Energy Drink - 555 Reviews

Perhaps this company chose its name because they felt a certain kinship with the Marquis de Sade. The term sadism was derived from the Marquis name, and if you don't know it's when you receive pleasure from causing others pain. Now this drink doesn't exactly dole out pain, but there is something about its initial taste that is uncomfortable. The thing is that it is similar to the Super Berry version in that although it is uncomfortable, you learn to enjoy it. Thus the drinker becomes the masochist. I blame the combination of the lemon juice and the erythritol for the oddness of the beverage. It's bitter, dry and naturally diet tasting. It's like you're getting the taste of the erythritol/stevia, but not the sweetness. The mango ginger flavor should combat that, but the flavor that is there doesn't really taste of mango or ginger. Nothing about this drink tastes right, but for some reason the more I drink, the more I enjoy it. With each sip I feel like I'm punishing myself, but I can't stop, and I want more. I no longer even know how I feel about myself. This is a strange world that I live in.

- Phil? Hey! Phil? Phil Connors? I thought that was you!

- Hi, how you doing? Thanks for watching.

- Hey, now don't you tell me you don't remember me because I sure as heck-fire remember you.

- Not a chance.

- Ned! Ryerson! Needlenose Ned. Ned the Head. Come on, buddy. Case Western High. Ned Ryerson, I did the whistling belly button trick at the high school talent show. Bing! Ned Ryerson, I got the shingles real bad senior year, almost didn't graduate. Bing again! Ned Ryerson, I dated your sister Mary Pat a couple times till you told me not to anymore. Well?

- Ned Ryerson?

- BING!

- So, did you turn pro with that belly button thing or what?

- No Phil, I sell drinks.

- What a shock.

- Do you have anything to drink? Cause if you do you could always use a little more. Am I right or am I right or am I right? Right? See after graduation I fell into the whole beverage world. My family owns a cherry farm, and it just made sense to sell cherry juice. I mean why do you think I say “Bing” all the time? I'm trying to get people to subconsciously think of cherries! Anyways I've worked out a new drink that is a combination of our famous cherries and raspberries that I get from Bill Klepler from back in high school. I know what you're thinking, cherry-raspberry juice is nothing new, but what if I were to tell you that I carbonated it and added B-Vitamins, caffeine and ginseng to turn it into a safe, healthy energy drink. I think it will be all the rage with the kids. I added some sucralose to keep the sugar content down, but let me tell you Phil, this tastes like nothing but pure juice with some bubbles in it! It's fantastic, and you'd be doing yourself a great disservice by not giving it a try.

- Ned, I would love to stand here and talk with you, but I'm not going to. See you.

- Hey, that's all right, I'll walk with you. You know whenever I see an opportunity now I charge it like a bull. Ned the Bull, that's me now. You know, I have friends who live and die by the actuarial tables and I say “Hey, it's all one big crap shoot anywho.Tell me, have you ever heard of our Bing Black? Because I think that really could be the ticket for you. God! It is so good to see you! What are you doing for dinner?

- Something else. It's been great seeing you, Needlehead. Take care.

- Watch out for that first step. It's a doozy!

Oh hazelnut. Who would have thought to combine you with chocolate and make such a wonderful combination? Can I think of hazelnut and not thing of Nutella? Nope. Who cares? I love the stuff. Why wouldn't it want the association? Oh, because it's its own man and can just be himself and not be associated with the likes of another? Who cares, you stupid nut. I'll eat you alone and I'll eat you all creamed up into a remarkable achievement that is a spreadable chocolate.

Hazelnut in a coffee energy drink? Look. Hazelnut does what hazelnut wants to do and what she wants to do is fraternize with coffee right now. As an energy drink, this is fine. Good for me actually because I drank half a can and didn't lose my mind with the shakes. All is not golden, though, friends. This is oddly creamy and slightly "diet" tasting. Can you deal with it? It didn't taste terrible. It just tasted like a diet coffee drink that someone mushed up some Nutella in. Is that such a bad thing? No. It's not. So it's got a little bit of a diet taste? Who cares? Leave it alone. It's just trying to be accepted as something more that "an ingredient used to make the best bread spread alive." What have you done lately? Nothing. Oh, right. That. We don't need to talk about that. I thought we were done with that.

