Review: Q Drinks Ginger Ale & Fill Out More Than One March Madness Bracket? (My Picks Revealed!) & SODA CONTEST for Twitter AND Facebook!
Junk Food Nation, the question is: How many brackets do you fill out during March Madness time? And the answer, of course, is: As many as possible. I fill out work brackets, college friend brackets, family brackets, high school friend brackets, law school buddy brackets, barbershop brackets. I have five dollars here, ten bucks there…the more brackets, the better, GIVE ME MORE BRACKETS!
But the REAL question is: when you’re filling out your office bracket, your college friends’ bracket, your family bracket…do you fill in the same teams the same way on each bracket, or do you fill in a totally different bracket for each and every pool you enter?
I am of the crazy sort that fills out a bracket one way, and one way only, for every single bracket pool I enter. Why? Because I figure if I’m gonna win, I want to win BIG, i.e., If I end up in first place, I want to be in first place in EACH AND EVERY BRACKET. If every single bracket entry was different, I’d be stressed – like a bad Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book, I’d be sitting on my couch, circling on one piece of paper, X-ing on another, going mad like I’m Professor Nash from A Beautiful Mind.
So, no. One bracket, filled out one way, is the way to go. You don’t want to have a perfect bracket in your five dollar pool, only to have a first round matchup wrong in your $100 pool. If you’re confident in one set of picks, then BE confident in them for every single contest.
And thus, my March Madness Picks, REVEALED! Can you beat me? (Probably.) That’s right; I have my pick (Louisville) facing off against my team (Kansas). ROCK. CHALK. JAYHAWK.
Now, onto my latest contest and the subject of today’s review: Q Drinks Ginger Ale!
Q Drinks: each one was delicately wrapped! FANCY!
So, I LOVE ginger ale. It may be just my age, but while I can certainly quaff a pint or two or orange fizzy drink, I am always opting for ginger ale when I have the chance. The problem is I HATE high fructose corn syrup. I know, right? Junk Food Guy, trying to be healthy? Believe it.
Good god, so much wrapping!
Q Drinks is a company I first learned about at the Summer Fancy Food Show. But after I tried their product, a ginger ale that did NOT have HFCS, but did have a ton of flavor, I WAS HOOKED. I knew I wanted to work with them ASAP. And it’s finally happened! Each bottle they sent me was individually wrapped. Wowza.
Q Drinks Ginger Ale: The Money Shot
According to Q Drinks, their goal with this Ginger Ale was to make something not quite a ginger beer, and not quite a ginger soda. Q Drinks Ginger Ale is supposed to be just a clean, crisp, gingery bite. And it comes in such a cool bottle! SCHMANCY. Let me take you on a quick photo tour:
Sort of like Orangina – shake well, but not TOO well
Superior to Canada Dry? Perhaps
I like the added spices…
65 calories a bottle, WAY LESS THAN SODA
Simple twist off cap
I love the trend towards adult artisan soda – companies like DRYSoda and IZZE have been favorites of mine for a while…and now add to that, Q Drinks. But what’s it taste like?
Bits of…something gingery in there!
The taste of this Q Drinks Ginger Ale will make ANY ginger ale lover smile. It’s extremely crisp, and full of flavor. The first taste I get when I sipped was sweet agave syrup and carbonated water – cool, refreshing, light. Not overly syrup-y.
Then the ginger hit me like a ton of bricks – this tasted like REAL GINGER because it is MADE with real ginger. The spicy taste burned my tongue pleasantly and was so powerful, it sort of curled my nose. I LOVED IT. So much better than so many ginger ales out there which taste more like sugary soda water with a hint of ginger. Q Drinks puts the ginger flavor front and center.
The carbonation was perfect, nice and fizzy, sizzling on my tongue right along with the spicy ginger taste. And the aftertastes of citrus were clearly noticeable. That gave a really satisfying end to the sip…nice and crisp.
Q Drinks Ginger Ale is the best ginger ale I’ve had in a while. Excellent stuff.
Where to buy: Search here
Wanna try this for yourself? Well then, buy it OR ENTER MY CONTEST!
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*** TWITTER CONTEST DETAILS ***
Ok, so how can you get your hands on a 24-bottle case of Q Drinks Ginger Ale? HERE’S HOW TO ENTER ON TWITTER:
1. Join Twitter. This is a Twitter contest, so man up and sign up. I keep telling you to do this. So do it.
2. Once you’re on Twitter, look for my tweets about Q Drinks Ginger Ale! To best find these tweets, follow me on Twitter here – it’s not required, but it’ll make everything a whole lot easier when you’re looking for my Q Drinks tweets.
3. Re-Tweet the Q Drinks Tweets that I’ll post periodically through the next week. AND THAT’S IT. You’ll automatically be entered in a drawing for a case of Q Drinks Ginger Ale.
4. Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, March 27, 2013. Get all your Re-Tweets in before then! I’ll announce the winner on either Thursday March 28, or Friday March 29.
5. US residents are the only ones eligible to participate, and no one with PO Boxes…AND no Hawaii or Alaska. I don’t make the rules. Wait, I kind of do. But whatever – Q Drinks will only ship within the US and to no PO Boxes, and no Hawaii or Alaska. SORRY! So keep that in mind.
6. Friends can and SHOULD enter, since I’ve become friends with so many of you over Facebook, Twitter, comments, etc. Family cannot enter, but is encouraged to re-tweet anyways and have THEIR friends enter.
7. The more times you Re-Tweet, the more times you’ll be entered! The winners of the Candy Corn Oreos DELUGED THEIR TIMELINES with Junk Food Guy tweets. You can do the same thing!
