind." They never overdid it but they did master the art of being a cool guy. No one has ever complained about something or someone being too smooth...until now.

This drink did not offend me by being decaf. I should start off with that. It's got a lot of ingredients that you wouldn't expect. Namely, chamomile, passionfruit flower, and lemon balm leaf, extracts. Unfortunately all of those flavors were masked with what I can only explain as something similar to the creamer you would put in your coffee to make it taste like what this drink tastes like. Nothing really shines through and it's all just kind of a mass of creamy coffee tasting liquid. It's fine, but it's fine at best.

I like a little bite to my coffee drink and if I may bring it back to the age old fight between the Fonz and the Gorch, this drink is the Fonz because it doesn't have any hard edges and is pretty smooth throughout. I have to say that I like my drinks a bit more like the Gorch with some pep and pizzazz. Yeah, I said pizzazz. The Gorch would hit me with his chain if he heard me say that, I'm sure.

We're having a real problem with the drinking water here, Admiral. I don't know if we're refilling the drums with clean water and I'm afraid that we're filling it with water from the sea. Why do I ask? Well look at this cup. Number one issue I see is that it's slightly brown. Number two issue is that there are tiny rocks in it. I thought we addressed this issue last season when those dudes got sick from drinking water from a dirty stream. Sorry, I didn't mean "dudes," sir, I meant "men." So we're here drinking this fishy water and I see that you've always got a can of something. We are all in this together with everything and I don't think that drinking water should be an exception.

What is in that can that we can't have that you can have? Admiral iced tea? With lemon?! You're smuggling in a constant stream of cans of iced tea with the money we're making from shrimping? That money is supposed to go to pay the men at the end of the season and you're buying cans of this tea when we go to land. Pallets of what? You're buying pallets of this stuff? With all due respect, sir, we're eating mashed potatoes and drinking fish water for days and you've got canned iced tea. That hardly seems fair. And steaks?! Sir. I'm afraid that this may be my last season on the ship. Office Depot is hiring. My cousin is the assistant manager and he said he could get me in the ink refilling department.

I would actually like a can, if you are offering. You know what, sir? This isn't too bad. It's lightly lemon and black tea. It doesn't taste terribly natural like something mama would make but it's not too bad. I don't think that I will buy it when we get to land, but it's light years better than the salty seawater we're drinking.

Admiral, we have been together for almost a decade and I respect you, but as I said, Office Depot is offering me a position in the fairly stagnant position of ink filler and I will probably be taking it at the end of this shrimp season. Thank you for the last ten years of your time and it has been an honor to work next to you. What's the difference between "letter" and "A4" paper? I'm going to have to study up.

My body is now filled with premium giant hornet DNA. I can fly through the air scaring people but really not doing any harm. I can hang out with other hornets and make nests in people's decks and only emerge from my slumber when people are having a backyard get together. I am now a hornet all thanks to an energy drink. Just one sip of this energy drink makes me cringe a little due to the super-sweetness but after a few more, I have become immune to the tartness and the sweetness and can now enjoy the strange, energy drink taste of it. I am energized enough to go build a giant hive in someone's garage when they aren't looking so when they get the skis out of it come winter, they will find a nice surprise. I am energized enough to watch Bee Movie and wonder what it would be like if they made a Hornet Movie and if it would really be any different and who would play me in it. I have the energy to do anything that a hornet would do and when I "come down" I will be a human again and will probably be quite lethargic and will stop being productive and probably just play video games. It makes you think...

Lemonade, plain old lemonade, is pretty quickly going the way of vanilla ice cream. "What am I talking about?" you say? Well it's just kind of old news. There are better things out there. Vanilla and lemonade are becoming so...basic. You just have to do so much to make them interesting. I guess that adding blueberry isn't that much but you feel me, right dogg?

This lemonade, albeit not really natural, isn't bad. It's blue, which I don't like because I hate things that turn my mouth blue. This doesn't do that, so I'm not counting it against it, but that's why I'm always fearful of blue drinks and candy. It doesn't have a bite like a true lemonade would but the lemon and blueberry flavor is pretty good. It's kind of in the middle of something like a blueberry lemonade popsicle and the juice that you would expect. It doesn't taste diet and doesn't taste bad. That is two wins.

