Relaxation - 67 Reviews

I can only hope beyond hope that the folks from the Amsterdam based band Vengaboys moved to Italy, took all of the money they made from their hit single We Like to Party (The Vengabus) and started a functional beverage company. I seriously don't think I've thought about that band in at least 15 years, but as soon as I read the name of this company that damn song was instantly stuck in my head.

I mean this drink would totally fit into their wheelhouse, right? After all that time riding around in the Vengabus, partying all the time, they would need to just kick back and relax sometimes. The problem is EVERYONE knows about the Vengabus, so as soon as they see it they instantly switch into party mode. As a result the members of the band needed to lock themselves in the backroom of the bus and get a little herbal aid. Not pot you savage. The Vengaboys are a wholesome group that only drink copious amounts of alcohol, but it's legal, so it's fine…€¦wait they are from Amsterdam…€¦hmm. Okay when they are at home maybe they use other herbal aids, but when on tour they stick to drinks like this.

This has a nice smooth taste. You mostly get pink grapefruit out of it, but the grape and orange and maybe the tea help to mellow out the acidity of it. On the opposite side of the spectrum all of the juices help to negate the bitterness that is normally associated with white tea. It all works together wonderfully.

So not only does this drink help to chill you out (but not make you sleepy) it also does it in a way that tastes great and doesn't leave you with any sort of medicinal/herbal aftertaste. You hang out in the back of the bus for a hundred miles or so and then you're ready to party again from New York to San Francisco and wherever else your dancing dreams may take you.

In my head this drink was formulated specifically to help people cope with the theoretical impending apocalypse. Even the companies name suggests it: MALAVA = MAYAN LAVA that will destroy the world. Yeah it's a stretch, deal with it.

Unlike other relaxation drinks this is not full of melatonin and valerian root, which will just put you to sleep. The anti-stress medicine in this cane is just kava extract, which is used to relax without disrupting mental clarity. This way if you survive the initial impact of the unknown event that will end everything on Thursday, you will be calm and clear headed to figure out what you have to do to survive. Those fools who drink alcohol or something like a Marley Mellow Mood will be passed out somewhere for passing marauders to do with as they please. No one wants that to happen to them.

Since this is going to the taste to represent the end of the world we are lucky that it actually tastes decent. It's not carbonated, as I expected it to be. It tastes like some unknown tropical fruit. It's a little thick, somewhere between a juice and nectar. All of these are good things in my book. There is nothing chemical tasting in here. I could have been served this as a normal juice and not realized it had other effects until I drank it and they kicked in.

Stock up. Prepare yourselves. Make sure that you have the ability to numb yourself to the doom and destruction that is all around you so that you can forge on and rebuild the world.

Things got real weird in my brain last night. I'm not one to subscribe to the preaching of the apocalypse, but for some reason as I lay in bed, trying to fall asleep I started to wonder if all this jazz about the Mayan calendar was correct, and that the world was going to end in a couple of weeks. It started off with me thinking that everything was going to end in one big shebang, like the sun was going to collide with the Earth and everyone and everything would die instantaneously. At this point I just tried to get everything in order in my mind of where I wanted to be, and with who (aka the woods with my close family and friends). I thought I was okay with that, but then my pre-sleep mind started to think about what would happen if there was disaster everyone, but I still lived. I instantly wrote off zombies, and thought more of a The Road type scenario. I was trying to figure out everything I would have to get together and where I'd go when I decided that I was an idiot and I really needed to get to sleep, so I reached into my nightstand and pulled out this bad boy. It certainly helped calm my brain down, and made it do normal brain things like sleep when it's 3am and you have to be up in six hours. Thank goodness for melatonin, valerian root and rose hips.

Oh you want to know what it tastes like? Well it starts with a berry flavor, that is heavy on the blueberry side of things, and then it takes a quick turn that reminds me of iced teas that I have gotten at Asian markets that have licorice root in them. It doesn't taste like black jellybeans, but it tastes like a natural tea, or chewing on a switch from a licorice tree. So we have a decent flavor and no worries about the end of the world…€¦I feel fine.

