Better Libations | Healthy Drink 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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As is usual when we receive a group of drinks to try, we split them up according to our preference, expertise, or just at random.  In this case it was all three.  I chose Esteban’s Rootbeer as my first, since Danithius had already tried it, and I gave my rebuttal.  My second oogave choice was this fruity number, since I am fond of citrus in mostly healthy ways.

Popping the top, my nose is greeted by  light, grapefruit-y scent, sweet and bubbly as your favorite waitress.  The taste follows with an undeniable link to the citrus waft, although more hinted at than fully explored, finishing with a grape-y mellow sweetness with a lingering memory of grapefruit o the back of your tongue.  None of the sour or bitterness I expected is evident, which is usually associated with this particular fruit, but not necessarily in a bad way.  Many are turned off by this pithy flavor in grapefruit, which is unwarranted.  Good grapefruits are sweet.

The agave tends to coat your mouth and throat, definitely leaning this towards being a sipping soda.  The agave nectar does seem to make me feel fuller after topping off my lunch with this, I don’t need to hit the water cooler or find something else to snack on.  I am refreshed and full.  I found this a welcome alternative to traditional sodas, oogave definitely has something here.

Score: 4.5 out of 5. A tad sweet, but definitely a citrus soda I will remember.

– WiseGuise

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Yay! Another bad picture!

This may not seem like the Honest truth, but we have not intentionally gone out of our way to review so many HonestTea flavors, it just happened.  They are delicious, healthier and earned their spot on our 2008 Top 10 list.    Another one, which I received for my birthday a few months ago remained at the back of the rotation until recently.  Needing a pick-me-up on this wearisome Friday, out it came from its frigid prison.

I have always found the smell of iced teas to be pleasant, particularly freshly brewed tea.  This comes close, giving off a rich, earthy aroma hinting at the light sweetness.  A wash of chilled tea makes my tongue very happy here, the small amount of sugar keeps from covering up the taste of the tea, but also adds sweetness and cancels the bitterness of the tea leaves.  The lemon is faint, but adds a touch of sour to even out the taste-bud barrage.  This is about as good as it gets coming out of a bottle.

The 16.9 oz tea contains only 85 calories and 22 g of sugar.  For those of you counting, that’s much less than the 39 in 12 oz of Coke, and far less that the 48 g in a 12 oz can of Lipton Brisk Iced Tea.  And it tastes much better.  And for less than two dollars?  If you like iced tea but hate the loads of sugar, this is for you.

Score: 5 out of 5. Hits the spot, and the mark.

– WiseGuise

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I have decided to venture back into the jungle and review another maté tea, as I have become an avid drinker of maté, including one of my new favorites, Sol Maté.  Bombilla is another company centered on organic, fair-trade products, created by a couple of white guys who fell in love with maté while in Argentina.  Within a few short years their products went national, and now I have brought it you, our faithful readers.

Peach is not my favorite tea flavor, it usually tastes too sour and over-peachy to me.  While the scent speaks rather fluently of the fruit, the taste of this beverage is more mild-mannered and subtle, managing to let the maté have a say.  At first, I found it a little weak, but as I continued to swill the mildly sweet liquid, the flavors came out a little more.  Maté is a taste that needs to be sipped and savored to truly be enjoyed, like any good tea.  Only 20 oz of sugar in 16 oz, and full of antioxidants and vitamins.

Bombilla has satisfied many of the things I look for in a drink and a company, providing a healthy, sustainable product that tastes good and leaves out the calories and bad karma.  It’s available at Whole Foods everywhere, or check their handy locater to find it.

Score: 4.5 out of 5. Tasty peach tea, but it didn’t thrill me.

– WiseGuise

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This Honest Tea was donated to our cause by a reader and friend of the BL team, to help expand our catalog of Honest beverages.  Much appreciated.

Now, I feel some trepidation when I see a mild flavor like white tea mixed a much stronger flavor like pomegranate, since it could invariably overwhelm the weaker flavor.  But Honest really seems to know what they’re doing when it comes to flavor mixing.  The pom is toned down enough to let the tea shine through, in both scent and taste.  The acai even peek out from behind the pomegranate, coming with a very mild sweetness after the major flavors play their roles and exit stage down.

At first the 20 g of sugar didn’t seem to lend enough sweetness to the tea until I got a few mouthfuls into the bottle.  It built up a little, and became just right for this flavor blend.  There’s also only 1/8th the caffeine as a cup of coffee, for those watching their intake.  This beverage was a welcome reminder of why I like tea so much, and why I will continue to buy Honest Tea.

Score: 5 out of 5. Mildly sweet with a perfect flavor combination.

– WiseGuise

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Gin-Jah!

I came across this in one of my shopping excursions, and realized that I am not too familiar with ginger-flavored drinks, despite having a taste for the spicy and robust flavors in the world.  It’s organic, original, Fair Trade and from an independent company, so I did what I do best and bought a few to try out.

