Root Jack Orange Flavored Root Beer Pirate Energy Drink

I opened this earlier today: 

Brand: Root Jack Orange Flavored Root Beer Pirate Energy Drink.

Origin: Mishawaka, IN.

Purchase Place: Blue Sun Soda, Bloomington, MN.

Sweetener: High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Review: This is labeled a "pirate energy drink," so I was a little concerned. It has your daily allowance of vitamin C to "keep scurvy in check," so that's good. It has quillaja which Google tells me is sometimes used to help with foam in root beer. And it has caffeine and guarana seed extract which are both stimulants. I also found online that it has 10 mg of caffeine/oz, so this bottle had 120 mg of caffeine! 

But on to the flavor. It's not great. It has that energy drink chemically-ness to it. The orange flavor with the root beer isn't bad - that's actually kinda fun. If you like energy drinks, then you might like this. If you don't then you might want to steer away from this one. Not bad, totally unique, but not great.

Score: 5.5 out of 10.

Duff A L'Orange Soda (Energy Drink?)

I cracked into the "Duff" soda based off "The Simpsons" that I picked up last week at Legacy Toy Store at MOA:

 

 

The soda can is pretty true to the can on The Simpsons.

Only 20 calories? And lots of B vitamins? I think this is meant to be an energy drink.

Brand: Duff A L'Orange Sparkling Beverage / Soda / Energy Drink

Origin: Woburn, MA.

Purchase Place: Legacy Toys, Mall of America, Bloomington, MN.

Sweetener: Sugar.

Review: This isn't bad for being just 20 calories. But the orange flavor is what you'd expect from something that is meant to be an energy drink: it's sharp and almost just a touch bitter. Not bad, but just not great. It will be more enjoyable for you if you like the flavor of energy drinks. I'm ranking this right down the middle at an "average 5" on my scale.

Score: 5 out of 10.

Rocket Fizz Rocket Fuel

I opened this yesterday afternoon: 

Brand: Rocket Fizz Rocket Fuel.

Origin: Incline Village, NV.

Purchase Place: "Minnesota's Largest Candy Store," Jordan, MN.

Sweetener: Pure Cane Sugar.

Review: I didn't know what flavor this was going to be, because it just said "caffeinated rocket fuel." It smelled it, and it was very subtle - maybe a bit like a cream soda? And the taste was familiar, but I couldn't place it right away. So I Googled the soda, and found out that it's also considered an energy drink, and that makes the flavor make more sense - it's maybe a bit "Red Bull-ish." I went through a full page of Google results (clicking on every link), and only found "mild fruity flavor" as a description of the flavor. It's sweet (maybe a bit TOO sweet), but I don't know that I'd say "fruity." But I don't fully know WHAT I'd say other than "energy drink-like mixed with cotton candy." Ehh, it's OK.

Score: 5.5 out of 10.

Bawls Guarana Cherry

We stopped at "Fresh Thyme" grocery store over the weekend, and my wife asked "hey, have you had all of these?" as we walked through the soda section. I found a Bawls Cherry that I hadn't tried before:

Hard to photograph - had to hold it in the right spot to make out the label.

Brand: Bawls Guarana Cherry.

Origin: Twinsburg, OH.

Purchase Place: Fresh Thyme Grocery Store, Minneapolis, MN.

Sweetener: High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Review: My first Bawls soda / energy drink was a bit of a let down. They made sodas with a super high caffeine content - one of the ingredients is guarana extract which is about twice as potent as coffee beans. This bottle had 64 mg of caffeine. But I still wanted to try this. It wasn't great. The cherry flavor was OK the moment it touched my tongue, but then it immediately became very "chemically" tasting. And it was weak/thin tasting. Both of those things I ended up saying about my first Bawls soda as well. Not a fan of Bawls.

Score: 3 out of 10.

Vanilla Hi Ball Energy

I did a triathlon 2 weeks ago, and these were being handed out at the finish:

Brand: Vanilla Hi Ball Energy.

Origin: San Francisco, CA.

Purchase Place: Maple Grove Triathlon.

Sweetener: None.