Walking through a truck stop I spotted this bottle, which looks more like an engine cleaner than a beverage. Even though it was in the cooler I had to double check to make sure I would not be poisoning myself by consuming it. It looks like too cheap of a grade of plastic to contain something edible.

To me the drink had a vague cough syrup scent to it, but my friends all said that the only thing they smelled was Pixie Stix. The taste was more in line with their diagnoses than mine. It essentially tastes like berry flavored sugar candy that was made with fake sugar. It's not wonderful, but it's not a deal breaker either. I just don't understand how drinks that have the polar opposite results (giving you tweeker energy and mellowing you out) can both have such a similar taste.

This had a weird effect on me. I drank it and within 15 minutes I passed out. 20 minutes of slumber passed and then my consciousness returned and I was completely awake for about 5 annoying minutes before I fell back asleep without warning. Luckily that time it lasted until morning.

I love that southern hip-hop culture is basically responsible for the entire existence of relaxation drinks. If you're not well versed on this, a lot of rappers talk about drinking cough syrup mixed with soda in their songs. It is commonly known as Drank, which I believe was also the name of the first relaxation drink. Lean named their various flavors of relaxation drinks after the different preferences different regions of the south had for their syrup. Lean cuts out the cough syrup and instead uses flavor syrup mixed with some pharmaceutical grade herbs. This way kids won't overdose on their syrup, and they can buy it over the counter.

Easta Pink was inspired by Lil Weezie. In it's original form it is cough syrup, Sprite, two Jolly Ranchers and some Skittles. The sounds like a sugar overload to me. While the Lean version is still very sweet, it has a very unique taste that doesn't remind me anything of Jolly Ranchers. If I had to pinpoint the flavor I would say that it was a can of Sprite that had those old timey strawberry hard candies melted into it. It's surprisingly tasty, and it will chill you right out. Here's to hoping that the reign of energy drinks is coming to an end and the world will just start to move in slow motion for a bit.

This company has the brain down. They know ever nook and cranny of that gray shriveled grape that lives inside the skulls of the world. The know what to poke and prod to get the sought after effects. Want to make someone kick your assistant in their posterior? Just poke that little section there. Want to make them sing the Canadian national anthem in Cantonese? Give that little guy a squeeze. Seriously, Neuro can make us do whatever they want, that is if they could just get inside our skulls. Since we are grown ass adults, and they have no claims over our bodies, they have to do what seems to be the next best thing for them and that is to sell us drinks that will affect different parts of our mind grapes.

With this drink they figured out exactly what to mix together to put you to sleep and make it last all night. Normally with relaxation drinks I sleep sound and hard for about four hours. It's like I get a full night's sleep in a shorter span, but after that I wake up on and off. When I drank this I was out all night. It was magical. It doesn't taste too shabby either. It has a nice light citrus taste that clings to the orange side of the genre. It's non-carbonated, which for no reason at all, seems weird to me.

Science is a force to be reckoned with, and Neuro is nothing if not a group of scientists with a love for gray matter. It's terrifying if you think about it.

If you don't think that a nice quiet night out in the woods watching a fire is relaxing enough, perhaps you should try a can of Lean. There is something hysterical to me about drinking a beverage that was obviously conceived of for an urban setting out in the middle of nowhere, but hey you can drink one and lean on anything to fall asleep, even a tree or a dilapidated barn. Hell, I bet you could lean against a beavers tail and not be disturbed all night.

When I downed this last night I was greeted by a pleasant pineapple flavor that fell somewhere between the fruit and overly sugary candy. It was quite delicious. So much in fact that I had pounded the entire can before I even knew what was happening. About ten minutes later some friends asked me if I was okay because I was looking really dazed. Yes I was feeling fine, I just happened to be falling asleep with my eyes open. I made my way to my tent and slept like a baby bear cub, which I did not see like I wanted to.

This beverage tasted great and its functionality was just as good.

I've been having some awful tooth pain lately. I finally made an appointment to see the dentist, but last night was not fun. My mind was racing about how I can't afford to go to the dentist and fearing that the doctor is going to tell me I have to stop drinking soda. With my mind racing and my tooth pain, I was having a hard time falling asleep so I decided to give this relaxation shot a try.

I have been drinking a lot of lemonade lately so when I saw lemon flavor on the bottle, I assumed it was going to be tart. To my dismay, it was not. It wasn't bad, just surprising. My housemate claimed it smelled and tasted like Pine-sol but he couldn't be farther from the truth. It's a smooth lemon taste. It's actually a mellow taste, which is nice.

As we know with "functional" drinks such as this, the taste is only half of it. I was interested to see how well this worked because unlike a lot of relaxation drinks, this doesn't have melatonin in it. They went for the all-natural approach to relaxation, and it worked. Within an hour I was asleep and slept like a baby. On a night where I almost gave up on sleep, this was a miracle drink.

Overnight flights are simultaneously the best and the worst. They are the bet because you can sleep through most of the flight and it seems to pass quickly, which is always appreciated. Even if I have an early morning flight I tend to stay up the whole night before, just so that I can sleep on the plane.

They are the worst because no matter how tired you are; you never get a consistent sleep. It's impossible to get “sleep comfortable” on a plane. There's no place to put your head and if you try to sleep in a full sitting position your head will inevitably fall forward like you were in some boring class in high school that just put you out. Case in point is my last day in Vegas and the flight home. I woke up at 7:30 am and went and ate far too much at breakfast. Then I walked around all day to wear myself out. There was a point where I just thought that if I just sat down anywhere I would pass out, but I stayed vertical and kept moving. Our plane left around midnight. I tried to stay awake until they approved use of portable electronic devices so that I would put on some sleepy music to drown out all the noise around me. I remember the plane starting to move on the runway, but I apparently couldn't keep my eyes open for another minute because I was out before the plane left the ground. You would think that a situation like that would be ideal, but as it turns out that sleep lasted me a whole twenty minutes of a five-hour flight. As to be expected, my head fell forward and I woke up, unable to fall back asleep. Luckily I had planned ahead and brought a Koma Unwind with me. I quickly downed the berry chemical flavored liquid, which I initially thought was horrible, but left a pleasant aftertaste. It's rare that these shots truly taste pleasant, so I'll take all of the niceness I can get out of them. After about 10 minutes of pondering the taste I was asleep again. I wasn't able to sleep through the flight, I woke up probably every 20 minutes or so, but the unwind shot helped me to fall back to sleep with relative ease. The moments that I was awake were extremely annoying, but I will take that collective 2 minutes over being conscious for a five-hour flight any day.

So I'm in Vegas for my sister's wedding. We spent three flights that were all delayed and took way, way too long. We thought we had missed our last connecting flight, because the one before it was late landing. We had to book it through the airport and made it to the terminal just in time. Once we finally made it to Vegas it took forever to get off our flight. When we made it to the car rental they said they were out of the cars we wanted, so they upgraded us to a Mustang convertible. For most people that would be awesome, but we are driving 5 hours to the Grand Canyon, and there is very little room in the car. Annoyances abound.

Finally we made it to our hotel, and they told us the only nonsmoking room they have left is right over where the bands play. I said whatever I just needed sleep. We dragged our bags to the room to find out that not only did they forget to turn on the air conditioning, so the room was a million degrees, but the band they spoke of was actually a DJ party that goes on until 4am with constant terrible beats. It was so damn loud.

I was so unbelievably tired, but due to the heat and the noise, I just couldn't fall asleep. I will be eternally grateful that I had packed this sleep shot, and not drank it for the plane (and read comics instead). I downed it, and I don't remember much after that until I awoke at 9am to a freezing room. The air conditioning decided to work properly. That is what I talk about a functional product. It has a diet pineapple sports drink flavor to it. It doesn't taste like poison, so I was thankful for that. It was light, with a decent flavor and after downing a shot I was out. Thank you Dream Water.

ps. We switched rooms in the morning after someone else checked out. Things may turn out okay after all.

Do you want a night of completely mundane dreams? Well then I have the water for you. I drank this last night and I dreamt that I was at the grocery store checking all the drinks against the list on my phone to see if we had reviewed it. You know, like how I spend most of my days. Then when I cashed out there was a problem with my card and a manager got called over. He then yelled at the cashier, whom I stuck up for and a shouting match ensued. Completely boring.

The thing is that you don't drink these to have insane crazy dreams. You drink them to sleep, and it performed that function perfectly. I tossed and turned for an hour last night. It was obviously that I wasn't getting any closer to Slumberland on my own. I needed help from a bottle. Within 15 minutes of slamming this down my gullet I was out cold.

The drink was also surprisingly not gross. As we've stated dozens of times drinks that come in shot forms are gross by nature. This on the other hand tastes like a flavor of Vitamin Water Zero. It's pomegranate and blueberry flavored, and it doesn't taste chemical at all. It tastes like flavored water, and it doesn't even taste concentrated. I like it as a drink, and I love it as a sleep aid. This is a win-win for everyone except my dreams.

Robert Van Winkle felt like a failure, and a disappointment to his family. When your great-great-grandfather is Rip Van Winkle you are expected to be able to sleep through anything. Unfortunately that was not true for Robert. Ever since he was a baby he was a bit on an insomniac. He would get in fights with his parents and they would tell him he was an embarrassment and they often accused him of abusing energy drinks. The truth is that he had never so much as tasted a drop of an energy drink. His lack of sleep was a natural thing. His theory was that his ancestors used up all of the sleep allocated to his bloodline, thus cursing him with constant wakefulness. The upside of this was that Robert became a genius. Since he rarely slept, he used all of his waking hours on his studies and quickly had several doctorates and became a scientist. He dreamed of someday creating a potion that would give him the relief of sleep that his family clung to so much.

This bottle that I hold in my hand is the result of years of endless research and trials. Robert Van Winkle finally overcame his demons and I'm happy to say that with the first shot that he drank he quickly fell into a long relaxed slumber. His success mixture tasted like gummy orange slices that had been liquefied. He was shocked at how his final version actually did not taste very intense. It didn't taste like chemicals like so many of his past attempts. He beat science and a family curse. Robert Van Winkle is a true American hero.

There is a video game that you should know about called "Trials HD." I have easily invested hundreds of hours playing it. It's a simple motorcycle game where you accelerate, brake, and lean your way to the end as quickly as possible. There is a level in it called "Dreamscape" that is all over the place. Ramping up and down through someone's crazy imagination with floating planks, scaffolding, and twisted wood. You can see what I'm talking about here.

This drink is the liquid equivalent of that track. I've made a few mugs of this before and liked it, but preferred "the original" variety. After drinking it today, I might change. It's so spicy. It's almost woody and peppery. If you like light drinks, you couldn't drive your car away from this drink fast enough. It's a lingering drink, too. So spicy. It caught me off guard because I didn't know that it was going to be so bold. If you're in the market for a change and need to pull a total 180, this is the place to go. Oooh. So spicy.

For the first time ever I will now claim that scientists don't know what they are talking about. Sure they know the answers to pretty much about everything, but when it comes to the sun, they have it all wrong. I don't know where they got all of this malarkey about the Earth spinning and revolving around the sun at the same time. It's pretty obvious to every single person with the sense of sight that the Earth sits still and the sun moves in regard to us. All you have to do to know that is the truth is to look up at the sky.

I can even explain why the sun moves the way it does. It's simple actually, being the sun is a lot of work and requires a lot of energy. After awhile the sun just gets tired. Literally the sun gets exhausted and needs to take a rest. The sun's parents didn't raise a fool, so our friend in the sky has manners. He knows that it would be rude to just turn off his flames and take a nap where everyone can see him, so he goes off and hides on us and takes comfort in slumber.

I guess I wasn't completely correct when I said that all scientists were wrong earlier. There is a small faction that work for the Solixir company who know what the deal is. They have known for a while how the sun works and have devised a way to harness all forms of its power. They had a team go up to the sun in this crazy fire proof/heat resistant suits to collect both it's daytime energy and the anti-energy the sun uses to help it to relax and fall asleep (aka the sun's sleeping pills). They used these samples to synthesize the way the sun works and have used it in their functionality beverages.

The drink I have in my hand is one that harnesses the relaxation power of the sleeping sun. The thing is that they don't want other companies mimicking their discovery, so they don't just come out and list “the relaxing properties of the nighttime sun” on the ingredients list. Instead they just list the other things in this beverage: chamomile flower, passionflower herb, lemon balm, jejube berry and hibiscus flower. They lightly flavored this mixture with blackberry juice and added some carbonated water to create a nice little product. The botanical blend kind of gives off a slight fennel taste, but it's more like a memory of a fennel flavor. Overall the entire drink tastes very light. There is no sweetener in it and it tastes more like a flavored sparkling water. Knowing the potential power of this drink Solixir did the responsible thing and only put the smallest traces of the sun's power in the drink. They didn't want people just passing out everywhere as soon as they took a sip. In fact the drink doesn't make you tired at all, it simply relaxes you and let's you enjoy the day as the sun flies by overhead.

Sometimes you have a restless night where you repeatedly fall in and out of sleep. Sometimes at 5am you think to yourself “enough is enough.” You then get up and down a “relaxation drink.” After you lay back down you shortly reenter the world of slumber. You dream that you're in an airport and your flight was canceled and no one will give you a direct answer as to when you will be boarding a plane, as if it was your fault your flight was cancelled. Eventually you wake up feeling refreshed, thinking to yourself “well that drink really worked.” It's not until you grab the “shot” bottle that you realize that it wasn't a relaxation drink at all, but rather an alcohol recovery & rehydration shot. Sometimes you feel like a complete moron and question everything that you once thought was real. Do relaxation drinks really work? Is Bill Murray really that funny? Are hot dog stuffed crusts on pizza really the single greatest idea of our generation? Don't worry the answer to all of those questions is most definitely yes. You were just tired and half asleep. Sure it was psychosomatic that it worked and you fell back asleep, but it probably would have happened anyways if you had just waited a little longer. The end times are not here, you can rest well.

So yes, this is in fact not a relaxation drink, but I will say that I woke up feeling refreshed, so it works to some extent in its proper function. If you got completely, sloppy wasted I'm not sure it would be much help, but for a couple of drinks I'm sure it would help you not feel like dog doo doo in the morning. Unfortunately, the flavor is not the greatest. It tastes like someone boiled down some lemon lime Gatorade down to a concentrate and pouring it into this little bottle. It's far too strong and it tastes wrong, but it's a shot and that is how most of them taste. Oh well.

Sometimes you have a long day at work and when you get home you just want to sit back relax with your ladyfriend and your cats and watch a movie. Sometimes you still feel stressed, so you drink a relaxation drink to help mellow you out. Sometimes that relaxation drink is a can of the sugar free version of Koma Unwind. Always that drink will taste like the strangeness that would be diet Pixie Stix. Instead of tasting like flavored ground down sugar it now tastes like flavored ground down sucralose. It's somehow not completely terrible. I don't like it as much as the normal, but for those of you out there who are accustomed to diet drinks this would probably taste pretty darn awesome.

Sometimes about a half hour after drinking this drink your still conscious, but your body feels like it is asleep. Sometimes it's a strange sensation and it makes you feel restless, because you're not in bed and asleep. Sometimes you give in and go to bed. Sometimes you have dreams that you're a criminal breaking into a broken down Dave Foley's house to break into a safe. Sometimes he comes home and you sneak out the back into a neighborhood park. Sometimes he comes out and you chat each other up. Sometimes you ask if you can use his bathroom so you can go back in and recover the jacket you left behind. Sometimes Dave Foley has a completely disgusting toilet. Sometimes the next thing you know a truck with a gallows on it is pulling up for your execution. Sometimes you make it so the truck rolls down the hill into the lake in order to not die. Then sometimes for some inexplicable reason you dream about drawing highly lifelike pictures of Hugh Laurie.

Sometimes life is very strange with Koma.