Do peaches need to shave? No other fruit is hairy. That's where my head goes. I've never been to counseling or to see a therapist and honestly, I think I wouldn't care if I had to go. I'd like to be analyzed. Where do these stories come from that we make up? I'm lumping Jay in this with me because we're on the same page with a lot of things. Peach honey tea that normal people would describe as something like, “it tastes good, peachy, and is lacking a bit of the aforementioned honey taste but still tastes like a decent peach tea.” I go the complete opposite direction and decide to talk about how peaches are the hippies, or me, of the fruit world. Anyone care to diagnose me? Where does that hair go when they make tea? If it's 100% natural you would think that little hairs would get in the drink and make it a little strange. I know they're little but there would be so many in there that it would account for something to eventually get stuck in your teeth. Do they run peach teas through the world's smallest holed filter to eliminate those bad boys? After that do they do something with that hair like make shirts or use them for some strange medicinal purpose? "I only use natural remedies and peach fuzz is great for my arthritis."

Yeah. I'm fine. This tea tastes like you think it would and loses in the non-confrontational battle between the Strawberry Dragonfruit. That's a legitimate/bad review right there.

This juice makes me want to stay in a hotel. Why? Two words: Continental Breakfast. Number one, the Lincoln Continental was a large boat of a car. The Continental Breakfast can range from cruddy doughnuts and a carton of orange juice to a smorgasbord of early morning delicacies including but not limited to:

• Pastries


• Bagels


• Breakfast Sandwiches


• Cereal

Another thing they have is juice. Sometimes they really raise the bar and have multiple types of juice like orange, pineapple, cranberry, and grape. This drink tastes like you are on a business trip to finally close the Johnson deal and you woke up, thirsty as ever. You go downstairs and they've got a sweet setup but they're running late on juice so you've got to mix. You pull a fifty-fifty with some pineapple and orange knowing it will be good and it is. You can taste the two mingling as if they're shaking hands closing deals with your taste buds. If they can do it, you can, too.

You go to your meeting, promptly impress the client, land the Johnson deal, get a big bonus and the admiration of your co-workers, and go buy yourself a nice new suit because you earned it all thanks to two juices that came together to satisfy your palate.

Ahh the Swiss and their mountains. They love those darn things. They also love things like Swatch watches, the 80's, skiing competitions, pop music, fluorescent colors, and precision. I would love to meet the person who made this tea because I can almost guarantee that they had a gnarly, white beard. He is a man of the forest. One man scours the trees and bushes for the best ingredients to make this tea. It's all over the place, too, much like the decor in that man's cabin in the woods. Oh, I'm sorry. Did you think that it was going to be a standard issue log cabin? No. He was a mechanical engineer in his early life so everything has switches, dials, chutes, and tubes. If you talk to him, he will outright tell you that a bank closed down and he bought all the vacuum tubes for his house.

Anyhow, he puts these ingredients together into was is a cool, sweet iced tea. It tastes minty because there is peppermint in it but it also has an earthy taste, like woodsy. The same thing that is "bark-like" about, say, a spruce beer, is what gets me about this. This is a carefully made drink that deserves to be sipped and analyzed.

That lovely Swede makes a wonderful tea that, although isn't cheap, deserves to be tries a couple times because it's that good and that different.

I'm at my parent's house. My girlfriend went to Baltimore, or "Stab City" as Jay likes to call it, for fun and it's just Max and I. We're chilling like brothers. Speaking of brothers, my brother Brian and I were crushing it in Army of Two: The 40th Day and Max decided he didn't want us to play anymore so he shut off the Xbox. Could have done without that but hey, we're going to see monkeys later so I guess what better time than then to shut her down?

I slept on the couch and to help wake up, I drank this. I don't know why. Society tells me that coffee wakes me up but it doesn't. You know what wakes me up? Being up for like fifteen minutes. Irregardless (not a word) I drank it and it was good. Not as good as the mocha but good. Think of a gas station cappuccino that was too hot when you got it so when you got home you put it in the fridge to cool down but then an episode of Monk came on that you hadn't seen before and you forgot about it until it was downright cold. Not as "fresh brewed" as the mocha and obviously not with any chocolate loveliness paired with it.

Now we're going to see monkeys with my mom. It should be fun but what might be more fun is going to Big Lots after. The Thirsty Dudes are pathetic. Seriously.

