Better Libations | Healthy Drink Reviews

Yes, the famous pouch

I’ve been feeling a little nostalgic recently, so I bought a box of Capri Sun pouches on my last trip to the store.  Growing up in the Eighties and Nineties, these were a familiar sight in lunch boxes and floating around in coolers in summer time.  I don’t remember anyone ever saying ‘man, I hate those Capri Sun drinks.’  Let’s reexamine this childhood delight.

First off, the box now proclaims “25% Less Sugar Than Other Leading Juice Drinks” as well as “No Artificial Sweeteners” and “NO high fructose corn syrup.”  Each pouch has 16 g of sugar, which is about 21 g of sugar per 8 oz (the pouches used to be bigger, 6.75 oz, but are now 6 oz due to the infamous “grocery shrink ray“).  This is a little better than letting your little rugrats suck down superfluous quantities of sugar, but still cannot match Crayons, and particularly Honest Kids in sugar content, and they have a pouch too.

As for the sensory experience, sadly it cannot be easily subjected to my olfactory nerves without squeezing the pouch into a cup, and let’s just face it, I’m a little too lazy for that.  As far as the taste goes, it is as pleasantly fruity as I remember, but perhaps a bit more watery.  My guess is the 25% less sugar than before.  I still enjoyed drinking over half the pouches in the box while I procrastinated on this review, just as I did as a kid.

My overall feelings on this come down to this:  yes, it has let sugar than a soda or other fruit drinks, and yes, it’s now sweetened with sugar instead of HFCS, and yes, that pouch is pretty handy, and they have a program (with Terracycle, same as Honest Kids) where you can recycle them and they get turned into purses and pencil carriers, and a few cents get back to the schools.  All good points.  But.  The original line is not 100% juice, has added sugar, and those huge boxes don’t look particularly environmentally friendly.  They are also distributed by Kraftfoods in the US, not a small company.  The truth is, there are still many better alternatives out there for your kids, most importantly water.  THEY SHOULD DRINK WATER.  Sweet drinks should be a treat for them, not a daily requirement.  I know no one likes anyone to tell them how to raise their children, but seriously, childhood obesity rates are astronomical right now, almost 20%.  So toss a bottle of water in that lunchbox, and a juice drink on occasion.

Score: 3 out of 5. A better effort from a behemoth distributor, but still plenty full of sugar and not enough juice.

– WiseGuise

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3-Star Reviews, Capri Sun, Rants drink reviews, Rants

New plastic bottle!

Until now, I never really drank the SoBe Lean line of diet beverages, with their notorious use of Ace-K and Sucralose as sweeteners.  I found this in a local Maverik store and picked it up, excited to see that it has been switched to the erythritol/Reb A sweetener blend now used in all the LifeWater beverages.  After getting this home, I sat down at the computer and began to search fro information on this new packaging and sweetener change, and was dismayed to find a complete lack of any such information.  In fact, the only thing I found was a page on CostCo’s website where you can purchase it in bulk and a Pepsi website listed caffeine content in their drinks.  I called their customer service line, got the computer, and was eventually redirected to their website, which has no information on this product.  Thanks, guys.

Having given up on finding anything helpful about this product, I decided to just let my nose and tongue tell me everything I needed to know about it instead.  Cracking the seal, I am reminded of an iced tea, and don’t really detect any honey.  A look at the bottle and I can see why; it’s the last ingredient, and the amount in the bottle apparently so minuscule that it added no calories to the tea.  The flavor is not at all honey-like, although I can sense the presence of the stevia.  The tea flavor doesn’t really last long either, it is the third to last ingredient.  The flavor overall is sweet and temporary.  It is far better than the Swiss Premium Tea I regretfully experienced, but nowhere near the excellence that is HonestTea’s honey green tea.

I found this flavor surprisingly uninteresting and lacking for SoBe, who have become one of our favorite (despite their subsidiary status) drink companies out there.  The ‘honey’ and ‘green tea’ were difficult to enjoy amidst all the sweetness, and were some of the last ingredients in the bottle, not quite what I would like to see in a tea.  I was unimpressed with this beverage, but I might still be caught drinking it on a hot day in a pinch.

Score: 3 out of 5. No detectable honey and not much tea in this honey green tea and lots of  sweetness for a zero calorie drink.