The first time I ever had a Rockstar drink was also the first time that I had an energy drink. It was around 2003 and I was at the skate park hanging out and this dude who just got back from California and brought us back these tall drinks. It was a very generous and thoughtful gesture. We all took a sip and, like we have all said in most reviews, it tasted like a trillion Smarties crushed up in a crappy tea. From that point on, I didn't drink energy drinks until I started doing this site. A lot has happened to the world since my unsuccessful gateway drug into the downward spiral that is energy drinks has now pulled a switcheroo and started making relaxation drinks.

First sip of this knocked me off my seat. Not because it was good but because it was infinitely "diet." Sting and all. The flavor was quite the kick in the pants, too. I cannot argue that it is tropical guava flavor but it has been so candied and dieted that guavas worldwide should be insulted to be affiliated with this drink. It's just ramped up to eleven and doesn't let go to your mouth or throat.

Cut to an hour later and I could have taken a nice nap. I'm not a stressful man by any means and I actually hate naps. Do you know when the weather is just dreary and gray and it's like three in the afternoon, nothing is on TV, you don't want to play video games and you decide that you're going to just take a nap? That's what this drink was like. I felt quiet inside. I felt...not bored...but like my body was telling me that there is nothing better to do than take a nap. An hour after that, thankfully, it wore off and I was back to my normal self.

I'm drinking the other half that I didn't want to drink because I've got to do a bit of driving in the very near future and I don't want to be sleepy while doing so. We'll see what happens. If you don't hate diet drinks and need to calm down because you're a spazz of have self-diagnosed yourself with a sleeping disorder that could easily be fixed by you not drinking so many darn cups of coffee or energy drinks, compound your addictive nature and get this. If you just want to relax and care what you ingest, get a Marley's. I would choose it ninety-nine times to this.

The terrorists really win when you drink this stuff. They come at you from all angles and all you can think is, "It'll be alright" as you are getting shot every which way. Do not go into battle after you drink this stuff. Do not operate heavy machinery because when you're driving a gigantic dump truck thinking, "I feel really relaxed right now." you're running over half a dozen cars and you don't even know it.

This drink works. I feel totally relaxed and quite apathetic at the world around me. Sure, it doesn't take much to get me to that point but the former is a stretch. I am just a little sleepy but even when I say that I know as soon as my head touches the pillow my day will be over and then some.

This stuff could not taste more like medicine. Even down to the light carbonation/stinging, this drink does not fail to deliver in its familiar yet undesirable taste. What it lacks in a nice, soft, black cherry taste, it makes up for in actual results. I could probably take a punch in the face with a smile about now. There's nothing in this drink that is medicinal either. The only unnatural ingredient is the corn syrup. Everything else is just a relaxation herb.

This drink makes me feel like the first few times I had a Bob Marley tea, so if you want that feeling all over again, and you don't need to drive a backhoe and your city isn't overrun by terrorists, this is a great drink that you should enjoy exorbitantly responsible because it could end you and you couldn't care about it.

Could this possibly resemble cough syrup any more? From the colored plastic bottle to the name (sounds suspiciously like Robitussin) this just screams medicine. I can see a new trend of kids "robo-tripping" on this stuff. They down a couple of bottles and then just pass out. How is that fun? Really though, the packaging on this thing is just terrible. If I saw this in the store I would never even give it a second glance. With all its flaws in the looks department the flavor of this isn't too bad. They managed to get a green apple flavor that doesn't taste like a Jolly Rancher. It's still a little candy tasting, but over all it's like an apple soda that is well on its way to going flat.

I got home at 3:30 last night and I just wasn't tired. I downed both servings in this bottle and by 5:30 my mind was still racing and I wasn't relaxed at all. When Derek had another flavor he said it worked great for him. Maybe I'm just broken.

People rave about Sippin Syrup. Which is weird because Jay reviewed the purple kind and thought it was bad. It's impossible to find in Buffalo, so friends of mine have asked me where to find it. I didn't know what to tell them. As soon as we entered Texas I started to see it in every gas station. I can't distinguish the flavor of this drink for the life of me. "Griptonite" is not a real flavor. It tastes decent though. One thing I do know is this relaxation drink does work. I'm feeling pretty spacey as I type this.