I can see the headlines now; “Such a daring portrayal of an energy drink” and “Never before have such bold flavors toyed with our emotions in mysterious ways.” With a name like Marquis I expect something fancy and highbrow. I thought that was going to be exactly what I was in for. It sounds so refined when you think of it as a combination of green tea, yerba mate and organic raspberry. Unsweetened this would have been a wonderful, dry treat that would stand out in a sea of copycat energy drinks. The problems started when they sweetened it with erythritol, and then continued to sweeten it even more with stevia. There are my two preferred zero calorie sweeteners, but it's just too much in this beverage. The result is that this tastes dry, and yet overly diet at the same time. I don't know how they achieved it, but they did. The diet overpowers the berry flavor as well, which is just unfortunate.

When I took my first sip of this I was immediately put off, but for the sake of the review I persevered. The more I drank the more palatable it became. I learned to ignore the dietness of it as much as I could. About half way through the can I started to enjoy it, but I couldn't give high marks to a beverage that I had to work to enjoy. It could have been a brilliant career beverage, but the general public wants things overly sweet, and companies make sacrifices to give them what they want and in the end sometimes flavor suffers.

Steve, I need to make a change in my life. I need to calm down with the burgers and go organic. We have been eating like garbage for decades so we need a change. What've you got there? If it's organic, I'll slam it. That's going to be my new mantra going forward. I'll eat anything organic. That's healthy, right? I mean, it's organic.

What is this? Is this organic? You know my new rule. Is this grapefruit beer? Marquis? What's that? You're saying this isn't it? I'm looking at the ingredients and this isn't alcoholic but man it tastes like it is. It's a little bitter and tastes really diet. It certainly is "Citrus" but that's a bit of a vague flavor, don't you think?

You know what? You can have organic hamburgers, right? Alright, hand me one of those. Maybe I don't need to go so "cold turkey" on everything. I might go half junk food and half organic. That will naturally put me right in the middle, right? Cool. Give me that burger, dude.

This happened to the beverage world. Two youths were walking down the street, one with a Vitamin Water the other with an energy drink and they collided causing a tasty mess to be born.

Actually to be more accurate it would be like someone boiled down an orange mango Vitamin Water and dried out what was left over until it was a powder that they mixed into sparkling water, added some green coffee bean extract and B vitamins for energy and called it a day. So I guess it's nothing like that commercial, but it's still tasty. It has a bit of a stevia taste, but nothing that would put anyone off. It actually tastes kind of like a candy from when I was a kid, but I can't place exactly what. If I think of it I'll make sure to not remember to let you know.

What we have here is a fairly standard classic energy drink. It seems wrong to call it a classic, but this year marks the 30 year anniversary of Red Bull (even though it didn't become popular until much later). I mean according to Google cars are considered to be classic if they are over 20 years old. By those standards this flavor is an antique. The passing of time is a very strange thing indeed.

If you've had energy drinks you have an idea of how this tastes, and it's a flavor you initially probably did not care for, but if you're like me you grew to love it. There's nothing wrong with making similar products at a lower cost. Save yourself some cash and bypass the bigger brands for a can of this. It tastes the same and gives you the same boost. I mean you can still buy that Red Bull if you want to be a fool.

This is a beverage for all of those times that you find yourself in Innerspace/Fantastic Voyage type scenarios. You know something happens internally to someone and only you can be shrunk down to travel inside their person and right the wrongs of the human body. It may sound like a walk in the park, but there are anti-bodies in humans that simply do not like outsiders, they are kind of racist that way. In order to sneak by them we suggest that you drape yourself in pink real tree camo. It's the only appropriate attire for inter-body warfare.