I was drawn in by the word "zest." Lured in like a kid to candy in the back of a windowless van. Then, much like the kid, I didn't enjoy what happened afterwards. I think you know what happened after the kid got in the van, right? It had his smelly uncle Carl and his quasi-racist grandmother Gertrude in it and they complained about society and "the Blacks" and took him to their house where they watched Jeopardy on a television with three foot tall rabbit ears with tinfoil on the ends that seemed to do nothing since the picture was still terrible. Myself was just brought into a tasteland of zesty floor cleaner and diet sweetener.

The boy and I were in the same place. That place was a position that we didn't want to be in. If we were together, and let it be known, I have met Carl and that experience is filled with mustard stained, sleeveless Megadeth shirts, and cigarette smoke. His grandma is alright in passing but talk to her long enough and you'll start to feel the "those people" phrase being spat out at you so leisurely that it's doubly offensive.

The little boy wouldn't have been better off with this drink. Sure it would have lasted longer but at least he could go to his room filled with broken sixty's toys with no heads and close the door and be done with it. This drink just keeps punishing me until I finished it. It never got better and just was lemon, lime, and a zesty diet.

Little buddy, it's rough out there. Stick it out. Soon you'll be out of there and your mom can wash the filth, stank, and disappointment from your clothes.

Some day, and I'm not proud of this, I look back at the last couple days and think to myself, "Holy crap, you idiot. You haven't had fruit in like three days." I'm downright ashamed of myself at times like this. The reflective times. I don't mean to, it's just that I hate bananas and don't like oranges and that's what my girlfriend keeps in the house. Now I know you're saying, "Mike, you can get fruit anywhere. Just buy it." and to that, I will respond with, "I know. Sometimes I just don't." which leads me to realizations like this where I don't eat as much fruit as even myself would like.

Remember when I was on that cruise and all I ate was fruit? What a happy life that was. Now, in my regular life, I eat hamburgers and tacos and ice cream. What a garbage diet. Now I came across this little guy and may be able to turn that all around. Cherries: like 'em. Raspberries: like 'em. Strawberries: Like 'em. Another secret gem to those who buy this is that there are blackberries. Another secret, which should be obvious, is that this is pretty good. You can taste all the fruits, which is great. There isn't any "grit" in there but it's still thicker than a juice, which is to be expected with anything that dares call itself a "smoothie." If you call yourself anything you'd better live up to it. Otherwise you're no better than ol' fruitless Mike.

My brother brought it from Germany for me and I've been sitting on it for a long time. That won't lead me to what I'm about to say. This is old stock. He brought it to me when it was not and I was shelving it for when I felt like it. I'm an adult and I drink what I want when I want it. It doesn't taste spoiled. Don't worry.

It does taste like a mix between non-alcoholic champagne and alcoholic champagne. The fruit, whatever an elderberry tastes like, cuts through some of that malty taste. Since malt is an ingredient, why shouldn't it be showcased? I'm not arguing with that and in Germany, they are passionate about their brews. This is (apparently) from a brewmaster so obviously he wants to showcase his stuff a little bit. This one just so happens to be for the kids.

It's fruity and would be the perfect thing if you're in Germany and you can't find a bottle of kid champagne to celebrate something like the purchase of a new Porsche or new Adidas shoes or a new Warwick bass, you've got this to fall back on. You and Dubstep Viking can drink a bottle and dance a little bit in the streets to celebrate.

Dear King,
I understand the role of a king and I wonder what you are the king of. No one is the king of burgers. That is just a nickname. You have been "the king" for a while but I am wondering what your jurisdiction is. You spend a lot of time modeling for toys and being creepy around town but I often wonder what you do. I am not second-guessing your king-hood, but I just would kind of like your resume.

While we are talking about the things you've done, you've done a good job with your Whopper line. I had an "Angry Whopper" and it was spicy and still retained that quintessential Whopper attitude. I also had the Carolina Whopper and it was good but it was very saucy. Very saucy, like some sort of old woman freshly divorced and ready to paint the town red. Very saucy.

While you're kinging it up, you should know that although I appreciate you looking out for the kids, your servants are kind of messing things up. Kids nowadays are a bit chubby and you made the sweeping declaration of making things healthier. For that, I appreciate it. You are a wonderful, healthy king, but your servants have served my young son french fries instead of apples. I didn't know until I was home and can't give him a serving, even if it is small, to him. He's too young.

Now on to what you've been waiting for: compliments. Your Frappe line is wonderful. It's pretty great and it was actually easy to look at. It looked like one from an advertisement. The consistency was almost like a looser milkshake and it was perfect. It was very mocha and chocolate and just a little bit of coffee. I don't have any improvements for it. A little whipped cream on top and some chocolate sauce as a lovely decor.

