KX Tropical

POW POW

We back on the energy drink train.

Remember we have reviewed KX before and it was a bit samey. It feels like Tesco were trying to get an inhouse energy drink with a bit of brand appeal rather than creating a drink that deserves some brand appeal.

They've launched some new flavours and we're testing some of them out. First up is the tropical

It's a lovely looking can. You got to give them that. Aesthetically I think they are scoring very high.

Flavour wise. It's interesting but not immediately identifiable. There's general tropicalness going on in my mouth but whether it's mango or mango and a hint of passion fruit I don't know. I think that's the general area they are going for. It's alright and it's cheap.

As a lower price end drink it's pretty alright and you could do a lot worse.

What they should have done

Just energized Um Bongo. I would be all over that.

Rip It! 3 WAY

Rip it again and fresh up from tingling my tastebuds with the impactful g-force grape flavour now want to make things a bit fruity between us. A berry blend with the eyebrow raising name of 3-WAY

Strawberry, Blackberry and Blueberry. Things are getting juicy here. The cans pretty cool and when you poor it out the liquid itself is an insane blue colour. Really bright and yeah things are starting to stir. I'M READY FOR DEBAUCHERY.

Then the taste hit me. I didn't get it, I didn't like it and I didn't like the after taste. I was expecting a berry blast but it feels like I just took a blast to my own berries. I can't distinguish any of the fruit flavours individually but even as a blend or mix something isn't right. I'm going to blame the energy nature of the drink for most of this to be honest.

This isn't a stinker of a drink. It's not far off it but it's not. If I hadn't tried the incredible GForce I might have even liked this a bit more but compared to it, well it's a disspointment. If this is a "3-Way" it's one that happened in prison against your will that you don't like talking about.

Rip It Energy - G Force

Now most of us here in the UK will not be familar with the rip it energy drink brand. I know I wasn't. Well let me blow your mind with some facts

IT COMES IN 15 FLAVOURS
IT'S VERY POPULAR WITH THE US ARMED FORCES
RIP IT IS PART OF THE NATIONAL BEVERAGES INC PORTFOLIO IN THE USA AND THEY ARE THE 4TH LARGEST SOFT DRINKS MANUFACTURER. THIS IS THEIR FIRST ENERGY DRINK BRAND
I LIKE SHOUTING AS IT MAKES ME FEEL LIKE RIC FLAIR


I'm, as regular readers will know, a big fan of grape. GRAPE GRAPE GRAPE, i basically love me some grape drink (forever shortened to grink now). So I was properly bloody excited about this. Grape Energy Drink and here's the best bit it just really tastes of that american grape flavour. It's like Welches Grape soda but with the caffeine kick. There's something medicinal about it but in a way that if you've over indulged the night before you would genuinely think this will do me some good.

The only downside for me with this drink is it's not available on shop shelves. I would definitely bump this when pre-gaming (infact I enjoyed a can of this with some vodka recently and felt like an extra from Young Jeezy video, IN A GOOD WAY).

Ohh man it gets better. There's a sugar free version which hits as hard. Bosh. This gets a double seal of approval. One for the regular and one for the sugar free.

If you fancy getting your paws on this reach out to our good friends at American Fizz who can help you get your grink on
http://www.americanfizz.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=96

Power is Black

ICONIC

When Tommy Smith and John Carlos did this at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City I think we all knew (even those of us like us were a good 20 years off being born) that one day someone would use this imagery and politically charged statement in the way it probably should've been done in the first place, that's right everybody someone would make an energy drink!

no but actuallly......

http://www.powerisblack.com/

Erm yeah. It's like Red Bull but in a black bottle with a bitching kind of tiger think on it, you would've thought they might have done a panther (maybe it's meant to be a Panther) but no.

I was also a bit upset they didn't colour the drink to be black, it's red bull colour and tastes like red bull.

Son I am dissapoint.

Rockstar Recovery

Rockstar Recovery you are a strange beast. Lemonade flavoured energy drink huh that's pretty weird I guess but whats that you're also non-carbonated? Shut your mouth.

That's right peeps Rockstar Recovery is a non-carbonated lemonade inspired energy drink. Run for the hills as the day of reckoning is upon us.

This is great. Seriously.

It tastes fantastic, it's quite understated but there is a genuine lemonade taste (they have added real lemon juice here so thumbs up) the only small problem was I did feel it sticking to the back of my throat a few times.

Heres the big thing though, this is hangover recovery fuel. It's not carbonated so if you're feeling a bit suspect the bubbles don't have to upset you too much. The flavour itself is sweet but not too strong and the energy kick isn't really there as the flavour is smooth and syrupy that the energy kick itself just kind of gets swallowed up.

This gets 5 Alans out of 5. As it's the perfect hangover fare

Sobe Pure Rush AppleBerry Burst

Like 90% of energy drinks this one thinks a little differently and is trying very hard not to me a Mr.Me Too to Red Bull.

SoBe Pure Rush is a natural energy drink. It has pictures of lizards on it and it says naturally sourced caffeine guarana and ginseng. It comes in a dinky little 250ml can and it wants you to believe that hey this isnt really an energy drink it's more a drink that happens to contain some perfectly natural energy. Why wouldn't you want some of that? I mean you feel so tired these days right...

This is the ying to Rockstar Punchs yang (I'm convinced that the Rockstar Punch is more likely to have a wang than a yang but still). It's understated, it's small and it's trying to gently coax a bit more life out of you. It's really fruity I mean you can really smell the apple flavour to it and it does have a nice little energy kick out of it but more than that it's a nice quite subtle apple and berry flavour to it. It tastes nice and the guarana means flavour wise it's like a toned down version of the Rockstar Punch we rated very highly.

All in all, this tastes good and the can looks good but I cant help but feel that it wants to market itself to an older group or possibly women who don't want the 'stigma' of drinking energy drinks. I think the can size is indicative of this.

All in all if a subtle energy drink (and I mean that in terms of packaging not the energy) is something you've been after you may have just found your brand but personally if I need an energy drink for whatever reason I may just stick to those massive massive cans.

DISCO INFERNO : Relentless Inferno Review

Had my very first can of Relentless Inferno today and enjoyed it. Inferno is an orange energy drink from Relentless. It seems to be going in a slightly different direction than a lot of "ME TOO ME TOO" energy drinks in that rather than shooting lightning bolts out about the caffeine amount they decided to concoct something that had a strong flavour.

The 1st thing that hits you when you open the can is the colour, it is a natural orange and that's comforting. It's pretty common for Energy drinks to either follow that default Red Bull colour or some hazardous neon colour to make it seem more energetic. This looks like a normal soft drink and if it's an early morning coding help (as was the case for me this morning) it helps you to not question what terrible turn your life has taken.

The taste itself is powerful. It's orange but more than that. It's perhaps "Blood and Guts" Orange rather than just Blood Orange you know. You can taste Guarana well so I think and it gives the drink a meaningul after-taste but that's something you expect off an energy drink and this kind of rides out the flavour pretty well.

For me this is probably the best tasting energy drink on the market now, although it is close between this and Dew Energy. Not sure how well it would hold up as a mixer on a night out as I think it's flavour might be a little too strong for that but as a straight up energy drink when it's too early in the morning to be thinking about whatever it is you are supposed to be thinking about then it doesn't get much better than this.


Highly Recommended