– WiseGuise

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3-Star Reviews, SoBe Lean all natural, green tea, Stevia

Matte black with pinstripes, like a muscle-car

Despite being out for a few years now, this product has escaped my attention until now.  Tonight I’m looking forward to a lengthy sit in class followed by a late movie with the girlfriend, so I decided I needed a bit of a pick-me-up.  I usually don’t care for energy-drinks like Rockstar, those medicine-y, carbonated, buzz-creating liquids that rarely taste good, always cost too much and leave you feeling jittery.  This 16 oz can was only $1.99 at the 7-11, so I grabbed it and waited for my chance to review.

Popped open the can and I’m instantly reminded of Pepsi, but then I taste it.  The kola nut flavor is immediate, then fades into a sweet, tangy-energy flavor with a slight herb-y undertone, most likely from the guarana, ginseng, ginko-biloba and milk-thistle extracts added.  There is almost a citrusy-sour element to the flavor, I can’t quite place it.  The sweetness lasts, most likely due to the 66 g of sugar in the can.  That is honestly quite a lot, 33 g per 8 oz serving definitely beats out Coke.  The flavor overall is pleasant, but not nearly as interesting and complex as Red Bull Cola.  I can feel the caffeine kicking in, along with its supplemental buddies, but I don’t get too jittery or anxious.

Researching this drink brought me across some interesting information I was not aware of before.  One of the co-owners and founder of Rockstar is Russell Weiner, son of  the inflammatory right-leaning radio personality Micheal Savage, who has been accused of racism, bigotry and homophobia among other things, as gleaned from his writings and radio show, and some worry his influence extends to his son.  Russell Weiner was involved in the creation of the Paul Revere Society, a group dedicated to stopping ‘illegal’ immigration.  There have been boycotts of Rockstar, especially by the LGBT community, although Rockstar agreed with Change.org to donate 1oo K to LGBT rights associations last year.  Around the same time, the CFO of Rockstar, Russell’s mother and wife to Micheal Savage stepped down from her position in Sagave Productions and is no longer professionally associated with the show.  It would seem that Rockstar is now devoted to clearing up its image, donating and supporting causes and just being a profitable business. As with any conscious, conscientious purchasing decision, we implore you to make up your own mind about companies you buy products from.

Rockstar has been distributed by Pepsi-Co since mid-2009, since dropping from Coca-Cola, but that really hasn’t changed its availability.  I’m not condoning the wanton consumption of energy drinks in any way, and seek out only ones that do not use HFCS or any artificial sweeteners, which is most.

In closing, I found this a tasty, albeit sugar-loaded energy drink that did the job, without giving me the jitters, and without excelling in the areas of flavor or originality.  I would still rather drink a Red Bull Cola over this any day despite the lack of energy supplements.

Score: 3 out of 5. A decent-tasting energy cola that doesn’t really outperform, or make me feel like a rockstar.

– WiseGuise

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3-Star Reviews, Rockstar energy drink, independent company

Retro is in . . . again!

Last year, I began this post with all intentions of finishing it, after I heard the news of Pepsi’s ‘Throwback’ experiment.  I speculated a little on their reasons, mostly whether or not the mounting HFCS backlash had anything to do with it, and planned a long diatribe on using a planned fad disguised as nostalgia to mask another layer of a market experiment.  Needless to say, it got pushed back, and the eight-week run of the stuff ended, the sodas disappeared, and the post was largely forgotten, buried amongst review corpses in the drafts folder.

The idea resurfaced again when Pepsi rolled out another round of  Throwback’s with different designs back in December.  This week, a co-worker showed up toting a twelve pack of it into the break room, and invited me to have one at my leisure.  I put it off for a few days, then grudgingly accepted the open offer on an experimental basis.  I sat down for lunch with a can, and snagged a regular Pepsi out of the soda machine with an idea.  I would write about the marketing angle, and throw in a taste test for good measure.  Now, since I don’t care for Pepsi much, I feel I can remain unbiased when it comes to the taste difference.

