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.

Monster Rehab: Tea + Lemonade + Energy

This drink surprised me: it didn’t have the usual Monster flavour that I was expecting. Being non-carbonated, it shares more in common with some of the Rockstar drinks instead, but is still very nice. It mostly tasted like still lemonade, but did have a note of tea about it even if it was very faint. There’s nothing else out there on the market quite like this, so full marks for originality, but I am a little disappointed that it didn’t jump out as being a Monster Energy drink from the taste.

Rockstar Punched Fruit Punch

Nice at first, but the taste got tiring quickly. In fact, the aftertaste hung around for the rest of the day. It’s not refreshing, but sickly and sweet, and I can’t quite put my finger on what the taste reminded me of.

Burn Day

Thanks to a temporary France-based contact (someone went on holiday), you’ll be seeing a few French energy drinks on this site over the next few weeks. Burn Day is the first of them. It contains less caffeine than you’d normally expect, but it brands itself as Energie Rafraichissante. And rafraichissante it is indeed. My first opinion of the taste was lemon and strawberries. Checking the ingredients though reveals carrots and blackcurrants… strange, I still reckon it tastes very strongly of strawberries. It gets top marks for originality and taste because it’s lovely, fruity and different.

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.

Scheckter’s Organic Energy

There seems to be a trend at the moment for pomegranate flavoured drinks, at least I think that is the flavour as it’s the prominent ingredient in the drink in question. Consequently I’m thinking of creating a new review tag of Pussy Clone… the name may need working on to be honest. Scheckter’s drink tastes like the Pussy drink (again, careful wording) and other European drinks I’ve tasted in the past whose names I can’t remember. It’s nice as far as this category go, but not really to my taste. It’s the first organic drink reviewed on this site and has both Fairtrade and Organic Soil Association approvals – these may be the cause for the high cost per can. Drink a can of this and it’ll give you the energy to hug trees all day.

Rockstar Punched Guava

This had a very refreshing fruity flavour and was a pleasure to drink, especially on the scorching day on which I did drink it. There was no sickly aftertaste, no artificial chemical taste, just nice and fresh and fruity. Rockstar have managed to get the combination of sweetness and energy blend just right and this drink, along with Rockstar Recovery are among two of my favourites of all time.

Monster Energy Shot

You can definitely tell that this is a Monster drink. It has the distinct Monster flavour but concentrated and caramelly (is that a word?). It does sadly suffer from the bitterness associated with energy shots which is a shame, but it does the job of waking you up and that’s what matters most in a shot.

Crunk

At first I thought the drink to be quite watery, but it grew on me as I worked my way through the large can. This drink is not native to the UK and appears to be imported from the USA by the looks of the ingredients and nutritional information panels. I found it in a local independent supermarket along with three other flavours of the same brand which will all get their 5 minutes of fame on this site in good time.

Flavour wise, it’s very juiced up and fruity, but with no artificial taste to it. The can goes on about ingredients like Horny Goat Weed and so forth (check out the official site for full information on the ‘proprietary blend’) which may add to its potency, but as the can promises to invigorate and arouse me I decided to investigate a little further. It turns out a number of the ingredients are renowned for their aphrodisiac qualities. All I’ll say is you can definitely tell it has a very decent kick of caffeine or something similar because I was wide-awake!