Exploring the interworking of a human can take quite some time when you're that small. You need to be aware and alert the entire time, so why not down this energy drink that will blend right in with your camo. You can drink it while inside your friend and the antibodies will be none the wiser. Unfortunately convenience doesn't always taste the greatest. This is supposed to be pink lemonade flavored, but it just tastes like sweet lemon poison. It's one of those beverages that if you served to someone say 20 years ago they would have seriously thought you were serving them poison. As a species we've become so acclimated to the taste of energy drinks that we no longer remember how weird and kind of wrong they tasted the first time we tried them. This beverage has that weirdness turned up to ten. It's more chemical than lemonade. It's like they're not even trying to mask it.

I guess sacrifices must be made when you shrink yourself into a tiny person. Get in there save the day, come out through a nostril or ear and become the hero you were born to be. Just make sure not to leave your trash behind. That could wreak havoc on the person you're trying to save.

So I'm out hanging out with these guys I met at a They Might Be Giants concert in `96. Back then we were just kids, but now they have grown into full blown scientists. I know, it's not very shocking that TMBG fans would become scientists. Anyway I ran into them at this bar and we're out for the night if you know what I mean. Oh you don't, I mean they took me under their wing and we hit the bar trivia circuit and we hit it hard. These guys were maniacs, going for the gold in every saloon we entered. Around 2am, I started to falter. It was a long day and I'm not used to being up that late. Suddenly one of the guys passes me this can under the table and says it's the science energy drink. It's made from herbs and it helps to improve focus, motivation and drive, not just jack you up and give you the jitters like that gas station junk. I guess they had secretly been downing them all night. He said for me to sneak off to the bathroom and down it in the stall; it would help me to concentrate on the trivia.

So I do as he says, and I have to tell you I think the guys might have been playing a joke on me. You see the only thing this drink helped me focus on was how gross it tasted. As soon as I popped the can the air was filled with what I can only describe as a sour coffee smell. Actually I can tell you that it smells exactly like someone spilled an entire iced coffee all over them and then went into Subway to clean it up. That weird non-bread bread smell and old gross coffee have no business mingling together, yet that is what I feel is happening in my nasal passage. I was disgusted and I hadn't even tasted it yet.

Once I finally managed to bring myself to drink it the old coffee flavor was definitely there, but unfortunately it wasn't alone. It brought along some friends. It tasted like what I imagined green tea soda from a gun at a bar would taste like; fake, watered down and syrupy all at the same time. Oh did I mention that the tea was very heavily flavored with ginseng? You know that root that tastes just like dirt? So we have all of that mixed together, and it might not have been all that terrible, but then hidden underneath it all was this weird fruity flavor that derailed any hope for a decent drink. Oh top off all that it was harsh on the throat.

I drank as much of the can as I could stand and then I realized that this night wasn't even fun. I just got swept up in the glamor of science, and why was I paying for all the drinks? I slam dunked the can in the trash and left by the back door. Remember as a rule, don't trust They Might Be Giants fans who only like the goofy educational songs.

At first, I had to double check this because it smells like something alcoholic. It also is deceiving since it tastes half as strong as it smells. I'm trying to come up with an example of something that is half as strong as it smells and it's a really gross thought. Someone must be really smelly or really weak to have that ratio work.

Citrus Berry? Alright. It should be switched since it's berrier than it is citrus but it's all there so I'm not complaining. It's lightly carbonated, too and isn't too bad. It's considered a "Focus" drink but it's giving me the jitters like an energy drink would. Do people take cocaine to concentrate? Isn't that an "upper?" Shouldn't weed help you concentrate since you are calm? I don't know anything. I do know that although I might be cranking through this review because my hands are moving faster than my mind will let me go. If there was no backspace key, this review would be a pile of garbage. I suppose it's letting me focus on this lightning fast cursor tear across the screen as I write a review on the drink that's making me speedy. Is that what the kids call "meta." Kids, stop supplementing and go outside. Always on those drugs. Calm down. I need some water.

Forgive me, for the only thing I can think of as I sip on this beverage is “Little Triggers” by Elvis Costello. It may not be the strongest track on This Year's Model, but that doesn't mean it isn't one hell of a song. The same thing could be said about this beverage. It's not the best energy drink, tea or juice I've ever had, but it's still extremely enjoyable.

