Mike Literman - 1759 Reviews

Johnny was a masochist. He would go to S&M clubs many nights and would enjoy being hit by whips. It might not make sense to you, but you're not Johnny. He would come home battered and bruised three to four days a week. He would always wear collared, long sleeved shirts so no one was the wiser. He worked as an accountant in the big city and didn't want others to know what he did in his personal time.

On his way home from Whipped Into Shape, one of his frequent clubs, he was a bit parched and headed into a small corner store to get something to drink. He was going through a bit of a passionfruit kick so when he saw Kahe's passionfruit drink, he had to get it.

He went home, checked out his new gnarly bruises and welts, and then cracked open his new drink and had at it. It was like a free admittance to another S&M club because this drink was bad, but he kept going back for more. It was tart, didn't taste like passion fruit, and was poorly, artificially sweetened. Every time he took another sip, he would make a strange face of disgust, but for reasons beyond his knowledge, he kept drinking it.

Although he prefers the clubs, he now knows that anytime he can't make it, he can pick up a bottle of that sparkling fruit juice and have twelve ounces of sadomasochism.

Everything about this drink makes me want to listen to a Flock Of Seagulls record. The color, the fonts, the taste, everything. I just want to listen to the 1982 self-titled record, watch one episode of Miami Vice, and watch "Summer School" with Mark Harmon and Kirstie Alley. I want to channel Chainsaw and get a pair of Cool Dude sunglasses, sit on the beach, and drink this.

It tastes like a tropical blue Freez-e-pop. There isn't that much to say. I don't really get blueberry or raspberry. It's hardly juice and it's mostly sugar, water, and flavoring. I'm not letting them get away with calling it "juice". I will let them get away with having a gnarly bottle that's almost hard to hold on to due to cuts, grooves, and angles. Who cares, though? If you drop it, that's on you, Jack. This is not bad. Get a bottle and share it with friends because no one should take in this much sugar in one sitting. Then, go watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre and watch syndicated episodes of Becker to see what happened to the pregnant girl from Summer School.

You've had it before, you have forgotten about it, and for that, you should kick yourself because Vanilla Coke is as good as it ever was. The same as it ever was. The same as it ever was. This can, unlike cans that Americans buy, is from Thailand. Derek's daddy got it for us. Sure, on one side it says "Coca-Cola" in English, and "vanilla" in a sweet, 80's font, but everyone knows what that looks like. The other side is the money shot.

Flavor? I have always loved vanilla coke. I will admit that I haven't bought it in a while, but that's because I find it hard to find in a single can or bottle. I don't need a twelve pack of anything so I just skip right on by that purchase without taking a second glance. I don't know what this is sweetened with, whether it's real sugar or corn syrup, but this can't didn't really stand a chance once I took a drink.

Coke, you are great in many languages. For that, America, Taiwan, and other countries that decided to remain anonymous when I took the poll thank you for your years of dedicated service.

Joe was eight. He's nine now, but he was eight when this story took place. Joey had a jerk other brother who always played jokes on him. Joe and his bother Alan went to a little corner store and Joe saw a new bottle of Arizona half and half. It wasn't just any half and half, it was raspberry half and half. When Joe reached in, Alan yelled from across the store and said, "You can't have that. You're not old enough." Joe, who was obviously old enough to drink lemonade and tea, didn't believe him, but after way too much effort on Alan's part, he actually convinced Joe that he needed to be ten to buy that bottle. Alan said that he knew a kid that would make him a fake ID.

They went to Alan's friend Darren's house and they went in the basement. In the basement, Darren had a printer, and a digital camera. He drew a mustache on Joe with magic marker to make him look ten, took the picture, printed it on a photocopy of Darren's mom's old license, covered it in scotch tape, and gave it to Joe. Joe paid Darren the fee, one bag of Tropical Skittles, and they went back to the store.

Joe went up to the counter with his half and half, showed the woman behind the counter the ID, and gave her a dollar. She laughed, handed him a penny, and Joe ran outside, happy to try a new flavor. With a fake mustache, fake ID, one penny, and new drink, Joe was on top of the world. He took his first sip and sighed because he got away with it. It tastes like processed, but not bad, diet lemonade and raspberry iced tea. No one let him know that he didn't need that ID until he was twelve, but by then it didn't matter because he was old enough and didn't need the ID anymore.

