Starbucks Baya Raspberry Lime Energy Drink Review

Baya is back with variety number two, Raspberry Lime. The does the fruits justice, a pleasant combination of pink, green and blue, though the latter is a mystery unless the fake "blue raspberry" flavor is crashing the party. Yet text clumps up towards the bottom, with advertisements like vitamin C's inclusion as if its a rarity in the energy drink spectrum. It very much is not.

Like the brand's Pineapple Passionsfruit before it, Baya Raspberry Lime has a curtness issue. Sips are cacophonic, pummeling the palate with a unrefined carbonation and blunt punch of herbal funk. The benefit here is the acidity, an element equally sharp but present for the nectars it represents. Both raspberry and lime can be found on the tongue, but the twelve percentage content of juice is diluted by the presence of white grape, resulting in imbibes bringing blind sweetness to combat the otherwise terse acidity. Lemon is also listed, no doubt helping the potable's potent tartness, but my tongue feels mislead by the time the gulps are all gulped from the twelve ounce can.

The 160 milligrams of caffeine we have here is a fine amount, a far cry from the hyper-strength drinks that are so common these days, but that is OK. Not everyone needs that much energy, and the kick here is only two hour or so long. In the end, Starbucks Baya Raspberry Lime does not defy expectations, but the important thing to remember is: I had expectations.

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Celsius Apple Jack'd Energy Drink Review

Apple is one of those delicate flavors that few get even remotely right, let alone one that is diet, contains a surplus of caffeine and is pumped full of other nasty tasting supplements. But Celsius throws its hat into the autumn favorite ring with Apple Jack'd, an admittedly cute name. The can is one of the better looking ones of the brand, the green easily associated with the flavor, but geez, what is with all the text!?

Color me green, but Celsius does a rather OK job here. Oh sure, the excessive stimulants give something of a ornery overtone to every imbibe, but what else could have happened when there is so many additives trying to hide here? Sucralose is solely responsible for the sweetness, and it is just barely able to handle everything it is in charge of guarding from the bitterness. There must be a lot of it here- my tongue felt coated in the artificial honey, you know, the kind of sensation where even well after your final sip real sugar just does not taste very sweet. For the apple flavor itself, it is a rather delicate interpretation despite ultimately tasting like candy, your palate required to explore the broth for depth outside the saccharinity and generic "apple" taste. There is not much else, unfortunately, no rogue varieties of the fleshy fruit to offer any complexity- what you taste in sip one is all you get by your last.

Potency is king here, with that rocking 300 milligrams of caffeine. The buzz lasts a stable four hours, rounding up by mere minutes, though the journey is not devoid of a jitter or two. Other ingredients include: taurine, guarana, ginger, green tea, B vitamins, and vitamin C. In the end, Celsius Apple Jack'd gets a very mild recommendation.

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Alani Nu Cosmic Stardust Energy Drink Review

These Alani Nu varieties continue to experiment out of boredom instead of necessity; how else could they finalize the name of today's potable, Cosmic Stardust. It fails to give the consumer any indication of what they are purchasing, as last time I checked, Cosmic Stardust is not a flavor found in nature.

Melon is the star of Cosmic Stardust, an entry in the bewildering Alani Nu line that does zero justice to the idiosyncratic fruit. Cantaloupe and watermelon make up the meat of each sip, but they are joined by a distracted and very unnatural tasting strawberry (despite containing only "natural flavors"). The red accessory fruit in particular distracts from any consistency achieved, an adaptation that lacks either the hearty punch of fresh strawberries or the proud artificiality of strawberry candies. Yet that is not all that is upset in the world here. What actually destroys the experience is the acidity, a misguided tartness that tastes spoiled rather than lip-puckering, a sort of lactic sourness your tongue is more familiar with when consuming yogurt or the sort. The sweetness, a combo of the ever-familiar erythritol, sucralose and ace-k, do not stand a chance protesting the persuasive perversion. The trilogy of sweeteners introduce nothing funky on their own, a most stable blend that simply cannot find its legs beneath the weight of the unbecoming astringency.

At least the kick is good, thanks to 200 milligrams, the buzz lasts a solid three hours. Other ingredients include: B vitamins, taurine, ginseng, inositol, and guarana, and of course others. To end, Alani Nu Cosmic Stardust is a real failure to launch.

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Red Bull The Spring Edition Grapefruit & Blossom Energy Drink Review

Instead of something like chocolate bunnies or jelly beans, Red Bull decides that this year's "Spring Edition" should take the form of the familiar "grapefruit," bundled with the nebulous "blossom." It makes even less sense when you remember that the company had previously produced a grapefruit potent potable. The colors do not exactly make sense with the purple of the can, but it would look right at home in my Easter basket.