I don't think I have ever disliked any beverage that has contained cherry juice. When the real thing is used it is so superior to anything that is just cherry flavored. Drinking this is like eating a huge bowl of fresh cherries while sipping on some lightly sweetened white tea on the back porch of a country home with a light breeze blowing the laundry on the line clean. Can you tell I've been stuck inside for too long?

You know what, maybe I was wrong before, maybe this beverage is even better than I thought. Every ingredient is in the exact right place with the exact right amount. The choice of using agave syrup and apple juice to sweeten it was the exact right choice. It gives it a very specific taste that is dead on. Sure there are other fruit juices in the mix, but they don't shine too much. Instead they are there to dull down the cherry a bit, as straight juice from that fruit can tend to be a little intense. The way it mingles with the other fruits in here just make it perfectly smooth.

It's called an energy drink, but don't be a fool and think it's anything like Monster, Red Bull or any of those types of companies. The energy in here comes from nature. It's the caffeine from the white tea and a little extra kick from some ginseng. It's not going to make you feel all crazy and give you the shakes. It will just keep you even with a little push to help you keep going. Little Miracles I think I love you. To bring it back to Costello, I will say something about “Miracle Man.” Now discuss which is better, This Year's Model or My Aim is True. There really is only one correct answer.

Quick, if you had to be one sort of insect, what would you be? A spider? Too much work my friend. You spend almost all of your life constructing intricate little webs that get destroyed in an instant by some unappreciative oaf of a human. Flies deal with a lot of poop, so they are out of the running. Caterpillars are just too creepy, if they are even considered insects. Ants might be cool; you get to have crazy strength, but a lot of your life is spent in search of food. If I had to choose number one with a bullet would be the bee. You are feared, your spit is sweet and you get to spend you days lackadaisically just flying around just smelling some flowers, hanging out in the sun. Now that is a life of leisure I could get down with.

Being a bee must take a lot of energy though. Flapping your winds that fast has to be exhausting at some point. It's a good thing bees know where to get the best natural energy. They just head down to the store and get themselves a can of EnerBee. Wait, that's only Bumble Bee Man from the Simpsons, but I like his style. People, myself included, drink far too many chemical energy drinks to help them get through their days. This here is organic and natural. Who needs all that artificial junk when you have green tea, yerba mate, ginseng and B vitamins to get the blood flowing? Also, there is royal jelly in here, which kind of creeps me out. It's what bees feed their larvae when they want to breed a new queen. It messes with genetics people! If I drink enough of this will I become royalty? Will I gain special bee powers? Only time will tell.

This tastes mostly like yerba mate, with a bit of green tea in it. It has a fairly strong lemon flavor, and you can really taste the honey in it. I think everything about it is perfect, with the exception of two things. I guess that doesn't make it perfect then, does it. First off, if you drink this when it's really cold it's better. Once it starts to warm up you can taste the stevia in it a lot more. I actually didn't even realize it was sweetened with the plant, until I was near the end and some time had passed from the initial crack of the can. Secondly, this whole lightly carbonated business is just weird. It's so light that I wasn't sure if there were bubbles in it at all, or if the flavor was just sharp. When it comes to carbonation I say go big or go home. This is a tea, it doesn't need bubbles. That's just this drinker's opinion though.

A lot of people don't pout stock in natural energy drinks, as they say they don't get the job done. I assure you this one had me bouncing off the walls when I drank it. It was as if I was bouncing from flower to flower, collecting the precious pollen for my queen.

Oh what a different world we live in when things are backwards. Lemon & lime soda is very boring and I don't know a single person whose first choice it would be. Switch those two around and you got something. The science behind this is that lemons are boring and don't actually taste very good, even though “big lemon” has been trying to convince the world otherwise for decades. Limes on the other hand aren't just unripe lemons; they are their own fruit with a wonderfully bold flavor. This energy drink is most definitely heavier on the green instead of the yellow, and the result is an energy drink that is quite enjoyable and the opposite of boring. It definitely has the candied chemical classic energy drink undertones, but the lime is right there in your face like a mojito, minus the mint. There is also some lemon in there, but it's finally taking the back seat it has always deserved, but whined so much that it got shotgun. Dive in folks, the water is fine.

