Alani Nu Witch's Brew Energy Drink Review

I am not sure how this is any different from the last time Alani Nu Witch's Brew appeared here on The Caffeine King, aside from a new can and a few more milligrams of this or few milligrams less of that. The design this time around looks just as "Halloween" as before, though the darker green logo is hard to read against the dark purple backdrop.

Cracking open the can unleashes an odor so thick with Granny Smith apple that you begin to wonder if they just shoved an entire piece inside. Sadly no, there is no actual juice here, but the flavor is a good one, an acidity exercise in pushing the palate deep into the realm of diet candy shop cocktail concoctions. The aforementioned variety of the autumn fruit favorite is tasted alone and it loves its solitude, if I close my eyes I could picture myself on muddy grounds picking fresh green orbs off of the tree late October, nectar dripping down from my lips as I crunch hard into its bright white flesh. Then I snap out of it, I mean, I am sitting at my dinky little desk, far from the orchard. There is no caramel here, in case you were frisky for info like that, but hey, I have always been more of a candy apple person. The acidity is perfect and puckering, but it is how it completely keeps your tongue from detecting the use of sugar-free sugars erythritol, sucralose and ace-k. The texture might not have much heft, but so what? There was never a sip in the twelve ounces offered that made me think of my waistline.

OK I lied, I have never had a candied apple. But I have experienced Alani Nu's energy formulation before: this is the same ol' two and a half hour long buzz as any other. In addition to 200 milligrams of caffeine, we have also taurine, vitamins, guarana, you know, the usual suspects. Overall, this is a tasty remake of something that tasted more or less the same.

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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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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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Alani Nu Cherry Bomb Energy Drink Review

Who needs those heart-shaped boxes of chocolate when you can have Alani Nu Cherry Bomb, the romantic energy drink. Or so I am assuming, considering its appearance on store shelves this Valentine's Day. I do enjoy the brand's visual energy, hesitant with text but heavy on the personality, your eyes could spend days soaking up each element individually.

The Caffeine King's Law states that, what smells like medicine will taste like medicine, and that is exactly what happens here. The caramel colored cocktail had never seen nor tasted a cherry before, be it from nature or candy store; the fruit deconstructed and destroyed so brutally that the usual features we look for, like sweetness or acidity, are nothing but words in my review. With zero total grams of sugar, it should come at no surprise that sucralose and ace-k are the experience's sweetener system, but they prove no match for the overwhelming taste of chemicals inside this pretty can. Effervescence is another sore spot, sips sipping like the thousands of little bubbles that should be present peaced out in protest. As I suffered through ounce after ounce, my tongue became so deadened to the antipathetic astringency that things almost resembled a lousy cherry cola. There is no vanilla here, no spice and certainly nothing I would ever willingly drink again, but somehow, the essence of the fleshy drupe sneaks its ugly head in, like a seltzer on a bad day. This is an anti-energy drink.

We at least get 200 milligrams of caffeine, as well as ginseng, taurine and vitamins, but did you not just read what this tastes like? You should run, far away, and just get yourself some Peeps instead. This potent potable just sucks, I would rather be alone on February 14th than suffer through this again. Thank you Alani Nu for getting the "worst energy drink of 2026" out of the way for me just two months in.

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Alani Nu Winter Wonderland Energy Drink Review

What is different this year with Alani Nu's Winter Wonderland drink? According to my research on the interwebs, just some milligrams less salt, a gram fewer carbs and things like that. Taste? I have no idea. I do enjoy the can itself more this time around, especially the snowman wearing a seashell bikini top, though disturbingly I do not see them wearing a bottom. Maybe it is a bra? Oh, I got it: the rest of the ensemble is on their Christmas list!