Twenty-one inches, ladies and gentlemen. Twenty-one inches. What is twenty-one inches, you ask? The spaghetti that I bought today. Some of the strands I later discovered were bent in half so the ones that were 100% intact were actually forty-two inches long. You see why I had to buy it, right? Every day people eat boring spaghetti that is only a foot long, and that's for the birds now what I've had this stuff.

To accompany my giant, novelty spaghetti, I had to have a solid drink. You know how some wine compliments cheese and visa-versa? Apparently I think that ginger ale compliments spaghetti because that's what I picked out.

I was let down. The spaghetti was alright. It took forever to cook and although it wasn't bad, it was just long spaghetti. One thing I didn't like after the fact is that it was hollow which made it hard to slurp. I don't typically slurp spaghetti, but the fact that I was going to slurp on strand of spaghetti for up to forty-two inches was something I quickly put and then removed from my bucket list. The ginger ale was dreadfully mediocre. It didn't have any bite and if anything was a bit dry. One did not compliment the other and I made a poor pairing mistake.

If you see that spaghetti anywhere, buy it because it is fun. If you see this pop anywhere, leave it be.

One of my two bosses drinks at least one of these a day. It didn't occur to me that we hadn't reviewed one yet so I borrowed some which if he asks for it back; it will be in a disgustingly different form.

Starbucks has some good "on the shelf" stuff. This is good. You know why it's good? Because it doesn't taste anything like an energy drink. Strange how that works, eh? I love this drink because of it's false advertising. I would expect this to taste like coffee spilled into some brat kids plastic pumpkin head of nothing but plain chocolate and Pixie Stix. Scene:

"Trick or Treat!" says the little girl. "It's November, kid. Get out of here," your grandpa says. "I know, but I want candy and my mom said that I can't have any and I know that when I go to other people's houses and ask with a ghost costume on, they give me candy. See? Look. I've got some chocolate and someone had Pixie Stix left over. They said they were to old for Pixie Stix and gave me a handful of them." "Oh yeah?" said grandpappy. "Well here's what I think of your out of the box thinking." he said as he pours an entire carafe of old coffee into the boys plastic jack-o-lantern, but before the boys leaves, the old man dips his cup into the pail now filled with floating candy bars, Pixie Stix wrappers, old coffee, and the little boys tears, and takes it to his lips. He enjoys it, because he's a terrible old man.

End scene.

Thing is, it doesn't taste like that. It's a smooth coffee drink. If I didn't know better, I would just say that it's a mocha Frappuccino. You even get a periodic taste of real coffee, which is a nice touch, I must say. Who knows how much actual caffeine is in there, between the coffee and whatever other energy supplements they have in there.

I hope that story that was completely fabricated never comes true. I would hate to see a sad ghost kid walking down the street with damp, coffee stained candy.

Chunks and bits. Chunks and bits. That's what on the bottom of this bottle of lemonade. You know what else is in there? Vegetable oil. Why? I don't know. I'm not the mix-master of this drink. It's in there nonetheless and you have to drink it if you want to drink this drink. It's also carbonated, but not much, and so little so that you don't know the real point of it being carbonated in the first place. If you're going to do something, go the whole nine and don't go half way, or in this case, one-tenth the way to actual, recognizable carbonation.

The bits are a nice touch. Man up and drink something with some substance. Man up? Who am I, your dad? "Man up, son, and get a job." Forget I said that. There is something I'm not crazy about in there, though. It's acidic and a bit sour but...something. What is it? I don't know. There might be an undesirable amount of bitterness.

If you like lemonade and see this, get it. It's fun, but when you buy something with bits and chunks and bits in it, you want them to really be there. Scare your friends. Scare your wife. Scare your kids. Do it with lemonade.

You don't need to celebrate only good things. You can celebrate when bad things stop, or apologies. I guess those are good things, but it's not like, "Sally got a raise! Let's celebrate." I'm talking about things like "The dog stopped peeing on the carpet. Cause to celebrate." or, in my case, yesterday was a rough one. My boss yelled at me. Yeah, I was to blame, but it was the client that was making unrealistic demands and calling him every ten minutes saying, "Why doesn't this work? Why doesn't that work?" Literally, every ten minutes for five hours. If it wasn't such a high-power client, we would tell them what's what, but because of that, I felt the brunt of his rage.

