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06.21.09 by Widge @ 6:44 pm  I have to admit that I felt a little foolish buying Crunk Energy Drink for the first time. It's tied to hip hop and rap music by its name and its co-founder, Lil Jon. And that's about all I know. So it's the same sort of poseurish feeling one might get purchasing Pimpjuice when one is not a pimp nor does one want to know how a pimp is juiced. The thing about Crunk is that...well, it seems to work. For me, anyway. Is it the caffeine? The ginseng? Or is it some sort of weird placebo effect you get when you drink something that has horny goat weed as an ingredient? Good question. Regardless, Crunk is always a good source of energy. Your mileage may vary. Still, now I get to feel foolish just saying "Berry Crunk." Because that to me is like taking this subgenre of music and flavoring it not unlike a General Mills cereal. The main thing about Berry Crunk is that it, like regular Crunk, works. But the taste is interesting. At first, you get the regular Crunk underpinnings, which I can't quite explain to you except that it's different--to my palate, at least--than most other energy drinks that appear to be Red Bull clones/wannabes. But the flavoring they've laid down on top of it reminded me of the horribly sweet drinks from childhood that had some form of "Aid" in the title. Kool-Aid, figured I. Flavorade, figured Doc. It tastes fake--but it's real enough, apparently, as the drink has natural flavors, along with real acai and grape juice. If there's an artificial flavor in there, I overlooked it. Categorized as: Drinks and Reviews
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06.10.09 by Widge @ 4:36 am  Whynatte Latte is an interesting beast. I've complained before about coffee beverages, and when you start to get into coffee/energy drink territory, it's terribly easy for things to go wrong. And I have to admit, after having the drink recommended to me, my heart sank a bit at the sign of my mortal enemy: sucralose. As has been well documented here, I have a sensitivity to sucralose--i.e., I can taste it quite easily and the taste (and its aftertaste) can turn me off of a drink in about a half a sip. Beyond that, though, the drink looked fantastic. Per the can, they have no artificial hormones in the milk they use, plus 1000mg of Taurine, 175mg of L-Carnitine, 100mg of ginseng, 90mg of caffeine, and 25mg of guarana seed extract. Plus you've got 100% of your RDA for riboflavin, niacin, B6 and B12. And some real sugar, but still that damnable sucralose, smirking at me from the ingredients list. Still, I went into my first can of Whynatte with high hopes. And I'll admit something else to you: I was pleasantly surprised. Is there the sucralose taste? Yes, but they've managed to beat it into submission with the coffee. In fact, the drink tastes more like an actual latte than most canned lattes--not too sweet, but the taste of coffee and milk are both there. Aftertaste? Not really, no. I think, beaten down by the coffee, the sucralose just sort of slinks off to a corner of your throat to sulk. Categorized as: Drinks and Reviews
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06.06.09 by Widge @ 3:46 am  Two things I have a weakness for have combined forces under the Wendy's logo in order to make my arse even wider than it already is. Dastardly. And honestly, the only disappointing thing about the Coffee Toffee Twisted Frosty is the name. Because if you can say it out loud without feeling foolish then, well, good on you. When I ordered it I left out the "twisted" part. I figure it's inherent: if you really want an milkshake-ish drink that tastes like a touch of coffee added to chocolate with bits of broken-up toffee in it, then you're already pretty twisted. The drink itself is tasty. It's sugary and has a nice coffee mocha taste to it, which is punctuated every time you suck a fragment of toffee up the straw. (I eschew spoons when it comes to Frostys. I know, I'm weird like that.) Categorized as: Drinks and Reviews
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06.02.09 by Dom @ 10:59 pm  Ever since I can remember, I loved cola. I liked the taste and I loved whatever it did to me. Young me, of course, had no idea that the mighty caffeine was raising my blood pressure and preventing my brain from realising it was getting tired. Plus, there was the cheap and easy sugar high. As I grew older I became something of a cola elitist (there was a time I could guess if the cola came from a keg, a plastic bottle or a glass one by tasting it). I tried many many different ones. My favourite to this day is Jolt Cola, probably due to the caffeine amount in it, which causes a stronger buzz and a stronger taste as well. Why do I tell you this? Well, I want to introduce you to a selection of German beverages. My comments on their flavours are of course based on my personal taste. Regarding that taste, when it comes to the classic Cola War, I prefer Coca Cola. Diet cola, let alone decaf, has no place in my fridge. I will, however, try any soda, caffeinated or not, just leave me alone with decaffeinated cola. Categorized as: Drinks
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05.30.09 by Dom @ 12:46 pm  Widge's Note: Ladies, gents, boys and girls, please welcome guest columnist and German correspondent Dom to the mix. By now, most of you out there have heard about the banning "scandal" of Red Bull Cola (reviewed here by Widge) here in Germany. Let me try to shed some light and share my thoughts on this. Here a rough summary of what happened through the eye of the naïve consumer: a laboratory in Germany registered some amount of cocaine in Red Bull's cola and a lot of states of our Federal Republic reacted by immediately banning it from the stores. Others did not. The amount of cocaine was so small (0,4 microgram per litre), that some states declared -- rightly so -- that it bears no risk. In fact, according to a Bavarian state institution, to have an effect on you, a dosage needs to be as big as 25 to 50 milligrams. To put this into perspective, you would need to drink tens of thousands of litres. Categorized as: Drinks
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