Energy Drink - 555 Reviews

Cocktail is a loose term for juices. It has the main ingredient in it, but any other juice is also fair game. This cocktail includes white grape, apple, and dark cherry juices as well as the named cranberry. That's a lot of different juices to combat for flavor, and yet the strongest flavor is the caffeine from green coffee beans. Next in line for top flavor would be the cherry and then the cranberry comes in third. There needs to be a way to disguise the taste of the caffeine better.

Most orange juices taste the same. Just like Jay said for the apple juice review for Positive Energy, they taste the same. This one is different. It's got caffeine in it, which I don't need honestly, but thanks for putting it in. What's different about it is that it has green coffee bean in it. I have grown to like that stuff. It's in the Bai, which I actually really like. It's apparently chocked full of antioxidants that you've got to be a fool to turn down. It's got a nice, slightly bitter taste that's more a different flavor than an actual "bitter" flavor but it's got a solid orange juice taste to it first which is important.

I wonder if antioxidants are going to be the new antibacterial stuff that people are worried about turning bacteria into super-bacteria with adorable little capes. Our bodies are slowly going to be immune to antioxidants and be filled with whatever antioxidants fight, probably oxidants, whatever they are. It's an endless struggle.

I've been burned by Redline before. Well not burned, more like an adrenaline shot to my heart, because I simply do not know how to read directions. It's recommended that you only drink half of the bottle. Being that I'm sensitive to caffeine I probably shouldn't even have drunk that much. I drank an entire bottle last time and I feel like I didn't sleep for a week. I of course forgot all of that and I grabbed a bottle before driving overnight from Kansas City to Chicago, after only sleeping three hours the night before. I got behind the wheel of the van, and downed the entire bottle. As soon as I did, the concentrated “shot” flavor caused the memories of a sleepless night to come flooding back.

I'll tell you what though, I drove like a champ. I went through rain storms, intense fog and a whole lot of darkness and I got us to IL by 10am. I pretty much didn't sleep until like 3am then. These drinks are insane. Sure they taste like energy drink shots that are so very, very diet. Sure there was some berry taste in but I just couldn't concentrate on it through the diet. I'll take that flavor though if it means it will work the way this does. Function over mouth fashion my friends.

Now I am a person who lives a sober life. I haven't touched a drop of alcohol in twenty years, and I don't partake in any drugs. I understand the allure and I know they are fun, but they just aren't for me. That being said, when I was just in Denver I went to a weed dispensary, or a “Weedery” as I like to call it. It was amazing watching my friends in there. It was like watching them in a THC filled candy store. Actually, that's exactly what it was as they bought gummies suckers and all sorts of treats. I like seeing people genuinely excited and happy, even if it's not my thing. A couple of days later I came across this energy drink and I thought it was my turn to get in on the fun, as we had a dumb overnight drive, and that is where I shine.

I really hope for everyone else's sake that their candies tasted better than this beverage, because it was pretty gross. Other hemp drinks I have tried tasted like rope, but this just tasted like candied poison, in a very different way than most energy drinks do. It had this horrible aftertaste that almost tasted like Vemma, if it had spoiled. I couldn't even make it through the can, even though it was 4am and I was driving from Portland to San Francisco. Now that's bad.

There have been many reviews on this site where Mike or I have proclaimed that apple juice is one of the hardest drinks to write about. Unless it solely from a specialty apple, most apple juices taste pretty much the same, with various degrees of being watered down.

I can unfortunately say that this is not the case with Positive Energy. Sure it has a general apple base, but the addition of caffeine from green coffee beans leaves it tasting like the juice is going bad. We've been sent a jug of straight caffeine in the past, so I know what it tastes like all on its own, and I'm sad to say that the caffeine taste is stronger than the apple taste in this beverage. That is too bad because it only has the same amount of caffeine as one cup of coffee. The loss of flavor hardly seems worth it.

For a product that seemed to be a flop in the review world, Mountain Dew is still pushing hard with their Kick Start line. I guess it does help that they seem to have stopped pushing that idea that it was a morning beverage to replace your coffee. There is definitely a time in the day when it is too early to be drinking soda, so that being your main marketing scheme was just bound to fail. The thing is that when you take that aspect out of it (as they seem to have done), these sodas aren't terrible tasting. I think it was just the idea of waking up and downing a can of soda that was turning everyone off.