The satisfying pop leads to a strong ginger aroma, with an undercurrent of pineapple.  I feel like I’m on a tropical island already.  The first swig starts off mildly sweet, leading into a heavy, earthy ginger taste that has a pleasant burn like real ginger should.  The lime and lavender enter as back-up flavors, rounding out the overall taste nicely.  It seemed to get a little sweeter as I drank it, with the ginger tapering off while still maintaining the leading role on my palette.

Adina is revamping their website, and possibly their line of beverages from the look of their site.  They are committed to Fair Trade and sustainable farming, good news for the tree-hugger in everyone.  I was quite pleased with this beverage and the company that produces it, but it isn’t easy to find, at least in my area.  Wild Oats carries Adina, but use this handy locator for a store near you!

Score: 4.5 out of 5. Great tasting and full of organic, gingery goodness.

– WiseGuise

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Yay for media kits!

There is a growing genre of drinks that I am coming across more often, that of the ‘organic/healthy energy drink/soda.’  Drinks like EVO and Jones GABA have been our most recent encounters.  Although the consensus so far has been positive, someone is bound to come along and screw it up.  In the meantime, I have found another company that hasn’t yet.  Sol Maté, created by a collection of three small Canadian companies, has harnessed the local popularity of the South American yerba maté plant, which, similar to tea, has been brewed into a similarly slightly bitter herbal beverage for centuries.

Sol Maté comes in an interesting ribbed bottle, with a simple, cool design.  It is certified USDA organic, has 60 mg of caffeine and 21 g of sugar per 10 oz bottle.  The lemon-lime flavor serves as more of a backdrop to the maté, the sweetness wrestles with the sour for dominance, and in the end leaves a tea-like dryness on your tongue.  The beverage has a very distinct maté scent, with a hint of the lemon and lime.  This drink does pep me right up, natural caffeine seems to work much better for me than when it’s added.

Overall, in my opinion the unique flavor of the yerba maté doesn’t quite mix with the familiar citrus duo, which is why I enjoy the original flavor a bit more, it stands alone just fine.  If you want to find this to try, look in your local Whole Foods store or check their website for additional locations.

Score: 4 out or 5. Interesting combo, but the mixture falls short of the original.

– WiseGuise

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Nothing like a fresh, tropical beverage on a cruise.

I brought a few drinks to review along on our recent cruise, and only got to this one, another Jones Organics from Jones Soda Co.  These are a tea-based beverage, and therefore not carbonated.  One point just for that.

It smells great, a papaya-rich tropical punch in the olfactory, with a hint of that robust red tea.  Strong on the fruity flavor, again heavy on the papaya.  Finishes with a pleasantly sweet, strong tea flavor.  Has almost a pulpy gravity to it, and leaves that sweet tea aftertaste.

Sadly, I haven’t seen these widely available, so if anyone knows of a retailer that stocks these, please let us know.  A little less sugar than the White Tea Cherry, about 24g per 14 oz bottle.  Very palette-pleasing beverage.

Score: 4.5 out of 5.  I still like the White Tea one a little more.

– WiseGuise

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Ooooh, pastels

Listen up all you readers with a Safeway or Vons nearby (I’m therefore assuming our readership has expanded exponentially out of our state), Safeway has a line of organic products they introduced back in 2006, O Organics.  Just drop your zip code and get a list of all the products available in your local stores!  Lucky you.

I found this–you guessed it–while wandering Vons before we left California.  The label isn’t all that exiting, nor is it supposed to be.  It’s an in-store brand, and therefore intended to be cheaper.  Moving on.

I’m a fan of real (caffeinated) tea, in all its glorious flavors and varieties, so I had try a combination I’ve never seen before.  Crack that pressure-seal and you get a big heavy waft of spearmint, an aroma so tied to chewing gum I had to remind myself I needed to drink this.  Hiding behind that mammoth of mint is the mild-mannered white tea, earthy and pleasant.  Each swig like having a mouthful of right-out-pf-the-wrapper gum, with a tea leaf under your tongue.  The sweetness washes away the hint of tea, leaving the mint clinging–literally–to the inside of your mouth.  This becomes slightly disconcerting over time, as at any moment you expect a lumpy wad of gum to come sliding out of the neck.

I have a hard time believing the 30 g of sugar per 16 oz claim, although mint does have a way of intensifying sweetness.  There’s not much in there, purified water, cane sugar, organic white tea, organic spearmint and citric aid.

Although I like tea and mint, this combination just wasn’t up to par for me, in fact, it was the lack of subtlety in the flavors.  But if you like a big slap on the tongue with a handful of mint leaves, this might just be your ticket.  Antioxidants included.

Score: 3 out of 5. Too much mint and sweet, not enough tea interplay.

– WiseGuise

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3-Star Reviews, O organics drink reviews, organic, white tea