Powerade Energy Orange

Imagine a Vitamin C tablet, one of those chewable ones that you only eat when you have a cold. That’s the type of orange flavour that this drink has. It’s considerably stronger in flavour and caffeine than its rival, Lucozade, and personally I don’t think it tastes as good, but it does of course wake you up much more!

Lucozade Energy Orange

Much better! It’s still a very watered down flavour, but the subtle orange masks the underlying fizzy sugared water taste of the original Lucozade nicely. Quite refreshing and pleasant to drink, but lacking the caffeinated kick of a conventional energy drink. I’d suggest this is suitable for drinking later in the day if you need a short-lived pick-me-up which won’t stop you getting to sleep later that evening.

Lucozade Energy Original

It tastes like sweetened fizzy water. In fact, it is so tasteless that you can actually taste the metallic tang of the carbonated water itself. The caffeine content of this product is pretty low too – it doesn’t even need the High Caffeine Content warning that adorns most energy drinks.

In fact, I can’t really see the point of this product… the low caffeine puts it at the bottom end of the energy pile meaning it relies on the sugar more than anything to give you a kick. The carbonated water means it is not really ideal for sports either – personally I can’t cope with bubbles when I’m running. There are however a wide range of flavours which may improve the taste situation and I’ll try to review as many as I can.

Mountain Dew Energy

Last year was an exciting year. Finally, Mountain Dew returned to the UK. Sadly my excitement was short-lived because Mountain Dew Energy (the word Energy being important) was not the same as the Mountain Dew I had sampled from The States, or even the same as Mountain Dew from my childhood. They appear to have replaced the all important “Orange Juice From Concentrate” ingredient found in the original with the word “Flavourings”. The taste is very similar but not as nice, and it gives me a headache afterwards. If only they’d release proper Mountain Dew and its various special edition alternative flavours over here.

The actual flavour of Mountain Dew is pretty unique. It’s a very subtle fruity flavour, but the main characteristic of the drink is its fluorescent yellow colour. I remember the original UK version containing the Quinoline Yellow additive to achieve this, however I think this has been removed now in Mountain Dew Energy due to allergy concerns.

Energy Burst

I found this one in Pound Stretchers, and no, it was less than a pound. Coming in a 500ml bottle only and containing pretty much the same ingredients and caffeine strength as Red Bull, it tasted exactly as I expected it to taste. It’s just another Red Bull clone – quite pleasant and sweet but nothing special. I can’t really think of much to say about it really suffice to say that it does the job! Probably would have tasted better from a can as I personally think that every drink tastes better that way..