The Test: I pulled two paper cups from the water machine and set up my taste test on the table, Pepsi on the left and Throwback on the right.  My palate cleaner sat ready at my elbow for better distinguishing of tastes.  I began with the classic, and was greeted with pretty much what I expected; the Pepsi was syrupy-sweet and over-carbonated, with a slight acidic tang to it.  The sweetness lingered like a sweet glove on my tongue.  I readied my tongue again and had my first ever taste of the Throwback.  The sweetness was more pronounced, but not syrupy, it reminded me of table sugar melting on my tongue.  The carbonation was surprisingly lighter, not giving as much bite as the regular Pepsi.  the same acidic tang is there, but the sweetness fades away much quicker that the HFCS does.  If I had to choose, I would pick the Throwback over the regular Pepsi.  I still don’t care for it, though.

The Complaint: Now that I got that out of the way, I can focus on the more important implications of this second run of Throwback sodas.  The first run came with a press release lavished with self-praise over their new, nostalgic sodas.  In a Throwback review on  BevReview, a Nicole Bradley of Pepsi-Cola North America Beverages noted that, “these products were not created because of any health concerns…”  Many have a hard time believing this, due to the soda industry’s near dependence on HFCS to keep costs lower, and the (at the time) escalating backlash. The corn industry was already leading their own ‘information’ campaign, yet SoBe, a subsidiary of Pepsi, began switching their products to sucrose from HFCS at the same time.  Sugar still isn’t good for you, but many see it as better than HFCS, and the industry must ultimately bend to the will of the consumer if they can’t convince them.

I see this as Pepsi testing the waters of a sugar switch, at least on a small scale, to see how their consumer base reacts.  The reaction has been generally positive; the first run of Throwback sold out, and the second seems to be well on its way to doing so as well.  I’m sure Pepsi is far from ever considering switching their entire supply back to sucrose (the sugar in the Throwback’s being a combination of cane and beet sugars), but the timing may hint at their apprehension with the stirrings in the soda-drinking population about HFCS.  We’ve talked plenty about it and the questions and health concerns its use raises, and would be more than happy to see it disappear from use in drinks of any kind, but know this is still wishful thinking, as long as the population at large remains uninformed about and addicted to HFCS.  Let us just consider the Throwback experiment as a nod to those of us who have become informed, and rejoice.

Score: 3 out of 5. I still don’t care for Pepsi, but it tastes better than its HFCS counterpart.

– WiseGuise

User Ratings: (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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3-Star Reviews, Pepsi-Cola, Rants drink reviews, Rants

Today we have another SoBe Lifewater contender up on the chopping block: Strawberry Dragonfruit.

This is another 0-calorie “Lean Machine” Lifewater sweetened exclusively with Stevia and Erythritol.  The other lean machines have surprised me with a depth of flavor and lack of obnoxious aftertaste that I have yet to find in other “diet” products.  As regular BL readers know, we stay away from any artificial sweeteners.  But because Lifewater uses Stevia (a sweet herb) and Erythritol (a natural sugar-alcohol), they make the cut.

Fragrance: Smells like a sweet-tart tropical fruit with a hint of bubblegum.

Taste: Like all the other Lifewaters, this is pleasant and chuggable.  The sweetness level is just right, and it delivers some moderate tropical/floral notes.  But it lacks the distinct flavor profile that I’ve come to enjoy from its fruity brethren.  All in all, it just isn’t enough to make me stand up and take notice.  I expect more from the flavor-formulators over at SoBe!

Summary: Sure, dragonfruit sounds cool.  I mean come on, it’s dragonfruit.  The only way to get a cooler-sounding piece of produce would be to invent ninjafruit or something.  (I’m trademarking that, by the way!)  But the thing is, dragonfruit is one of those items that sounds cool in principle, but then fails to deliver in practice.  I’ve had it fresh; it was like biting into a cardboard-and-poppyseed muffin.  It’s bland.  They could have compensated for its lack of flavor in this Lifewater with a more pronounced strawberry taste, but unfortunately it was nowhere to be found.

Rating: 3.0/5 It has the pleasant sweetness of its brethren, but falls short in the flavor department.

