Diet Ronin Energy Drink Review

The pale green can for Diet Ronin is subtle and misty. Ronin is of course the name for samurais who had decided to go without masters and forge their own path. They were bad ass warriors and fiercely independent. Of course that's a great quality for an energy drink. I fear the name maybe a bit too subtle for most consumers but since everyone likes to get tatoos with chinese characters this simplicity of the can design with the kanji on there should be attractive. The can is a nicely designed but spartan 16 oz. The color makes me think of green tea, which would fit in nicely with the asian theme here.

Diet Ronin has a yellowish green color that looks somewhat like a less glowing MDX. It's transparent but a little cloudy. Upon tasting it, it has a rough edge and has a very noticeable wheat like taste similar in some ways to Stinger Sinful Citrus. There's a subtle lime flavor on the back end. It's not very sweet and has only a little noticeable artificial sweetener aftertaste. There's some green tea flavor and a little melon mixed in. It's hard to really pinpoint the flavor but it is strangely appealing. Maybe it is the appeal of the Ronin getting to me. I guess you could best describe it as a mix of subtle lime and green tea.

Diet Ronin rocked my world. This thing packs a punch and will give you the energy of a warrior. After drinking this I was a blur for the rest of the night, jumping everywhere and full of energy. The ingredients are carbonated water, neotame, acesulfame potassium, malititol, Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Vitamin E, B Vitamins, selenium, calcium, coenzyme Ⱞ, green tea extract, grape seed extract, ginseng, caffeine, l-cysteine, alpha lipoic acid, taurine. All that and only 15 calories per can. There's so much stuff in here that I can't even pinpoint what might have made me so hyper. I've never heard of neotame before and it turns out that it is a new sugar substitute made by Nutrasweet. Lipoic acid is also a new one and seems to be an antioxidant. Combine that with all the vitamins, ᾮ, and green tea extract and this drink has some serious antioxidant power. It's not the best flavored, but is intriguing and with all that energy power and healthy ingredients, I would highly recommend this in the hope of finding your warrior energy.

Full Throttle Sugarfree Energy Review

Full Throttle is one of those drinks that most people have strong feelings about. It's either a love it or hate it drink. For me, I love it. I don't want to pander to the corporate entity that is Coca Cola, but they really did a nice job with the product: nice taste, good can, decent kick. Now I thought it was time to give Full Throttle Sugar Free a try. The can is the same basic 16 oz. can as Full Throttle but with some silver flames at the top and bottom with the words Sugar Free in red. I like the flames, they give the can a little more edge, but the words Sugar Free just look stupid. I just feel like they could have done a little more.

The color of Full Throttle Sugar Free is the same as the original Full Throttle, with an almost AMP like color but a little lighter greenish yellow. The flavor is a strong mix of lime & melon, much like the original. In fact you really can't tell that it's sugar free. This is a really strong entry in the sugar free category and definitely one of the best ones I've tried.

The kick from FT SF was a little weak. I think that's because there's only 1210 mg of taurine. They do an okay job on other ingredients with ginseng, caffeine, B Vitamins carnitine and guarana, but then throw in a bunch of sketchy stuff like acacia, acesulfame potassium, sucralose, sodium saccharin and ester of wood rosin. Not all of those are super sketchy but I think sodium saccharin is one of those artificial sweeteners that has been known to cause cancer in laboratory rats. Sure they gave those rats gobs of it, but with the amount of energy drinks I consumer, I'm going to have to pass on drinking too much. I'll look forward to trying the sugar free version of Full Throttle Fury and hopefully it won't have that stuff in it. I've also heard that Coke is coming out with a new Full Throttle flavor called Blue Demon, so keep your fingers crossed for that one.

Orange KMX Energy Drink Review

FINALLY!!! I've found it. KMX was my favorite early energy drink. Before the category proliferated you had a choice of Red Bull, KMX or 180. KMX was always my favorite. Sure the 8 oz. can with the swirly symbol was kind of boring and I had no idea what KMX stood for... I still don't. But the drink tasted good, at least I remembered it tasting good. Sadly KMX disappeared, the powers that be at Coke decided it couldn't compete with Red Bull and dropped it to replace it with Full Throttle. Well I found a lone can of KMX on a shelf and had to get it. Nostalgia is a powerful thing.