The king, although I don't know your role in this world aside from your spokespersoning for a burger franchise, you're alright in my book. Keep creating Whoppers and keep coming up with new menu items and make sure to give my little buddy apples from here on out. He likes fries too much to eat them.

Hey buddy. You look down in the dumps. I've got something that might help out. Oh me? I'm just a helpful homeless man but a very wise homeless man. In my hay day, I used to run a holistic healing center. Ever since that Curves ran me out of business, I've been on the streets making things the old world, Eastern type of way. I've got something and before you scoff at the fact that it's in a used McDonald's cup, consider the source, alright? I don't have the resources to a proper bottling plant. It smells a little funny, I know, but it'll get you up in your seat feeling like a young pup again.

What do you mean it tastes like perfume and dirt? Although I can't say that I'm offended because I didn't make it, that's a rough comparison. I actually stole this from an Asian market down the street. Dirt, huh? Well now that you mention it, it does taste a little bit like plant runoff water. Being homeless, water is water. Plants filter the water and get rid of toxins but they haven't exactly figured out how to stop giving me so much dirt. I can deal with it. It's iron, you know what I mean?

Well buddy? I hope I helped and thank you for taking the time to talk to a man who is optimistically down on his luck. Oh, two dollars. Thank you very much sir. I greatly appreciate your gratitude. Tell your friends.

This happens all too much. I go somewhere, read the ingredients, get stoked, drink it, and feel instant sorrow. This is a good tea, but don't lie to me. What is the lie? One word that is a secret key to my heart: capsicum. When I read that work, my eyes light up like when you say "boney" or "walk" to a dog and their ears shoot up like tiny, furry radars. Why are they liars? There is no burn in this tea at all. Once again, that's fine, but why add the ingredient if you aren't going to use it to its full potential. Burn my mouth off or at least sting me a little bit.

This tea tastes like a bitter jasmine tea. It's very fragrant and nicely bitter. I like it and would drink it again and again. Also, I would get to drink the whole thing because no one wants to drink anything titled "decomposition tea."

I used to be in a band. I've mentioned it before and I'll mention it again. I don't give a rip. One day, we as a band dug out my drummer Josh Myers' (see where I'm going here?) basement. "Dug out?" you say? Yes. He lived in an old house in the outskirts of the suburbs and had a section of the basement that had a dirt floor. He dad needed some help so we dug down about a foot or two in about a 150 to 200 square foot space. That's a lot of dirt.

We dug and dug and filled up wheelbarrows and dumped it in an unused well outside. I don't remember how we got it up the stairs, or if there were stairs, or if we made a ramp but all I know is that I took my shirt off because it didn't matter where else dirt got because we were covered. All of us. We did a great job and I can't imagine the amount of money that we saved Josh's daddy. We all felt accomplished and were thanked by a fantastic pizza; the food of movers and grunt workers.

Back then there was no Thirsty Dudes so back then we were all idiots drinking no-name cola but now...now I know better. If I could do it again, I would bring a cold six-pack of this stuff. Nothing is manlier than root beer and four dudes digging dirt like some sort of criminal or misbehaving dog or human backhoe deserves great stuff. This root beer is strong and contains a special ingredient that changes the entire way that this drink tastes. Cinnamon. I've wanted a nice root beer with cinnamon for a while. I don't know why, but I have and this drink doesn't let me down.

Now I can't go back in time to quench the thirst of us, but I can meet up with some of the guys and give them a bottle and have them mentally go back and reminisce about "the old days" and how much better it would have been with this root beer. Good time, good tunes, and good root beer: the equation for a good time.

During World War II, while important battles were going on all over the place, the US Government sent a few spies into Italy to steal something. That something was the recipe for Italian Ice, that fantastic summer treat. It took a couple weeks of recon and infiltration, trust, and lies but they got it. They flew home with the recipe in a metal briefcase handcuffed to the leader.

When they got home it took a week or so to get it right but they got it. This was a big score for the troops because they not only got a sweet treat when the weather was ravaging them, but if they could not freeze it long enough, they would have lemonade. The mix made a good lemonade and they started phasing out the lemon ice. It tasted good, not diet regardless of artificial sweeteners, and reminded the troops of a delicious infiltration so many years ago.