With these new flavors, the cans mention nothing of morning or breakfast, just that it will give you a hydrating boost; a much better attempt in my book. They are still soda that contains juice (only 10% but it's better than nothing). As an added bonus this new flavor also has coconut water in it. Overall it tastes like a new flavor of Mountain Dew, but a little smoother. It's pretty much their flagship flavor with a little pineapple and mango thrown in, and then they water it down a tiny bit with coconut water. I must say I enjoy it a lot more than the original.

The company has also decided to take the route of going half and half with sweeteners. While a lot of companies are mixing cane sugar and stevia for a lower calorie count, Mountain Dew went the cheaper (grosser) way of mixing high fructose corn syrup and sucralose. The diet flavor is pretty much masked, but it still pops out a little bit, and that I could do without.

Oh, panex red, my favorite of the flavors. But seriously folks, what the heck is this? I don't know what flavor this is. It's made with Korean Red Ginseng. Cool. What does that mean? Is that raspberry? Who knows? You know what else? Who cares? This is actually really good. Oh, it's just the type of ginseng used, and not an added flavor? Well, that makes sense then.

This doesn't have the bitterness that one might expect in a ginseng drink. Check. It makes you not care that you may not know what you're drinking. Look, I don't think that they're trying to poison me. Like everything else you cram down your gullet, there are ingredients in there but they're half unreadable vitamins and minerals. The other half is all natural ingredients that are in everything. I guess that Korean Red Ginseng just naturally tastes good and we shouldn't care. Add a little carbonation and you've got something nice. If it tastes good, drink it. That's what I've literally never said before one time in my life.

While I have inexplicably grown to enjoy the taste of Red Bull and its chemical tasting copycats, I always get a twinge of excitement when I come across energy drinks, especially when they actually work. You see a lot of the natural energy drinks on the market give you about as much energy as a cup or two of coffee. If that's what you're looking for then by all means indulge, but I personally don't partake in energy drinks unless I “need” one to help me stay up. I don't need a daily dose of caffeine to get me moving in the morning. A bowl of cereal works just fine. What Root9 did to my body, was much greater than what coffee does. It didn't make me feel insane and jittery, it just made me feel like I could keep going when I had a lot of work to do.

The source of energy in this beverage comes from green tea extract, but more importantly from the red ginseng that they use. I have been informed that red ginseng is more effective than what most people are used to. Also the roots that they use in their beverages is grown for six years for optimal potency, they also then allow the soil used to grow it to rest for 10 years to work up the proper nutrients. That is a long process, but as far as I can see it is worth it. I got one hell of a boost from this drink and it lasted a decent amount of time, without feeling like garbage at any point during the ride it took me on.

The other side of this drink is its health aspects. The Panax ginseng they use is also known as a “cure all”. In fact the beverage was created to help one of the creator's fathers who suffered from diabetes. I'm not sure that it actually helps treat diabetes in any way, but it does keep blood sugar in check when drunk instead of other energy drinks.

I just realized that I have gone this far and not talked about the taste at all. The Panax gold flavor is basically a carbonated citrus green tea. It's a flavor that I can get behind. It is sweetened with erythritol and stevia, so it has some of that flavor, but if you drink it while it's really cold their taste isn't too bad. In one of the testimonials someone said that this was supposed to mango flavored, but the can says nothing about that. I can taste it a bit, but it could be just because I'm looking for it. Either way it has a pleasant taste that I would drink again and again.

This little guy proved to be a minor conundrum for me. You see I generally drink the protein shakes we are sent after I work out. That is what I was originally told to do when I first started going to the gym, so it's what I always followed. With this it seemed like I should drink it beforehand. Who needs an energy boost after a workout? Get that in there beforehand to give yourself a little extra push and stretch your limits a bit. Being that this is the terrifying modern age, I took this question to Google and found out that there is actually an argument amongst professionals as to when is the best time to consume protein in the work out world. Some say after because it helps repair muscles, while others say before because it will give you extra strength during the workout. You know what? I'm not that serious about this whole thing. I go to the gym so that I don't become a fat, lazy slob like so many Americans who are approaching middle age. I'm not looking to get ripped, I just want to stay remotely healthy and work off some of these unnecessary Thirsty Dudes calories. Since there was no definitive answer I chose to go with before the gym for this round. Let me tell you I certainly got an energy rush from it. I worked out longer and harder than I normally do, and now I'm a gross sweaty mess in desperate need of a shower, but I forced myself to write this review first.

