Tag: Beverage

REVIEW: Koyo Ma Ha Lo Deep Sea Water

Marvo 26 Comments

I’ve never been down into the depths of the deep-sea, so I’m not too sure what’s down there.

Although from watching Finding Nemo, watching various Discovery Channel shows, and reading various issues of National Geographic (the boring issues without sagging topless women from African tribes), I think I might have an idea to what’s down there.

Apparently, there are creepy-looking fish with spikes and frickin’ huge teeth, Davey Jones’ Locker, pirate treasure, the Titanic, and lots and lots of whale and fish poop.

But who would’ve known that the deep-sea would also contain vast amounts of healthy, pure, mineral-rich drinking water. Maybe if I visited, I would’ve known, but I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone since my head would’ve exploded from the pressure of being at that depth.

Recently, I was able to try the Koyo Ma Ha Lo Deep-Sea Water, which is pumped from 2,000 feet below the surface of the ocean and then desalinized, filtered, and bottled on the Kona Coast of the Big Island.

As you can see from the bottle, it’s printed in Japanese, because apparently desalinized deep-sea water is REALLY big in Japan.

Although I’m not surprised by this because Japan is a country known for their eccentric products, like the boyfriend arm pillow and the girlfriend knee pillow (NSFW).

According to Koyo, the deep-sea water contains ionized sodium, ionized chlorine, magnesium and calcium, which can help with everything from metabolism to circulation. This means the deep-sea water could help people lose weight and, for us guys, help give us boners.

Now you would think that I would love this deep-sea water because the name Marvo means “sea lover” in some ancient language.

Although, I don’t know whether “sea lover” means that I love the sea platonically, or if I enjoy getting it on with the sea.

I REALLY hope that it doesn’t mean I enjoy getting it on with the sea, because thanks to my near drowning experience while bodyboarding at Hapuna Beach, I now know that the sea likes it rough and kinky, and the sea apparently has some weird sexual asphyxiation fetish.

Sorry, but that’s a little too kinky…even for me.

Anyway, the Koyo Ma Ha Lo Deep-Sea Water has a very, very faint salty taste and it seemed more crisp compared with typical bottled water from mountain springs. However, I don’t know if I would be willing to spend four to six dollars for a 1.5 liter bottle of it, and I highly doubt I would be willing to fly to Japan to pick some up, since it’s only available there.

Although, I am in need of a girlfriend knee pillow.

Item: Koyo Ma Ha Lo Deep-Sea Water
Purchase Price: FREE (Retails for $4 – $6 in Japan for a 1.5 liter bottle)
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Pros: Crisp and refreshing. Mineral-rich. May help with circulation and metabolism. Girlfriend knee pillow.
Cons: Pricey. Only available in Japan, although it might be available in the United States in the future. The sea likes it rough and kinky. My excessive use of paragraphs that begin with an A-word.

REVIEW: Glaceau Vitamin Water

Marvo 37 Comments

Vitamin Water

I didn’t realize it until recently, but water is apparently making a comeback. Even if it’s been here for years. In bottles and on tap it appears. Making tears and when it rain, it makes mud. Listen to your throat go chug. Dehydration, overpowering. Jump into the bathroom, I’m showering.

Okay, okay, enough with the LL Cool J lyrics. I know, I know, I was stretching it a bit with the “overpowering/showering” rhyme.

Anyway, it seems like everyone is coming out with their own water or selling water. McDonald’s gives us the option of having bottled water with our Big Mac and fries. The Macy’s stores here on this rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean even sell their own brand of bottled water.

With the amounts of bottled water being sold, I’m surprised Lil Jon hasn’t come up with his own brand of water called, Crunk Water.

Not only are there tons of bottled water to choose from, there’s also tons of flavored water to choose from, like lemon-flavored bottled water, berry-flavored bottle water, and orange-flavored water.

One particular brand of water I’ve been interested in is the Glacéau Vitamin Water, which comes in thirteen different flavors, each flavor contains a variety of vitamins and minerals, and each flavor has a different smart-ass label.

Now I was going to try all thirteen flavors, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find all thirteen flavors and I have a fear of the number thirteen. Although, it’s not like the fear/creepiness I had with the number sixteen, after seeing Lindsay Lohan’s picture for the first time, saying she was totally hot, finding out she was only sixteen years old, and waiting for someone to arrest me for saying an underaged girl was hot.

