Sucralose - 291 Reviews

Oh you hate energy drinks? First, "hate" is a strong word. Hate should only be assigned to things like racism, which should, in itself be abolished. Such a vague, ignorant statement, but I'm saying that the word "hate" should be more reserved than it is.

Secondly, you can now put an asterisk next to your previous ignorant statement because this doesn't taste like an energy drink. It is still an energy drink, yet it actually tastes pretty good. It tastes a little like everything and a lot like fruit punch. The acai is a little overpowering but not offensively. The pomegranate and blueberry are there but not really distinguishing enough to call them what they are.

Fruit distinction aside, this is good. It's light, not too sweet, and still a deceiving energy drink. You tricky bastard. You're going to accidentally make parents lose their mind because they're going to buy juice thinking it's just juice and they will read the fine print and quickly realize why their kids are just non-stop running around in circles constantly narrowly avoiding the grasp of the parent's hands. Sorry parents. Don't say that I didn't warn you.

Step One: Buy a sugar free Red Bull.

Step Two: Buy a bunch of sucralose. In my world this would be tricky, because I believe it should be a controlled substance, but in reality you could probably pick some up at the corner store.

Step Three: Crack open the Red Bull and pour a heaping amount of the sucralose in it.

Step Four: Swirl it around.

Step Five: Take a sip.

Step Six: Make a weird face because this tastes way more diet than any other energy drink you've ever tried. So much in fact that the diet starts to overpower the chemical energy taste of candy.

Mission complete. You now know what sugar free Icon tastes like.

I recently spent a week in Kentucky. I know that sentence sounds weird, but it's true. A good friend lives there and I have never spent much time in Kentucky so I decided to go. Little did I know that Ale 8 One is a staple of Kentucky and it was everywhere. By everywhere I mean you could purchase it at more places than you can in Buffalo. We had already reviewed the original so I took my hand at the diet. I should have known by my friend's reaction when I picked up the bottle at the grocery store that this wasn't going to be good.

She was right. It was pretty gross. Even for a diet soda it was bad. So bad that I got 3 sips in and had to dump the rest. Sorry Kentucky, I don't like your diet soda.

“Drops” are all over the place nowadays. Essentially they are a concentrate of the flavoring they use in their ready to drink products. These have to be a goldmine for the companies. Think about it, it's less packaging and less product, which means it doesn't take up as much warehouse space. On top of that shipping these things has to be dirt cheap when compared to 12-16 ounce bottles. Smart move companies.

I know these things are, for the most part, intended to be used for “on the go,” but I'm not that type of guy. In fact, the only times I have ever drank any drop product is when I review it. After that it goes to Mike for his ladyfriend to use because she doesn't like water, like a crazy person.

I do like that it gives you the ability to make your beverage as light or strong as you wish it to be. One quick squirt and you have a nice light flavored water. A couple more squirts and you have a “juice drink,” or something like that. The more you squeeze the stronger your drink is, but the downside of that is that the stronger it gets, the more you can taste the sucralose. Flavorwise this actually pretty nice and accurate to it's name. You can taste both the cherries and the pomegranate, which I certainly did not expect.

Also, take my advice, as an idiot scientist I assure you that squirting it directly into your mouth is not a good idea. It's so strong…€¦so strong.

Are you a weakling? Do you wish you were strong like the muscle men on the TV? Are you afraid of hair loss and shrinkage? Well do we have the steroid alternative for you! Powerade gives you the “aid” to need to get “powerful.” See what I did there? The dumbest spelling out of a name's origin you will ever see.

You may find yourself saying, sir I have seen Powerade around for years. Isn't it just a knock off of Gatorade? Yes you would be correct, but Gatorade does not have these fancy little concentrate bottles that you can keep in your purse/fanny pack. This way you don't have to worry about the bulk of the big bottles, and you can add it to water anywhere you go; your home, the gym, that fancy French restaurant you go to on your anniversary. Literally anywhere.

The real bonus of this product comes in the fact that you can squeeze to flavor it however you want. If you find regular Powerade too watery, you can just squeeze a little more in and make it a bit stronger. There are no calories and no sugar so there are no worries about how much you add.

