All City

The year was 2006(I believe). I was on a road trip when I stopped at a small convenience store a couple of hours away from where I live. While browsing their selection of energy drinks I noticed three distinct cans sitting in a cooler. They were the three cans to All City NRG. Years passed and I never saw nor heard anything involving All City until a recent trip to Big Lots. They had all three different cans to All City, and being an energy drink can collector, I picked up two of them. In case your wondering, All City comes in three different cans despite having the same flavour. Yes it is weird, lets move on. Since the suspense has been building since 2006, I have to say that I'm excited to finally try and review All City. Being a fan of the parent company Arizona Tea I expect nothing short of greatness.

FIRST IMPRESSION: At first glance it is hard not to like the can. The bizarre graffiti-like pattern looks great and fits the image that All City is going for. But once you hold the can in your hand I'm sure that your opinion of the can will change, and not for the better. See, All City's can design isn't printed on the can, and instead the design is shrink wrapped, similar to the vitaminenergy line. Let me ask a perfectly good question, why would Arizona even consider shrink wrapping a great design? Though the shrink wrap is well shrunk, I can't get past such an idiotic move. Hey, if drinks can have shrink wrapped designs, why not other things? Imagine cereal boxes, lamp shades, video game discs, and scratch tickets all shrink wrapped? Yeah, things would suck. All in all, the can could of been great, but one major flaw prevented it.

TASTE: I opened the can and took a sip. Surprisingly All City isn't carbonated. While it makes sense given that it is made by Arizona, it still isn't too common. The flavour starts out a smooth blend mainly consisting of blueberry, pomegranate, and orange that eventually fades, leaving a minor bitter tea taste behind. The blue berry starts the flavour but doesn't last too long as the pomegranate gains control. The pomegranate lasts a while but doesn't overstay its welcome. Once the pomegranate fades a light orange taste develops. The orange taste steadily decreases in power as the flavour goes on. None of these flavours are very sweet, which I feel is a disappointment as it could have offset the mild bitterness. There are some notes of apple and cranberry through out the flavour, but they are rather unnoticeable. There's a slight syrupy coating left in your mouth, but it is nothing compared to Black Jack Gunpowder Tea, but it is still noticeable. The overall flavour is hard to drink in large gulps, so I strongly recommend small sips. All in all, while the flavour may be interesting, it's just too syrupy, bitter and hard to drink to call good.

KICK: Each can contains: 2000mg of Taurine, 300mg of caffeine, 200mg of ginseng, inositol, guarana, glucuronolactone, 100% of your daily intake of Vit. C, and 200% of your daily intake of Vit. B12, Vit. B6, and Pantothenic acid. This blend of ingredients gave me a great buzz. For around four to five hours my mental presence was raised and I got a slight case of the jitters.

FINAL WORD: Overall, I feel that All City is a below than great energy drink. With an underdeveloped taste and shrink wrapped can not even the great kick could save this drink from failing. Being a fan of Arizona tea I expected nothing but excellency, but what I got was a big disappointment. All the flaws in All City could of easily been avoided. If the design was printed on the can and they just added energy ingredients to a preexisting Arizona tea flavour this drink could of been terrific, but no, they chose to screw it up. All in all, All City had potential but sadly it just- "Hey Caffeine King, I'm really happy for you, and I'ma let you finish, but ED Junkie has the best review site of all time-" Hey Kanye West get the hell out of here. Anyway, like I was saying, All City had potential, but it just ended up being a calami-tea of an energy drink...2.5/5

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