Black Rifle Tiger Strike Energy Drink Review

Leave it to the infamously political energy drink brand Black Rifle to be celebrating America's birthday. What, do they think this will get them invited to the party? The patriotic colors work well with the company's design language, though its purported flavor of Tiger Strike has my head race with all sorts of possibilities: will we the people finally get to know what the cat on the cereal box tastes like?

Do I have a cold? Because this tastes like medicine. Ostensibly modeled after Bomb Pops, the tongue expects cherry, lime and blue raspberry, but the trilogy is buried beneath the saccharine rubble of an synthetic sweetener explosion. But what is perhaps worse is its aquatic finish, as if the liquid inside your mouth suddenly turned into seltzer. It helps dilute the dishonest carbohydrate influence, but to what end? It is the effervescence that really seals the soda water deal, a pungent punch of spiky little bubbles that perforate your taste buds into burned corpses on the flavor battlefield. A good several sips deep into the sixteen ounces on display, your tongue, so deadened by the excessive sham sugar salvo, begins to be able to look beyond and notice what the company was so clearly going for. The trilogy of childlike produce show a zest for life, in particular a bit of tartness! And it is a pretty good acidity, I might add, but the journey to the few moments of guileless bliss is so aggressive and aggravating that it, without a doubt, is not worth catching the carbonated excursion.

At least there is caffeine, 200 milligrams of the stuff. The resulting three hour long buzz is pretty good too and, oh before I forget, some vitamins show up as well. And you know how much we just love vitamins in 'Murica- why else would we be hellbent on going back to the time of The Flintstones?

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Bang American Berry Energy Drink Review

Oh not you too, Bang. Why does every company lately feel they need to slap red, white and blue colors onto an energy drink? Are you really trying to corner the market of people who wear white tank tops and a cowboy hat while looking for cheap beer and sparklers at their local Wally World?

The stench of cheap produce wafts from the tall, sixteen ounce can. The taste, however, that took me in a time-machine back to the late aughts when Moxie Thunder was something you could find with decent regularity. I kinda dug that drink then, but I am not the same person now, and the world of energy drinks has matured, mutated, regressed and then evolved further. But what is so bad here? It cannot be the fruits themselves, an antiquated amalgam of blueberry, raspberry, cranberry and strawberry; those flavors by themselves could come together craft a caffeinated cocktail worth quaffing. No, what ruins the experience is the tartness, a sort of lactic sourness that calls to mind an incredibly thin-bodied yogurt without the dairy. It does not tickle your taste buds and curl the side of your lip the way a soft drink should. Instead, your head sort of jerks back, thrust away in both major bewilderment and minor disgust. There is a slight silver lining, something I would ordinarily criticize the brand for: saccharinity. Without real sugar to expand your waistline, sucralose and ace-k are exploited until your tongue cannot taste any more synthetic sweetness from any subsequent sip. This means the vulgar acidity is tampered down somewhat. I mean, it results in you savoring the insides of those colored satchels you find in coffee shops all over, but hey, sometimes stubbing your big toe is better then banging your pinkie toe.

But hey, 300 milligrams of caffeine is a pretty nice reward, huh? The three and a half hour long buzz is a good one, more impressive than anything else this dastardly drink displays. Overall, Bang American Berry tastes as bad as I imagine most Americans smell.

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Bucked Up Rocket Pop Energy Drink Review

The Bucked Up brand is back with a particularly patriotic potable, inspired no doubt by a certain frozen ice treat popular around the fourth of next month. For what it is, the visuals are appealing, clean with only a slight buildup of text towards the bottom of the design, but hey, aside from me, what is perfect?

The flavor is dynamite, an explosion of strawberry, blue raspberry, and grape balanced in surprising harmony. You can taste the trilogy with every part of your tongue, all furthest from anything found in actual nature but immensely thirst-quenching, especially on a hot summer day; nailing both the sweet and sour profile expected from its obvious influence. But what sets the experience apart from other, lesser potations is the texture, a powdery mouthfeel that so many diet drinks are sorely missing. Is it one-dimensional? Yeah, but so what, I gulped and gulped until there was but nary a drip left inside its sixteen ounce walls, and that folks is the sign of a solid energy drink.

With 300 milligrams of caffeine, the kick is what a taste like this deserves, a rocking one. Lasting three and a half hours, the buzz is exactly what you would expect. Other ingredients include B vitamins, taurine, and others. In the end, Rocket Pop is not only the best Bucked Up, it is one of the better energy drinks in general in a long, long time.

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Full Throttle Original Citrus Energy Drink Review

"Why?" That is the question I kept asking myself after plopping this most recent remake of OG Full Throttle in my Walmart cart. Why remake it again? This is the third time as far as I can tell. Why the white can? After all, it is a color normally reserved for diet drinks. In any event, the visuals are clean, focused, and striking; this is how to do a patriotic potation right. Ol' Glory, Rip It Tribute and True Eagle take note.