I was not all that enthused when this drink sat at my desk in 2024, but the incongruous coconut afterglow is now less prominent, letting the flaccid fruity fusion really rock the experience. That does not make it good, necessarily, but one can easily crush a can without concern. Granny smith apple, red grape and a slushy of citrus, principally grapefruit, is what my tongue finally pinned down, though many ounces into the twelve offered, the blend gelling into a cohesive, if confused, cocktail. No one piece of produce patents the potable, causing each mouthful to be a bit heavier on one versus the others, so that you sip quietly, pondering what it is exactly you are tasting at the moment. There is a good acidity, which helps ease the indeterminate crew of flavors down the hatch of apprehensive palates, and the familiar blend of sucralose and ace-k do a good job masquerading as honest carbohydrates. The loose body gives away its diet reality, but the energy drink is over by the time that sets in. Could this all be in my head? Is it possible my taste buds matured over the past year or so, now able to appreciate the oddball beverage- ha, not likely.

The 200 milligrams of everyone's favorite stimulant now inside me is exactly what The Caffeine King ordered. Lasting three hours, give or take a moment or two, the buzz helps wrap up this potent potable in a warm blanket of adequacy. Good show, Alani Nu, you are not on the Naughty List this year.

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Jolt Cola Energy Drink Review

We have experienced Jolt Cola here a few times on The Caffeine King, as recent as 2019, but never when "powered by Redcon1." I surmise that today's Jolt bolts on artificial sweeteners to its nostalgic appearance, making moot its old slogan: "all the sugar and twice the caffeine." Ah ah ah, Dennis Nedry, you did not say the magic word: diet.

There is a lot of caffeine, at least, a sixteen ounce serving clocking in at 200 milligrams, but that means diet sweeteners sucralose and ace-k need to work overtime to try and make this functional flavor function. Sips have all the complexity of Diet Pepsi, vanilla spiked with a touch of cinnamon but otherwise chronically underspiced, the caramel colored cocktail lacking the little something something that only the artisan soft drinks demonstrate. There is hardly any citrus to the experience either, a most vague and distant orange lurking lethargically in the background of mouthfulls at an inconsistent clip. But this is not bad, the stimulants shoved inside hardly breaking through, letting a most average soft drink be sipped with unobtrusive ease.

You know all I care about is my namesake chemical, and the aforementioned amount scratched me right where I itched. Vitamins and others also show up but are barely registered by my body, but you might care, and good for you. Overall, Jolt Cola is back, and let us hope it is for good now.

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Phorm Screamin' Freedom Energy Drink Review

We do not get all that many patriotic energy drinks here on The Caffeine King; perhaps the American way to get buzzed is with some coffee? But I digress.

Phorm is the name and I am a bit ashamed to admit it took a good few seconds before I could pronounce it- the can is otherwise pleasantly clean, but as I verbally struggled, all I could think about was my time in grade school. That is not exactly what energy drinks should remind one of.

A pet peeve of mine is when a colorful can, and flavor like fruit punch, pours out crystal clear. I am sure food dyes are unhealthy, though I am no doctor, but the little kid in me, hooked on bright shades of my favorite primary and secondary colors, takes over sometimes despite my best efforts. Cherry, lemon and blueberry are listed in silver text on the white portion of the sixteen ounce can, and one certainly does taste that, but things are slightly off-centered. There is an acidity here that is just wrong here, a lactic tart tang that hits your taste buds like a watery yogurt. And this perplexed puckering do those fruits dirty, quickly becoming all you can think of when this bubbly beverage rests on your palate- all this ultimately ruins what could have been an enjoyable, if ordinary, caffeinated fruit cocktail. It is really a shame too, because the carbonation is terrific, an airy, almost foamy effervescence that elevates every imbibe to textural ecstasy. And the sweetness, the familiar duo sucralose and ace-k, while lacking the physical weight on your tongue, never feels synthetic. This is a conflicted, confused potent potable that fails to properly represent its country.

With 200 milligrams of caffeine, the buzz is easily the best thing here. But a three hour long kick is only "so" nowadays, with many others offering more of my namesake chemical. But this is 'Merica, where our energy drinks wear our nation's flag and are made with domestic and international ingredients.

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Bang Any Means Orange Energy Drink Review

Wait a second- a Bang that is an "Amp Exclusive?" Like the Pepsico energy drink? My "2025 bingo card" is wild.

