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03.16.08 by Widge @ 6:10 pm  The good news is that this drink has no sugar added to it. The bad news is that the drink has no sugar added to it. Allow me to explain. The fruit taste of this seems to be pretty good—you get apple, pomegranate, strawberry, pear and elderberry concentrated juices. There's also pomegranate and raspberry flavors. But where does the terrible, terrible sweet taste come from? Now, let me make this clear: I have problems with artificial sweeteners. It's well documented that I think Splenda is the seed of Satan. But this has nothing artificial in it. I've got the culprits down to two: organic erythritol and luo han fruit concentrate. Since I've never had either before, I can't tell if it's one or the other or both together. Apparently these are both non-sugar sweeteners that have been around forever. But for those of you who enjoy the taste of artificial sweeteners like Splenda but like to be all natural, apparently you're in luck! Because every time I take a sip of this, I keep checking the ingredients list—but sucralose is still not there. What it does have is a herbal blend of 530mg which contains some guarana extract. And I'm sure the buzz must be pretty good because I could start to feel it. But sadly, because it tastes like that—complete with the lingering bad aftertaste—I can't finish it. But if you can, more power to you. Categorized as: Drinks and Reviews
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03.12.08 by Widge @ 11:11 pm   Okay, so there's lots of energy drinks on the market right now. When fashion designers and race car drivers are getting their own branded energy drinks, then you know it's pretty damn universal. Hell, if I wanted to, I could have an energy drink. So. If you're coming out with a drink these days, how the hell do you stand out from the crowd? And, let's face it, if you've had as many energy drinks as I have, they tend to all come in about three different flavors, "Tasty," "Oh, that wasn't so bad" and "Oh for the love of Christ's mum!" So whenever there's something new and different hanging around, I have a tendency to notice. Enter Brain Toniq. Billing itself as a "think drink," they say they're the world's first non-caffeinated "nootropic smart drink." In fact, here's from the press release: "It surprises many Americans that you can get this kind of concentration effect without caffeine," [creator Scott] Ohlgren states, "but caffeine is not the only alkaloid in the plant world that has a cognitive enhancing effect. It's just happens to be the most overused." Now overuse is obviously in the biology of the beholder, but I can hear the outcry now. "Widge! What the hell? You're going to say nice things about a drink with no caffeine in it?" And yes, we encourage people to stay up and avoid sleep and get more done by any means necessary. So if a non-caffeinated drink can do the trick, fine. Granted, I might down a few NoDoz while sucking it back, but you know what I mean. Categorized as: Drinks and Reviews
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02.24.08 by Widge @ 4:49 am  Red Bull, kickin' ass--your ass if you're not careful A fifteen-year-old kid in the UK drank eight Red Bulls and had to go to hospital. Our friends at Energy Fiend break that down for you: Eight cans is about 640mg of caffeine - which - to be honest is not a huge amount. Red Bull also contains 1000mg of Taurine, 60mg Glucuronolactone, and 27 grams of sugar per can. So to get things straight - the overdosing teenager consumed 216 grams of sugar (that’s about 54 teaspoons) along with 8 grams of Taurine. They also go on to point out that it's funny how every time some stupid-ass kid (like this one) overdoses on energy drinks it makes front page news. But the same kid getting ripped on alcohol, nobody bats an eye. Funny, huh? Also, as the BBC report states: "Norway, France, Uruguay and Iceland have all banned the energy drink because of concerns over high levels of caffeine." Sounds familiar. Anyway, when you translate that, it means, "These four countries don't trust their citizens to know how to handle themselves." It also can be translated to mean that you can get Red Bull in those countries all day long, it's just expensive to do so. More effective government intervention! Categorized as: Drinks
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02.18.08 by Widge @ 7:44 pm  Well, that's disappointing. As we mentioned last year: cane sugar Pepsi, aka Pepsi Raw, was in the works. We were excited about this not because we're Pepsi fans. No, Pepsi tastes like stale Coke. Although it's not as bad as RC, which tastes like stale Pepsi. No, we wanted this because it might encourage Coke, who we've been yelling at for a while about doing a cane sugar version themselves (Coca-Cola Prime! Do it). Now, we learn that Raw has been rolled out...exclusively to the Brits. And it's even more of an interesting remix than we first thought: Categorized as: Drinks
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02.06.08 by Widge @ 12:10 am  Energy Fiend alerts us that Cocaine Energy Drink, formerly smacked into calling itself No Name, has returned. Not only have they smoothed out their differences with the FDA (which got them smacked to begin with) but now they come in a "Cut" formulation (that's missing the burn) and a "Free" version that's lacking in sugar. The Redux folks (yes, they did Brawndo) were nice enough to send us a couple of cans back in the day, and as we mentioned at the time, it was kind of interesting. A nice buzz for a little while (which equals a helluva buzz for normal humans) and the burn was at least something different amongst all the other energy drinks out there. So we're glad they're back. Categorized as: Drinks
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