-Danithius-

User Ratings: (3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
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3-Star Reviews, SoBe Life Water drink reviews, SoBe lifewater

Crazy mosaic of Jones-ness decorates the bottle

Greetings, Libationers!  Today I’m tackling an interesting flavor contender by Jones Soda.  First off, props to Jones for getting off the HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup) bandwagon way back in ’06.  That switch is the reason we can review their sodas – as you know, we don’t dig the HFCS.  But alas, while Jones does offer interesting soda flavors, it is still just flavored sugar-water, with no actual fruit juice or significant vitamins to sweeten the deal.  (At least this is the case with this particular flavor.  We did reviews of their new GABA line, which were a different story).  And wow, there is a lot of sugar in this thing.  46 grams for one 12-ounce bottle – that’s 15 teaspoons of sugar in this one bottle, people!

OK, with that said, let’s get down to business.  I crack open the multicolored bottle, and it explodes a cloud of fruity mist all over my face.  I must have shaken it up on the way back from the fridge.  It does give me an immediate sense of the beverage’s smell, however, which is acutely indescribable.  It’s like… it’s like… ow.  My brain is crying out in protest as I try to pluck out a single word to assign this product.  I have to break out the big guns for this one – excuse me while I grab a wine glass.

OK, here we go.  I swirl and sniff and swirl some more, trying to take it all in.  Hang on… OK, I think I have something.  I can’t produce a specific word for this stuff, so you’ll have to make do with a metaphor.  Imagine every kind of fruity candy and bubblegum that you see at your grocery store’s checkout stand.  Now imagine the checkout stands of all the grocery stores from all across the world.  With me?  OK, now all of those candies are placed in a single giant blender somewhere in northern Texas.  Hit “frappe” on that thing, and take a big whiff of the resulting product.  Yeah.  It’s like that.

Even the color is strange on this liquid.  It’s a translucent greenish color, like pond water in sunlight.

After all the drama that came from just smelling this stuff, I’m afraid to actually put it in my mouth!  I might break something in my tongue.  But no, I must press on, for the greater good!  Here goes nothing…

Ow, my brain… so many flavors… arghh…

I don’t know what the long-term effects of this thing will be… If I don’t make another post within a week’s time, please, someone send out a rescue crew.

Rating: 3.0 out of 5 – Loaded with sugar, but good when you need a thorough mind-blow.

-Danithius- (I think?)

User Rating: (1 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
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3-Star Reviews, Jones Soda Co. drink reviews, reviews

Yes, finally, the last oogave review that I’ve been putting off for a week.   Christmas shopping has been wreaking havoc on my posting, among other things.  Let’s get down to it, shall we?  Yes, we shall.  I ended up with the other citrus offering from oogave, Mandarin-Key Lime.  This simple soda has only four ingredients, as long as you count ‘natural flavors’ as a single ingredient.

The freshly opened bottle tickles my nose with a citrus-y mandarin feather, but I’m having a hard time detecting the lime.  With a swig, I get that first rush of sweet from the agave, then an orange tang, followed by a hint of lime.  None of the flavors really overwhelm the others except for the sweetness; at least you can say that oogave knows how to play it mellow with the flavors, if you’re into that sort of thing.

I think that Esteban could really play around with the flavors a lot more, make them familiar but interesting.  The sweetness always seems to take control of my taste-buds before the real flavors get a chance to take them for a ride.  I really wanted to like this soda more, but the sugars are the only thing my tongue has any memory of now that I’ve finished the bottle.  Although, I do feel fuller.

Score: 3 out of 5. The understated flavors disappear under the agave sweetness.

– WiseGuise

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3-Star Reviews, oogave all natural, independent company, oogave, organic

Sounds odd, but don't judge it yet.

I like finding the odd and random drinks that appear out there, ones that few have tried and I have never seen before.  But, I hesitate to review them, because of the above stated facts.  They are hard to find and not widely consumed; and often, not very good.  But sometimes you find a diamond in a field of coals.  This aloe drink may be one of those.

I remember using aloe as a home-remedy for small injuries and sunburns, my grandmother had a large plant on the back porch you could go break a piece off of and smear the smelly, slimy substance on your wound, which soon felt miraculously better.  Aloe is well known for its beneficial effects on the skin and for the stomach, as well as possibly aiding the immune system.

After curiously reading the contents, I shook it as directed then popped open the can.  A smell that brought to mind something likened to burnt grapes with a hint of aloe escaped the can.  Heedless of any foreboding I took a swig right out of it, and found my mouth  full of sweet, grape-y chunks of aloe, a lot of them.  It tasted much more of grape flesh than aloe, which can have a bitter taste.  There is a bit of a tang from the citric acid and Vitamin C (ascorbic acid).  Chewing the aloe chunks, which have an almost jello-like texture, releases more sweetness.

