Dirty Mountain Dew Zero Sugar Cream Soda Dew Review

I am, if anything, happy that Mountain Dew has decided to actually tell us the alleged flavor with their newest variety. I do not, however, think there is anything dirty about cream soda, which should be velvety, rich, and, ahem, creamy- what kind of soft drinks have they been having? The can is alright, surely busy enough to keep the most immature eyes distracted from the fact you cannot really tell what is going on. Is that a desert? Is that space? Who knows?

I love a good cream soda, but Dirty Mountain Dew proves that I do not love a cream soda mixed with caffeinated citrus. Actually, that is not entire fair: the spice chosen today is a cheap one, chemical and hollow, missing the weighty smoothness of one from a small-time soft drink manufacturer who still uses glass bottles. This is in heavy contrast to the fruit, which is your usual blend of lemon, lime, melon and grapefruit. That familiar blend goes the expected candied route, living in luxury at the decision to use synthetic sugars sucralose and ace-k. This fakeness only amplifies the cream's falsehood flavor, meaning you get twelve ounces of a cheap, carbonated sherbet covered in frost way in the back of a dingy discount store's end chill-chest. A splash or two of actual milk, even if it bumped up the calorie count a tad, could have rescued this from The Caffeine King's annual "Your Drink Sucks" list, but alas, I can only review the drink in front of me, not the one I improve in my head.

Sixty eight milligrams of caffeine, in all respects, is pretty decent for a soda sold in twelve packs. The only problem is, I have another eleven cans to suffer through.

company site

Dunkin' Brownie Batter Donut Iced Coffee Review

We close out our coverage of Dunkin's RTD iced coffees, saving probably the least exciting one for last. Why's that? Donuts and brownies are awesome, but I am willing to bet my weight in cocoa powder that this will just be mocha. The packaging features the iconic branding but sports a dismal color scheme, saying twice the flavor. And that is before I even mention how frustrating it is that it is all undercase.

With six grams of fat, four of which is saturated, you would expect everything from your first to your last sip to be so rich that you could afford to buy better coffee, but alas, the mouthfeel is weightless and thin, my tongue and teeth offered little in the way of resistance. There is no brownie whatsoever, only an indiscriminate chocolate taste that resembles dollar store Halloween candy more so than anything any baker would bake in their bakery. A good brownie, or at least whatever I end up making when I don my apron, is a dense cake that boarders on fudge, some coffee added to balance out the strong sweetness and to provide some background noise to the otherwise simplistic cocoa. Here, this is any ol' canned mocha coffee, which is to say me and my indeterminate amount of cocoa powder are safe.

The best thing about this is the 142 milligrams of caffeine. By not being an energy coffee, the buzz does not need to go above any beyond what your parents brew in the morning with their vintage drip maker and pre-ground beans. On the whole, Dunkin' Brownie Batter Donut is arguably worse than day-old doughnuts.

company site

Monster Strawberry Shot Energy Drink Review

What is Monster doing? They have all these different sub-lines, and they decided to risk their premier product by shoehorning in strawberry? And what is worse is the visuals: the crimson gradient and flavor text is all we get to differentiate this from their flagship variety. Listen, if I were in a rush and was craving a can of the famous soft drink for some reason, I could easily pick this can up by mistake, and I refuse to take responsibility for that hypothetical.

My palate probed for any of the promised, fleshy red fruit, but all it got was exhausting familiarity. Bubble gum, Granny Smith apple and vanilla, with perhaps a touch of white grape, crashes down on the tongue with all the grace an energy drink called "Monster" can have. It is something this energy fiend has experienced hundreds of times (but who is counting), but because I am constantly on the search for new potent potables, there is a certain level of comfort in its boilerplate. Sugar, glucose and sucralose sweeten and they go overboard; with fifty three grams of the sweet stuff (over 100% of your daily intake, I might add), I can just feel my dentist waking up in a cold sweat at yet another cavity to fill. Still, despite that brobdingnagian quantity, most sips are more sour than saccharine, which I appreciated. But as the gulps keep being gulped, the only difference comes towards the end, where the acidity dissipates and is replaced by a newfound sweetness, some indistinct fruitiness lurking well beneath the taste of simple carbohydrates. It is probably the strawberry that the can talks about, but why is it so afraid of its own flavor?

With a decent 160 milligrams of caffeine, not to mention all that sugar, the buzz here is a decent, two and a half hour long one. I should probably also disclose the involvement of things like B vitamins, taurine and inositol, so there, I did. In the end, Monster Strawberry Shot is another, self-cannibalizing offering from the energy drink heavyweight.

company site 

Bum Root Beer Energy Drink Review

What kind of name is "Bum?" The can is certainly better dressed than any panhandlers I have seen on the side of the street, with minimal text and retro visuals. I really like how it looks, though one wonders if "root" is the kind of beer homeless folks pine for.

A crack of the can exposes a most beautiful scent, an odor so on-point for the tonic taste it counterfeits. So imagine my disappointment when it pours out crystal clear! What gives? Fortunately, the flavor is far better, less "Bang Root Beer Blaze" and more, well, I am not sure- that is like, a quarter of all root beer energy drinks featured here from world-renowned The Caffeine King. Vanilla is the staring player, creamy in all the right places despite a calorie count clocking in at an itty-bitty five. Yet it is so unlimitedly velvety that you would swear actual dairy was used here, but no, just "natural flavoring" doing a damn fine job. There is less spice than perhaps my tongue had hoped for, the sassafras strangling the palate once the creamy cascade climaxes so that the brief cinnamon birthing at the tail end of each imbibe is underdeveloped. The flavor is quite good, actually, achieving the soda pop portrayal so perfectly that it is a massive shame how the whole experience is let down by a carbonation uncommitted to proper impersonation. The weak bubbles kneecap what could have been a world-class product, one that bridges the gap between energy and soft drinks. 'Tis a shame.