Naw, it is just some popular interweb people that I have never heard of until I sat down at my keyboard for review here. The can is, fine, I suppose, but you see the words "bang" and "amp" and one would expect personality! Energy! Movement! But instead, this is the same old design I have criticized for nearly a decade.

Out pours an elixir so crystal clear that had it not been for the sixteen ounce can in my hand, you might think this where so common seltzer. The flavor is of course orange, but instead of taking the Sunkist route, Bang opens your freezer, digs around and pulls out a frozen orange creamsicle for inspiration. It is a great idea in theory, but the exclusive and overwhelming reliance on sucralose means mouthfuls have this hollow yet unrelenting influence on the experience: sips end up tasting more like those little yellow sachets on coffee shop tables more so than any fruit-based dairy-derived dessert. It crashes down on your palate without grace, a big ol' lump of ill-begotten ideas and mismanagement: take, for example, the brief window in this potent potable where your tongue detects some acidity. This could have helped give the citrus the impression its origins are from somewhere other than a lab, but no, sorry, your sourness is in another product. The diet sweetener kills it! The momentary mentions of vanilla are lost in this synthetic sea of sweetness, lacking the creamy goodness of the famous frozen refreshment; I cannot understate just how much of an issue this is, but then again what do I know? I ain't no popular interweb person.

I do love the 300 milligrams of caffeine here, and I am sure someone out there will appreciate all the amino acids and other supplements the back of the can lists out. The three hour long buzz is great but, after suffering through a flavor like this, I am not sure it was worth it.

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Lucky OG Luck Energy Drink Review

I am not sure how I feel about Lucky's can here: it's basic white backdrop gives way to far too much text, all of varying size, fonts, color and importance. But then there is the liquid mercury cat statue, melting in what I can surmise is this hot summer weather. Then there is the strip of duct tape, for who knows what reason. Like, seriously, what is going on here?

Despite consistent consumption of contrasting caffeinated cocktails, I have not had regular Monster in, golly, a long time. And although Lucky here is a totally different brand, that is what this reeks of. Flavor-wise, it makes the critical error in parading the medicinalness of its ingredients; sips have this chemical burn that hits the back of your throat, moving up to impact the entirety of your palate. Quickly becoming all you can taste, you are only allowed an ever so brief encounter with vanilla, bubble gum and cotton candy, a familiar trilogy here, before the flavors just give up, succumbing to the pharmaceutic influence of the stimulants inside these thin metal walls. Sucralose sweetens alone and cannot handle the stress of it all, losing the battle before the fight even begins; it is so chronically undersweetened that I found myself double-checking the ingredients, convinced the sixteen ounces had no sugar, synthetic or otherwise. I do not want to sound like such a downer, so I will end with the one positive note: while there is not all that much acidity, what little sourness that is present is puckering, pleasant and I wish there was more of it. 

The brief ingredient list contains taurine, ginseng, beta alanine and maca root, so if those wet your whistle, then boy howdy are you in for a treat. I, of course, care about the 200 milligrams of caffeine, a solid amount that almost makes up for the terrible taste and confounding can.

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Alani Nu Sherbet Swirl Energy Drink Review

Not to be outdone by other similarly potent potables and their frequent crazy flavors, Alani Nu is back with a "Sherbet Swirl" flavor. But in the field of fruity frozen dairy desserts, my tongue will never pick sherbet over something like, oh I dunno, a pumpkin ice cream, though that may be an unfair comparison. No matter, because while the can here is busy, it is at least full of corporate whimsy.

A quick crack of the can and out pours a crystal clear cocktail, scented pleasantly like how I imagine Icee machine maintenance workers must smell like after a long day's work. The flavor is easy-going and easy to like, a hodgepodge of lemon, cherry, blue raspberry and tangerine, all wrapped up in a sourness so sour that my tongue begins to think that lime is somehow living inside here somewhere. A flavor like this could have easily gone the "sweet" route, and indeed the twelve ounce elixir is saccharine, the experience is acidic to the point of distraction from the fact that this doesn't contain any actual sugars. Familiar false sweetness suspects sucralose and ace-k are here at work and while they fail to generate any textural interest, their functional performance today is what a tartness like this needs to really rock. It is miles away from being complex and each sip does resemble the last, but "simple and good" is far better than "complicated and terrible."