Anyway, I ended up getting just nine flavors, and I’m going to individually talk about each one.

Flavor: Essential
Main Vitamins & Minerals: Vitamin C and Calcium
Taste: Orangy, like a very weak orange soda without the carbonation.
Perfect For: People who want to get some Vitamin C, but hate the feeling they get from drinking orange juice right after brushing their teeth.

Flavor: Rescue
Main Vitamins & Minerals: B Vitamins and Chamomile
Taste: It’s like I’m drinking tea leaves or flowers. Blech!
Perfect For: People wearing leis and want breath to match.

Flavor: Multi-V
Main Vitamins & Minerals: The name says it all.
Taste: Lemonade-ish. Pretty damn good.
Perfect For: People who don’t want to pay 25 cents for a small cup of crappy lemonade from some kid with a stand on the side of the road.

Flavor: Revive
Main Vitamins & Minerals: B Vitamins and Potassium
Taste: Like fruit punch, although significantly less fruity than Tom Cruise.
Perfect For: Anyone appearing on the reality show, Hit Me Baby One More Time.

Flavor: Stress-B
Main Vitamins & Minerals: Vitamins B3, B5, B6, and B12
Taste: Like a watered-down lemon-lime soda, except without the carbonation.
Perfect For: “Runaway Bride” Jennifer Wilbanks before her next wedding.

Flavor: Balance
Main Vitamins & Minerals: Vitamin C and Glucosamine
Taste: Cranberry and grapefruit-ish. Definitely not my favorite.
Perfect For: People who want to make sure they walk in a straight line after being pulled over by a police officer.

Flavor: Focus
Main Vitamins & Minerals: Vitamin A and Ginkgo
Taste: Kiwi-strawberry mix. Pretty good.
Perfect For: People who have to sit through a timeshare presentation and don’t want to get caught spacing out. Or people on weed.

Flavor: Power-C
Main Vitamins & Minerals: Vitamin C and Taurine
Taste: What the heck is dragonfruit and why does it taste weird?
Perfect For: Those who hate oranges, lemons, and limes, but don’t want to get scurvy.

Flavor: Endurance
Main Vitamins & Minerals: Vitamin E and Ribose
Taste: Nice peach-mango taste.
Perfect For: Long distance runners, workaholics, and Sting, before one of his marathon Tantric sex sessions.

Item: Glacéau Vitamin Water
Purchase Price: $1.79 each
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Pros: Smart-ass labels. Wide variety of flavors. Good way to get vitamins and minerals. Better than water from a garden hose, unless the garden hose is attached to a slip ‘n slide.
Cons: Pricey. Some flavors weren’t very good. Couldn’t find all the flavors.

REVIEW: Britannia Soliss Pear & Ginger Sparkling Water

Marvo 23 Comments

Britannia Soliss Sparkling

(Editor’s Note: Today’s review is brought to you by one of the Impulsive Buy’s original readers, Megan, who was kind enough to send me from Germany a bottle of Britannia Soliss Pear & Ginger Sparkling Water. She sent it because she wanted me to know what REAL sparkling water tastes like. Thanks, Megan!)

As many of you already know, my first experience with sparkling water was one I’d like to forget, but unfortunately, it will probably forever haunt me in my dreams…or when I get thirsty.

So it was with some trepidation that I tried the Britannia Soliss Pear & Ginger Sparkling Water from the United Kingdom.

After taking a hesitant first sip of the Britannia Soliss, the first thing that came to my mind was, “What the hell died in the Aquafina Sparkling Water to make it taste so damn horrible?”

The Britannia Soliss was crisp and clean. It went down smooth. It had a nice distinguished pear taste, with a hint of ginger, which gave it some spice. But most importantly, it didn’t make me gag, it didn’t make me want to spit it out, and it didn’t taste like my tongue licked a fire hydrant. In other words, it was waaay better tasting than the Aquafina Sparkling Water.

Ever since taking that first sip, not only has my view of sparkling water changed, my whole view of the world has changed dramatically. The Britannia Soliss has lifted the blinders from in front of my eyes and it has made me see everything in a whole new light.

