Sparkling Ice + Caffeine Strawberry Citrus Review

This is an energy drink. It does not matter what Sparkling Ice calls itself. Its confused identity really distracts from the potential marketability- who is going to buy this? Without a clear target audience, this sixteen ounce can finds itself in stores at end caps, away from the other energy drinks who know what they are.

Strawberry Citrus certainly does taste like strawberry. There it is, that is the review. Of course that is not all- the front of the can calls for citrus, a nebulous nom de plume that introduces nothing to the experience. You taste only the outwardly seeded fruit, right down to the acidity, which has a soft edge of sweetness to keep it from harshly landing on the palate. Sucralose is the lone sweetener, the synthetic sugar missing its usual ace-k partner, but the flavor does not falter in its absence; your tongue suffers none of the expected chemical burn. Carbonation is another successful area, a smooth effervescence that seldom resembles any commercial seltzer. Take that for what it is worth. It all makes for a pleasant but dimensionless experience, with every sip sipping identically to your first, and by the last gulp of the available sixteen ounces, your taste buds are discouraged by the lack of discovery and depth.

Just seventy milligrams of caffeine? Why would they do that? I repeat: this is an energy drink! The buzz lasts an hour and a half, a weak rising, riding, and climaxing kick. Other ingredients include various vitamins and antioxidants. In the end, Sparkling Ice + Caffeine Strawberry Citrus is afraid of its own self.

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Xing Grape Attack Energy Drink Review

The company's design here is a wild one, with no real theme aside from "hey, let's just chuck a bunch of text on a can... no, any font, any direction, any size- it doesn't matter!" The brand name shines with the golden yellow "Xing," and although the purple looks sharp on the black background, the violet wording is difficult to read.

Grape is a solid flavor for Xing and all their idiosyncrasies- its grainy sugariness and lack of effervescence. It is a soft drink gone flat, but that is okay- sips escape the can at a brisk pace, the carbohydrates flooding my mouth with their toothsome texture. It is full-on candy here, fifty four grams of sugar do a splendid job sweetening; this really is a soda-like experience! It has a solid tartness as well, an acidity that is just one notch below puckering and I honestly wish it went the extra mile and curled my face into a mangled mess of tense muscles. I do like it here, but I cannot help but wonder how much better things would be had we gotten some carbonation. It would have really tied the whole experience together, but at least this variety is a stronger flavor than their Tangerine drink.

Each can contains: B vitamins, taurine, 160 milligrams of caffeine, inositol, and 220 calories. The kick standard, lasting two and a half hours and is rather dull. Sure, there is a solid sugar rush, but that is not why we drink energy drinks! I wanted my socks knocked off and, gasp, they are still on!

G Fuel Snow Cone Energy Drink Review

It has been a few years since I have been to a fair or festival, but snow cone itself is not a flavor. So what does G Fuel here expect customers will surmise this potent potable tastes like? Should I keep it in my freezer? This is such a silly little drink.

There is a brief, solitary moment to G Fuel here, several seconds in, that had me smiling, shocked at my own low expectations the visuals help establish and looking forward to another gulp. Cherry, lime and blue raspberry all appear in their most childlike expressions, pounding the palate with zero understanding of how produce works in the real world. (And, I hear one of the three is not even a real fruit!) But soon, it would happened. This is an unpleasantly still beverage, despite carbonated water being marked first in the ingredients, as if a melted mouthful of snow cone dripped out of one of those paper pyramid cups and onto my trepidatious tongue. This means sixteen ounces of underwhelming textural stimulation, which would not be such a big deal if "it" was not still to come. If you in the audience were thinking "sweetness," then gosh darn it, you were right; sucralose and ace-k are simply not up to the challenge of crafting a competent saccharinity today, instead tasting like chemicals and falsehoods. And it is here where the artificial turns into the aggressively unpleasant, taking over the fruity fun from before. Any competent cocktail would have given us some acidity to help distract from how lousy it really is, but alas, this is no such sufficing soft drink.

300 milligrams of caffeine!? That is a lot and my body was all for it, even if the journey was a vulgar one. But it did not need to be this way; does G Fuel not want to look good and to taste good? Do they want to suck? Because this one does.

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Red Bull The Summer Edition Sudachi Lime Energy Drink Review

Red Bull really is running out of primary colors to use for their energy drinks: this is the same can as the company's Yellow Edition! It is an interesting choice, not just with the possibility of brand cannibalization, but also since Sudachi limes are, you know, green. But hey I am excited, not necessarily for this product, but because it being barely summer means it is practically almost autumn, which means Peeps should be back on store shelves soon.

Those wacky Red Bull chemists have done it again: this is the most accurate a "lime" potent potable this tongue has ever experienced. Sips roll out from the twelve ounce can with a calm confidence, singularly focused on the round piece of produce and respecting how Mother Nature crafted such a delightful little fruit from Japan. The lime itself is both sweet and sour, but wisely eschews going all-in with a candy store impersonation. Rather, the flavor lets its saccharinity and acidity speak, balanced brilliantly with an earthy underscore that keeps things grounded. But what really seals the experience's deal is the carbonation: your mouth flooded with so many teeny tiny little bubbles, soft like an foam but reproducing aggressively until that empty cavity in the front of your head is absolutely full of them. This is not just another commercial cocktail of citrus confectionery- this is an energy drink of maturity, one that asks you to think about the contents inside its metal walls instead of being simply an empty vessel to liquid caffeine.

Speaking of which, I wish we had more here. Just 114 milligrams of my namesake chemical is hardly enough to get my gears turning, the buzz lasting an hour and a half, and that is me being incredibly generous. Oh sure, taurine, vitamins and the likes are also here, but why go through the trouble of making such a great and interesting tasting drink only to fail the energy part?

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Juice Monster Strawberry Lemonade Energy Drink Review

There is likely some audience for a patriotic energy drink, but in today's climate, why take that chance? Just produce a potent potable all people would feel comfortable purchasing, but then again I what do I know? I have only been reviewing these things for over a decade. The can itself is pleasant enough, with a monster truck, woman in a bikini, an eagle wearing gun glasses and a bandanna, and my personal favorite, a ripped George Washington on a motorcycle. You might call it a white can; I call it white trash.

At least the taste is pretty good. Pretty damn good, actually. While neither piece of produce achieves a level of verisimilitude found in nature, its simplicity is refreshing in an age of constant caffeinated evolution. The berry brings with it sweetness, a fruity reprieve from the sometimes harsh acidic bite of the citrus. But this sourness is able to withstand the fifty one gram onslaught of carbohydrates, lingering just long enough in the back of your tongue, refreshed with every subsequent sip. Sugar, glucose and sucralose steer the sweetness, there are forty seven grams of the sweet stuff after all, and if you can ignore the little doctor angel on your shoulder, they do provide a really good texture. It is weighted without being heavy, toothsome without becoming gritty. But we should really talk about juice: what little we actually have comes to us from apple and lemon- that is right, strawberry, despite receiving top-billing, is nothing but a "natural flavor." And yet that is not the best part: what is is how we get just five percent nectar, despite a whopping 200 calories. Obesity is the American way, after all.

I really wish we had more than 160 milligrams of caffeine, but that is just the world we live in. Taurine, inositol, vitamins, etc., are all here in standard measure, but come on, this is the country's birthday, do you not think we need a little extra oomph to celebrate?

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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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