This has that fake blue raspberry flavor that many drinks/candies have. You know what it tastes like, but it's got sucralose, so it's a tad on the diet side, but not much. It's actually much better than I expected and I will probably drink more than one cup of it before passing it on to someone else.

My first thought when I saw this was “Dammit, why doesn't this exist in a non diet form?!” Seriously white cranberry-apple green tea? That just sounds like a wonderful treat. It is always the diet drinks that have the extravagant flavors though isn't it? They are probably trying to make up for the lack of calories, and more importantly the gross diet flavor.

I ended up taking this with me to a party, because I was assuming I wouldn't like it all that much, due to the sucralose, and it would help me to not down it all instantly. As you can probably guess, that didn't work out well for me. While this does have the sucralose undertones, it is played down by the other flavors. It's one of those drinks that you can tell is diet, but you still like it anyways. Arizona is not trying to trick you into thinking that this isn't a zero calorie beverage, they are just saying, “So what? It still tastes great doesn't it?”

Arizona was my gateway into green tea, but the thing is their green tea has a very specific taste that other companies' versions don't. I don't know if it's the excessive sweeteners or what, but they do it their own way, and it is enjoyable in its own way. So that is the sucralose-laden base here. Then, they added a soft cran-apple flavor to it. I say flavor, because there is no juice whatsoever in this bottle, but I can forgive them that. Before I knew what was happening I had polished off the bottle, and I was left wishing I had more. It was pouring out, so I was left to drink a lone bottle of Coke that was meant for mixer drinks. I planned that out poorly.

Children of the 80's please enter the collective unconscious and conjure the image of Mr. Yuck. His disgusted looking face was once the sign to children of the United States that whatever was contained inside was most certainly poison and would more than likely kill you instantly, so you know…€¦stay away from it.

Like most energy shits, I am completely surprised when Senior Yuck isn't staring up at me from the label artwork. The harshness of this concentrated, fake fruit flavored, sucralose laden shot sure tastes like it should kill me on contact with my bloodstream, but that's the way the game is when you're dealing with energy shots. They are a beverage that are not meant to be ingested for their taste, simply for their long lasting effects. I can assure you that the effects certainly do what they claim, so at least it has that going for it.

Yesterday, after many months of looking, I got myself a spinning bike. I love riding bikes and in the time I can't go out and ride for one reason or another, I always wanted to ride in the privacy of my own house. I hauled that thing in the basement, put on a record, turned on the fan, and started pedaling away. I put in a good half hour before I started to get uncomfortable for I am not as fit as I once was. I watch what I eat but I still eat things I shouldn't, which brings us to today.

On this fitness thing, I've got to watch what I eat so I thought what better way to watch my caloric intake than to intake no calories? Queue Fruit Water. It's fruit punch and watermelon, sparkling, and zero calories. Win? Well, almost. Initially it tastes like a good gum but soon thereafter comes the rush of "the catch."

What catch? Well with anything diet, you're almost certain to get something disappointing. As the years go on, science is catching up and making good diet drinks. This one just went on it's own and did things the old fashioned way, with a terrible artificial sweetener. Sucralose is awful in every way, shape, and form. It kills a lot of otherwise good drinks. This initially had the promise of being good but, once again, sucralose killed it. Sucralose, you are the Hitler of artificial sweeteners.

Normally I don't really like reviewing mix drinks, because I feel like I'm going to do something wrong and it won't taste the same as if it came out of a bottle or can. I usually leave them to Mike and Derek to review. When Gamma Labs sent us these samples, they send along a little mixer container to make sure you use the proper amount of water and whatnot, so I thought I'd give it a try. First thing I have to say is that it has one hell of a lemon lime flavor. It's so strong that I had to double check to make sure that I had in fact added enough water. It's strong, but it's a good lemon lime. It burns a little to drink it, but not as much as say a melted freezie pop would burn. I kept waiting for the gross diet flavor of sucralose to come through, but it never quite surfaces. It just hides underneath the waves of lemon and lime, until all of the flavor just mellows out in the aftertaste.

Overall I have to say that this is way better than I expected. The flavor is much stronger than most powder drinks, and it gets away without tasting overly diet, or like an energy drink. I have a very long night ahead of me, so here's to hoping this actually works.