"Go green!" everyone says. "It's good for the environment!" they add, rather snobbish. Teas' Tea just couldn't hear it anymore. All day, green, green, green. "Enough!" the CEO said. "We're going to go so green you're going to puke!" When that dude gets mad, he will do whatever it takes to stop. He went into the Teas' Tea workshop alone for an entire weekend. He shut off his phone and told no one to come down until he said it was alright.

Saturday came and went. Sunday came and went. Monday came and went and people were getting worried. No one dared knock on the door for fear of near execution. Tuesday he emerged from the workshop with bottles in his arm exclaiming, "I've done it!" to an empty office. Everyone had gone out for tacos. He took his bottles and put them on everyone's desk so when they returned they had something to drink. They all came back and the intern who was rather thoughtful brought a taco back just in case he was done working. The intern gave him the burrito and the CEO gave him the lowdown on what he was working on.

What he manufactured for almost four days was a green apple and green tea drink that embodied all that was green and delicious. Initially it tastes like a green apple then it kicks in to green tea gear, whatever that gear is. It's not overly sweet and tastes like it gets all its sweetness from the apple even though both cane sugar and Stevia sweeten it. The intern loved it and everyone who tried it came in one by one to agree that it was all the same.

The CEO pushed that product to the people ASAP and people agree; Teas' Tea went green and did it swimmingly.

I wish I worked out. I know it sounds stupid because all I have to do to make that happen is physically work out but I can't seem to find the drive. Maybe in the winter I'll do some spinning in my basement. I've done it before and it's low impact and I'm pretty good at it. Here's my goal:

I want to enter my house in early December not to be seen until mid-March. In those four months I want to just take really good care of myself. I will spin for like two hours every day. Just rack up miles in the privacy of my basement listening to nothing but really fast metal and electronic, you know, to get me pumped. After a workout, I'll properly carb up with these Arbonne protein shakes. They are super thick and smooth. Lingeringly thick, which is fine, because they don't have that "too much protein" taste like someone made chocolate milk and put too much powder in it and you have to suffer the consequences. The flavor is a good chocolate taste like an almond milk type taste. With that I'll have the power to destroy a couple more miles on the bike because I just pass out until the morning. Come March I will emerge looking like I was carved from marble and the ladies they will swoon but have no idea that I am way to apathetic to care about their seemingly endless advances. Other guys will envy me but all I care about is fitness and sinking my teeth into the nearest burrito. Yeah, burritos.

I know that after a while this would get old, but I wish everything had the ability to mix in your own flavors like this. I guess it would be hard to do things that involved syrup and stuff so let's say all drinks that can be separated by water and drink mix should do this. What's more fun that making your own drink by twisting a cap? Well...a lot but you get me, right? It's the little things in life.

This drink, price aside, renders grape Kool-Aid obsolete. It tastes like a wonderfully blended, perfectly mixed grape Kool-Aid with a little Stevia taste but the flavor is the same. I assume that you could ask any near-toothless eight year old boy if this is Kool-Aid and he would say that it was. What a dumb kid. You know what it is but he doesn't. What a dumb little boy. He doesn't know anything about the disaster area that is the inevitable life ahead of him. If he only knew what the next ten years of homework and school and girls and Top 40 radio held for him. You can't tell him all that in one go, though, because that would destroy him. It would turn him into the cynical jerk that you have become from your years of desensitization and chronic disappointment.

This tastes like grape Kool-Aid but it's atrocious for you. You and eight year old kids agree so it has to be true.

I don't know what's happened. I used to hate seltzer water. My mom would drink it all of the day and I would take the occasional sip and just make a face. It was just so bitter and terrible. I don't know if things have changed in the wide world of seltzer or what but all of a sudden, I get these hankerings, brother. I see it on the shelf and I think, "Yeah, dude, black cherry seltzer sounds like something I would like." and then I buy it and think, "I used to hate this stuff."

So here we are. Black cherry seltzer. I've got to say, it's pretty good. Zero calorie, sparkling, and pretty flavorful. It tastes like a diet black cherry drink but with no bad ingredients because there are no actual ingredients. Water and natural flavor. That's it. That's all. If you like flavor but don't like sugar of any kind, aren't or are on a diet, are male or female, and like black cherry, this is the drink for you. Basically, that complex conditional could be rewritten as "If you like black cherry, you will like this." I write conditionals all day every day so it was easy to write and then optimize. It's my life. It's what I do.