Red Bull Cola
September 29th, 2012Technically, I don’t normally allow colas a space on this web site because I don’t count them as energy drinks. I’ve made the occasional exception for colas which try to be energy drinks by containing guarana or taurine, but it’s always by exception. Red Bull Cola is another exception, but only because of its name. In every other respect it doesn’t count as an energy drink even though it packs in the same amount of caffeine as Lucozade. It tastes like a cola. That’s it really, nothing exceptional at all really and it’s not even one of the better colas. I was hoping for a slightly cola flavoured mix with Red Bull which would have been interesting but nope, it’s just a cola.
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| Caffeine: | 13mg/100ml |
Tags: Cola, UK |
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| Calories: | 38kCal/100ml | ||
| Size: | 355ml | ||
| Sold By: | Tesco | ||
| Web Site: | Click here | ||
Krating Daeng
September 22nd, 2012This is the original Red Bull. I won’t dish out a history lesson here, so check out the wiki page for that. I’ll just tell you that it’s a non-carbonated syrupy tasting version of Red Bull. Personally, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I enjoy Red Bull, but the actual kick you get from this drink is amazing and unrivalled. I’m not sure what they put in this exactly, but a small bottle was enough to send me flying for quite a number of hours. It’s been going for a long time, and was inspired itself by Lipovitan. You can get hold of it across Asia, or in Asian supermarkets here in the UK. To all energy drink connoisseurs, make the effort to try this one!
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| Caffeine: | 32mg/100ml |
Tags: Thailand |
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| Calories: | 46kCal/100ml | ||
| Size: | 150ml | ||
| Sold By: | Thai Supermarket | ||
| Web Site: | Click here | ||
Aspire – Cranberry
September 15th, 2012We have a new contender for the worst tasting energy drink! To be fair though, it isn’t branding itself as tasting nice, but it does claim to burn 200 calories for every can you drink… really, it reckons it will help you lose weight. The can contains 12.5 calories, so I guess overall you’d be 187.5 calories down after drinking this. That’s if you can stomach it through to the end. The drink is bitter, and I’m talking about pint-of-bitter bitter, there’s something very earthy and real-ale tasting about the drink. Maybe that’s what unsweetened cranberries taste like? Anyway, it’s sold in health stores and premium supermarkets in the weight loss sections so keep your eyes out for it in case of a doughnut craving. That way you can cancel the doughnut out by drinking one of these, I’m sure that’s how it works…
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| Caffeine: | 30mg/100ml |
Tags: Cranberry, Guarana, Low Calorie, Natural, UK |
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| Calories: | 5kCal/100ml | ||
| Size: | 250ml | ||
| Sold By: | Holland and Barrett | ||
| Web Site: | Click here | ||
Black Energy
September 8th, 2012
This appears to be a re-branding of a drink I tried a while back called Black Tiger. I have to say, on revisiting it, I’m enjoying it more than I did last time. But forget about the taste on this drink – it’s clearly about the branding. It’s a Polish drink endorsed by none other than Mike Tyson and has the slogan “Black Power!” emblazoned all over it too. It looks like we’ve discovered the secret of Mike’s success.
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| Caffeine: | 32mg/100ml |
Tags: Clone, UK |
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| Calories: | 46kCal/100ml | ||
| Size: | 250ml | ||
| Sold By: | Tesco | ||
| Web Site: | Click here | ||
Lipovitan-D
September 1st, 2012The grand-daddy of energy drinks! Lipovitan can apparently lay claim to being the inspiration behind a Thai drink known as Krating Daeng, which in turn is the predecessor of a little known drink called Red Bull. Lipovitan is bright yellow in colour and sold in a small 100ml brown medicine bottle. It tastes very synthetic, almost like the grape flavoured energy drinks popular in the US. It’s non-carbonated, and although high in caffeine per 100ml, it’s overall caffeine content per bottle is about half that of a standard can of Red Bull. It’s unique and works. If you can get hold of this, you have to try it!
Lucozade Revive – Cranberry with Acai
August 25th, 2012Possibly one of the strongest flavoured Lucozade drinks I’ve ever tasted. The cranberry was quite powerful, although that is to be judged by Lucozade standards. Once again there is no mention of the caffeine strength on the bottle so I’ve had to make it up. I think it’s quite low as there wasn’t much of a hit. The cranberry made the drink a bit too sickly to be refreshing and therefore this is definitely not my favourite of the new Revive range.
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| Caffeine: | 1mg/100ml |
Tags: Bottle, Cranberry, Low Calorie, UK |
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| Calories: | 13kCal/100ml | ||
| Size: | 380ml | ||
| Sold By: | Tesco | ||
| Web Site: | Click here | ||
Spar Budget Energy Drink
August 18th, 2012Standing out in the shop cooler with its bright green label covered in Spar’s trademark arrow logo, this energy drink had to be purchased – any product brave enough to use the word ‘budget’ in its name must be interesting! It’s a Red Bull clone, so no real surprises there. The taste is watery but sweet like many of the French and German own-brands I’ve tried over the years. It was very nice and left no nasty aftertaste, and it wasn’t bitter at all and at less than 50p per can it won’t feel like you’re being ripped off either. They do say it’s the small details that stand out, and like Red Bull and their ring-pull with a cut-out of a Bull, Spar have also customised their ring-pull with a cut-out of the Spar logo – although I have to say I thought it was a Christmas tree at first.
n-gine
August 3rd, 2012When I opened the can I initially thought, uh-oh, another Red Bull clone. But, once I’d tasted it I changed my mind. Yes, there’s a definite whiff of the expected energy drink flavour to it, but it’s more sour and metallic than expected. It’s trying to be different, even if it doesn’t taste brilliant – but having said that it’s a lot better than many other drinks I’ve tried. It was only 25p after all…
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| Caffeine: | 32mg/100ml |
Tags: UK |
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| Calories: | 46kCal/100ml | ||
| Size: | 250ml | ||
| Sold By: | Tesco | ||
| Web Site: | |||
Pink Bolt Zero
July 27th, 2012Do you see what they did there? They took ‘Blue’ and replaced it with ‘Pink’ cuz it’s a pink drink, so funny, the marketing department at Sainsbury’s must’ve been in stitches over that for hours… <end of sarcasm>. As a drink though, it’s rather bland. There’s a nice taste of strawberry and kiwi in there somewhere, but it’s so watered down that you don’t get enough of the flavour coming through. That said, it’s refreshing and light.
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| Caffeine: | 30mg/100ml |
Tags: Kiwi, Low Calorie, Strawberry, UK |
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| Calories: | 3.6kCal/100ml | ||
| Size: | 250ml | ||
| Sold By: | Sainsbury's | ||
| Web Site: | |||
