Better Libations | Healthy Drink Reviews

Hey, it's my school colors! Go Wolverines!

My last Twist Fusion review went rather well, and I found another one lurking behind the PBR and applesauce, so I decided to give it a go. I will reiterate that these are, for whatever reason, only available in the Northwest.  This is sweetened with erythritol and seems to be some sort of ‘energy water.’

Smells good, like your average strawberry-kiwi mix, sweet berry kiwi heaven for your nostrils.  The taste builds up after the first swallow, and the strawberry is right on, sweet and a little tart and dry like a real strawberry.  However, I find the kiwi to be lacking from the flavor; there is a hint, but the berry takes over and installs its own government, banishing the kiwi to the edges of your tongue and it fades away.

It is very chuggable in its own way, but it comes off more as a strawberry juice with a mild sweetness.  It wasn’t unpleasant, but just not what I was expecting.  The plethora of vitamins and minerals almost make up for its shortcomings in taste.  Maybe I should try the other Twist Fusion flavors.  It’s hard to beat 50 calories a bottle.

Score: 4.5 out of 5. Tastes great, nailed the strawberry, but where is the kiwi?

– WiseGuise

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4-Star Reviews, Talking Rain Talking Rain

I'd need another page if the name was any longer

Another unusual Talking Rain beverage made its way into my thirsty clutches, and I have finally been able to tear into it.  Yes, this is another ‘energy’ type drink, fortified with ginseng, tea, caffeine and B vitamins.  The satsuma is a sweet, seedless tangerine from Japan, if you were curious.

The scent is a weak, but detectable tangerine with a hint of ginseng and pineapple (filler juice).  The taste is much more impressive, sweet and exotic, but familiar enough.  The tea makes an appearance here.  I want to chug it, but I resist the temptation.  It is 19% juice and has only 50 calories, sweetened with an undetectable amount of erythritol, under the guise of Zerose.

I was impressed with the great flavor of this variety of Twist, and I hope I can find some more soon.  They have three other flavors, however, they note on their site that it is only available in the Northwest United States.  This drink fits our guidelines quite well, and has some great taste to boot.

Score: 5 out of 5. I had no complaints with this one at all, and our first 5 for a Talking Rain.

– WiseGuise

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5-Star Reviews, Talking Rain all natural, drink reviews, energy drink, Talking Rain

Mocking me from atop their lofty monitor perch

I made a miscalculation that happens once in a while on this site, when we purchase several drinks from a single, unknown line of beverages, assuming they will all be enjoyable.  After my first run in with Activwater, I hesitated to review the other two I still had left over.  After six weeks locked up in my fridge, I decided to get these out of the way, but I just can’t bear to throw them away without at least trying them.  Two birds, one post.

Power

This one has an odd, cloudy appearance, what one might not expect from the Kiwi Strawberry flavor designation.  It smells similar to the last one I reviewed, weak and watered down, but with a hint of strawberry.  It tastes a little like unripe strawberries, the kiwi actually comes through in this, and the sweetness is about right.  Much better than the Passion Guava flavor.

Focus

This is a pretty pink, and the flavor is dragonfruit; which is a cactus fruit, by the way.  There is an indistinct, sweet smell, similar to a prickly pear.  A swig brought me a lightly tart, strong flavor, which tapers off to a mildly sweet fruit taste that sticks around.  Dragonfruit flavor is usually a little too strong, and irritating to the throat, but this doesn’t seem to have that effect.

Well, it seems I was a little too hasty in judging this particular line of drinks, these two are both better than the first one I tried.  I also commend them for using erythritol, therefore keeping the calories down to 25 a serving.  It just seems a few of their flavors need some tweaking.  Like I’ve said before, it is hit or miss with Talking Rain.

Score: 3.5 out of 5. They’re not as good as LifeWater, but they’ll do in a pinch, at least these two flavors.

– WiseGuise

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3-Star Reviews, Talking Rain drink reviews, Talking Rain

Talking Rain in the dark

Even after my last dismal review of a Talking Rain beverage, we have had more luck with the Twist line, and seeing this marionberry flavor depressed and alone on the shelf, I decided to give them another chance.

The marionberry is a type of blackberry, for those unfamiliar with the fruit.  Not to be confused with Marion Barry, a politician famously arrested on drug charges (early nineties, kids).  There is in fact a very potent, sweet berry scent wafting from the bottle, quite reminiscent of blackberries.  A hint of sour is also palpable.

Upon taking a swig, I noticed an all too familiar tartness that stayed with the whole mouthful, and then a hint of the marionberry.  The pineapple filler juice is also evident.  The sour taste comes from a dash of malic acid, because I didn’t need to enjoy the milder berry flavor, apparently.  Malic acid is how they make you pucker up from all those super-sour candies.  I’m not sure why they added this, possibly assuming the miniscule bit of berry juice used would equal the tartness of a real mouthful of berries.  They seem to forget that that isn’t what you want here.

Well, it seems my faith was misplaced again, and although it was completely drinkable, I don’t think it was exactly what it could have been.  Talking Rain may need to work a little bit on their flavor department.

Score: 2.5 out of 5.  Weak on flavor, too much sour.