Just 112 milligrams of caffeine is what my body has to work with, well, that and citicoline, if you are looking for a ten-letter word for "buzzy stimulant." The kick is pretty lackluster, lasting an hour and a half at most, my person acting as if they had simply sipped on a Mtn Dew or something. Overall, Bum Root Beer may not be perfect, but it sure is tasty.

company site

Tornado Storm Energy Drink Review

The Tornado line, hoping to climb out of the hole it found itself in with The Caffeine's 2015 "Your Drink Sucks" list, struggles with its refreshed design. The name itself is clunky to read, a seven letter word occupying three separate lines for some reason. Any goodwill achieved with asymmetrical decals and gritty fonts and colors comes at the cost of readability, which I dunno, is pretty important.

Fifty grams of sugar is all you taste, real sugar too, but not stopping the sickly sweetness that is HFCS in all but name. Despite chilling in the chill chest, every imbibe is warm no matter the temperature my infrared thermometer claims it to be, making the sticky saccharinity crawl across your palate like a snail on a springtime stroll. The flavor? Oh yes there must be something here, and all tasted under the obdurate sugariness is only the faintest of vanilla and apple, a Red Bull clone with a synthetic sheath clouding any verisimilitude any of the sixteen ounces could offer. Largely unnoticed despite its girth, all gulps sink in a perfunctory acidity, a sourness that would hopefully deteriorate the merciless maltose. Instead palates are battered by both the cruel carbohydrate and the tenacious tartness, birthing an undercurrent of bitterness as the tall transport is direly depleted. Overall, Tornado Storm is an experience pining for a flavor that can at least attempt to match the mediocrity of the bottle.

Each bottle contains: B vitamins, taurine, caffeine (142 milligrams), l-carnitine, and guarana. It is a wildly unspectacular buzz, lasting two hours at most, arguably only a sugar rush. To end, Tornado Storm will not be taking the world by, ahem, storm anytime soon.

company site

Summit Tropical Waves Pineapple & Starfruit Energy Drink Review

A Summit drink from discount grocer Aldi without the "Gridlock" branding? What is the world coming to? I appreciate these budget soft drinks though, drinking a fair few myself, but the can here has all the visual verve of an Easter basket with its soft, pastel-esque colors. Couple with stock imagery and way too much text, and you have an energy drink that is all-too obviously store brand.

The golden elixir pours out without carbonation, my eyes and ears sorely missing the sight and sound of all those little bubbles working to escape its aquatic trapping. My tongue, crestfallen by the absence of effervescence, perked up somewhat once the flat fluid flopped upon- I am a pushover for pineapple after all. And Summit here comes about as close to replicating the crunchy yellow flesh of the brightly colored tropical produce that is possible with potent potables. Sucralose sweetens alone and struggles to replicate honest carbohydrates all on its lonesome; a bit of backup from ace-k, or perhaps a few grams of actual sugar maybe, could have helped balance out the dimensionless saccharinity we do have. But by itself? It pushes all its chips forward and honeys aggressively, challenged only by a tartness that would have mother nature herself green with envy. As for the star fruit, the acidity of its less exotic friend totally smothers any chance the shaped crop has at influencing the flavor for much of the experience. Its only opportunity is right as the climax begins and the other tastes collapse, a bit of indistinct fruitiness just barely able to poke through the harsh sweet and sour profile. I did not hate this, but my body would pick just about any other pineapple potation before nabbing this twelve ounce can.

With 200 milligrams of my namesake stimulant, I am happy to report that Aldi is finally making an actual attempt at putting the "energy" in "energy drink." The three hour long buzz is not exactly spectacular, and the ingredient cocktail is otherwise very familiar, with taurine, vitamins and guarana, but the effort alone puts a caffeinated smile on my face. The rest of the drink? Not so much.

Red Bull The Spring Edition Cherry Sakura Energy Drink Review

Silver and white are not exactly the colors one associates with the vernal season, but that did not stop Red Bull from featuring them on their annual Spring Edition. The purported flavor too, Cherry Sakura, is a bit of a deep cut that surely is to raise eyebrows instead of wet palates, but so what? Curiosity is something so often absent in energy drinks, so let us crack open a can and see just what the brand has in store for us this year.

Cherry has a nasty habit of resembling medicine when not crafted carefully in these common caffeinated cocktails, but not Red Bull here. The flavor is another knockout, sweet when you expect it and sour when you need it. The drupe is robust and nuanced despite all thirty eight grams of sugar working overtime to convert it into candy store fodder; if you close your eyes, you can almost taste the earthy pit and sylvan stem as the vivid vermilion medley navigates past your tongue and down the hatch. The fruit is not so honest that you can detect individual varieties, however, but this is about as far from the pharmaceutical hodgepodge as you can get. There is a refreshing herbal finish as the saccharine syrup makes its closing arguments, an almost woody aftertaste that lurks just far enough out of sight that you struggle to pinpoint just what the heck you are tasting so late into the twelve ounce offering. And that is a good thing, because I cannot remember the last time I finished a potent potable and kept thinking about it. This is a brooding, interesting experience that proves not all energy drink drinkers pine for mainstream mud.

Yet this is where the wheels fly off, the kick. Just 114 milligrams of my namesake stimulant appear here, concocting a disappointing two hour long buzz that the brand should be better than. But this is such a wild tasting product that, you know what, who cares. I liked it regardless.

company site