When you open KMX the fake orange scent hits you like a tidal wave of Sunkist soda. The color really looks alot like Full Throttle Fury with a dark orange color that seems darker than 180. The flavor is so good. It's like a nice round fake tangerine flavor. It takes the best part of tangerine and mixes it with Vitamin C pills, a little mineraly this and just a hint of mandarin orange sourness. It really is a genius product, so dang good. I like this way better than either Full Throttle or Full Throttle Fury and it sure as heck beats out 180 and Red Bull. I think it might even make my top ten taste list if it wasn't discontinued. There's no gumminess, weird flavors, or over sweetness. This was a prime time energy drink before its time.

KMX did okay on ingredients. It has HFCS, sucrose, yerba mate extract, ginseng, caffeine, choline, B Vitamins, guarana. Sadly there is no taurine. That's a complete let down, though it did give me a boost comparable to Red Bull, but not as heavy as some of the other newer drinks like Monster. That lack of taurine explains why Coke had to do away with it, though couldn't they just have added taurine instead of scrapping it and going with Full Throttle? This drink really was ahead of its time with a good flavor and some solid energy ingredients, if only it had gotten a real chance. What's even sadder is that KMX Blue was even better. I still have really fond memories of KMX Blue. If you find it please let me know, I would freaking love to get my hands on some.

Von Dutch Sugarfree Energy Drink Review

Another sugar free drink that improves on the original can. Von Dutch was one of those drinks that made me say, "WHAT?" when I first saw it. It had a weird can reminiscent of Lost in some ways and was playing up their whole fashion brand for energy drink sales. Von Dutch Sugar Free improves on the original can with some white to break up the black and green blob that was the can for the regular version. The can looks good, borrowing the sugar free white from Rockstar Diet.

Like normal Von Dutch, the Sugar Free version has a similar floral smell and the same caramel like color. The taste has notes of jasmine mixed with noticeable sweetener. Surprisingly this is way better than normal Von Dutch. It has a little bit of a mild bitter aftertaste with a tiny bit of a Kabbalah like dirty flavor. It's very much like Red Bull with major tartness and cotton candy sweetness without being overly gummy. It's better than Von Dutch regular and better than Red Bull Sugar Free or normal Red Bull. This is one of the best Red Bull clones out there.

This is another strong drink with 2000 mg of taurine. It gave me a huge buzz for a sugar free drink and I would highly recommend it. Other energy ingredients in this bad boy include glucruonolactone, caffeine, aspartame, inositol, acesulfame potassium, and B Vitamins. I knocked Von Dutch in the past but would definitely drink Von Dutch Sugar Free again when looking for a tart gummy drink.

Glaceau Tropical Citrus Vitamin Water Review

If you haven't noticed water is the next big thing. I mean life cannot survive without water and people are fed up with soda so what else are you going to drink but water. Not that I buy the whole soda is bad for you thing, especially when that soda like beverage is an energy drink, but I like water every now and then. The problem is that it is just boring! Water doesn't taste good. I need things to be full of flavor. To that end, the trend of flavored waters is a blessing. We have SoBe Waters out now (but I don't understand why they don't have taurine), Trinity Water, Hansens Water, and of course the big guy, Vitamin Water. The last Vitamin Water I tried was their Power C, which had some taurine in it to give a boost, but I thought I should taste their "Energy" Tropical Citrus flavor even though it's missing taurine. It's got the same packaging as Power C, but features a yellow wrap around label.

Tropical Citrus Vitamin Water has a thick yellow color that one could call sun gold or something. It's hard to describe yellow colors, but this looks more gold like than a lemony yellow. The flavors are pretty amorphous but definitely conform to the name of tropical citrus. We have some heavy tropical pineapple and mango flavors mixed with some lemon. I had a hard time picking out the individual flavors mostly because the predominant sense is watered down. This Vitamin Water is not too strong a flavor or very sweet but is refreshing. I'd give the Power Vitamin Water an edge over the Tropical Citrus flavor.