"Original Citrus" reads the top of the design and my tongue confirms that declaration, and was on board for every ounce. It is bold, exciting and refreshing, utilizing sweetness and acidity in near perfect balance. Consisting of lemon mostly, it is elevated by nuances of lime and pineapple. The blend is far from creative but it does not have to be; I am a pushover for this cocktail genre, and my palate relished this light, crisp and pure experience. Utilizing high fructose corn syrup almost makes sips syrupy, but actual sugar gives imbibes a stiffer texture. We have fifty five grams between the two carbohydrates for a total of 230 calories per can. It is a lot, to be sure, which limits the commercial appeal; in a world where drinks like Bang dominate the energy drink cooler, Full Throttle needs to go on a diet.

Just 160 milligrams of caffeine can be found here, a standard amount of course, but it did not have to be. The resulting kick lasts just two hours, but despite all the sugar, there is not much of a crash. Overall, Full Throttle Original Citrus tastes just fine, but that is not always enough.

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Monster Zero Sugar Ultra Red White & Blue Razz Energy Drink Review

Maybe we need some patriotism in this day in age, but Monster here is playing with fire. Its can is about as obvious as any using the American flag as its basis, calling to mind Ol' Glory, which I am not sure is what any energy drink wants to do. Still, there is some undercaffeinated person for whom this just tickles their eye balls; I am not that person.

Crystal clear in color and smelling sweetly, our first sip errs on the flat side, which is a disappointment. Thousands, if not millions, of little bubbles look enticing, calling my tongue forward only to be crestfallen by the cocktail's muted effervescence. The flavor profile is vague but not terribly complex, blue raspberry surrounded by highlights of lime and cherry, though I cannot help but shake a touch of grapefruit lurking in here too. Things are sugar free, obviously, erythritol, ace-k and sucralose taking up the job from honest carbohydrates, but this kid-inspired experience cries out for real sugar to really drive home its sweetmeat influence. Oh well, at least things are sour, easily the best part, which creeps in slowly as the boringly bubbly beverage first hits your taste buds, but grows in intensity as it makes its way across your palate and finally goes down the hatch. It remains well after you sip, a tingly tartness that is so pleasant I kinda wish it went a bit harder; really sell me that blue raspberry impression. 

The buzz is not all that wonderful either, 160 milligrams of my namesake chemical launching a two hour long kick of average strength. Being Monster, taurine, inositol, vitamins, etc., are also here, but they do not often get my engine purring. This is a mediocre energy drink, yet there is a part of me that is just giddy at the prospect of such a proudly American energy drink predominately flavored after something not found in nature, and who's origins can be laboriously traced back to the Great Depression.

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Red Bull The Spring Edition Sugar Free Cherry Sakura Energy Drink Review

The white can, the silver bull, the blue boxes and the red text- there are just too many colors here for it to gel into a cohesive look. I am unwilling to forgive the silliness of a drink calling itself "Red" Bull, only for the cattle to be rendered in bare aluminum. Nor can I ignore just how hard it is to see the damn thing.

The transition from honest carbohydrates to the likes of sucralose and ace-k does not hinder the overall experience as much as I feared: this is still a fun, if cockeyed, little energy drink. Cherry remains the dominant flavor, but it is neither sweet nor sour: instead, it is earthy, as if the fruit was soaked in rose water and rolled in grass. This disheveled diet drink demands a very specific kind of palate to fully enjoy, and my tongue spent much of the twelve ounces distracted, rather than drooling. The bright red elixir is just as heavy on the almond as its calorie-full friend, but the nuttiness it brings to the party ends up as distant intricacy to the existing funk. Red Bull has seemingly gone out of their way to prevent their 2026 Spring Edition from achieving any commercial appeal, filling it with way too many nuances, detours and surprises that you need to have a good sense of humor to make it to the bottom of the can.

The buzz is easily the least interesting thing here. 114 milligrams of caffeine just barely gets my motor revving, and the other supplements like taurine and B vitamins are just things I have learned to spell by memory. Overall, Red Bull The Spring Edition Sugar Free is one of those rare potent potables that is better in hindsight.

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Joker Cherry Lime Energy Drink Review

Joker Cherry Lime is a flavor created specifically for its exclusivity to Circle-K, however, its can is nothing more than a palette change different from the rest of the line. That is a good thing, as the can remains remarkably clean and easy to read despite its swirly backdrop and the large chunk of writing at the bottom left.

An airy effervescence ambushes the palate with a languorous lime conglomerated with an exiguous cherry taste. The deuce of sapors are absent of any chemistry, both egregiously without the anticipated sourness. Sweetness is a triune of modified sugars, HFCS, sucralose and ace-k, an unfortunate triptych with the artificial honeys lacking the grandiose of the true carbohydrate, and what there is of honest calories approaches its job with too much trepidation to ever be convincing. Every sip lacks the substance of sincere sugar the flavors beg for: you should feel the heft from the sugar, but somehow diet wins out. With the carefree carbonation playing ignorant to their lusts, the whole thing just sorta collapses under its own weightless weight.

Each can contains: B vitamins, taurine, caffeine (160 milligrams), and inositol. The buzz is mediocre, lasting about two hours and ends without any crash. In the end, the Joker line has never been the greatest line, but even with that in mind, this Cherry Lime variety still leaves you crestfallen.