Leave it to Red Bull to make one of the best tasting grapefruit energy drinks on the market. The tropical fruit is clean and uncluttered, unbothered by all the supplements it is supposedly suppressing. But for every moment you sit back and enjoy this clean piece of produce, there is this funkiness nearby, this earthy aftertaste that would have been the experience's downfall had the liquid not been properly honeyed. The choice of sugar and glucose for its sweetening gives mouthfuls this wonderful mouthfeel, one that is ever-so slightly toothsome but never too heavy or ultimately gummy on the tongue; we get real carbohydrates, and this thusly sips like a champ. But this lauded saccharinity is not enough to destroy this plucky little tartness that snuck up on my tongue, the kind that both citruses and candies dream of providing. This is a weird little soft drink: a little different, a little unusual, but the more I gulped the more I wished it was not so little.

The eight ounces on offer here muster up only eighty milligrams of caffeine, but my body pined for more. More! I need more of my namesake stimulant! Oh sure, vitamins of the "B" variety, taurine and such show up, but come on, just an hour long buzz? Both the flavor and I deserve better.

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Bang Sour Ropes Energy Drink Review

For a sugar free energy drink, Bang is taking a huge swing in basing their latest off of a candy. Rope candy to be specific, though you would never tell from the packaging, which is sterile and boring. Where is the fun in a nearly all white can, colored only by a burst of blue here, and red there? I continue to really like the logo, an undercase "b" with a crosshair, but it is too little personality, too late.

The crystal clear concoction here is not as sour as my tongue had hoped, but the acidity is aggressive enough to mostly mask the single sweetener sucralose, which in turn is working overtime to cloak all the supplements crammed into this sixteen ounce can. The experience is indistinctly fruity, a base of blue raspberry and vanilla with bit of a faded pineapple nuance; overall it is not terribly complex but it has enough personality that distracts you from noticing all the chemicals while you are sipping. The carbonation is zesty and helps keep the momentum going, but all that stops by the time the can rang half-empty. By that point, my palate was on autopilot, not necessarily against the liquid inside the thin aluminum walls, but not exactly pining to keep drinking. Good thing we believe in full-service reviews around here.

Now this is what I am talking about: 300 milligrams of caffeine, all for my body. The buzz is the highlight and about the only reason to stick with this for the entire duration. Oh sure, amino acids, B vitamins, and others are here too, I must attribute the three hour long buzz to my namesake chemical over all else. What can I say?

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Black Rifle Ranger Berry Zero Sugar Energy Drink Review

Black Rifle Coffee Company comes to The Caffeine King, not as a coffee but rather an energy drink. Whether I am excited depends on if I read about all the controversies the company has had. I did not have a politically-charged potent potable on my "2025 bingo card," but here we are.

Anyway, the can is alright here, cleaner than it probably has any right being, but the dual "C's" in the logo only make sense for the brand's coffee varieties. Unless this is some berry flavored coffee, in which case I am going to seriously regret what I am about to taste.

Despite its blue and black can, this pours out crystal clear and reeks of artificial sweetness. First mouthful is not much better I am afraid, sipping like a sluggish seltzer with about as much actual flavor. The carbonation is caustic, as if all those little bubbles were wearing spikes, abusing your poor palate as you send this disappointing drink down the hatch. There is minimal actual flavor, berry being a misnomer for the faded flavors of blue and raspberry, fruits so distant and so disinteresting that you find yourself checking the "best before" date by your second or third gulp. The one in my hand, somehow, has not yet expired. There is hardly any acidity and the sweetness (all from sucralose), something I feared would become the whole experience, is as muted as the sourness. No, the entire sixteen ounces' primary characteristic belong to the antagonistic effervescence. What a, er, choice?

The buzz is good though, thanks to the 200 milligrams of caffeine, lasting a solid three hours. Oh sure, you get some B vitamins too, but no other supplement; guess amino acids and herbal extracts are not "tough enough" for people who purposefully imbibe something with a gun in its name.

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Monster Ultra Blue Hawaiian Energy Drink Review

This bright blue can should stand out against the other Monster Ultras, until you spot the similarly colored "Ultra Fiesta" variety nearby, and mutter "is any difference" while you stand in otherwise silence, alone in your neighborhood big-box store.

This pale blue elixir tastes a lot better than it should, with a pineapple so aggressively happy and welcoming that you wonder why the whole production is not bright yellow. (Or gold, wink wink.) But the tropical produce does not work alone, bolstered by a mixture of citruses, chiefly lemon and orange, a hearty helping of green apple and a distant drop of guava. Though the combo is hardly original and falls squarely under the classification of "tropical fruit blend," I am a sucker for material like this. The sourness level is basic but beautiful, the kind that had my lips pining for more- I wanted them curled up so tightly I would need a crowbar to undo. My total tongue became engaged in the challenge of figuring out who was involved where, and for how long, but mistakes were made. Specifically the climax, where a bit of coconut pokes its head in; while it struggles to gain much of any strength against the acidity, it interrupts the momentum as this otherwise fine flavor goes in for the fabulous finish. And then there is the sweetener system, erythritol, ace-k and sucralose. They of course lack the heft of honest carbohydrates, and a toothsome texture, if not a gritty one, could have sent this over the moon. But alas, the unsatisfying mouthfeel is just that.

The 150 milligrams of caffeine we have here is functional enough, the buzz lasting two and a half hours. We also have taurine, vitamins, inositol, you know the drill. Overall, Monster Ultra Blue Hawaiian is almost ultra.

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