I no longer consider rain to be dismal and dreary. I now call it liquid sunshine. I no longer read Playboy only for the articles. I no longer see ALL the Baldwin brothers as B-movie actors, just Stephen, Daniel, and William. I no longer think of prostitutes as whores, I now think of them as sex professionals.

It’s like the world is anew.

One of the the things that caught me off guard with the Britannia Soliss was that they actually tell you where the got the water from on the label.

Britannia Soliss is a unique new range of drinks blending natural flavours and extracts with Spring Water drawn from a source at the end of the Pennine chain, with its protected environmental ensuring purity.

I got nothing of the sort from the Aquafina Sparkling. For all I know, some sweaty, hairy dude in adult diapers, sitting in a kiddie pool filled with sparkling water, might be filling each bottle with the water he’s sitting in.

Oh, I hope those bubbles in the water were from the carbonation.

Besides the taste, one of the best things about the Britannia Soliss was the price and size of the bottle. For only 99 cents, Megan picked up a one liter bottle (about 34 ounces).

If the Britannia Soliss and the Aquafina Sparkling were in the same school, the Britannia Soliss would totally be taking Aquafina Sparkling’s lunch money and giving it a wedgie every single day, because it’s much bigger.

Sure the Aquafina Sparkling Water has no calories, but the entire bottle of Britannia Soliss only had 15 calories. I could probably burn that amount while typing this review or…ahem…reading an issue of Playboy.

Of course, if there was one downfall of the Britannia Soliss, it would be the fact that most of us can’t get our hands on it here in the States. But if you happen to be in Europe, especially the United Kingdom, and you’re thirsty, I’d recommend the Britannia Soliss.

Item: Britannia Soliss Pear & Ginger Sparkling Water
Purchase Price: 99 cents (purchased by Megan in Germany)
Rating: 4 out of 5
Pros: Tastes helluva a lot better than Aquafina Sparkling, but what doesn’t. Crisp and clean taste. Made me change my mindset about sparkling water. Big-ass one liter bottle for less than a dollar.
Cons: Might not be available in the United States, but it’s available in parts of Europe.

REVIEW: Aquafina Wild Berry FlavorSplash

Marvo 31 Comments

Aquafina FlavorSplash

Everyone has these things they have to do everyday. Some people call them routines, some call them habits, some call them quirks, and some call them obsessive-compulsive actions, but everyone has them.

Here are the three things I have to do everyday:

1. Learn something new – It can be a new word, recipe, world capital, sexual position, or way to make a baby cry.

2. Give an offering to one of my celebrity shrines – I usually give ChapStick for my Angelina Jolie shrine, fresh herbs for my Rachael Ray shrine, an Emmy award for my Tina Fey shrine, and for my Winona Ryder shrine, a Saks Fifth Avenue gift card.

3. Drink enough water to make my pee clear – It shows that I’m well hydrated and when I pee, I don’t have to flush the toilet, because it looks like I didn’t do anything.

Some people say if your pee is clear, it shows that you’re healthy, but for me it also prevents other people from pointing fingers at me when they see “I ♥ Ryan Seacrest” written in yellow snow.

So how do you make your pee clear? You do it by drinking lots and lots of water.

They say everyone should drink eight glasses of water a day and I tried that, but drinking just plain old water got boring really quick. So I’ve been trying to mix it up with different types of water and it’s been sometimes successful and other times, like with the Aquafina Sparkling Water, it was a total disaster, like the Titanic sinking or any recent Ben Affleck movie.

You would think from that experience I would’ve learned my lesson with Aquafina water, but apparently I’m a sick masochistic son of a bitch, because I decided to try the zero calorie, zero carbs, and zero sugar Aquafina Wild Berry FlavorSplash.

Yeah, Aquafina! Give it to me, baby! Oh yeah, I like the way you punish my taste buds! Make me grimace, baby! Make me gag, Aquafina!

So what’s the difference between Aquafina FlavorSplash and Aquafina Sparkling?

Aquafina FlavorSplash contains no carbonation and is artificially sweetened with Splenda, while Aquafina Sparkling has carbonation and all-natural flavors, contains no sugars or artificial sweeteners, and tastes so bad that plants would find a way to spit it out.

