  i am a sport drink gastronome on occasion, prior to hockey games, the boy will stop by the local grocery store and pick us up some sports drinks. i'm a powerade girl at heart, though i'll pretty much drink any sort of red thirst quencher. however, lately the boy has adopted the habit of purchasing the grocery store discount brand, called winners. winners is total crap. i've tried to convey this fact many times, to no avail. recently, the boy pointed out that winners and gatorade, not to mention powerade, all taste exactly the same.
"not so," i replied tartly (as i am a tart). "my sports drink taste buds are so finely attuned, i can tell the difference between gatorade, winners, and powerade. " and with that statement, the sports drink blind taste test was born. pictures and results are below. above you see our dedicated experimenter, formerly known as the boy, who actually at one point spoke, "we take these things very seriously at the sports drink institute; we've been around for...fourteen minutes now. " above is the test subject, carefully hidden behind a cat named reno.
reno was supposed to help me in case i ran into trouble, as he has been known to dip his paws into misplaced glasses of water, milk, and gatorade/powerade. the taste test table setup. from left to right, powerade (we actually drove to three different stores in search of red powerade), winners, gatorade, and a cup of water, which i was instructed to use "to cleanse the palate" after sipping each of the others. no joke. the actual taste test; while i look ready to vomit, i assure you that it was laughter--no shampoos were harmed in the process of this experiment. i started off the test by smelling each of the drinks.
the experimenter tried to coax me into telling him what i thought about each drink after trying it; however, i knew what he was up to--he was attempting to trick me into admitting that i liked winners. unfortunately, i said that it was "good" by accident. dammit. the cat who was supposed to be assisting with the taste test eventually got bored and retreated to a high shelf to watch and meow plaintively. he was no help at all, and will not be asked back to assist with future experiments. also, we didn't give him the $25 we promised him if he helped.
the results: A was winners, B was powerade, C was gatorade. not only did i get this undeniably correct without a moment's hesitation, i got it correct on the smell test. here, i show winners what i think of it: you're crap, winners, CRAP! the experimenter, dejected after his doomed experiment failed, and failed miserably. don't feel too bad for him, though--i gave him my phone number, a little what-for, and a place to spend the night. my only regret was refusing to bet $20 on my taste buds' ability.
appendix : shortly after the experimenter learned i planned to publish the above report, i received the following press release: The Sports Drink Institute does not support this study; certain conditions existed within the experiment that likely contaminated the results. Therefore, we do not recognize this study as valid. Additionally, we think Shampoo is a doodieeeehead. 
