Rip It Shot – Red Zone

I like strawberry drinks, and a strawberry energy shot therefore should be ideal. Unfortunately the usual bitterness you get from energy shots was present and not masked by the strawberry flavouring which was itself a little bit on the weak side. However, the flavour wasn’t all bad and it left no long-term aftertaste, and most importantly IT’S SUGAR FREE! The drink has been coloured a bright pink so don’t let it spill on anything, but that is in tune with the Rip It range. Given the background flavouring of strawberries I’m no very much looking forward to trying its big brother Red Zone – after trying Citrus X normal and shot, the full-szied can proved to be considerably tastier.

Amp Energy Lightning

If you’ve tried Rockstar Recovery then you’ll find Amp Energy Lightning quite similar. It’s obviously tuned a lot more to the American market being sweeter, more syrupy, and stronger in flavour, but it’s a still drink with a lot of energy to give. I like this a lot and it’s my favourite of all the Amp Energy range.

Rip It – 3-Way

Putting the name aside, I’ll try to review the drink on its own merits! Looking at the picture on the front of the can I’m lead to believe that the three fruits involved in this drink are strawberry, blueberry and blackberry. It does taste quite nice mixing those together, but the overall effect is to make it taste like it should have been frozen and served in a long plastic tube on a hot summer’s day. Colour-wise it’s the same, with Rip It seemingly taking inspiration from Mountain Dew in their use of bright colourants in their drinks. 3-way is a bright blue! It’s not the best in the range, but it certainly gets high marks.

Pit Bull Cherry and Lime

I’m really not convinced on the combination of cherry and lime in this drink. The cherry flavour comes through, but it someone severely soured by the lime making it quite a bitter experience. Having tried the original Pit Bull, I could sense a theme as the underlying taste of the original was evident in this drink too, however I don’think it works as a mixer with other ingredients. Still, there are other Pit Bull cocktails to try and they could turn out to be wonderful so I shall withhold my judgement on this brand until then. Personally, I won’t be trying this again because there are many more nicer tasting drinks out there.

Mountain Dew White Out

Yummy! Another imported can purchased at Americandy. This drink tastes like a very smooth lemonade. There’s no sharpness to it and the balance of carbonation, citrus flavouring, sweetness and sickliness is just right. Not the best Mountain Dew but certainly near the top. It’s also the first Mountain Dew which doesn’t seem to contain a radioactive colouring. This drink is just a cloudy  white colour (as the name suggests) which makes it similar in appearance to a traditional lemonade.

Mountain Dew Throwback

Mountain Dew how it used to be apparently. The can says it is “made with real sugar”, I guess that is as opposed to the corn syrup that the Americans usually use in their soft drinks. The design of the can is completely different to the design and branding off all the other Mountain Dew products, the design of which is based loosely on the original Mountain Dew logo from the 1970s. The actual flavour of the drink is a lot smoother and lighter than regular Mountain Dew, and if you pour it from the can you’ll also notice it isn’t bright yellow either – just a paler yellow instead. I’d have to say I enjoyed it just as much as regular Mountain Dew and I’d hazard a guess that due to the fewer ingredients used it’ll be *slighter* better for you.

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.

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.

Rip It – Stinger Mo

This is very interesting…. it’s basically what you’d expect from a normal energy drink. But… it’s not a Red Bull clone, it’s a Monster Energy clone! I don’t even have a category for Monster Energy clones because as far as I’m aware this is the first, so I’ll just have to mark it down on originality. Or is it more original because it has copied someone other than Red Bull? That aside it’s a great tasting drink and has all the sweetness and flavour of Monster Energy so if you like that you won’t be disappointed. What’s with the name though? Maybe I’m just too old now and don’t get it, but it would be nice to have a clue as to what the flavour of the drink is going to be written somewhere on the can, and the Stinger Mo name doesn’t give me any clues either.