I tried to make it up to him, which I think was successful, by buying him a doughnut and letting him celebrate with me about it not being yesterday. After five minutes of trying to get the G.D. cork off, we got it and it was bottoms up.

Taste? Fruity, but it didn't have a certain sharpness that I like in my non-alcoholic champagne. I know, I know. I'm hardly a connoisseur, but I've had my share of celebratory celebrations and I've had my share of faux champagne. It's got great flavor, as I mentioned, and is just right for two people to celebrate something like a dental cleaning, B on a science test, or good meal.

On a pirate ship, everyone knows that you do two things; sing shanty songs and drink iced tea. There are other things that you do, like put knives in the sails and slide down. Pirates call that "the elevator" and it's what kept canvasmen in business those days. Without pirates, we wouldn't have such a large canvas market now. Thanks, pirates. With all the tomfoolery, they were very prone to things like missing hands, legs, and eyes, hence the hooks, pegs, and patches. They didn't have the best of ingredients those days, you know, because they were on a boat, so they had fruit, corn, and water. Yes, they distilled the water. They're pirates, not savages.

Jay found this official pirate iced tea buried in the sand in a bunker at a local golf course. Hey, sand is sand. Pirates can play golf. Poorly, but they can play. They work on their drives off the side of the boats and have for centuries. I dusted it off, opened it up, took a sip, and remember why I hated the "Pirated of the Caribbean" series. This has a strange throat bite thing that you get with low quality, corn syrup drinks. The more you drink it, the more you can drink through it, and the flavor isn't bad. It's like a not-as-great Sweet Leaf raspberry.

Pirated are alright. Modern pirates give historical pirates a bad name. More singing, less holding up rich people on boats, modern pirates.

Strawberries are good but for some reason I don't like eating the fruit. Bananas are bad and I don't eat them and do whatever I can to not ingest them. This is a cross between two fighting flavors that I don't ingest in solid form.

Now I've got this drink that has put good versus bad in one brightly colored can. I knew it had both things in it and I was fully prepared to ingest both at the same time. Down the hatch...and...delicious. I can't give you a percentage, ratio, bar graph, pie chart, or whatever other type of graph that you might want, but it was good. Everything disguised each other so it was like a different fruit all together. Stranana. It was nicely thick, like one would want and desire. It was very fruity and I would get it again.

I have a love/hate relationship with good common beverages. I hate it because it makes people complacent with what they can get at everyday grocery stores. They won't look elsewhere for new, high quality beverages. It's a jerk move on my part, hence the love/hate part of this review. I love that this drink is out, and that it's good, and that it isn't horrid for you, and that the flavors are actually good. Back to hate. I don't like that this drink is so good that people will potentially run "the small guy" out of business. This drink has the subtle bitterness of green tea mixed with really good lemon and lime flavors. It's exactly what you want it to taste like. Also, the Reb A in there is indistinguishable so haters cannot complain about that. It's used for what it's supposed to be for, cutting calories while simultaneously sweetening the drink.

Lipton, you've done a spectacular job on this. Everything is just as it should be, like when you go to a fancy dinner and all the silverware is in the right place and you actually can't complain about anything. You love to complain about stuff and when you can't, you feel back trying to find things to complain about because for a limited time, everything is alright.

Anything fermented, for me, gets me a little standoffish. I have to read labels a lot to see if there alcohol in things because I won't touch it if it does. Non-alcoholic mouthwash, white wine vinegar, and vodka sauces are all off limits. We don't review types of kombucha because it's fermented to the point of containing alcohol.

I am not "afraid" of alcohol, I just don't need it in my life and if I have to do a little reading to ensure that I'm not getting any, I'll do it. You read for things like calories and fat, why can't I read for ingredients? You're right, I can. Thank you for your permission.

This stated that it contained no alcohol and I know that Jay wouldn't buy me something with alcohol in it, much like I wouldn't buy him something with beef tallow or gelatin, regardless of how much I try and convince him that I don't think that it's made from hooves anymore. We're more civilized than that...cutting of hooves and using them for jellybeans. It's just barbaric. There's synthetic everything else, why not this. Whatever. Different discussion.