Vitamin Water has confusing names. I don't know if this is supposed to be Energy Vitamin Water, Tropical Citrus Vitamin Water, or "b+guarana" Vitamin Water. Clearly the main ingredients here are supposed to be guarana and Vitamin B. Other than those we have Vitamin C, crystalline fructose, vapor distilled water, gum acacia, natural caffeine, electrolytes, and beta carotene. It's a decent mix for an energy water but didn't give too much of a boost. I like the high quality crystalline fructose sweetener instead of high fructose corn syrup and how can you not like something called vapor distilled water. I don't really know what that is, but it sounds cool. This provides a good water alternative but still can't unseat my favorite thrist quenching, water like, energy boosting drink which is still Powerade Advance Berry.

Coolah Energy Drink Review

Everyone likes Aussies and it stands to reason they might like Aussie Energy Drinks like Coolah. Australians are some of the nicest people in the world and they bring us so much cool stuff: boomerangs, kangaroos, the outback, the Crocodile Hunter and Crocodile Dundee. OK maybe Crocodile Dundee isn't so cool but Steve Irwin the Croc Hunter is. If I had to guess I'd bet he drinks V Energy or Mother, but there is a chance he drinks Coolah. Coolah is the new energy drink from Australia that's sweeping across the US. It comes in a 16 oz. yellow can featuring a nice boomerang design. It's a little cartoonish for a hard core energy drink reviewer like me, but it's got a clean and bright design that is unique. After all I haven't seen too many yellow cans in my energy drink reviews.

Coolah is a very pale light yellow, like super diluted lemonade, It has a bright lemon flavor with strong sweetness. It's kind of like carbonated lemonade. Coolah has simple yet good flavor with a nice sourness that hits when you lick your lips. For an energy drink there isn't an overwhelming tartness but an easy nice sourness like lemon drops with less intensity than those strong candies. Coolah would be an amazing eneryg drink if it was a little less sweet. I did notice a little slightly disturbing oily film on top similar to the ones I have found on El Popo and Everlast.

The ingredients in the Coolah energy drink are interesting. There's filtered water, HFCS, taurine, caffeine, corn starch, ester gum, B vitamins, and Boronia extract. Corn starch seems a weird ingredient for an energy drink. It didn't provide a great boost but was decent. It'll definitely boost you up more than Mountain Dew. It turns out that Cadbury and 7UP brought this drink from Australia. I'm glad they did because this is a great drink for those who are big lemonade fan this is the energy drink for you, as it beats out the previous lemonade like drinks: Swing Juice and Formula 7 Citrus Charge. Coolah has been a solid drink that I always enjoyed, but it looks like Cadbury Schweppes is phasing it out and throwing their weight behind new drinks including Venom and Squirt Citrus Power.

Ol' Glory (Old Glory) Energy Drink Review

Bless America. Today I shall review the energy drink, Ol' Glory (sometimes referred to as Old Glory) the true American energy drink. It comes in a 16 oz. can with the American Eagle on the front and an American flag motif. And in true American capitalistic style this energy drink is only 99 cents. That's a beautiful thing and one of the many great reasons to love America. After all what other country provides so many energy drinks. Their slogan is keeping America strong, but strangely they also produce a Mexican pride energy drink called Gloria Viejo.

Old Glory is a pale light yellow in color. It looks like pear juice and most closely resembles SoBe No Fear Gold in color. A very citrusy smell wafts from the can. Upon taking a gulp I notice that it isn't very carbonated at all. I'd say it tastes most like those white gummi bears right down to the corn syrupy aftertaste. It's really a cross between pineapple and lemon gummi bear flavors. In some ways it reminds me of ginger ale and could be a good energy substitue for ginger ale and would make a really good energy drink mixer with rum or vodka. I fondly remember those days where I used to bite the heads off gummi bears. To be young again! Given the resemblance to popular candy it's surprisingly not too sweet but has a good flavor. It's really much better than I expected given the bargain price. Very light and refreshing, I could drink it during the movies when I usually eat gummi bears instead. Sure the rest of the theater goers would hate me while I have the jitters in the seat but that's not my problem.

Old Glory has some good energy drink ingredients. There's high fructose corn syrup, taurine (500 mg), caffeine (100 mg), Vitamin C, inositol, B vitamins, ginseng, and guarana. It gave a decent bump in energy but was not outstanding. Still when you're patriotic it's okay not to have the greatest energy boost because you're supporting something greater than youreself. OK, forget that's not true, there's nothing more important than energy and taurine. I will never give into the belief that energy boost and taurine don't matter the most!