Energy Drink - 555 Reviews

I can safely say I am an energy drink connoisseur. I do my best work late at night so naturally I am a night owl. I have easily tried 50 different energy drinks over the past 10 years and I always seem to come back to the original Monster flavor. It has a strong citrus flavor. It also sometimes reminds me of sour apple. Like most energy drinks, it has that usual energy drink battery acid chemical taste. I feel like it isn't as bad with this kind though, but it may be because I got used to it.

My girlfriend's mom got me a tea brewer for Christmas along with some select tea bags. I have been using the heck out of it at work. Yesterday I went for a walk and picked up this little dude at the local Co Op. I was tired and I had my choice of Awaken and whatever the other one was called. Obviously I got the Awaken variety.

The predominant flavors are Mate and citrus. Secondary flavors include cinnamon and ginseng. Primary flavors make up 90% of the taste at very least. It tastes like a bitter orange due to the Mate. You do get a little cinnamon. Reason I brought up the tea brewer is because one of the thousand teas I received was an orange spice tea that tastes very similar without the Mate. It was a bit rough and at times, I thought this small can would never end. I also didn't particularly enjoy it at any extent. It was more complex than flavorful.

Dear people of Monster,
Talking about getting trashed and how you're suffering from cottonmouth doesn't make you look cool. It makes you look like an overgrown 15-year-old stoner wearing a stained old poncho. If I had read that description on the can before I bought it I would have put it right back in the cooler. Lucky for you and I all I saw was "tea + lemonade."

Even though I think your marketing is idiotic I will overlook it because this happens to be one of the best energy drinks I've ever had. It's not carbonated, which is rare in the energy drink game. Most importantly it tastes like a more than decent Arnold Palmer. I would drink this on the regular if it wouldn't keep me up. It also doesn't have a strong chemical taste (I know I constantly talk about the chemical taste of energy drinks, but most taste terrible, so when one doesn't it is headline news. Shockingly it's only 10 calories per serving, but it doesn't taste anything close to diet.

On my vacation I'm working on keeping my normalish sleep schedule. It's six hours behind here, so I've been having at 5 or 6 in the morning and going to bed around 10 or 11. When you're in a tropical adventure zone, you want to make the most of the sunlight you have. It's been working out pretty well thus far, but after five nights of less than six hours sleep I needed a little pick me up.

I was hoping to find some sort of local energy drink, but when that turned out to be a bust I grabbed the next best thing; a guava flavored one. When I'm consuming energy drinks I prefer ones made with juice. I know they are still terrible for you, but I t makes me feel a little bit better that they aren't all garbage.

I don't think this really tastes like guava, but it does taste tropical, fruity and sugary as all hell. It also still has that chemical taste to it that nearly all energy drinks have. You learn to deal with that.

Up until a few minutes ago I though a "high ball" was the name of a specific alcoholic drink. It turns out it's a general term for and mixed drink. They are typically sold by middle aged women in their bras during mud wrestling matches held in living rooms.

Hi Ball is more specific. It is a very dry, borderline seltzer, sparkling energy drink. There is no sugar added at all. It's just water, bubbles, a small amount of lemon lime flavor, and some herbs for energy. It's the high-class energy drink. I understand how this could be attractive to some people, but it's not for me. I like my energy drinks to taste like juice, not.....nothing.

What's worse than a gross energy drink? A gross diet energy drink. Going into this I knew this wasn't going to be good. The initial taste isn't bad. It has a generic orange soda mixed with red bull taste. But as soon as it goes down, the usual battery acid energy drink feeling kicks in, which is intensified by the Splenda in the drink that make it "low-carb". Yuck.

Also, did you notice the warning at the bottom? "Caution: May Suppress Appetite". This is kinda messed up. I highly doubt people are worrying about having their appetite suppressed. This is obviously a clever way to market this to people trying to lose weight without putting the dreaded word "diet" on the can.

Hansen's makes a damn good soda. There are no questions there. In the past, I haven't had the best luck with "natural" energy drinks. They always taste bad, but not in the normal energy drink way. Bad in the "now I know why companies load their drinks with sugar to mask these flavors" way.

I'm happy to say that Hansen's knows how to make an energy drink! This is really delicious. It almost taste like a less syrupy grapefruit soda with a splash of Mountain Dew. There's no battery acid taste, which is great. As far as the energy portion of the drink goes, I've been dancing in my chair to Kanye West while writing this whole interview so I think it's working. Good work Hansen's!

It's going to be a long night. I haven't slept much in the past couple of days....stupid Jersey kids and making me laugh all night. I've been watching bands play all day. When did Record Store Day become some kind of fest? Oh I'm just complaining because I'm exhausted. These bands all have been fun and good. I mean how often does one get to see Floor play in this day and age? Ugh, I have to DJ tonight. How am I ever going to make it? I guess it's time to bust open this can of Beaver Buzz.