A lot of protein drinks are chalky, due to the whey protein, but this is nothing if not creamy. It's also thick, as if a milkshake was halfway thawed and you pounded it. Luckily no brain freeze accompanied this ingestion. I think the greatest thing that Monster pulled off with these is that it's incredibly chocolaty and it doesn't taste a thing like an energy drink. I think this may be the only beverage that includes taurine that I have tasted that doesn't make me question if I'm being poisoned or not with chemicals. Sure the use of sucralose along with the sugar gives it a bit of a diet taste, but that is something you come to expect and accept with protein drinks. If they were laden with sugar they would kind of defeat the purpose of the workout. The 16g of sugar in here is pushing it a bit as it is.

At the end of it all, this tasted fantastic and I'm still buzzing with energy after a fairly intense workout by my standards. Who'd have known that Monster had this in them?

I don't mean to be a jerk, but has anyone else noticed that the Sunshine State has been putting on a bit of weight? It just looks like it's getting a little paunchy in the middle. I blame it on the whole scene surrounding Orlando. That damn gluttonous mouse and his friends make bulging out the center of the state. There are so many people, who consume so much terrible food. Those same people always want to be on the go to make the most of their limited vacation time. What we have here is something of a cure all. It's the essence of Florida, in a diet, liquid form that gives the imbiber a boost of energy.

Unfortunately it is a bit heavy on the diet side of the flavor. This taste insanely like fresh orange juice, except it tastes like that very specific flavor has been made into a powder and then mixed with equal parts zero calorie sweeteners . It's insane how such a pure taste is there, but also ruined by the sweetener. I've come a long way in accepting these sweeteners, but in here it's still too much for me. I'm sure those who are die hard diet soda drinkers would be all about this, but the rest of society will surely be put off.

Oh, this is actually called Ultra Sunrise, and not Ultra Sunshine? Well, everything I said stands, it just makes a little less sense talking about Florida the way I did. It really does taste like that state's staple fruit though.

I don't know why this was marked down. I'm speaking out of order. This was marked down. Now we're on track. I don't know why this was marked down. It's very good. It's smooth, flavorful, good calorie count and natural. It tastes like peach black tea. You don't have a strong ginseng taste but you can tell that is there with a little bitterness. A kind reminder that Little Miracles is concerned about your mental capacity. They want you to pass that test. They want you to do well in your interview for that new job. They want you to reach your best time in that blindfolded Rubik's Cube competition. 'Tis a fine tea and I would drink it again if given the opportunity but since it's in the markdown endcap, I fear that I won't have the change. I hope all is well, Little Miracles. Maybe a new line is in the pipeline. Let's wait and find out.

Look at what we have here; a bag inside of a box that is full of energy shots. This is either a great or absolutely horrible idea, depending on how you look at it. Actually it just depends on if you have one thing: Self Control.

The real benefit of this is the ridiculously low cost for an energy drink that actually works. If you purchase the larger box the shots end up costing about $.40 each, as opposed to the $3 they would cost if you bought them individually at a store. It also tastes better than most energy shots I've tasted. It's heavy cherry flavor, which falls on the more medicinal side of cherry, is better than the poison taste that most energy shots have. It's also a shot so you slug that thing down and the flavor is gone. It's not something you're meant to swish around your mouth and ponder.

The downfall of this could also be the price/quantity. The sad fact is that most of the people I know who drink energy drinks on any sort of regular basis tend to overdo it with them. I know people who drink 5-6 Red Bulls a day. That is completely obscene and can be in no way healthy. I can imagine those same people filling up a 12oz mug of X Mode and just downing it. That's 12x the recommended serving amount. I know the box says to not drink more than 3oz a day, but you know that is not going to stop the people who want it. That's not a fault in the company; it's a fault in people's chemistry and personality.

If you are the type of person who drinks energy drinks sparingly, or would just like to take a 1oz shot in the morning instead of your normal coffee, this is probably an ideal product for you. If you have an addictive personality, you'll more than likely want to stay away.

I don't really know why that I am shocked that I like this, but I am. It just sounds like something that would be terrible. Whenever companies try to grasp outside of their safe zone, I am always very skeptical. For some reason with this line I expect the results to be less than stellar, even though I have had several other flavors that I have enjoyed. Each time I expect my mouth to be greeted with a gush of grossness. You can just tell looking at this that it has a zero calorie sweetener in it somewhere. The thing is that the stevia mixed with the cane sugar works in here. It has a bit of a diet taste to it, but the actual berry flavoring is much stronger, and that is all that you can ask for.