You've finally gone and done it; you beat life. It was the hardest game you've ever played, but you did it. You went to school. You had a family. You bought a house. You became a grandparent. You retired. You took up hobbies. All of your kids had relatively good lies, as did their children. Then you found yourself slipping off this mortal coil in relative peace, happy with the way everything went. Sure there were a few things you would have liked to have tried differently to see how they would turn out, but you know like everyone says “you only live once.”

Friend do I have news for you. All of those people were lying to you. You can live forever in unlimited timelines. You can make every decision however you like, and if you're unhappy with it, go back and try again…€¦that is if you were smart enough to down at least one shot of God Mode while you still walked the mortal realm. Science has come a long way my friends. It's had its setbacks, but then everything fell into place once those who bear the white coats realized that god is a jerk and this is all just a game. After that it was a simple mixing of some ingredients and voila, infinite health and infinite life. You're in charge.

To make matters even better, the shot tastes delicious. They decided to mask all of the important stuff in a blueberry green tea. Sure it has some stevia in it that gives it a bit of a cool diet taste, but overall it tastes like tea. It's the kind of thing you would happily drink a full glass of, and that is not common in shot beverages.

So there you have it. You can essentially become a god amongst men and do whatever you want: your life, your rules. I would be a little careful though. There are some batches that got mixed up with another mixture they were working on, so you either can do whatever you want, consequences be damned, or it will just help with cognitive function, focus, visual perception, stamina, problem solving ability, reaction time and just give you some energy that helps while playing video games.

Blueberry lemonade is something I have never had in real life. I was at a wedding in Massachusetts where some kid wore a kimono and no one said anything and made my own cherry lemonade which was great. I mulled it myself. I don't mess around. Blueberry lemonade seems easier since there are plenty of blueberries around and lemonade isn't hard to come by. Problem is, if I made it myself, it would be better than this. "Audacious!" you say? Well perhaps but it would be closer to the model of blueberry lemonade since there would be no mucking about with artificial sweeteners, preservatives and the like. Mash up some blueberries and put it into some water with lemon juice and sugar and you've got it. This is pulpless and not sour. It just "tastes like" blueberry lemonade like when markers "smell" like fruit but when you take a small nibble, you've discovered that you have discovered that it's a very one dimensional impression.

What this lacks is what makes lemonade great and that's pulp, bite, attitude and clean ingredients. The Reb A gives it a bit of an unwarranted bitterness that just tastes like lies. This isn't bad but it's like taking a girl home at the end of a long night that is wearing a lot of makeup and you know that when she inevitably stays the night and wakes up, your pillow is going to look like a towel behind the Chanel counter at your local department store and your face will be as red as her lips were the night before with regret and self-embarrassment.

What do you mean you are exhausted? It's only noon, and you are a 12-year-old on summer vacation; you're not allowed to be tired. I understand it's hot and humid, but back in my day we didn't let a second of this glorious freedom go to waste. Even when it was pouring rain we were out sliding in the mud. Now don't get any muddy ideas, I've already done the laundry and I don't want to have to do another load for your gunky summer clothes. You know what I blame TV and those video games you're always playing. I might just make a house rule that video games can only be played during the winter months in the house; maybe it will be when it's below a certain temperature. I know what you're thinking turning the air conditioner up all the way won't help your cause. We're going by the temperature on the news.

Seriously though, go outside, have adventures, maybe get into a little trouble (a very little trouble). You should be living for these 2.5 months every year. Fine you're tired I get it. You know what, if you mention this to your mother you're grounded for a month, and by that I mean you will be doing all the gardening this summer with no TV, no video games and no cell phone. I know you kids play games on your phones. Okay here it is. I picked a couple of these up at 711. They are a limited edition summer version of Red Bull. I know kids shouldn't be drinking these, but you know what, the memories of an exciting childhood summer are more important than any negative effects this could have.