I'm really glad this obviously Canadian company has a sense of humor. Between the beaver and the "Dam good" joke this company had my support before I even opened the can. I also appreciate that the top of the can in black. It's the small things that amuse me. This smells good. Less chemical than most energy drinks. It also actually tastes like berries. That's a complete and utter shock. In fact this may be the best tasting energy drink I've ever had. It's like I'm drinking some carbonated juice rather than something that could make my heart explode if I drink too much of it. So it tastes great, but will it do it's job properly and keep me up?

*Many hours later*
Well it's now 5:30am and it's six hours after I drank the Beaver Buzz and I'm still wide awake. Seeing as I felt like I was on the verge of falling asleep before I drank it, I'll say it worked. It worked a little too well in fact. I now have to drink a relaxation drink in order to fall asleep. I wonder how cokeheads deal with problems like this.

The cinnamon challenge is a thing of modern folklore. Oh you're not familiar? It's a little game where you dare or bet someone that they can't swallow a tablespoon of cinnamon without the aid of a beverage. The person is also not allowed to puke. It can be endlessly funny at parties. Generally if you can convince one of your friends to do it, it's pretty much guaranteed that others will join in saying that the people who can't do it are wusses. If you've never witnessed the hilarity please head over to You Tube and watch some videos of it. Watching the puff of spice come out of peoples mouths like smoke from an angry dragon never gets old.

I found this drink in a grocery store up in Canada on a little trip today. They had a handful of flavors, but since it was a little on the expensive side ($3.50) I had to chose only one. All of the flavors looked great, but once I saw blackberry and ginger combined I knew my answer.

It tastes like a lightly gingered apple juice. It has some slight berry flavor to it, but the apple it what really hits your taste buds. The ginger is there in flavor, but there isn't a burn with it. I brought up the cinnamon challenge earlier because even though it isn't listed as an ingredient there is the definite dryness of cinnamon in the aftertaste. Just like in the challenge, but to a smaller extent, it feels like the drink dries out your mouth. No one is going to be screaming for water because of it, but it's there and it makes the drink more interesting.

This is a natural energy drink. They make sure to point on that there is no refined sugars or taurine contained to give you "fake energy," as I will call it. In a separate ingredients list they let you know all of the "Botanical Extracts" that are contained to give you energy. Included are yerba mate and guarana.

I don't know what I expected this to taste like, but it was not how it actually tastes. I'm okay with that though, because it's pretty great. It's sweet, with just the right herbs and spices. I wish more companies would take note.

Smell: Not bad.

Taste: Almost like a natural orange juice but with a strange aftertaste, almost dry. Then sometimes is gets a little strange. It sticks to your palate for a long time. Unwelcomely long. Uninvitedly long.

Burp: Disgusting. Seriously, every burp tastes like you just burped and bile came up. What's strange is that when you burp, it resets your taste buds like when your Nintendo, original, not Super Nintendo, game doesn't work and you hit the reset button 40 times to try and get 720 to work so you can see that dude that is clearly inspired by Rodney Dangerfield. So if you drink it and it starts to get grozz, just burp, make matters worse, and then have everything back to before you took your first sip.

This is along the lines of the FRS drink in its citrocity, but doesn't end up tasting like orange flavored chalk at the bottom of the can.

I woke up early again today for no real reason. Why does this keep happening? It was also way warm in my room. I mean like sweating to the sheets summer warm. So I'm laying there in bed playing Words With Friends, like I do when I wake up every morning, and decide that it's obviously really nice out, so I'm going to go on a long bike ride before my girlfriend gets up. I eat my cereal and head out to the porch where I realize that it's insanely windy and looks like the sky is going to open up and all of god's wrath is going to come down in the form of unholy rain. I sigh and head back inside and read the morning away. Around noon it cleared up a bit so I decided to take my chances. I ended up riding to North Tonawanda, which is a decent hike. There are brief moments where it's really windy, but nothing I can't handle. Of course as soon as I got to the furthest point in my little adventure it starts to rain. Just a light shower though. I start heading home, but once I reach the bike path that runs along side the river a never-ending wind picks up. Speaking of never ending, it's like the wind that picks up right before the Nothing hits in Never Ending Story. I'm talking Wizard of Oz wind here. It should have picked me up, bike included, and carried me off to some magical land. It turns out it didn't, but I did find myself in the same predicament as some seagulls. They were trying with all their might but they just couldn't make any ground. They were just hovering in one place flapping their wings like crazy. Me? I made slight ground, but for the intensity that I was pedaling I should have been going a lot further, a lot faster. I don't know how I made it home, but I did and collapsed on my bed.

