Go Splash: Energy Lightning Red

This is an unusual product. It’s a concentrated product which you add to water. The bottle contains 48ml of ‘energy squash’, and you are supposed to add 0.8ml of product to every 100ml of water, so per 100ml you only get 20mg of caffeine. But, the bottle has enough juice in it to supply 6 litres of water with caffeinated goodness – that’s 24 cans of Red Bull in a liquid comparison, or about 16 cans if comparing caffeine content. In other words, be careful to water it down enough or you could end up with serious jitters.

In reality though, what you end up with is quite a watery tasting drink. I experimented with different concentrations but you’re never really too sure how much to put in. The directions say 1 squirt per 200ml, but how big is a squirt? I ended up with about 3 medium squirts in 200ml of water just to get a drink that didn’t taste like manky water, but even at that concentration it tasted more like watered down flat generic energy drink. A good idea, but needs more work.

Here’s a tip – don’t use water! I made an acceptable drink by squirting a decent amount in to a glass first, then pouring in Sprite afterwards to make a fizzy and sweet mix-up. Much better than mixing it with water.

Rip It – G-Force Sugar Free

Again, credit to Rip It for making their sugar-free and regular varieties of drinks taste the same. No chewy feeling from the sweeteners at all in this drink making it just as pleasant as the regular G-Force. Other than that, identical to it if a little lower in the caffeine department.

Rip It – Citrus X Sugar Free

As with the full-fat version, I wasn’t too impressed with this drink. The sharp orange taste is just too overpowering. There are many other flavours in the Rip It range, so spend your money on those instead.

Rip It – Power Sugar Free

I was a little disappointed I have to say. Whereas most energy drinks in my opinion taste better in their sugar-free versions, Rip It have made their full-fat versions so nice that the sugar-free ones fail to equal the taste. It was nice, but not as nice as the normal version so I’d suggest you go for that one instead. Aside from that, it’s the same unique flavour as Rip It Power which you can’t get anywhere else.

Pit Bull Pomegranate and Blueberry

Well, it was okay I suppose. To be honest though it was a bit middle-of-the-road. I didn’t hate it – it had no bitterness, no nasty aftertaste. On the other hand it wasn’t fantastic either, it was a bit sweet, fruity, and had an okay caffeine kick, but the flavour just didn’t jump out at me as being amazing or anything special.

Pit Bull Cranberry and Pink Grapefruit

What I like about trying different energy drinks are the moments when a flavour sends me back in time. Pit Bull Cranberry and Pink Grapefruit has answered a question I’ve had for many years – When I was 18 and discovered alcohol, there existed a drink known as Red. This was a caffeinated alcopop popular with students around the country at that time with an unknown fruity flavour. For me and my friends this drink was the tipple of choice on many weekends, but we never did find out what the ‘fruit’ flavour of Red was. Well, now I think I have the answer because this particular Pit Bull tastes how I remember Red tasting. It’s a good combination without any bitterness of the other Pit Bull drinks I’ve tried and I’m finally impressed with flavoured Pit Bull.

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.

EQ8 – Orange & Passion Fruit

This EQ8 flavour, I assume, is not as healthy as the Cranberry & Apple version. I say this only because it doesn’t have the “1 of your 5 a day” logo stamped on the front of it. However like the other one, it is packed full of fruit juices and doesn’t contained any added sugar. The combination of juices in this drink give it a tropical flavour, and is much sweeter than the other flavour. It has a refreshing taste to it but doesn’t give you much of a caffeine kick.