You know I'm feening for some blue ice. I've got to go to the gym and daddy needs a little extra juice. I'm working on my deltoids or "delts" as I like to call them, and can't do it without a little extra "help" if you know what I mean. You know...the blue stuff? Yeah, it tastes like really sweet blue raspberry Kool Ade but there is stuff in there, man. Whatever is in there gets me going and allows me to pump more iron than I could if I was going in on just regular energy.

Diet? No, man. I carboload. I eat three plates of spaghetti a day. Fat? No, man. This is all muscle. Four hundred and twenty three pounds of muscle. Oh, you are asking if it tastes diet. No. Not really. It's surprising because of the sucralose but no, it's not really diet tasting.

I'm a self described gym rat and they know me. They know me coming in, pounding protein shakes, and eating spaghetti out of a Tupperware container to keep my delicate shape in check. I'm sorry. I have to cut this interview short. I've got some ten pound free weights in my sights that I am going to lift to a light burn and then have some ravioli that I have stashed behind the spinning bikes.

Ahh, a bottle of vintage. I'll never forget those days, going to the grandparent's farmhouse during the hot summer months. Working with grandpa bailing hay, cutting dozens of acres of lawn, milking cows, and putting shoes on horses. The later was for fun. It wasn't actual horseshoes. It was my sister's shoes that she brought in case there was some sort of ho down at the town square that she needed to get all gussied up for. Imagine a pony wearing mid-sized heels. It's a treat to see. After a nice, moderate ten hour work day with pappy, he and I would go inside and talk about things like Bill Clinton, Atari, segregation in schools, apples, and the like. We would discuss these topical issues over a nice bowl of turkey caramels until it was time to go to sleep. Ahh those caramels. Nothing is quite as refreshing as sugar free turkey caramels. It just hits the spot after you have a nice turkey dinner with mashed potatoes and peas. You know how awful it is to eat a meal and then wash it down with something that doesn't taste like what you just ate. Oh, I hate it. If I just ate a hamburger, I wish there were some sort of hamburger ice cream that I could eat to keep my palate just where it was.



Pappy, if you're reading this, I don't miss those days and although my friends say that I was missing my youth, I thought that there is only one way to have such course, calloused hands and strong work ethic at ten. Those kids that were spending their youth playing football, having sleepovers, listening to pop music; those kids are soft. We, you and I, we are strong independent men who can take care of ourselves with the lay of the land. Animals? I'll milk 'em all of the day. We're men, pappy. All because of our talks and those delicious salty turkey caramel filled nights.

Glaceau has somehow figured out a way to make sucralose sweetened beverages not taste like the third circle of Dante's diet hell. This still tastes a bit off, but it doesn't have that gross chemical taste to it. Perhaps it's all the added vitamins and the like that do a nice job covering it up.

This does not contain a single drop of actual juice, but they did a decent job replicating the flavors in their laboratory. Even though this beverage isn't syrupy at all the flavor tastes like a syrup. If that made any sense to you then we are on the same wavelength and I think I may feel sorry for you. It's the kind of drink that helps wean people onto diet drinks. I could see myself drinking this a bunch and slowly becoming desensitized to that gross diet flavor. This could help a lot of people, well they may get cancer or something from artificial sweeteners, but at least they won't be obese.

Every time this happens I am always shocked. You crack open an energy drink, take a big sip and are taken aback when it is not carbonated. Yes I know that the can says, “non carbonated” at the bottom, but I'm a shoot first, ask questions later kind of guy. I like to try my drinks with only a cursory glance at the packaging, so there are no preconceived notions about the experience.

This is a sugar free, zero calorie energy drink and for being that it's pretty good. The diet taste isn't very strong. It's a fruit punch that is slightly on the tropical side of the line, but it's also on the lighter side of most fruit punch. It's like Hawaiian Punch with some pineapple and other tropical fruits thrown into the mix, but not nearly as thick consistency wise. It's a nice change of pace from the regular energy drink crowd, something that I might look into again.

As far as energy drinks go, this is good. As far as drinks go, this isn't fantastic. I don't really taste actual grape and I get a whole gallon of hurt. This drink hurts to drink. It tastes like I was drinking juice with needles in it. It felt prickely. What makes drinks sharp like this? Is it the sweetener? Is it something else? It's almost the same sting as you get when you drink Lipton Brisk. Oh, old Hug drinks. Those suckers stung.

