Mojito Drink

 Decided to do a taste test and find out if non-alcoholic mojito drink could really work. 

Just a Quick Reaction - Chocolate Banana Fanta

 Two flavours that don't seem like they should work in a soda pop.

The Many Flavours of Tang in the Philippines

On a recent trip to the Philippines, I discovered what might be the greatest collection of Tang flavours offered anywhere in the world. I’ve tasted some pretty fun flavours of Tang in my life, but most places that sell a lot of Tang tend to offer 2 or 3 standard flavours, and maybe one or two unique flavours. In the Philippines however, they sell no less than 10 or 15 flavours, and it seems like they sell them at all times.

Best of all, they offer these flavours in small single serving packages. One of the biggest problems I have in sampling new flavours of Tang is that I often have to buy a giant bag of the stuff, and if I don’t like this new flavour I’m stuck with a lot of leftovers.

I decided on my recent trip to try and pick up a whole bunch of different flavours and taste test each and every one of them. The original idea was to try them on the trip, but I quickly realised there are just too many flavours, and not enough time on my vacation. So I decided to drink as many flavours as I could there, but would allow myself to take a few home.

I didn’t get to taste each and every flavour offered in the Philippines, but I did taste a lot. I also avoided what I deemed as common flavours that I think I’ve seen in other countries. I’ll be honest, I’ve never drank so much Tang in my life in such a short time, but I’ve also never had some much fun drinking Tang in my life either.

Four Seasons (pineapple, orange, mango, guava)

Colour - An ungodly orange.

Flavour - Imagine a fruit punch, only without any fruit that would give it a red colour. We always associate fruit punch with red, but logically many tropical fruits aren’t actually red, so this makes more sense. The problem with this mix is that the guava flavour dominates, with the other fruits being almost indistinguishable.

Honey Lemon

Colour - A cloudy yellow.

Flavour - It kind of works. I say kind of because honey is a really hard flavour to get right in powdered drink form. Tang is already very sweet, and while the sweet of this is a little different than classic Tang, I’m not sure I’d call it honey. The lemon is your classic Tang lemon flavour, and it dominates. This basically tastes like a super sweet lemon drink, with an odd flavour I just can’t place, but I guess we can call it honey.

Melon

Colour - A murky orange.

Flavour - I’m not a big fan of melon flavoured candies and treats, with the biggest problem being that they don’t offer the refreshment that real melon provides. I thought that maybe in drink form it might work, but alas there’s one giant problem, it’s too sweet. This is coming from a guy who runs a fairly prolific candy review website too.

Guyabano 

Colour - A murky green/yellow white.

Flavour - I should start by saying that I have no recollection of ever eating or drinking anything called guyabano before tasting this. I have sampled many tropical fruits and juices in many parts of the world, so maybe I’ve tried it under a different name. However, based on the flavour of this Tang, I would say that a guyabano tastes kind of like an apple and pear combination. As Tangs go, this one’s not that bad.

Apple Iced Tea

Colour - An appropriately reddish brown.

Flavour - I’m not sure that I’ve ever had a real apple iced tea in my life, so I don’t have anything to compare it to. What I can say is that this starts off with a hint of fake apple, but suddenly it’s stopped with something I can only describe and tea like. Neither flavour really dominates, but they also don’t really blend together very well. I’m thankful that it’s not just fake apple, but I'm not sure about the iced tea. It’s also very sweet for iced tea.

Mixed Berries Lemonade

Colour - A murky purple.

Flavour - I don’t think this really tastes like lemonade, but it does have a hint of berry. It also doesn’t just taste like a berry flavour drink either though. The best way I would describe it is that it tastes like a random berry lollipop made up of that compressed sugar candy. It’s very tasty, but I’m not sure I’d call it refreshing, mostly because it’s super sweet. I actually had to double check the directions to make sure I made it properly, because I was convinced I must have made it with too little water. It’s good, but it’s also a little odd.

Lychee

Colour - A murky white with a hint of pink.

Flavour - Before this day I had never even thought of Tang making a lychee flavoured drink before. Lychee (to someone who was brought up in North America) seemed like a flavour that was too exotic/fancy to make into a flavour of Tang. The thing is, it’s perfect. I’ve had lychee juice in the past, and flavour wise this is super close. The texture of the drink is a little different than lychee juice, but flavour wise it’s really close. It’s probably because lychee are super sweet already, so since Tang is a super sweet drink it just makes sense.

Apple

Colour - Surprisingly similar to real apple juice.

Flavour - In science fiction, food replicators are often described as making food that tastes similar to the real thing only just a little off, and not in the good way. That’s probably how I would describe this apple Tang. Your taste buds just keep hoping that it will taste like apple juice, but it just doesn’t get there.

Grape

Colour - Very, very purple… almost too purple.

Flavour - In the past I would describe the flavour of most Tang flavours to be sweet, maybe even too sweet. While this is a very sweet drink, it also has a slight (very slight) sourness to it as well. It’s very subtle, but it adds a nice counterbalance to the intense sweet flavour. The grape flavour itself tastes nothing like real grapes, but it has that fake grape flavour that I’m so used to by now that it doesn’t bother me that it’s fake.

Strawberry Lemonade

Colour - A murky pink colour, which is fine because it’s lemonade.

Flavour - Just before I took my first sip of this Tang, I wondered if this was going to taste more of lemonade or strawberry. As it turns out, kind of neither. I guess if I had a gun to my head I would say more lemonade, but lemonade with a really strong fruit like flavour that I wouldn’t really describe and strawberry. This is a tough flavour to get right since I’m a big fan of frozen strawberries in my lemonade, so I have some reference for what it should taste like.