The grape taste is rather strong, and the sugar isn’t subtle either, with 23 g in the 8 oz can, still a bit less than Coke.  A couple extra g of carbs appear due to the aloe vera.  Texture people may not like the soft chunks of aloe, others may love it.  Nothing artificial, extra Vitamin C, and made in Korea.  I really enjoy trying new things like this, and encourage others to do the same.  Other bloggers have found these aloe drinks interesting as well.

Score: 3.5 out of 5. Uber sweet and uber grape, but a different kind of drink.

– WiseGuise

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3-Star Reviews, J1 all natural, drink reviews

Hi there Libationers!  Today we bring you an exclusively agave-sweetened root beer by a company called Oogave.  Agave has a very low glycemic index compared to other sweeteners, which means it takes longer for your body to break down and purportedly makes you feel fuller faster.  Oogave points this out on their website, stating that “you can’t pound down a quart of Oogavé like you can a traditional soft drink.”  I respect a company that encourages nutritionally wise use of their product.  I get the feeling that some beverage companies are trying to get me to drink their grog for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  They don’t care how fat I get, as long as it fattens their wallets.  So, props on that, Oogave, thanks for prioritizing customers over revenue.

Now for the product itself: it smells like a caramel-rich root beer, like a root beer flavored lollipop.  The flavor is rather understated.  It is lightly sweet, which is nice – the agave nectar is supposed to be sweeter than normal sugar.  This 12 oz bottle has 24 grams of sugar, which isn’t bad at all for a root beer.  But I feel the flavor lacks the rich and earthy punch that I expect from a good root beer.

I just finished off the bottle, and I do indeed feel full.  Moreso than if it was a regular soda, so it appears that claim is correct.  I liked it, but I don’t think I’ll try this one again.  I am, however, curious to try the other flavors.  I see potential here.

Rating: 3.5/5 - Low-sugar yet filling, low glycemic index, but in need of a more flavorful punch.

-Danithius-

***Review Rebuttal!***

I like the scent I smell, something here that isn’t in other rootbeers, almost like a coffee.  Carbonation is right, nice and creamy, but not a lot of bite.  It seems more like a cream-soda to me than a rootbeer.  Sweetness and body is perfect, but fails as a true rootbeer; I like it more as a cream-soda.  Score: 4 out of 5.

– WiseGuise

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3-Star Reviews, oogave drink reviews, oogave

Why so much pink?

Now I’ve gone on before about my love for the sweet-tartness of pomegranate, and my adoration for tea, so finding a mixture of the two is usually a guaranteed purchase for me.  Xingtea has one, and it’s good, but not great.  Spying this effort by Hansen,I tossed it into the back of the fridge for a couple weeks and forgot about it.  Running low on stockpiled potential reviews, I found it again and decided I should give it a shot, despite my less-than glowing review of their last drink.

Upon cracking the plastic seal and giving it a whiff, I catch the pomegranate escaping the confines of its plastic prison, along with its smaller, weaker inmate, tea.  It smells sweet.  My first mouthful is an oh-my-god-that’s-a-lot-of-sugar experience, and I glance at the bottle.  On the front it claims to be ‘lightly sweetened with cane sugar,’ and on the back it admits to 23 g of the sweet stuff per serving.  That’s nowhere near Coke’s 39 g a serving, but it still is not light.  After the sweetness rapidly fades away like an exceptionally brief love-affair, the real flavors are allowed to show their tastes.  The aftertaste is far more pleasant than the initial sugar rush, but it comes back with every mouthful.

Honest Tea is able to get its pleasant sweetness with only 12-20 g of sugar per serving, so I am curious why others aren’t able to do the same.  This one is obviously too sugary, they could easily lose 5 g a serving and still be plenty sweet.  And I’m also not quite sure what ‘Naturally Selected Ingredients’ are.  Picked by humans and not robots?  Whatever.  This wasn’t bad as flavored teas go, but not going to come out on top in a head-to-head with Honest Tea.

Score: 3 out of 5. Good flavors, but too much sugar almost overpowers them.

– WiseGuise

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3-Star Reviews, Hansen's green tea