Castle & Cairn

First released back in 2016, this purple retro themed can probably has you thinking "grape" and you'd be right! The can art is vaguely 1970s themed with paisley and kaleidoscope designs. Ultra Violet  seeks to combine the traditional citrus tingle and effervescence of the Ultra family with a sweet red grape. How does it hold up? 🛒 Price: $17.99/15  - Amazon with 40% subscribe and save coupon ✨Calories: 10 , 16oz. can 🍵 Caffeine: 140mg, slightly less than a cup of coffee 👅 Flavor: On the tongue, it is a lot of what you might expect from a Monster Ultra family member. The grape definitely takes a backseat and hits after the initial tangerine and grapefruit citrus tingle. It is reasonably bubbly but the conflicting flavors mute out some of the cleanliness of the experience. Most other grape beverages are sugary and syrupy, providing more of an illusion of body/thickness, which makes this seem unexpectedly lighter, a playful prickle with a purple fruit undertone. 🧪 Ingr...

  Pretty much everyone has heard of Sangria, the extra sweet wine and chopped fruit combo beverage, but it seems that few are familiar with the more balanced an infinitely crushable alternative, Tinto de Verano . I had the pleasure of attending some friends' wedding in Spain recently and my group fell in love with the drink, it's name meaning the "Red Wine of Summer". What is it and is it better than Sangria? What is Tinto de Verano? Tinto de Verano made of equal parts table red wine and soda, often a semi-sweet lemon flavored variety. The traditional soda brand, Sandevid, is very lightly sweetened which results in the combined beverage being relatively low calorie. It is often served over ice with a slice or lemon or orange as a garnish. A 1.5L bottle of Tinto De Verano can be found at most grocery stores in Spain for less than two euros. I drank a full bottle in one afternoon and felt neither tipsy nor over-sugared. The invention of the drink is commonly credited to...

An new energy drink powerhouse, Phorm Energy is a partnership between 1st Phorm Nutrition, UFC's Dana White, and beer giant Anheuser-Busch. The brand focuses on a patriotic and blue-collar segment with slogans like "We do the work". 1st Phorm performs extensive product testing for an energy drink brand and all Phorm products are produced only in facilities that are FDA inspected, SQF Level-3 certified, & cGMP (Current Good Manufacturing Practices) compliant. Phorm is made and packaged in St. Louis Missouri from a global ingredient base. 🛒 Price: $1 at Kroger, typically $2-3 per can in most formats. Available in 12 oz can 4-packs and 16oz. singles or 12 packs.  ✨Calories: 15 , 16oz. can 🍵 Caffeine: 200mg, on par with Celsius (little less per volume), naturally sourced from green tea extract. The 12oz. format has 150mg of caffeine. 👅 Flavor: A relatively thick and indulgent soft orange with some light tangerine that stops short of a bite and subsides into a candy a...

You are doubtless familiar with the omnipresent Jack Daniel's Old No. 7  Tennessee Whiskey, but you might not be aware that they also have also been cranking out some of the best juice in all of whiskey. Enthusiasts love their Single Barrel Barrel Proof Bourbon  (yes the corn primary mash qualifies as a bourbon) and Rye Barrel proof offerings and you can also find the heritage edition and 14-year whiskey on the market today, all very solid bottles. They have also put out a 10-year iteration in their "aged" series at various points. Jack Daniel's 12-year splits the difference between the two bottles and has ben released yearly since 2023, targeting a candy-focused profile (less woody/leathery than the 14 and more spice/caramel forward than the 10). 🛒 Sourced: $92.99 for 700ml from Costco Perimeter, GA - probably the best thing I've seen in there for years. They got 3 bottles each of the 12 and 14-year, all gone in a couple hours. MSRP is around $100 though secon...