As I lay in bed playing Words With Friends for the second time today, I realized I had some things that needed to get done, but I had little energy to do them. I didn't want to drink one of your every day energy drinks, because that would have just made me feel like a steaming pile of poop. Instead I went with a Mona Vie. It's a "Healthy Energy Supplement." It didn't make me all jittery and crazy feeling like Mike's Celsius drink, but it did give me the little boost I needed to get off my butt and get some work done. It's ever so lightly carbonated, which was a nice touch. There was just a soft fizz as opposed to the big bubbles you would expect. Acai is the base flavor, but it's a pretty smooth version of it. This is an energy drink I 100% approve of. It sure brought me back from the dead.

Wooooo.....mistakes. Look. I am not responsible for myself. Here's the new deal. No, not Teddy Roosevelt's "New Deal", but my house's new deal. Monday and Tuesday I stay home and watch Max, my little dude. I have this thing where I work too hard and don't make time to eat. I did eat a yogurt at about 11 but that's it. Now it's 3:30 and my stomach is aching for nutrition, but who cares because Max is sleeping and I can finally lay down some code. So I'm working hard, got thirsty about a half hour ago and decided, yeah, Celsius.

I weigh 150 pounds. I don't eat terribly well, but I don't eat a lot so it all balances out. Celsius would aid me in losing more weight, even though all I'm doing is running Max up and down the stairs only to find out that he was going to wait until I have his diaper off to pee. Jerk. That tiny jerk. So I drink it and it's something. It's diet-y, and even though there is some element of a fruit flavor, there is this diet, burning undertone, and it kicks in fast. You see, they replaced the calories with caffeine is bugging me out, much like John Leguizamo in "House of Buggin'". My hands are shaking and my torso feel hot, like it is summertime and I'm wearing a vest like a stupid idiot.

All that being said, I guess it's doing what it's supposed to. I'm not working out, per-se, but I am typing a mile a minute and I've been doing stairs like it was that strange time in your high school gym class and you did step aerobics like a bunch of girls. Yeah, I said it. Girls do step aerobics. Men know that they have stairs at home that women, ironically, hate going up and down.

I have been searching for this for a long, long time. No lie, like close to 15 years. I always hoped to stumble upon it in some random store while traveling around. I eventually found a handful of places online where you could order "rare" sodas, but they were always out of stock of the blue Brain Wash. I was certain that this drink had gone the way of Crystal Pepsi, Orbits, and Ecto Cooler. On a recent trip to Soda Pop Central up in Canada I was shocked to find a bunch of bottles of it. I grabbed a couple (along with four assorted cases) and hit the road giddy as a small child.

Like many things in life, when you search for it for long enough you build up these absolutely crazy expectations for it. Once I'd get my hands on a bottle that "no woman person in the history of the world is having drinking better sex soda than the sex soda you are having drinking with Ian Brainwash... in my head. That was the worst paraphrase in the history of this site, for the record. As it turns out it's still decent, but it did not live up to the holiness I had built up in my head. It tastes like liquid Smarties mixed with some low-grade chemical acid. I blame the burning acid burning to the jalapeno oil that is listed in the ingredients. I am a glutton for drinks that have a burn to them (I drank a bottle of Prometheus Springs' Lemon Ginger earlier in the day) so I really enjoyed that aspect of the soda.

It also stains everything it comes in contact with blue. I'm not just talking like how Blow Pops stain your tongue blue. After I drank the bottle I looked in the mirror and my tongue appeared to have a thick layer of bright teal paint on it. It was completely solid looking. This drink did a better job painting my tongue than I did painting the walls of my bedroom.

Here is a final thought for you. I now believe that I could not find bottles of this anywhere because Mr. Brainwash of "Exit Through the Gift Shop" fame purchased all that he could find. He then pounded the lot of them and that is how he became insane. I think there's a documentary specifically about that. Seriously, it's streaming on Netflix right now.

As far as I'm concerned as of today winter is finally over in Buffalo. It was 50 degrees and sunny. Not a cloud in the sky. To celebrate I went on my first decent bike ride of the year. I was planning on just doing a little ride, but every time I reached a destination I decided to keep going. By the time I had listened to Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane was coming to an end 14 miles had passed and I was at my front door. From here on out I will solely use David Bowie albums to measure distance. It's the new science. Can you feel it on the horizon?

Before I left on this little adventure I decided it was as good a time as any to try out a Celsius drink aka "Your ultimate fitness partner." It's a mostly natural drink that promises to burn calories, reduce body fat, build lean muscle and give you lasting energy. By the end of my ride I was toned and semi-ripped like Michelangelo's sculpture of David. I'm talking like busting out of my shirt muscular. I'm a scientist, so I cannot tell a lie. That's part of the scientific oath right? I know I had you all convinced that I now look like Mr. Universe era Arnold Schwarzenegger, but truth be told I still look like a semi-dumpy 30 year old from Buffalo. I did have a decent amount of energy on the ride, and I feel way better than I expected to after not really riding in the past 5-6 months (yes our stupid winter can really last that long). So the drink has that going for it.