You know how normal Red Bull tastes like liquid Wonka candy? Well this is a grapefruit version of that. It's like someone took a bottle of Squirt and added that candy element to it. I know that as an adult I'm not supposed to like super sweet things like this, but I absolutely love it. To be honest I have a case of the stuff hidden in the fridge in the garage behind that beer your uncle brought over for the Christmas party that I will never drink, but you probably will sneak when you get a little older. The joke will be on you though, because by then they will be old and gross. Seriously though, son this stuff is great. After you drink this one, ignore everything I said, and never drink another one until you're away at college. For now chug-a-lug apple of my eye and get out there and explore the woods a couple streets over. I heard some kids found an ear over there last week. Think how cool the kids at school would think you were if you found an ear over summer vacation! If they only found one that means there's it's pair just waiting to be found.

The poet Rick Ross once said, "Everyday I'm hustlin'." These past few weeks I have been doing just that. Straight hustlin'. Work all day, come home and work all night. Late into the night. Too late. It's catching up with me. I can feel it in my throat. It's my body's way of saying, "Calm down, bro. Get some sleep. You can work tomorrow." Well, I didn't listen to that guy last night and went deep into the night and now my body is in shambles. What better way to fix it than with a diet energy drink? Now I can not only be energized but svelte as well.

This didn't taste like a trillion Skittles, which is my initial litmus test for energy drinks. It didn't taste bad at all, as a matter of fact. It was citric but I couldn't really place it: Pineapple, some other stuff that may or may not be fruit, and of course their cornerstone mangosteen. It didn't taste like a clichè energy drink, which was a relief and it also did not taste "diet" so that's a double win. If you're keeping track, that's a veritable handful of wins. It's a small handful of wins but a handful nonetheless.

There are many shades in the energy drink spectrum, but no matter how much you nitpick, 90% of them can simply be described as, “Tastes like Red Bull.” This drink specifically tastes like sugar free Red Bull. They even went against the trends and used aspartame as their sweetener, just as the original did.

XL is not in the game to revolutionize anything with their flagship drinks. They seem to be happy to give you what you know at a lower price. That's not a bad place to be. Undercut the competition and watch the sales pour in. I hope it works out for them.

I wouldn't quite say that people live most of their lives in the “off” position, but if they aren't “on” until they drink this beverage then they must be in some sort of stasis. Perhaps normal life for humans is like when a computer goes into sleep mode, it's ready to jump into action at any moment, but it needs motivating to do so aka moving the mouse, tapping the space bar, downing a lightly sweetened, low calorie energy beverage. That doesn't sound quite right, but it's been a long day and my comparisons are not hitting their mark in my current state.

This is a lighter sweetened beverage, but I wouldn't exactly call it lightly sweetened. It's not a full mouth full of peach mango flavor, but it's stronger than stuff like Hint or Ayala Herbal Water. It's a lighter Vitamin Water or Gatorade with a small amount of stevia in the mix. It's not enough to fully distract from the light flavor, but it's enough that it's noticeable.

This obviously doesn't have the same impact as “classic” energy drinks, but it's enough to give you a little boost. It has caffeine from tea leaf extract, the amino acid ornithine and B vitamins to increase stamina, boost brainpower and enhance focus (or so the label tells me). It may not keep you up all night, but it's not supposed to. It's meant to keep you on and focused and not just in a blind rage of energy.

Jones, no one eats just pineapples anymore. That's so classic. Classic Jones. Eating only pineapples. Now everything is "tropical." All citric fruits all the time. Who has time to eat pineapples and bananas? Now this, this is what's up. This drink is called "On" and it's two fruits cutting your fruit eating time in half. Look, dude. I'm trying to help you. I know you're not too crazy about bananas but you'll be happy to know that this doesn't at all taste like them. It doesn't really taste like pineapple either. It just tastes...citric. It's good, though. It's like a pineapple if a pineapple didn't have any sort of bite.

What do you mean that you don't mind eating all your fruit one at a time? I said I'm trying to save you time? You don't care? You like wasting time eating all the fruit? You're a strange chap, Jones.