I think the saving grace for Glaceau is that they went for their own thing. They didn't take a classic energy drink and try to mix it with their pre-existing products. They took what they were good at and added green coffee bean extract an B vitamins to give it a little energy push. There's no chemical garbage in here, and as a result it just tastes like a carbonated Vitamin Water. It may not give you the crazy rush as other products do, but you can feel better about drinking it, and really when in your life did you actually need the shot to your heart that the other players give? To me it just seems like overkill.

I'm glad that I have continuously been wrong about the Vitamin Water Energy line. It's nice to be surprised in a positive way.

In a short span of time the Day of the Dead will be upon us. The dead will be remembered and honored as altars are built and sugar skulls are created and eaten. I'm pretty sure that all of those left over sugar skulls that are leftover will them be melted down to sweeten these particular energy drinks. Seriously these things are way sweeter than they need to be. I have compared energy drinks to liquid candy a ridiculous amount of times on this website, so it only seems fitting.

Other than the sweetness of this is it a pretty standard energy drink that has been flavored by the memories of the dead. Actually that's not completely accurate. At first I thought it tasted like a cherry Red Bull, but with each sip it tasted more and more like a plain cherry soda. It's very grenadine heavy, but by the time I was 2/3 through with the can any sort of classic energy drink flavor was out the window. It was simply cherry soda water, taste wise. Perhaps that is what the ghosts of your ancestors want and who are we to argue with them?

If this beverage is supposed to be a tribute to American soldiers who are in the armed forces, Rip It surely does not think much of them or this country. One would think that if you are honoring something you would put some time and energy into creating something that is of at least a minimum of quality. Rip It only delivers a soda that is as generic as can be that is extremely lightly flavored to an extent that it seems like they were running out of flavor syrup so they stretched it out by adding far too much water. Nothing about this tastes like an energy drink, which can be nice sometimes, but not when the flavor that replaces it is so unremarkable.

This drink tells me that Rip It hates the troops and wants them to drink this gross generic beverage. I bet this is what would have been given to the troops when they came home from Vietnam and people spit on them.

Folks, a miracle was truly performed by this beverage. They used lemongrass tea and I didn't find it to be gross. In fact, I actually really enjoyed it. Unlike most miracles this is a divine interaction that I can deconstruct. The secret here is that the lemongrass tea isn't the base of the drink; it is merely an added flavor. The heart of this beverage is a mixture of water, apple juice and agave syrup. It's one of those drinks that you don't really taste the apple juice until you read that it is in the mix, and then its inclusion becomes very apparent and you can't believe you didn't realize it before. Now add a bit of orange juice to the mix and things really start coming into form. Throw in a few miscellaneous ingredients such as lemon juice, ginseng, orange extract, oolong, and that pesky lemongrass. Things are almost ready for the public, but that lemongrass is just sticking out too much in the flavor. Whatever should we do? Oh how about tossing in some ginger which will compete for one of the strongest flavors in the drink, but with not even a hint of a burn.

In the end this is really more juice than tea, but the effects are the same; it gives you a sweet, delicious organic energy, that might not be as intense as the chemical, artificial ones on the market, but it works enough.

Look at that I have explained a miracle. Perhaps the Catholic Church should hire me when they need to investigate such matters. I mean I don't have to be a believer to disprove things, right?

I'm just going to go ahead and say what I can only assume everyone is thinking; 10 hours is one heck of a long time. That's longer than a typical work day. It's so long that you have to plan out when you are going to drink this shot, or else you can say goodbye to you regularly scheduled sleep. Personally, if I drink any sort of energy drink past 5 or 6pm I'm not falling asleep until somewhere in the range of 3-5 in the morning. I'm an extreme case because I apparently have sensitivity to uppers. Seriously though, if you're driving late at night and you just need a push to make it through, this is probably not the product for you. The only uses I can think for this would be if you wanted to stay up all night having adventures, or if you were looking for a push to help you through the work day. Okay, I'm an idiot and didn't reads the blub on the bottle until now, and this was in fact developed to help people get through a full work day. This whole thing makes sense now. People now have the ability to down one shot instead of drinking more than a handful of overly sugared energy drinks to push them through the work they hate.

This certainly has the same concentrated chemical taste that all energy shots seem to have. No one said the basis of energy tasted good. Eternal Energy did do a good job covering it up with a berry flavor and a whole mess of fake sugar, actually the fake sugar may have made it worse, but so long empty calories. As far as I can remember I've never enjoyed the taste of an energy shot, but at lease this one is somewhat palatable. Oh yeah, I also literally climbed a mountain after I drank this, and even though my body was aching an extreme amount I was still focused and the energy this shot gave me kept me moving, so I'll say it works just fine.