As for the flavor of it, when I took my first sip I was shocked at how good of a ginger ale taste it had. Within half a second I changed my mind as the diet hell of sucralose set in. Bear in mind that I have no tongue for diet drinks. I know there is a whole world of people out there that don't mind them. If you are one of those people and you're trying to lose weight, or put on some muscle, give this a chance. I think you will be pleasantly pleased with this ginger ale.

I think it's funny when companies decide to put a name on a drink but not mention the flavor. Because of this, our database says this flavor is 'Vengence'. What exactly does vengeance taste like? If I had to guess by the color of the fonts and the liquid inside the can, I would say this would taste like green apple. In a way I was right, but also wrong.

It's pretty easy to recreate the taste. All you need is a sour green apple Jolly Rancher and a friend. First, put the Jolly Rancher in your mouth. After a few seconds, have your friend punch you in the stomach really hard. This is what this drink tastes like, plain and simple.

An energy drink exists that doesn't taste like battery acid? No way! That can't be. The second ingredient in this is apple juice, which is exactly what this taste like, apple juice energy drink. Doesn't sound that appealing does it? If I had gone into this drink knowing it I probably would have had my doubts too. But it's actually not that bad, and I'm not the biggest fan of apple juice. Growing up, it was always the juice of choice in the fridge due to the low cost. This taste exactly like that cheap apple juice, but with carbonation and lots of caffeine added. Worlds better than most energy drinks.

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.

Up until recently I had no idea that there was a world of protein based fitness drinks out there. You would think I would be aware of such a thing being a professional drinkologist and all, yet it eluded me.

XAPP says to drink this beverage to "Refresh, Refuel, Repair and Recover." Basically the ingredients will do wonders for helping you with muscle growth for working out. You know it's something that Arnold would have drunk all the time before he became a governor, and even before he was an actor. Man, after a brief Wiki check I found out that was back in 1967. He is way older than I ever thought. Regardless, I can see him as a teenager at the gym talking to a higher power, "XAPP, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad. Why we fought, or why we died. All that matters is that two stood against many. That's what's important! Valor pleases you, XAPP... so grant me one request. Grant me PROTEIN! And if you do not listen, then to HELL with you!" It may have been 50 years later, but the gods listened.

This is a carbonated light fruit punch that is sweetened with sucralose. It tastes like a better version of diet energy drinks. I had expected it to be grainy and thicker being a protein drink, but I was happy to find out I was wrong.

At first, this was just orange juice. The further down the can I got, the more I hated it. I know, Dad. I shouldn't use the word "hate", but who cares in this case. I'm an adult man now and I can say what I want. We've had our differences, like that time I wore non-prescription glasses to Thanksgiving and we got in that fight and didn't talk for a year. That was awful. Sorry Dad, but this time I'm putting my foot down and saying what I want about this drink. It promptly starts tasting like someone poured orange juice powder in this can and filtered out the actual juice. Did someone just give me roofies? Man, I hope not. I've got stuff to do.

Don't spike my drink, and Lance Armstrong, sorry I don't enjoy what you endorse. Deal with it.

Today Dan, Tony and myself took a day trip up to Toronto to visit Soda Pop Central, which is the largest soda pop store in Canada. It was incredible we got a little out of control and spent way too much money on way too much pop. Afterward we stopped by Toronto for some veggie dogs from a street vendor (50 Toppings Guy for those in the know) and some other great veggie food.

On the way home we decided to open up this can of ICP "Energy Sauce" as it's called on the can. We had a good laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. It is a self-proclaimed can of "Frothy, Freaky Frosty, Refreshing Energy Freshness Can of Shazam!" How can anyone take that seriously? We drank it down and the laughter fell into a comfortable silence. The other two were staring out their widows while I was looking straight ahead as I drove. After a couple of minutes I hear Tony yell "What the hell!" I look over and he's in full clown face paint! I look to the back seat to get confirmation from Dan that this is in fact happening and he too is all painted up! From the look on their faces I quickly ascertained that I also had face paint on. We then noticed that absolutely terrible hip-hop about beating up rednecks and spreading love to "my ninjas" was playing out of the stereo. It was a truly terrifying experience. We had suddenly become Juggalos! We were in fact "Down with the clown." We tried to scrub it off, but it wouldn't go anywhere. After a couple hours it eventually faded away and Smashing Pumpkins came back on the stereo. Beware to all who want to try this drink. It is more powerful than you would ever expect.

Oh yeah it tastes like Red Bull with way more sugar added. Woot! Woot!