We get zero percent juice, but we do have 200 milligrams of caffeine, and my addiction to my namesake chemical is stronger than my will to listen to my doctor. Other items, such as inositol and a variety of vitamins, are also here but my body pined for the stimulant, and by-golly that is what Alani Nu delivered.

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Prime Tropical Punch Energy Drink Review

Prime is a better looking energy drink than it has any right being, from its easy-to-read text to sublime name to minimalist visuals, I like it. But today here we have a bright crimson can and an alleged flavor of tropical punch instead of fruit punch. Not that there is necessarily any difference, or anything wrong with that, but my logic-senses are tingling and I hate it when that happens.

The flavor is everything you want from a punch but nothing else, the likes of guava, pineapple, lime and orange all come barreling out of this twelve ounce can. What they lack is subtly they make up for with honesty: it is true all we get is "natural flavors," with the closest thing to actual juice here being coconut water, but there is not a sip that is gulped that does not mimic the fruits with the verve and verisimilitude of honest nectar. Ace-k and sucralose do the sweetening and do it well, sure no tongue could ever mistake them for actual carbohydrates, but they never tasted artificial here, which is a win if they ever needed one. But like the rest of the Prime line, what sets this experience apart from, oh let us say "Zoa Fruit Punch," is the sourness, which is powdery, plucky and puckering. It makes each mouthful a joy, and if this came in the larger standard-issue sixteen ounce can, it would only be a benefit.

200 milligrams of caffeine is just what my body needed, and Prime delivers (no, not that Prime). The buzz lasts a solid three hours, and yeah sure I have had better, but not many. Other ingredients include B vitamins, taurine, inositol, things like that. It is hard to write a truly impartial review, but even I would be skeptical on my rather glowing endorsement here, but I assure you, this really is that solid.

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Java Monster Triple Shot French Vanilla Energy Coffee Review

Java Monster Triple Shot French Vanilla's can here is clean and concise but lacking in personality. It barely registers when you quickly scan your local energy coffee cooler, blending into the rest of the brand's offerings with its benign beige complexion.

Your first and last sip, and everything in between, is hardly anything to write home about, unless you like spending your time coming up with different ways to write "boring." Three and a half grams of fat, over of half of which is saturated, crash out of the fifteen ounce can and onto your disinterested palate, painting on a dense film of fatty displeasure. Now heavy textured products are nothing new, but there is no flavor to the milkiness, no creamy ecstasy; it feels condensed by something other than the desired dairy delight, like a mild oil or by some sort of starch shenanigans. But its opaque mouthfeel leaves little room to taste any of the promised vanilla, let alone tell what country it is from. Your tongue tastes only sweetness outside of the lardaceousness, a weightless saccharinity that drowns in a sea of flavorless fat. If you noticed I have not mentioned coffee, well, neither does the experience.

Your reward for pushing through an aggressively insipid taste is a good one; 300 milligrams of caffeine. The buzz lasts a solid four hours, making work of even the most tired. To end, Java Monster Triple Shot French Vanilla is potent, but not worth its weight in caffeine.

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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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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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Celsius Essentials Blue Crush Energy Drink Review

According to the interwebs, this is not "Celsius Live Fit," despite how the can reads, or even "Celsius Live Fit Essentials." It is instead just "Celsius Essentials." See kids, this is why you should not have superfluous text all over your design.

And we have a lot of design here, thanks to the tall sixteen ounce metal transport, and despite the occasional swoosh in either white, blue or silver, it is just words, words and more words. Oh wait- no never mind, that is just more words. And none of them seem to explain how this is any different from the brand's earlier blue raspberry potent potable.

A crack of the can and the liquid within these thin aluminum walls almost geysered out all over my desk; would somebody please think of my cheap plastic writing surface! First sip is a lot less enjoyable then the initial effervescent explosion would suggest, the elixir landing on my tongue with minimal bubbles, becoming a still experience almost immediately, and no, this can is not expired (I checked). And I would not have that much of a problem with that, but the package here reads "sparkling." What a misdemeanor! The flavor is blue raspberry at least, but the sucralose and ace-k used here lack the verisimilitude to drive home the impression that this is anything but a diet soft drink and not, in fact, well, anything else. Candy, fruit, something- this is a sugar free energy drink and damn it, that is what it tastes like. And that is a shame, because the poor, lone piece of make-believe produce lacks the complexity required to properly sustain the entire pound of product on offer today. It has all the personality of confections but without the mouthfeel to back up that impersonation, the synthetic honeys instead adding a chemical climax that lingers a bit too long. It is drinkable, yes, but only just.

The 270 milligrams of caffeine here is impressive and does the job, with a three and a half plus hour long buzz resulting, I sat back in my chair, thinking to myself "was it worth it?" The flavor really is not all that good, the visuals just as dire, my body pining for something consistently adequate.

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Celsius Astro Vibe Energy Drink Review

Not to be confused with their similarly named "Arctic Vibe" variety, Celsius' Astro Vibe is but a few visual tweaks away from looking identical. And it is not even that attractive a design, packed with text that is hardly ever necessary; why is "Astro Vibe" written twice? In two different fonts, sizes and colors!? Or how about the "burns fat" gimmick? You would think in the world of Ozempic and similar pharmaceuticals that an artifice like that would more prominently featured on the tiny twelve ounce real estate.

It might be a late contender, but this is easily the worst thing I have tasted all year and is surely to win the "Your Drink Sucks" list this year. It mutates from medicinal to blue raspberry to artificial sweetener back to medicine, all within the matter of the few moments you can stomach this crap sitting on your poor and disappointed palate. All the supplements crammed inside the aluminum walls means there is a lot of herbal funk to be suppressed, and they call upon sucralose, the lone sweetener involved here, to keep things commercial, but all you end up tasting are both the supplements and the synthetic sugar. What little acidity is present is immediately killed by all of the above, so your sips quickly become gulps as you try to get this over with as soon as possible. This is a sleazy soft drink, absolute garbage, and if that still is not enough for you, how about: tawdry, discreditable, ignominious, inglorious and gaudy. Does that help? I could go on but, I do not get paid by the word.

The buzz is good here, lasting three hours without question, but 200 milligrams of caffeine will do that. Other things, such as vitamin C, B vitamins, taurine and guarana, also show up but so what? I am in no mood. Actually, that is not true: I am in a bad mood, and Celsius Astro Vibe put me in it.

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Alani Nu Winter Wonderland Energy Drink Review

Let us just be happy "Winter Wonderland" is the holiday song they picked here instead of something like, I dunno, by The Chipmunks. Alani Nu's can here is alright, a hokey take on the holidays with tacky ornaments and pink flamingos against a green backdrop- I am surprised there is no snow to be found. Where is this "winter wonderland" they speak of? Florida? How festive.

The scent has this citrusy musk that only happens with potations containing "zero percent juice." The taste is a weird, icky one, misrepresenting itself as in-fact citrus upon first sip, lemon to be exact, who cuddles up close to some stereotypical Granny Smith apple interpretation. But this masquerade is fleeting, as the mouthful quickly devolves into a most inappropriate coconut, a flavor so awkwardly handled that sips end up with this nasty rose water characteristic; it is the precise moment of the experience where somehow things do not taste sweet enough. It lingers on well beyond each gulp, as you sit there in disbelief at what you paid good money for. Sucralose and ace-k are the sweeteners in charge, a generally reliable duo who fail to protect your tongue from the inelegant elixir invasion; some honest carbohydrates, even just a few grams worth, could have helped soften the blow from this big lump of coal in your stocking.

200 milligrams of caffeine? Now that is what I am talking about! The buzz is the best thing here, hands down, lasting a solid three hours. But you had to make it that far, and I only did in a last-ditch attempt to make it on "the nice list."

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