Front Page News

Awful Articles

The Ultimate Energy Drink Review, Part I

Saturday, October 12, 2002 Update by Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka

WOAH, this is like TOTALLY EXTREME TO THE RADICAL MAXX!!

Ok, rock and rollaaaazz!! Today is the completely unofficial and blatant display of rebellion ULTIMATE ENERGY DRINK CHALLENGE! It is SO EXTREEEME and so totally OUT OF CONTROL that I might not even make it through to the other side to write about it because I will be snowboarding out of an airplane after drinking an entire gallon on antifreeze while spanking my own naked ass with a drunken marmot!

I am warning you, if you don't like hair-raising, death-defying feats of hot imbibing action, don't read any further! I can not be held responsible for the trail of misery and wasted lives that I leave in my wake as I embark on the most off-the-wall, completely INSANE taste test ever. Maybe I'll be heretofore known as The Beverage Guy for writing about drinks so goddamn much, but I feel that this review has to be done! Too many parachuting skateboarders with no arms are buying the lesser-tasting, not nearly as extreme energy drink.

These things come in all shapes and sizes, usually costing between two and three dollars for an eight-ounce can. That's kind of expensive when you can get a six-pack of Mountain Dew for three dollars and have that same caffeine rush you are looking for. If you are lucky, the Mountain Dew will not taste like stagnant water that has been dumped off of a galvanized steel drum lid from a nuclear waste barrel. But don't hold your breath. Actually, no, see how long you can hold it. Report back to me with the results.

The complex energy drink-making process.

Man, I remember when beck in the day the most extreme you could get with your beverage choice was Jolt cola which supposedly contained four times the caffeine as regular colas and which tasted rather like denture paste that had been used and reused by an 86-year old man with terrible oral hygiene. It did the trick though, and it was cheap. It also didn't claim to have mystical healing properties thanks to some crazy chemical that doesn't exist or that is actually water or extra carbonation or bug spray.

I suppose that I understand, at least on a basic level, the urge to be hip and cool and fit in with your friends,but do your friends really like the taste of ass-fruit and chemically terror? I don't think they do. This trend is about on the same level as those advertising caps to put on your ears to make you like an elf. Why would you want those dumb caps unless you are a fag?

All energy drinks are rated on a scale of -1 to -10 with -10 being the most terrible drink EVER, man, to the vomitous EXTREEEEEME.

EXTREME BEVERAGE 1: Jones Energy Drink

Summation: OH MY GOD MY TEETH OH NO

What the hell is wrong with these people? They make good specialty sodas but they should have stopped there. This drink makes my mouth hurt it is so sweet. It's also a shade of fluorescent yellow that human beings were never meant to ingest. The... can is pretty, but that's about the only good thing I can think of to say. The suggested daily "dosage" is two to three cans per day, like this is some sort of medicinal drink or something. Doctor, quick! Give him two cans of a highly caffeinated beverage and perhaps one with a bunch of made-up chemical shit in it, STAT! I have no idea how anyone would ever be able to tolerate that much of this stuff, but I am looking forward to seeing whether it has "enhanced" my "performance" but I have to wait until I "take a dump" and "closely examine my fecal matter with my fingers and perhaps a spoon" to tell whether or not it had any effect.

Rating: -7

Shit bitch, that is EXTREME.

EXTREME BEVERAGE 2: AMP Energy Drink

Summation: TASTES LIKE ASS

As if Mountain Dew by itself weren't asstastic enough, now they made an energy drink. It tastes awful. I can't even describe how bad it is. Compared to the misery of Jones Energy Drink it is a walk in a very pleasant park with cats under each tree. It instructs me to "Turn up my energy with AMP" but it instead makes me want to turn up the device that controls how loud the Billy Joel music gets. Eventually my ears begin to bleed and I forget that I have ingested this horror. I do think that it is funny that one of this product's main claims is that it "contains maltodextrin, a complex carbohydrate" which is fine because maltodextrin is in fact a good source of energy and is very unlikely as a carb to turn into fat. What they didn't mention is that tons of other products, even common garden variety Nutrasweet, has maltodextrin in it. You don't have to pay 3 bucks for a disgusting garbage drink to get it. Nice try, Mountain Dew fags, stupid faggy fag faggots. For an additional laugh, their website is broken. Dumb fags. Their website is too extreme to actually exist.

Rating: -9

EXTREME BEVERAGE 3: SoBe Adrenaline Rush

Summation: TREES IN A CAN

What can I say, it tastes like plants. This is good though, at least in comparison to the last couple of drinks. Their website consists of a terrible flash thingy representing "Tales from the Crypt." Someone needs to inform them that that show hasn't been popular since the mid 80's, if ever. Luckily they also have a section devoted to their motocross team or whatever. Way hip and extreme. It frightens me a bit that one of their main advertised ingredients, l-carnitine, has a section on their site labeled "Animal Nutrition" and when you roll the cursor over it it shows about eight piglets suckling an enormous sow. What the hell? According to the can, though, it is a "maximum energy supplement," so I'm really happy because at long last I am drinking something that is not simply the middle of the road energy supplement. I am not, however, experiencing any sort of adrenaline rush from this drink, so I am afraid that if I were to be attacked right now by a very angry bear that I would be in pretty big trouble, let me tell you.

Rating: -6

OH NO TOO MUCH KMX!!! PUSHING THE LIMITS TOO DAMN FAR!!!

EXTREME BEVERAGE 4: KMX Energy Drink

Summation: HELL

This is the worst-tasting drink by far to this point. I think that the main reason for this is because it is trying really hard to taste like orange soda but failing miserably. It tastes rather like shoe leather rolled in grandma-sweat. According to the can I am instructed to:

Think fast.

Take action.

Test the limits.

Push them!

After I read that I began trying to push the limits. I started to see how many carrots I could eat without throwing up. I got to 52 medium-sized carrots and then I started to barf orange mushy stuff all over the place and it sucked because I had the runs for the rest of the day. I don't know whether I should blame it on the KMX Energy Drink or not, but I feel like I did what the can told me and all I got out of it was a burning asshole. I want my three dollars back at once.

Rating: -8

EXTREME BEVERAGE 5: Red Bull

Summation: OW

This one is thankfully the last because at this point my pee is neon yellow and I am shaking. It is also a good thing that it's the last because it tastes really, really bad. It doesn't taste as bad as the one made by Mountain Dew but it's pretty damn terrible. I don't want to drink any of these any more. I'm upset that I've even had so much of these fucking things so far. It's absolutely ridiculous. These cost like three dollars each also. I can't believe this bullshit. I am so fucking pissed; I'm going to write an angry letter. I feel sick. I haven't eaten all day so this stuff was ingested on an empty stomach. What the hell was I thinking. This tastes terrible. That's it, I quit. Fuck this.

Rating: -2398463274 fucking shit this sucks what the hell

I haven't learned anything. All of these energy drinks sucked ass and I am still sitting here like a dork in front of the computer. There are no guys with sunglasses snowboarding over my head or anything even remotely extreme unless it's HOT EXTEEEEEME VOICE CHAT which is utterly dumb and not really very full of hot, hip action at all but instead full of nerds who are rather shy and aren't saying much. I am more tired and am actually crankier now than I can remember being in a very long time. This experiment was a failure and I want to go back in time so that I can not drink all of the shit I've poured down my throat today and I am NOT talking about my "special time" with my little cousin Bobby. I am talking about something else. Something involving dumb energy drinks and my foolishly drinkin close to five cans of them..

I have to pee again. Great.

- Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka