Energy Drink Reviews

This is the next entry in my series of short reviews. Today: energy drinks.

The goal: I want a drink that will keep me conscious and productive at work, without having too much sugar. I'm not a health nut, I'm just afraid of the diabetus. So, I found all of the natural/sugar-free energy drinks I could and slurped them down over the last three weeks. So you don't have to.

• Bawls Exxtra: 7/10

  Slightly fruity flavor. If you like the Bawls taste, you'll like this; it's similar but more powerful. It has slightly less impact than Bawls because of the change in sweetener.

• Bawls Cherry: 8/10

  One of the best cherry sodas I've ever had. Doesn't taste like an energy drink, just a good cherry soda (even though it's artificial.) If that's your thing, definitely try it out.

• Kaboom Orange Buzzzz: 9/10

  Excellent - tastes very much like orange juice. No detectable flavor from the energy components. Has a lot of vitamins and is organic. My favorite so far.

• Rumba energy juice: 8/10

  Not quite as good a taste as Kaboom Orange, but still good and 100% juice. Tastes like canned OJ - slightly watered down and lacking punch, but still refreshing and you can't taste the energy additives at all. Other fruit flavors are faint.

• Red Bull Cola: 8/10

  The cola flavor tastes like Coke but more natural. Uses real sugar and no chemicals at all. Much lighter in color than normal cola. Has caffeine and no other energy additives - fine by me. Basically a really good cola with a bit more pep. Very slight (natural) aftertaste.

• Monster Mixxd: 7/10

  30% juice. The ingredients say the fruit juice comes from apples and grapes, which is pretty accurate if you can imagine the combination. Pretty tasty. A bit healthier than a straight energy drink but still has all the sugar and chemicals.

• Monster Khaos: 5/10

  50% juice. This time there are more fruit juices combined, but they don't add up. The strongest fruit flavor for me is the peach. It comes across as medicinal, and I don't want carbonated medicine. The juice can't save this from mediocrity.

• Amp with Green Tea: 3/10

  This is not natural. It tastes like spoiled grapes and rotten herbs. There is absolutely no green tea flavor whatsoever, and by "yuzu" I think they meant "motor oil." This has very few redeeming qualities - they added a few extra vitamins, and I've had a drink or two in my life that tasted worse.

• Mountain Dew Voltage: 5/10

  So highly carbonated it's screaming to get out of the bottle. Try to avoid getting any in your mouth when it does come out of the bottle - you'll thank me later. It tastes like a blue raspberry freezer pop. I like freezer pops, but the blue raspberry ones are the worst in the box, and I wouldn't want to drink it.

• Rockstar Punched - Acai berry: 8/10

  Surprisingly nice. I wasn't expecting much but it's actually very fruity (in a good way) from the acai berry. I think the "citrus" name is a bit inaccurate; it's more subtle and flavorful. Still has a bit of energy drink aftertaste so it can't get the highest marks, but it's definitely tasty.

Update: Here's part two!