CasCal makes this drink and it is dry and it is for adults. It tastes fermented and although I don't know who is into this thing, but it's there and it's nicely bottled which means that it's in demand. I was really excited when Jay gave this to me because I thought it was going to be some sort of carbonated, licorice infused apple juice. Instead, it tastes like old apple cider. I don't get any anise. Is it my untrained tongue? Possibly, but I know what anise tastes like and I didn't get any out of this. As the temperature increased to room temperature, I liked it more. It wasn't so...cold beer.

I wouldn't write CasCal off entirely as I'm sure they have other flavors that sound good and probably taste totally different. This one was simply not for me.

The name of this company, "Best Health's" reminds me of the early days where people would sell everything as "medicine". Buy this gasoline. It's sure to keep you more alert than a jumpin' jackrabbit. This here opium will keep you warm at night and make sure the bed bugs don't bite.

This may have been sold as a medicine disguiser, as I think pop originally was, but this is just smuggling gallons of vanilla. It's a dark root beer, that's for truth. It's good. There isn't any bite and it's fairly smooth, but it's not so common so have so much vanilla in a root beer.

Alright, one more...dentists are for fools, brush with this metal bristle brush and be sure to scrape those foul smelling odors away.

I had a flavor of Steaz awhile back and I've been turned off by it since I had one kind that wasn't good. It was a bad first impression and for that, I have taken a Steaz-free vacation. I don't recall what flavor it was, but I want to say that it had something to do with Acai.

This is completely different and actually good on top of the fact that there are no calories. It's like a crazy, alternate universe has emerged from the can. What an ignorant statement if I were actually serious. Like nothing that's good for you is good. Have you ever had corn? How about apples? Tacos grow on trees and guacamole doesn't, that's why guac is always extra.

It's been quite some time since I've had a solid and not something in liquid form, but for what I remember, the flavor is pretty good and honest. You get a sweet erythritol taste, but I've grown to like it so this entire can wasn't even shared by me.

Now all I can think of is a taco tree. I have a feeling that the window of opportunity between ripe and not ripe is very small.

Do you think that Southerners get angry when they see people selling sweet tea in the North? Do people from Philly hate hearing about companies coming out with "cheese steak" stuff like pizzas and Hot Pockets? I know that when I'm not in Buffalo, I won't touch "Buffalo Wings" because I know they're going to suck big time. I lived about five hour north of Buffalo and the "Buffalo" wings were some of the worst wings I've ever had; well that and all of Buffalo Wild Wing's consistently.

Back to my original point. Do Southern people get upset when they see "sweet tea" drinks that their mama didn't make and think to themselves, "These idiots don't know the half of what sweet tea is." I always find it a bit audacious when companies do that because I've had authentic Southern sweet tea and I know that 90% of the "sweet tea" that's out there is just improperly sweetened junk tea.

Although this Cintron sweet tea isn't really "sweet tea" per se, it's not a bad beverage. There's no sting and it's sweet, but not sweet tea sweet, so if you just want a sweetened tea, you've almost got it. If they would have used cane sugar and not corn syrup, they would have been closer, but aside from Xing, companies who make tallboys don't really do it for quality. I know Cintron does make a quality line of tea in glass bottles so I'm letting them slide with this entry-level stuff. It's for the layman. I get it. You cover all gamuts.

Might want to just change the title to something like "sweetened tea" and release that or else you're going to get treated like Chevy Chase did in Fletch Lives where he was in the South. Poorly.

If all coffee drinks tastes like this, I would be thrilled. I had a busy day. I did my girlfriend's brakes, took the dogs for a long walk in the park, went grocery shopping, and when I got home, I knew what I had to do.

Now, when you get home from a day like that, everything's got to be right. In order to set the mood, I put on Pet Shop Boys Yes, which finally arrived from the UK. It's good. Not over the top at all. I am a huge Pet Shop Boys fan so I was excited when I liked everything I heard from a newer album. I mean, come on, they can't all be Please, am I right? That album is in my top five pop albums of all time list.

So with Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe doing what they do best, serenading me, I decided it was time to get my coffee drink on. I have liked iced mocha drinks in the past, and this was no different. It has a lot more chocolate than previous mocha drinks had, and that's a good thing. I liked it a lot, to the point where I would buy this again. You should buy this more than once because you don't have a cache of three shelves of drinks to go through, so for me to say I would buy it again has weight.

Neil and Chris, don't ever break up. I don't see any album nowadays pushing you out of that top five spot. I also don't see anyone pushing Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt's Temperamental out of there, either. Serious gems people.