Flavor town was fine. It's generically fruity more than it is explicitly grape. It's not offensive like when people stare at you because you've got tattoos or piercings. It's just not...quite...grape. Yes, I will hold it against them because they said it tasted like grape and it doesn't. Don't lie to me, cage fighters. You can beat me up fair and square but you can't feed me this and tell me it's grape. You should also know that I took many years of Tae Kwon Do so you might get hit by my delicate fist once or twice before you give me a bitchin' roundhouse.

I had been seeking this energy shot out for a while but it kept eluding me. Or I would find it when I didn't want an energy shot or didn't have money on me. This went on for months until I had to go to a family function on barely any sleep. My grandparents were being awarded by the city of Tonawanda for doing awesome stuff for the youth (they helped build a skate park among other things). Knowing that I was going to have to talk to family and friends of the family, I wanted to be semi-coherent so I stopped by a drug store to wake myself up. Not wanting to carry around an open can of Monster (seriously, more energy drinks need to come in resealable bottles), I went to the front counter where they keep the energy shots so 14 year old kids don't steal them all. Low and behold, the pink lemonade shot was there!

Now in the past, energy shots are usually borderline undrinkable. This was not the case at all this time. It tasted like pink lemonade should. Sweet, a little sour, and overall delicious. My only complaint was I only got a couple sips of the taste. They should water it down and make a larger drink out of this because it would be awesome and I would drink it much more than I should.

When I hear the phrase “fruit water” I immediately think of a giant glass water cooler in the foyer of a hotel in a tropical area. The water cooler is filled with…€¦well water of course, but floating in that water is a delicious medley of tropical fruits that give the water a hint of the glory of your surroundings. Of course as you drink it a toucan flies over and lands on your shoulder and someone says to you, “Hey let's go surfing!”

I obviously knew that this beverage was going to be nothing like that, but that is the vision in my head, and I would like to submit that idea to the development departments of all the major beverage companies. Water that has had fruit soaked in it. No sweeteners or anything else added. It's what the world craves.

While Glaceau did not look into my hopes and dreams they did create a sparkling fruit drink that actually contains no juice. I don't want to be all picky here, but folks, let's face it this is a diet soda. It's water, it's carbonated, it has a sweetener added and it has a flavor. That's soda pop in my world folks. I actually think that is the textbook definition.

When you look at it that way, this is one of the best diet sodas I have ever tasted. I find it straight up enjoyable. There is something about the orange/mango flavor that combats the taste of the sucralose and makes it taste more natural. I know the flavors are fake, but it really does taste like mangos and oranges were used to make this drink, and I can down a bottle without feeling shame about it. You're onto something with this Glaceau, now just take some of those vats of Smart Water and dump a mess of fruit into them before you bottle it. You can thank me later.

Who doesn't need to drink more water? I know I do. I try. I really do. This constantly growing array of drink concentrates next to my desk certainly make it easier and since they're calorie-free, it's helps me feel alright about "cheat" drinking water.

For those of you on a diet, I've got some advice for you. Number one: calm down. Just watch what you eat but if you slip up, don't worry about it. It will be fine. Stick to it and you'll do great. No need to get down on yourself for having a piece of pizza. Life is for living. Pizza is both life and living. Enjoy it. Number two: this is a good, flavorful way to pound water. It just tastes like grape Kool-Ade so if you can get down with that, you can start drinking the amount of water you need. I believe the rule of thumb is drink half your weight in ounces of water. It's tough and yes, you'll have to pee a lot at first, but soon you'll start feeling better. Now you can feel better about losing weight and drinking grape juice emotionlessly.

Thirsty Dudes. Helping out society one drink at a time.

Stephen loved to run. His mom went to the grocery store to buy him some Powerade before he ran a marathon. She saw the Powerade Zero Drops, thought it was a drink, and bought it. When she got to the race, Stephen was getting ready to go to the starting line. She handed him the drink and he told her that it was a concentrate. She was overly apologetic because she knew that this race was important. He told her that every so often there were people that handed him water that he could add it to so it was alright. He stood at the line and the man shot the pistol and Stephen took off.

