In an attempt to be able to drink something more interesting than diet soda (which, lets face it, is only available in so many flavors), and less boring than water, I taste-tested several different kinds of drink powders to find my favorites. All of these are 5 calories per 8 oz serving or less.
First up , I grabbed the eight different flavors of Hawaiian Punch. Here they are in order of my preference:
Green Berry Rush – This is intended to be strawberry-kiwi. It’s one of the more unique flavors of the bunch. 9/10
Fruit Juicy Red – This tastes just like the original liquid Hawaiian Punch you probably remember drinking as a kid. It’s red, it’s fruity, and overall pretty good. 8/10
Wild Purple Smash – Tastes like grape, or more accurately, tastes like Purple. Almost identical flavor to Kool-Aid Grape Flavor. Which I happen to like. 8/10
Lemon Berry Squeeze – It’s basically a pretty good pink lemonade. 8/10
Polar Blast – This tastes pretty much the same as Red. Maybe a bit more pineapple and a bit less cherry? It’s enjoyable, but not that much different than the red flavor. 7/10
Orange Ocean – Tastes pretty much like orange, but with some other flavors. I’d almost say I taste a hint of vanilla or something? It’s totally passable. 7/10
Berry Limeade Blast – Tastes substantially more like strawberry than it does lime, but good. 7/10
Berry Blue Typhoon – Tastes like a generic berry drink. Perfectly servicable. 7/10
Honestly, though there are some standouts that are substantially different, most of them just taste pretty much like fruit punch. They are all pretty good though, and I don’t know that there’s any I wouldn’t get in the future.
I also grabbed three flavors of True Lemon / True Lime:
Raspberry Lemonade – Like the other two, I can taste the Stevia, it is fairly weak and so has to be prepared at full strength, and it just isn’t great. These are more expensive per serving and not as good as the Hawaiian Punch, so I’d skip them in the future. However, it is the best of the three. 4/10
Peach Lemonade – I was hopeful about this flavor as I really like peach flavored things, although they typically have that odd artificial peach flavor. I mostly taste the Stevia it is sweetened with, and a hint of the peach flavor, plus a tiny bit of acidity (the lemon part). Not especially inspiring. 3/10
Cherry Limeade – Not fantastic. Very little flavor and I mostly taste the Stevia it is sweetened with. It needs to be prepared at full strength, so serving it over ice doesn’t work or there’s very little taste at all. 2/10