Some pop is strange. You have certain expectations for the way that it tastes. Then, when you actually take a sip, it doesn't abide by your crazy made-up rules. Suddenly, rudely, when you burp, those expectations are met. To drink a bottle of pop that you need to burp to get what you want out of it seems fun, but the ratio of drinking to burping is very far off. Unless you're completely disgusting or completely alone, you aren't going to get your money's worth of burps out of pop.

This drink is right there. To drink, it's sweet and lightly watermelon'd. Then you burp and BAM! Candied watermelon or watermelon candy. Whichever you choose. I have not been very impressed by any watermelon pop or any of Carousel's drinks. I won't stop drinking them but there hasn't been one that I would go back to or even recommend. If you like them, speak up, but there are plenty of other companies that just moderately blow my socks off that I don't feel bad leaving this by the wayside.

A lot going on. But there always is, isn't there -- a lot going on?

A classic line from the classic...er movie "Made" with Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau. That line defines this drink to a T. Tee? Tea? Who cares, am I right?

In one corner of the royal rumble, you've got the Monster name. With that, you expect that "trillion Smarties" taste. You don't get it in this drink, but you expect it.

In another corner, you've got a coffee taste. It's not too bad. It's definitely more than a basic, poor person coffee taste. It's compressed, like Monster has hired ex-baristas and are just having them compress coffee in an underground shack for this drink.

In the third corner of the world's strangest wrastlin' ring, the sweetness. It's regular first, and then it gets a little diet-y. There is sucralose in there, but it is tolerable. It's pretty masked by a lot of the other flavors that are going on, hitting each other in the heads with folding chairs from your aunt's dumb basement party. Why does she have parties and gatherings in the basement when she has a perfectly clean and functioning upstairs?

In the fourth and final corner, there is milk. Milk is kind of like the ref in this game. While the drama is going on with the other wrestlers, the ref literally smoothes everything out. He's a nice guy. He smoothes everything out in the ring and before that, he refs his kid's T-Ball game.

I didn't hate this as much as I thought that I would. That says a lot.

I've been drinking a lot of pop and my mouth has gotten tired of it. I needed something to break the monotony. It happens when you drink so much stuff. It all starts to blend together and you need a break. Since we don't take actual "breaks" here at Thirsty Dudes, our breaks are us drinking something different.

For the trillionth time, I can't believe that we haven't done this yet. Strawberry Kiwi Lifewater? Get out. It's been out forever and we're just now getting to it. This should give you the incentive to go out and try something new if we have just now gotten around to something that you can get anywhere.

This is probably a standby classic for you because it's so good. It's light, sweet, and has a great fruit flavor. Great. Did you hear me? I don't use that word a lot. Good, alright, OK, whatever. I don't use "great" a lot. I do and I don't care. I'll say it again. It isn't too sweet and has no bad aftertaste. It's not to bad in the calorie department which is good as I just Gregory House M.D.'d this entire bottle.

This new season of House is pretty good and all over the place, too, if you haven't gotten around to it. You're only three episodes deep. You could catch up on one rainy day. Hugh Laurie. You're a great man. Come do a guest review. Someone get Hugh Laurie to do a guest review.

It's been a rough day. A car hit you. Lightly, but nonetheless, it hit you. It was a jalopy of car and the jerk was on their phone so you are majorly upset. It was on your way to work. You were crossing the street and they just didn't stop enough and tapped you. You wanted so badly to kick in their front headlight, as you always wanted to do, but you didn't, unfortunately.

You went into work only to discover that your inbox, your physical inbox, not email, was overflowing with disorganized papers. Oh, the fun you will have today. On top of that, there are no apples in the vending machine and they have been replaced with Ho-Hos. You love Ho-Hos but you are on a diet and rely on those apples to get you through the day.

Three quarters through the day, you need a break. You don't smoke, so you bring fun drinks to work. You found this cherry ginger ale and you really need it to be good or your day will be completely ruined. You open it, smell it, take a sip, and everything is A-OK. It's smooth and has a great cherry flavor. You burp, because you are on break and don't need to impress anyone, and it's a little hot, like you drank a ginger beer. All around, it is a great drink.

You close out your daily tasks, minimize your inbox, and take off for the day. It started out badly, but that pop turned everything around.