Ex - 6 Reviews

This is the diet version of the Ex energy drink I reviewed a few weeks ago. In that I detailed my feelings on kombucha. Basically it's foul sludge. In the ordinary version the taste wasn't that bad. I actually kind of enjoyed it. Unfortunately in this diet version the grossness prevails. It's not as strong as other kombucha drinks, but it still tastes a little bit like rot to me. I think the sweetener in the other one covered it up. The stevia in this lets it shine. Boo on you stevia. You have been so kind to me in the past why did you have to do this to me now? This doesn't taste chemical like most energy drinks, but I think I might prefer that to the kombucha taste. If you're into that kind of thing, you will probably love this.

It's become way popular these days for companies to make beverages that are basically a healthier version of Gatorade. The first I knew to do it was Vitamin Water, and I thought they did a great job. That is until I tried the Ex product line. It blows vitamin water out of the....well....water. I don't know if it's just because it's clear, but it feels more like water to me. A nicely sweetened flavored water. It's like someone watered down peach and mango juice and somehow made it so that it doesn't taste watered down. That is a feat in itself. The vitamins in it are just an added bonus. I hope to see these popping up in gas stations around the country.

About three years ago I bought a couch. It has a nice leather bottom with microfiber cushions and a chez. I piled tons of kids on that for dozens of tacos and pizzas and everything in between. Recently, my girlfriend had been noticing that the cushions have been a bit lackluster and have lost a lot of their shape, leaving you in this slouched over, sunken, and kind of uncomfortable position. We decided that it was time to replace the cushions. It was a pretty cost effective options since replacing all of the foam was 1/7th the price of the couch itself. I felt good about it until we got the foam in and I had to re-stuff the cushions by hand. It was a tedious and long endeavor. I tried my hardest to get everything in without ripping the covers and after about 45 minutes of wrestling foam, I was on my final push to get the chez foam in, I ripped the cover. You can't see it, although it's a large rip. I felt defeated and quite dehydrated so I knew I needed something quenching.

I went and grabbed this lemon lime drink, flash chilled it in the freezer for a few minutes and started slamming it. It's good. It smells like a Sprite or a 7-Up but with a fraction of the sugar taste. It's a pretty calm taste, which you wouldn't expect from the smell, but that's what made it so drinkable.


I've never seen this in stores but the ones that I've had so far have been pretty good. This is not like Vitamin Water which, to me, is what I would grab if I wanted a juice. This also is stronger than a Hint. This is kind on in a category all it's own. Either that or it's right where you would expect it to be based off of the range that I just gave you.

I don't understand how I can pass out at night as soon as my head hits the pillow; yet wake up exactly two hours later completely awake. I normally have no problems with my sleep patterns, but this has been happening for the past week or so. Last night after my sudden awakening and consequent tossing and turning, my girlfriend started talking in her sleep. She repeatedly asked me, "What's happening to the front right door?" I still don't know what she was talking about. When I asked her, "What door?" She just said, "This one." and fell into a deeper sleep. At that point I needed to fall asleep fast, so I downed this relaxation drink. I know this variety wasn't made to make me pass out, but it did help. It doesn't have melatonin in it, but the chamomile and Valerian did the trick. This tasted like carbonated Vitamin Water, specifically the guava one (which doesn't really taste like guava). I say thank you Ex. You made my nights sleep a lot better.

Let's have a brief dialog about kombucha. It's absolutely putrid. The first time someone offered me some I thought they were trying to pull a prank on me. Imagine that you threw a raging party at your house. There were tons of people there and come dawn, people were still hanging out. Of course there's the obligatory guy who somehow passed out of the roof, and others passed out (you hope they aren't dead) all over the place. You're beat. You had a great time, but you just want to sleep forever. Unfortunately you're leaving for a family trip to the Grand Canyon at 5pm, so you really should start cleaning up. Okay, you can allow yourself a brief nap, but then you really need to get this place cleaned up before your family picks you up. Next thing you know there's knocking at the door. It scares the crap out of you. You've been dead to the world for hours. It's your great aunt Matilda. You're whole family is in the driveway waiting in the Deluxe Family Truckster. You quickly throw some clothes in a bag and jump in the car. Two weeks later you're getting dropped off in that same driveway. No one in your family is talking to each other. Things got a little hairy on the way home. You open your door and you suddenly remember you never cleaned up from the party. Half filled cups of randomness and bottles of beer are everywhere. You force yourself to clean up. You dump all of the remaining fluids into a giant mayonnaise jar (you really don't know where it came from). When it's all cleaned up, you go to take the jar out to the trash. As you're about to screw the cap on, you accidentally take a whiff. A rotting, fermenting, slightly fruity garbage smell is what graces your nasal cavities. It doesn't taste much better either.

Okay, so that was a monologue, sue me. As you can see I have some opinions of that drink. When I saw this had it as a prime ingredient I really did not want to try it. Last night some friends were visiting from out of town, and we were staying up late. I had gotten up early and was getting sleepy, but I wanted to hang out, so I bit the bullet and downed this can. It's not even remotely as bad as kombucha I've tried in the past. It didn't taste like rotting at all. There was a faint hint of a kombucha flavor underneath it all, but it wasn't bad. It was pretty sweet in a weird way, since it contains natural beat sugar. It's all-natural, so it wasn't like other energy drinks. You know, like runoff from a nuclear plant. I would definitely try this again over most of the other energy drinks on the market. It also kept me up until 3:30am when I was yawn city around 10, so it seems to do its job as well.

You drink it and at first it's just a nice, light raspberry water, but then...something happens. I started to taste like maple syrup flavored raspberry water. That is not an ingredient, but I thought that it would make for a good drink. I've had things that are flavored with maple syrup and they're not that bad. Then it got me to thinking, what if there was a pancake flavored drink? You could do maple syrup sweetened, raspberry flavored juice. There would have to be some other magic in there to make it more "pancake" and less "I think this is kind of like a pancake". Am I on to something? Should I have just reviewed this drink as saying:

"This is a nice drink. It's very refreshing and not too sweet. Full of vitamins or not, it's got a nice taste that goes down smooth."

Or should I let my fat kid imagination run away with me and start inventing drinks that don't exist? I'll do what I want, thank you very much.