So that’s how you enter on Twitter. And for those of you on Facebook…
*** FACEBOOK CONTEST DETAILS ***
I know I’ve neglected you for a long time. Sorry, Facebook followers. HERE’S HOW TO ENTER ON FACEBOOK:
1. Join Facebook. Is this even an issue? Almost the entire United States is on FB.
2. Once you’re on Facebook, LIKE my page! This whole LIKE-ing business is critical for the next step. So click on over, and LIKE my page, because….
3. FIRST WAY TO ENTER ON FACEBOOK: LIKE the Q Drinks Ginger Ale Review Post on my page. Boom – that gets you one entry into the drawing pool for a case of Q Drinks Ginger Ale. EASY. But even better….
4. SECOND WAY TO ENTER ON FACEBOOK: SHARE the Q Drinks Ginger Ale Post from my page to YOUR Facebook Wall. Each SHARE gets you TWO entries into the drawing pool for a case of Q Drinks Ginger Ale!
5. The rest of the details, drawing, times, etc etc etc are the same as above, in the Twitter Contest Rules.
And THAT’S how you enter on Facebook.
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So that’s it, Junk Food Nation. Enter my Twitter/Facebook Contest and win a CASE of Q Drinks Ginger Ale, mailed directly to your door. DO IT!
Thoughts? Please comment below or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. Also, you can always email me at junkfoodguy@junkfoodguy.com. Let’s do this.
Sincerely, Junk Food Guy
Discuss - 15 Comments
HOLY CRAP A NOT-EXCLUSIVELY-TWITTER CONTEST.
@Shorneys: JUST FOR YOU
ps. I have two brackets entered at work, and nowhere else. I am trying two disparate tactics. The first is my traditional hack method of being a total homer, picking against Duke because fuck Duke, and throwing in a couple of really stupid upsets because fuck Duke. The second utilized the Wall Street Journal’s “blind bracket” technique, which distills each team down into a couple of universal metrics and assigns each team a code name so you go by an analyst’s stats and writeup and not some knee-jerk fuck-Duke reaction. We’ll see how they do. I predict abject failure on both counts.
@Shorneys: How’s it going so far?
So the gut-reaction bracket is kicking the blindfolded bracket’s ass in terms of the basic first round games. BUT, in instances where the blindfolded bracket was wrong have been contained mainly to the first round, where when the gut-reaction bracket goes wrong, BOY DOES IT GO WRONG.
Example: in the blindfolded bracket, I picked Bucknell over Butler. I was wrong, but in the next round, I picked Marquette, so that cut off how wrong I could be. In the gut-reaction bracket, I picked UNLV over Cal and Wisconsin over Ole Miss. Except that both of these bastards were all the way into my final 4. So I made fewer, but much costlier mistakes by my gut. We’ll see how it goes from here.
@Shorneys: It’s amazing how some costly mistakes just fireball the rest of the bracket.
HOLY CRAP A U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY CONTEST. Haha, sorry Shorneys!
I have 3 different brackets because I’m greedy and I want points. Nobody over here even knows March Madness exists so mine are all online.
I have a “what-I-want/who-I-think-could-win” bracket with KU taking it because they gave me hope in their last few games. I initially thought they’d be out by sweet sixteen but fingers crossed, hopefully Perry Ellis keeps doing what he’s doing. Second one is a boring highest seed wins every game after I read one of those ridiculous stats articles and I have Indiana beating Louisville.
Third and favourite is MASCOT MADNESS where I have UNLV beating out Valpo. Let’s be honest, I only really care about the mascot bracket but a Jayhawk win would be excellent.
@TroutPoutt: the mascot bracket sounds excellent. Are you a KU fan normally?
haha i had davidson too..wow would have been a big upset..i have louisville vs miami in the final and louisville winning
@Nathaniel: I KNOW! Davidson blew it at the end…..sigh. Louisville Miami isn’t a bad final 2. THat FGCU game was absurd
Hmmmm…torn on the cayenne addition. Feels like they added it to add a zing that is not from the ginger, but from the cayenne, instead of relying on ginger for the bite. The fact that the back of the bottle talks about how simple and great it is and then lists ALL THE OTHER SPICES while pretending the cayenne is not there (move along, nothing to see here…cayenne? where?) actually seems to draw more attention to it. Otherwise it sort of sounds like Oogave ginger ale (http://www.oogave.com/index.cfm/bottles/ginger-ale/#). Some quick looking shows just about every other ginger ale just lists ‘natural flavors’…maybe they’re all putting in cayenne, too?
@Dana: Such a good point re the Cayenne. I am curious if the natural flavors in others includes spices like these…maybe they do?
JFG: First, I’m dying to know what “age” has to do with liking ginger ale? Next I’m just curious whether that “age” allows you to add things like Crown Royal to your ginger? My personal fav is the new CR Maple & ginger. Maybe it’s a girl thang. As far as “real” ginger drinks, a Jamaican restaurant we used to frequent had a ginger tea, that was excellent, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t have cayenne in it. To address the bracket issue…as for me none, why? Because I’m from Indiana so it’s simple…Hoosiers all the way. And since I live in Florida now, we have a very good chance with three Florida teams heading quickly toward the sweet 16. I’ll have to go back to the link to check out your picks and see how you’re doing so far…
@Donna: Age doesn’t really have anything to do with it…I was more comparing it to those wacky flavored sodas which are clearly geared towards younger people, like the Mountain Dew Xtreme Orange Blast Fusion, etc. Ginger ale always seemed like a more mature drink to me – and I’ve loved it since I was a kid.
Crown and ginger is a good combo, I tend to drink Jamison and Ginger a lot.
3 Florida teams in the Sweet 16 is amazing. Florida Gulf Coast??? Dancing all the way. I’m doing ok in my bracket – 9 of 16 sweet 16’s left…not horrible, not great
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