Blue Bolt Cherry and Blackcurrant

An interesting combination – I think that Sainsbury”s have just taken a summer fruits cordial, added some carbonated water, and dropped a couple of Pro Plus tablets in to the concoction. I’m not sure this is a necessary addition to the own-brand energy drink market but all the supermarkets seem to be trying to out-do each other at the moment.

Euro Shopper Energy Drink Berries

This was pretty good. Euro Shopper have branched out predictably from their standard Energy Drink offerings to include two new fruity flavours. This one tastes of berries and is generically fruity yet very nice. For 39p, you can’t really go wrong and as with the other Euro Shopper drinks it’s worth a go.

Emerge Juiced – Mixed Berry

Whenever a product includes blackcurrant, it instantly gets overwhelmed with that particular strong flavour. and sadly this has happened here. It tastes like a watered down Ribena which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You can detect other flavours in there, and there’s no sense of this tasting like an energy drink either which for some is a bonus. Extra points for something a bit different, especially in such a budget brand of drinks.

Monster Rehab Rojo Tea

After the Monster highlight that was the Lemonade + Tea version of Rehab, I expected this one to be great. Sadly, it tasted like someone had dipped an old teabag in some cranberry squash. Bleurgh. It was sweet, and could have been refreshing, but the stale taste of tea with every mouthful was sickening. Having said that, full marks for originality because no-one else has been stupid enough to make this daft combination.

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.

Rip It – F Bomb

I love this flavour! The front of the can shows a picture of cherries, blueberries, a pineapple, and some other indistinguishable fruits, but the overall flavour that comes through is the cherry. It’s not a natural cherry flavour by any means and is very reminiscent of double-dips in the same way that the Cougar Lifestyle Shot is. The higher than average caffeine content plus the huge can size make this very awakeness inducing and that strength along with my high scores on taste will probably push this drink near the top of the ratings chart for a long time to come.

SoBe Pure Rush Appleberry

After the last SoBe Pure Rush being a bit of a disappointment, I wasn’t expecting much. I was very pleasantly surprised! It was lovely, tasting a bit like strawberries. Finally a natural(ish) energy drink which I really enjoyed. It didn’t taste of Apples, as per the name, but was sweet, smooth and fruity with a ton of caffeine and funky sounding natural ingredients.

Powerade Energy Berry

Basically it’s blackberry and orange flavoured, and that’s all I can say. It’s not great tasting – imagine drinking carbonated fruit squash and you’ll be getting close. Caffeine content is quite high and it’s a reasonably decent sized serving so you get the kick it promises. As a sports drink however it is quite sickly and I can’t recommend it. Having tried their non-caffeinated Powerade products, these energy versions are a bit disappointing. Stick to the regular Powerade drinks if you want hydration during exercise, and if that’s not enough have a caffeinated energy shot too. Not only will that taste better overall, but it’ll be more useful to your training – I find that carbonated drinks give me stomach cramps when I run.

Relentless Devotion (Berry Juiced)

Ribena with a kick. That’s how this drink is best summed up. It’s described as being Apple and Berry flavour and the blackcurrant really stands out. It’s a very potent drink with all the fruit juice giving a powerful sugar rush, and the usual 32mg/100ml caffeine content helps of course.

It’s the first ‘berry’ flavoured drink I’ve tried so far which actually tastes like real fruit and not a synthetic approximation. On that basis it is getting reasonably high marks on originality because it doesn’t taste at all like an energy drink.