Review: I saw a woman at the race dumping hers on the ground, so I didn't have high hopes. Turns out, she was 100% justified. This was horrible. It tasted like the worst possible version of La Croix water. The vanilla flavor was OK, but NOT in an unsweetened carbonated water drink. Gah. It needed about 50 grams of sugar to be drinkable. Disgusting. I only could manage a few sips of this.

Score: 1 out of 10.

Lolli's Cherry Pop Energy Drink

I needed a pick-me-up this afternoon, so I cracked into this:

Brand: Lolli's Cherry Pop Energy Drink.

Origin: Los Angeles, CA.

Purchase Place: Blue Sun Soda, Spring Lake Park, MN.

Sweetener: Cane Sugar.

Review: This is odd, but not bad. The cherry flavor is nearly a "vanilla" cherry, and it's quite smooth and syrupy. It didn't taste "artificial" at all, and maybe that's because it had some real ingredients like ginseng, bitter orange, and grape skin extract. Different, odd, but not bad. Especially for an energy drink.

Score: 7 out of 10.

Unknown Dred Formula No 53 Road Rage Red

I needed a pick-me-up this morning, so I opened this "all purpose energy drink" with the weirdest label:

It *might* just be a random scuff, but one of the ingredients seems to be perfectly crossed out. Suspicious.

Brand: Unknown Dred Formula No 53 Road Rage Red.

Origin: Unknown.  Possibly Seattle, WA.

Purchase Place: "Minnesota's Largest Candy Store," Jordan, MN.

Sweetener: "Cane sugar and/or fructose."

Review: I knew nothing about the flavor other than "road rage red." And at the top of the bottle it was called an "all purpose energy drink with a good taste and mellow finish."

But it did not have a good taste. Or a mellow finish.

It was Red Bull-like, but less sweet and not as good. It had that "red" flavor of red bull that I can't quite nail down. I couldn't drink more than a few sips of that. Stay away.

Score: 1.5 out of 10.

Celsius Cola

This seemed interesting. I was scared...

Brand: Celsius Cola.

Origin: Boynton Beach, Florida.

Purchase Place: Blue Sun Soda, Spring Lake Park, MN.

Sweetener: Sucralose.

Review: The first thing I did was look online to check the caffeine content because it wasn't listed on the bottle. Amazon.com tells me there's 200 mg of caffeine per serving! (A can of Coke has around 30 mg, and a cup of coffee is around 90 mg. "Diet Pepsi Max" which totes about having a lot of caffeine has 69 mg in a can.) There's a warning that reads "Not recommended for people who are caffeine sensitive, children under 18 or women pregnant or nursing."

But how'd it taste? It was like a weak, fruity cola. It had the "thinness" of a diet, but it wasn't bad. The weak flavor that was there was pretty good. It was a unique cola. I drank it at 2 sittings because of the high caffeine, but this surprised me! I may have to try this again when I need a pick-me-up.

Score: 6.5 out of 10.

Bawls Root Beer

I did NOT expect much from this when I opened it. A root beer from an energy drink company? Yeah, that's probably not going to be the best...

Sitting in the little bit of snow we just got - first snow of Winter 13/14.

CAFFEINE!! I think Barq's is the only root beer that I'd had prior to this that contained caffeine, and Barq's doesn't have much (22.5 mg of caffeine per 12 oz, or 1.8 mg / oz). This 10 oz bottle of Bawls had 65 mg of caffeine (or 6.5 mg / oz), which is pretty average when compared to your "average" cup of coffee which has 6.25 - 12.5 mg of caffeine / oz (according to Wikipedia). Red Bull, Monster, Full Throttle, or Nos energy drinks of equal size contains more than double the amount of caffeine than in Bawls. It's the guarana seeds that give Bawls it's caffeine - there's about double the amount of caffeine in a guarana seed than there is in a coffee bean.

Anyway... on to the review...


Brand: Bawls Root Beer.

Origin: Miami, Florida.

Purchase Place: "Minnesota's Largest Candy Store," Jordan, MN.

Sweetener: High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Review: It was better than I thought, but it still wasn't great. The flavor was decent, but it was a bit watered-down. And the aftertaste was "chemical-like," which is maybe to-be-expected from an energy drink company. I'll rank it just below average.

Score: 4.5 out of 10.