I thought the FlavorSplash was going to rock my world…in a bad way. However, it turned out to be not bad. It’s got a very light berry taste and it also tastes like someone dumped a couple of packets of Equal into the bottle and mixed it up.

It’s slightly better than regular water, but waaaay better than Aquafina Sparkling. I guess Splenda is good for something else besides pretending to be cocaine.

I thought I found a decent plain water replacement, until I let the half-full bottle (or half-empty for you pessimistic folks) of Aquafina FlavorSplash sit outside of the refrigerator for a few hours. It turns out that it’s like milk, the longer you leave it out of the refrigerator, the better the chances of you spitting it out.

Well as long as it’s chilled I think FlavorSplash is not bad, but then again, I think former MTV VJ Kennedy is a babe.

Item: Aquafina Wild Berry FlavorSplash
Purchase Price: 89 cents
Rating: 3 out of 5
Pros: Not bad. Cheap. Waaay better than Aquafina Sparkling. Zero calories. Zero sugars. Zero carbs. My celebrity shrines. I like punishment.
Cons: Tastes crappy warm. Most Ben Affleck movies.

REVIEW: Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper

Marvo 30 Comments

Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper

I have a friend who drinks an X-treme Gulp of Diet Coke almost everyday. For those of you who don’t know, an X-treme Gulp contains 52-OUNCES OF SODA!!! It comes in this gigantic reusable plastic mug that’s roughly the size of my head. My friend puts a straw through the spill proof lid and nurses his X-treme Gulp the whole day at work.

Somehow I think drinking 52-OUNCES of Diet Coke, defeats the purpose of drinking Diet Coke. Then again, I’ve never consumed 52-OUNCES of Diet Coke, so what does my fat ass know?

When I first heard about my friend’s X-treme consumption of Diet Coke, all I could think of was him probably spending half the day drinking it and the other half peeing it out. Of course, probably the worst part of it all is the fact he fills his head-sized mug with a diet soda, which is currently only a notch above sparkling water in the taste department.

There’s a reason why the word “die” is in “diet.” It’s because diet sodas are the dead tasting versions of their regular high-sugar counterparts.

The only times I’ve tried diet sodas are when I’ve come late to parties and all that’s left in the coolers are a ton of diet sodas. I know they’re diet sodas because all diet sodas come in a white or light gray can. The reason for this is because dark colored cans absorb taste, while light colored cans reflect it.

So because I’m late to these parties, I have to drink a diet soda, because the only other options are the melted ice in the coolers and the garden hose that the dog also drinks from.

Now when I drink a diet soda my face puckers up with every sip. It’s like the magic potion that turns me into Camilla Parker Bowles. Oh wait, she’s now called The Duchess of Cornwall. My bad.

Anyway, my face usually doesn’t make babies cry or mirrors crack, but when I grimace from drinking a diet soda, it’s almost guaranteed.

So it was with some trepidation, that I picked up a Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper from the convenience store down the street. I really wanted to pick up the Pepsi Holiday Spice that was in the refrigerated case, but I thought it would be best if I not, because I don’t know how long they’ve been there, since holiday season is waaay over.

When I got home, I prepared myself for the diet soda by covering all the mirrors and making sure I had no illegitimate babies in the apartment. However, after drinking it, I realized that all those preparations were unnecessary.

It turned out that it’s possible to make a diet soda that actually tastes good.

Yahtzee!

With the Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper, I could definitely taste the Dr Pepper and I could taste the cherries. However, as for the vanilla, it just wasn’t there, which disappointed me because having it would’ve probably made this soda even better.

Since I liked it so much, I decided to buy more bottles, but when I went back the next day to the convenience store, they were sold out. Which probably means other people like it or my friend likes it and decided to buy the rest of the stock so that he could fill his X-treme Gulp mug for a while.

I was thinking about giving Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper a 3 rating, but for being the best diet soda I’ve ever had and for not making me look like someone Prince Charles would kiss, I gave it a 4 rating.

Now if they ever have Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper available at the convenience store’s soda fountain, I think purchasing an X-treme Gulp of it is in my future.

Item: Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper
Purchase Price: $1.29
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Best diet soda I’ve ever tasted. Zero-calories. Zero-carbs. Doesn’t make me look like The Duchess of Cornwall.
Cons: No vanilla flavor. Contains phenylalanine. Took forever for a store here to have it in stock.