– WiseGuise

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2-Star Reviews, Talking Rain drink reviews, Talking Rain

Somewhere in St. George

This was another bev that came along for the ride home from San Diego, and happened to be another energy drink I pounded on top of the previous one, and a 24 oz can of tea, and a Snickers Charged.  I really do not know what I was thinking.  I should have attained a higher level of awareness after all this, but I didn’t.  I merely became annoying.

We’ve been kind of hit and miss with Talking Rain‘s products in our reviews here, but I attempted to let no past experiences color my review.  However, I feel I was let down.  There was such a lack of any recognizable taste resembling anything like passion-fruit/guava that I find myself agreeing with this perturbed review as opposed to BevNet’s smiling one.

Although ActivWater uses erythritol (my second favorite alternative natural sweetener) in conjunction with cane sugar, it’s not very sweet, more an unpleasant sour taste (from citric and ascorbic acid, methinks).  It had a vague, citrus smell to it, more like a watered-down Sunny-D than the tropical mixture the drink claims to be.  According to their site, they may have discontinued this flavor, but I suspect you will continue to find it appearing in discount bins and places like BigLots for a while.

Only 15 g of sugar per 20 oz bottle, 62 cals and no enjoyment whatsoever.  This comes of as basically a poor imitation of the much more enjoyable ‘fortified’ waters as Cascade Ice and SoBe LifeWater.

Score: 1 out of 5.

– WiseGuise

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1-Star Reviews, Talking Rain enhanced water, Talking Rain

Talking Rain w/ Ribeye Backdrop, cir. 2008

As illustrated by this photo, Talking Rain Twist Lemon tastes great on a hot sunny afternoon, especially when it’s washing down a freshly seared meduim-rare piece of red meat. Mmmmmmm, cow.

Oh, and before I forget: Wise Guise, you’ll find your severance check in the mail in the next couple of days. Nobody steals a new product line review out from under Danithius! You’ll never work in this business again, you two-timing beverage whore!

Ahem. Now then, this drink has a nice sun-kissed lemon flavor with just the right amount of bite, and nothing else. No sugar, no anything, just lemon-water. Nice, crisp, clean – goes great with food or as a nice refresher.

With this tasty submission, Talking Rain has won its way back into my good graces, which is pretty hard to do after my last Talking Rain sampling fiasco. I can now officially retract my statement that all of their flavor-creator scientist people must have been flunkies that were fired from the Kool-Aid corporation. Clearly that was only half of their staff, and the non-idiot members are working on the Twist series.

This stuff is 9% juice, which includes pineapple concentrate. (Interesting choice of ingredients. I would have never guessed it had pineapple in it.) As I said, no sugar and no artificial sweeteners, so you can’t get too much healthier than that.

All in all, it’s great for what it is (lemon-water), and it fits in well with our M.O. as a site, but I’m going to dock a point for lack of originality. As was my problem at first with Metromint, I don’t like giving full points to something that I could make at home for 1/10th of the price. C’mon, give me a lemon for a quarter and some tap water, I’ll whip up five of these. (Yes, yes, I know yours is “Ultra Premium”, Talking Rain. But MY tap water is “Uber-Premium”. To infinity. So there.)

Score: 4.0/5

-Danithius

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4-Star Reviews, Talking Rain

One of my favorite flavors is lime, ask anyone. Well, anyone that knows me. If fact, just ask me, you can’t trust anyone else. Now then. I spotted one of these in Danithius’ fridge, so I found one myself, and have managed to post my review before him. Take that.

It has a crisp, limey, slightly sour taste, and finishes with a mild sweetness and is quite enjoyable for sipping. It smells like a key lime pie, too. This is certified organic AND kosher, for our Semitic readers.

After our dismal receiving of their sparkling water line, this is a more-than-welcome change. I was sad after I finished the bottle, and wanted to go get another. Although I wasn’t too fond of the cottony tongue I got afterward, but that what comes with real citrus juices. So you can just deal with it too.

I like their little axiom I spied on the back of the bottle: As in Life, Chill For Best Results. It contains 9% ‘nectar’, and only 2 g of sugar a serving. The only ingredients are water, agave nectar, lime juice and citric acid. Although I probably wouldn’t drink this while working out, any other time it would suit me quite well. More info about their line here.

Score: 4.5 out of 5.

–WiseGuise

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4-Star Reviews, Talking Rain

So I see a case of this stuff at CostCo, and I’m like, “Hey, cheap water”, so I decide to try it out. (I had a party coming up and I needed beverages). It doesn’t have sugar, so I was anticipating some kind of carbonated MetroMint. If only I could be so lucky.

Where to start? This stuff has an intense carbonation, like some kind of bubbly fruit-flavored acid. Oh, and the fruit flavors. The flavors in the case I got were Tangerine, Berry, Lemon-Lime, and Natural…usually I’d do a review of each one, but this case is a special exception.

All of these flavors tasted like they were formulated by someone who got fired from the Kool-aid corporation. Seriously, flavor scientists at the Blo-pop lab would be insulted by this. Even the “Natural” flavor tastes like it was artificially flavored to taste like water.

So, long story short, it was a big hit with all of my friends, who only managed a couple sips of their bottles before throwing it away. I dunno, if you’re one of those Tonic Water people, you might like this, but we had a real hard time choking it down. So, we had to find other ways to get rid of it…

Ingredients: Carbonated water, death.

Rating: 1/5 (1 point for not killing me)

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1-Star Reviews, Talking Rain