Folks, I think it's finally happened. We were sent samples in the mail and it must have been a company we gave a bad review to in the past getting back to us, because I'm 99.9% sure that what I drank was poison. If I get to the end of this review without blood leaving from every orifice in my head it will be a miracle.

This little pouch that apparently contains my undoing was developed to be a cognitive enhancer, meaning that it's meant to be a study aid. Tons of students down energy drink after energy drink in order to stay up and study. Unfortunately all of the junks in the typical beverages give you the jitters and make it harder to concentrate. TruBrain was created to help with concentration and to get the best bang for your buck when it comes to brain use. I personally plan on doing some research in the stock market, because I want to pretend I'm a real human adult that is if this truly is a “think drink” and not just poison all gussied up for the party.

Seriously people this did not taste like anything you should consume. If I didn't know better I would have sworn there should have been a Mr Yuck sticker on this and I should have found it under the kitchen sink. I don't even know what flavor it's supposed to be. Perhaps they were going for the diet poison route because that's what I'm getting here.

It's been about 15 minutes since I drank this and I appear to still be alive with no negative effects, so I'm going to wager that truBrain is not just a shell corporation for Young Energy Source getting back at us for the having the audacity to think that their beverage is the worst thing we've ever tasted on this planet. I still think this is a horrible tasting “beverage” but I do feel a sense of clarity, so it works for its function, and since when do those drinks ever taste good?

Liquid Ice is back with a new variation of their (mostly) non-chemical tasting energy drink. Like this classic blue flavor this has a very candy-esque taste to it. Instead of tasting like Spree, or the ever popular Smarties (US version) this just has a general red candy taste. I can't exactly pin it down. It's not cherry, strawberry, or raspberry. Perhaps it's an amalgamation of all three combined. If there was a generic red Runt that just spelled out the word fruit, this is what it would taste like. Grape and Orange have their flavors that taste nothing like the fruit, and now red has its own variation.

I will say that it does taste ridiculously sweet, as you would expect liquid candy to, but there is only 28g of sugar in this can. I know that's a lot, but I expected much more from the taste. I can also assure you that this beverage is functional. I feel crazy, and it's been awhile since an energy drink has noticeably affected me in this way.

Mark, do you think that humans, as a species, can grow used to anything? I read an article awhile back proving that happiness was not based on what you own. They took a normal person, someone who had just won the lottery for an obscene amount of money, and someone who had just lost their legs in some horrific accident and of course immediately their levels of happiness were very different, but then after six month (I believe) they all expressed a very similar level of happiness. The point was to show that for better or worse humans adapt to their situations and for the most part life goes back to normal (happiness-wise). I'm sure that's not the case for everyone on the planet, but I found it interesting.

My whole point here is that could a new flavor be introduced into the world, that tasted completely unnatural and not pleasant, but after years of pushing it on people they grow to enjoy and actually crave it? I think the answer is an astounding yes and the proof is in Red Bull. Who on this planet actually enjoyed the flavor of that energy drink when it first hit the scene? I know that everyone I've questioned thought it was chemical garbage, yet most of them can be seen sipping on a can at least on some occasions. It's like the collective brain was telling us, this tastes gross, but the effects are worth it, and then our taste buds evolved around the flavor. I know evolution takes time, but “mental evolution” apparently takes less than 20 years.

So here her are an it's 2014 and people are guzzling Red Bull and it's contemporaries like it's no big deal to be consuming all of that junk that we would never consider putting into our bodies if they were separate components. What if years ago we had been given an option, Red Bull or these Hi Ball energy drinks? Who would have won out; the one that tastes like poison bubble gum or the one that tastes like ingredients actually found in nature? I'd like to think I would go natural, but who knows I was a damn fool back in those days. Sure there is no taurine in here, which may not give you the exact same boost, but that could just be mental. I've grown so accustomed to Red Bull that the flavor tastes normal to me now, and that's my point exactly. This should have been the wave of the future back then. It's a soda that is flavored with juice, so it really tastes like (a light) version of pomegranate and acai. It's sweetened with a mixture of cane sugar and stevia, so it's faintly diet, but nothing too terrible. Also, as is proof through the experiments I mentioned earlier, people's tastes would have acclimated to the stevia and it wouldn't be a problem at all. Maybe it would have led to stevia being more widely accepted as a sweetener. Overall it's light, slightly dry, but flavorful enough beverage that I think people would have latched onto. It's too bad the other guy burst onto the scene first and became a staple in our culture. Man, this just really makes me feel like humanity is doomed by our own hand at some point.