Five, ten, fifteen miles. He was doing well but getting thirsty. Where were all the people with the water? Wasn't there supposed to be people out here handing cups of water? It was getting hot, too. Stephen was slowing down and sweating. Just then, it started to rain. Hard. Downpour. As soon as Stephen hit mile eighteen it was torrential down pouring. Just then, he remembered the Powerade Drops that his mom gave him. He squirted a little in his mouth and opened his mouth and took in the rain. It mixed up nicely and tasted like a vitamin C pill or a watered down orange Vitamin Water. He's got electrolytes and is cranking through the wettest race of his career. Mile twenty he's still running and it's still raining. He's soaking from head to toe but it was hot outside so although hindering and increasingly heavy, refreshing. Every mile or so he'd squirt a little bit in his mouth and drink some water. He was happy that it wasn't gross and actually didn't taste diet at all.

Stephen saw the finish line and ran hard with whatever energy he had left. He finished in the first group of runners and was psyched with the results. He found his mom and told her that he drank rain water and mixed it with the Powerade and it was good. They both went home happy because they did well. Stephen always carried a bottle of this when he raced and thanks his mom for introducing him to it.

It has recently come to my attention that through all the gallons of beverage that I have drank throughout my 34 years I have never once had a NOS energy drink. I've drunk far more energy drinks than I am comfortable admitting, but for some reason I have never reached for one of these. Perhaps it's because far too much of my time during my 20's was spent with friends who cared far too much (in my opinion at the time) about cars. We're talking about “pimping” and sooping up cars for cars shows and the like. Because of the boredom I underwent I became disinterested in all things car related. Now that I am older I say, whatever makes you happy, do it, but back them I was a surly bastard about it.

Anyways here I stand at my inaugural tasting, and of course it's not even for their flagship product, but a new line that they are promoting called Active. This line is basically an energy drink/sports drink hybrid. Due to the bottle and the fact that both are distributed by Coca Cola, I have it in my mind that this is NOS mixed with Powerade. I have no idea if that is true, but that is the way it looks and that is the way it tastes.

What we have here is very light lemonade with a little bit of raspberry flavor to it with a whole lot of electrolytes thrown in the mix. Oh, and a whole lot of sodium, which is normal for sports drinks. You don't taste the energy drink aspect of this at all. The only foreign flavor I can really taste is the artificial sweetener sucralose. Overall this isn't all that bad. It's not a flavor that I generally go for, but I know there is definitely a lot of people out there that would.

This is a beverage made for when you work out. My question is when are you supposed to drink it though? If you drink it before you work out you get the benefit of the caffeine, taurine and the like, but the electrolytes are wasted. If you drink it after, the opposite is true. I suppose you could drink it during your work out, but I feel like you'd only get half the benefits from each side. I chose to drink it before hand, in hopes that somehow the electrolytes are set on a time release. We can only hope.

Am I the only one who feels like non-carbonated energy drinks don't work? Even thought I know they have the exact same energy giving ingredients, the absence of thousands of tiny bubbles tricks my brain into thinking that I will not be awake for much longer. Well brain, learn to work properly because I can assure you this does provide the burst of energy that it sells you on. It's been awhile since I have physically been able to feel an energy drink, and I'm sure my nearly empty stomach played a supporting role in that.

Monster hit the nail on the head when they decided to mix their energy formula with tea and lemonade. They use a nice mixture of brewed black and green tea, instead of some garbage powder. That mixed with the pink lemonade it tastes wonderfully like summer and it does a great job of masking the typical energy drink flavor. It also 95% hides the taste of the sucralose used to sweeten this. This is decent tasting lemonade that has only 6g of sugar in the entire can. That's some kind of magic right there. By the way what is in pink lemonade that makes it pink? Online tells me it's just dye, but it taste different to me.

On top of this tasting great and giving you a healthy dose of hopped up energy it also has coconut water and a bunch of antioxidant rich fruits to help you recover from a rough night of some crazy scavenger hunt that you were more than likely on. I mean that's how everyone spends their weeknights, right? Oh, and the secret to winning is to find the name of the baby gorilla buried in the pet cemetery, and get that can of Mello Yellow, no matter what.