Rip It – Lime Wrecker

I had been looking forward to this flavour, saving it for a special moment. I was a little disappointed. That isn’t to say that this isn’t a nice drink because it really is, but I was expecting something a little more refreshing whereas Lime Wrecker tastes more like someone has poured lime cordial in to lemonade. It was good, but not as I’d expected. It did wake me up quickly though given the high caffeine and sugar content but for me it was a little on the sickly side. If you don’t appreciate food colourings then this may be the Rip It for you – it was almost clear with only a very faint green tint to it.

Monster Absolutely Zero

Is it possible to tame the Monster? It turns out it is. Usually, to drink a can of Monster I require a very specific set of conditions. I must be in the mood for the very sweet flavour, the weather must be warm, and I must have a reasonably empty stomach. Well, Absolutely Zero has fixed at least two of those. The sickliness associated with Monster has been smoothed somewhat by the introduction of sweeteners, which means I can cope with it even when I’m not hungry. It still needs to be a warm day though, and the can must be straight out of the fridge! Monster is rarely my favourite energy drink brand, but it’s up with the big boys and Monster Absolutely Zero is probably top of the Monster list right now.

Amp Energy

Thanks to Americandy in Cardiff and their extortionate prices, I have now sampled an imported can of Amp Energy for the tidy sum of £4.50 per can. Of course, I expected big things for this big price and I was not disappointed. At first I believed it tasted like no other energy drink out there, then I decided it had certain qualities similar to Mountain Dew. It was smooth and not too strong in flavour, yet very, very sweet. And then I noticed the big Mountain Dew logo on the side of the can. It turns out that Amp Energy is a US Energy Drink spin-off brand of Mountain Dew.. basically Mountain Dew with Taurine and bumped up caffeine content. This isn’t a bad thing because it’s really nice, and I hope that Pepsico consider bringing this brand to the UK – it’s very different to anything we have on the market here so I reckon would do very well.

Oh, yes, and the review of this product! Fruity and sugary and smooth and very sweet. A massive buzz from the caffeine and sugar.

Monster Rehab: Tea + Lemonade + Energy

This drink surprised me: it didn’t have the usual Monster flavour that I was expecting. Being non-carbonated, it shares more in common with some of the Rockstar drinks instead, but is still very nice. It mostly tasted like still lemonade, but did have a note of tea about it even if it was very faint. There’s nothing else out there on the market quite like this, so full marks for originality, but I am a little disappointed that it didn’t jump out as being a Monster Energy drink from the taste.

Rockstar Punched Fruit Punch

Nice at first, but the taste got tiring quickly. In fact, the aftertaste hung around for the rest of the day. It’s not refreshing, but sickly and sweet, and I can’t quite put my finger on what the taste reminded me of.

Rockstar Sugar Free PerfectBerry

The opinion of people surrounding me whilst I drank this was overwhelmingly about the smell. I didn’t notice that, but taste-wise it was highly perfumed! It was quite a synthetic berry flavour and in keeping with Rockstar tradition, very smooth to drink. The can size was smaller than usual at only 355 ml, and the associated caffeine kick was therefore lessened accordingly.

Power Horse

Ultimately, it is just another Red Bull clone. It gains an extra originality point though for its packaging – still weighing in a 250ml, but in a much stouter can than normal, like a normal soft drink can but shorter instead of tall and thin. For 39p though you can’t really go far wrong, and it tasted very nice with none of the usual bitterness or sour aftertaste associated with cheap energy drinks.

UPDATE: A bit of research on this product has shown that it may actually pre-date Red Bull, and therefore be more original than originally thought (?!) Check out its mention on Wikipedia.

Burn Day

Thanks to a temporary France-based contact (someone went on holiday), you’ll be seeing a few French energy drinks on this site over the next few weeks. Burn Day is the first of them. It contains less caffeine than you’d normally expect, but it brands itself as Energie Rafraichissante. And rafraichissante it is indeed. My first opinion of the taste was lemon and strawberries. Checking the ingredients though reveals carrots and blackcurrants… strange, I still reckon it tastes very strongly of strawberries. It gets top marks for originality and taste because it’s lovely, fruity and different.

Hell Sugarfree

As I expected, an improvement on the regular Hell but sadly still not original. It is a Red Bull clone through and through which is a shame considering the great can design and product image. They could have done so much more.