Calamansi

Colour - A murky yellow.

Flavour - I have a bit of a beef with Tang, and it’s all about when they choose to make a flavour that’s orange adjacent. I’ve had a few flavours of Tang that are based on fruit that are very close to orange, but slightly different. For the most part I find that the flavour of these Tangs is very similar to their regular orange, only they’re dyed a different colour. This Calaminsi falls right into that category. I find it hard to believe that this is that much different than their regular orange flavour, except for the fact that it’s yellow instead of orange coloured.

Strawberry

Colour - A very bright pink.

Flavour - I’d probably say that this flavour is the least surprising of all the flavours I’ve tasted so far. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s also not a great thing either. It’s a perfectly fine fake strawberry flavour that works fairly well when it’s a really sweet drink. There’s nothing subtle about the flavour, even opening the package has a strong fake strawberry smell. It’s perfectly fine, but nothing unique about it at all.

Pomelo

Colour - A murky pink with a hint of orange (pretty close to the fruit to be honest).

Flavour - As with the colour, the flavour of this pomelo drink is pretty close to the original. The main difference is the sour/bitter flavour that sometimes happens with some pomelos is totally gone. They got the sweet flavour right, and the basic flavour is there, but I always feel like if I eat too many wedges of pomelo that my tongue might go numb, but I doubt that would happen with this drink. Having said that, this might be the winner for flavour I’d most like to try again in the future.

Orange and Carrot

Colour - Really bright orange.

Flavour - This Tang flavour unfortunately falls into the same category as many other orange based flavours of Tang, in that it generally just tastes like regular orange tang. There might be a slight difference, but I wouldn’t call that difference carrot flavoured. It could be that they’ve added real carrots to this drink, but I doubt it. I’ve only recently discovered carrot juice as a mixer with vegetable juice and one thing carrot juice gives fruit juice is a balance. The balance comes from the fact that carrot juice is not sweet. This Tang as usual is super sweet, so there really isn’t that balance.

Dr Pepper For Christmas

 I don't think I've ever seen this Dr Pepper commercial before, it's pretty fun.

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That's One Cold Cola

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 The fact that this man has a maple leaf on his toque tells me that he might be Canadian, and this might be the most Canadian way ever to pour a coke.

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Beans, Beans The Musical Fruit, The More You Eat, The More You Drink Dr Pepper

These Dr Pepper beans I'm eating in this latest episode of Why Would You Eat That?!! make sense, but only if you really think about it. It seems like a secret recipe thing that people would doubt until they try it themselves.

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Too Much Sugar... For Your Drink?

For this new candy experiment I decided to look into the rumour that Pixy Stix used to be drink mixes. I tried each flavour, and may have blown the lid off this crazy idea.

Check out my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter feeds to suggest any new ideas we could experiment on.

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Mountain Dew Has Run Amuck

 I often wonder why I eat or drink things, but sometimes I also wonder why people even make certain treats. This Flamin' Hot Mountain Dew is a prime example.

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If you want to be really nice to me, pick up my new book called Treats and Beasts.

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Very 80s

I keep remembering things in the 80s differently than many of the younger folks out there. Then I see this commercial and I realize how truly weird it was.

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Just 7-Up?

I'm not sure if the creators of this commercial were just drinking 7-Up.

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A Christmas Before Lemons?

I always thought Coke and lemons went together, but apparently it wasn't always the case. I was also unaware that people used to decorate their trees with lemons.

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Oh Yeah Indeed

If you love watching giant pitchers of brightly coloured fruity liquid smash through walls, then strap it.

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Amazing Candy/Junk Food Things That You Should Buy For Me For My Birthday - Space Helmet Mug

This is either a really fun way to celebrate space travel, or a weird chapter in a story about headhunting on the moon. I mean who wouldn't want to drink hot chocolate out of the head of a dead space man?

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Amazing Candy/Junk Food Things That You Should Buy - Kool Aid Man Funko Pop

This might be the only Funko Pop that works really well with the black creepy eyes.

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I'm Thinking Again, And Eating Breakfast

In this episode of Chris's Monthly Morning Breakfast Thoughts, I drink a really weird blue drink. I also talk about the candy and junk food news from the last month, as well as the new updates on candycritic.org.

Make sure to check out our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram feed to find out about all the stuff we mentioned on this episode.

If you followed us on Patreon than you'd already have seen this video a few days ago.

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Candy In The Media - Slurpee Sipping

If you're a fan of Slurpees, Stranger Things, and you have a lot of time on your hands, then sit back and enjoy.

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We Have Thoughts This Month, And We're Sharing Them.

For some reason I thought I would tried the new Coca-Cola Energy as my breakfast this month. While the caffeine did wake me up a bit, the fact that I had an empty stomach didn't help me out too much.

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Amazing Candy/Junk Food Things That You Should Buy - Bob Ross Positve Energry Drink

While I appreciate the play on words, using the word "positive" to make it more on brand with Bob Ross, I do doubt the connection of having the most calm presences in the universe selling energy drinks.

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Candy In The Media - Classic Coke, I Mean Really Classic

I've always wanted to try some of the original recipes for Coca-Cola, but I also realize how much work it would take to make it.

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Amazing Candy/Junk Food Things That You Should Buy - Elephant Straws

Have you ever thought about using a snorkeling elephant as a filter for your water? If you want to get an idea about how that would feel, these cute drinking straws would be a great way to test that idea out.

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