Exotic beverage review: Private Energy

This is the first energy drink I've seen to feature a porn star on the can. In pale green relief in the top corner is porn "model" Silvia Saint (link is from Wikipedia, it's relatively safe). I was curious as to whether this drink fell into the curious "energy drinks and aphrodisiacs" category, but it seems to contain no aphrodisiac ingredients, nor claim any magical powers in the bedroomal department.

It's yellow-brown. I partly suspected this was going to be either blue or green, but that's based entirely on the colour of the print on the can. I'm neither impressed nor disappointed in the colour of the beverage, so far. The label claims the drink is carbonated, but it was barely even pressurised upon opening and the drink poured as flat as a car parking lot.

It smells exactly -- and I wish I had a second can so as to test this theory properly -- like Red Bull. This leads me to suspect that Private Energy may be colonpipe.com's first rebadged exotic beverage! The colour and smell are absolutely identical to Red Bull. It's also pasteurised. The only spanner in these works is that Private Energy's label claims it contains ginseng, an ingredient not present in Red Bull. Lacking a mass-spectrometer, I cannot chemically analyze this drink. Thus, one test remains!

It's still Red Bull. I'm grasping at minutiae here, but it's a tiny, tiny, tiny bit sweeter than Red Bull.

It does an amazing job of drying out the mouth and throat. I've recently had a cold, and Private Energy seems to want nothing better than to make me cough in an awkward fashion.

Quite frankly, you can read my review of Red Bull for my opinion of that, because it's virtually identical. I shall paraphrase for the terminally lazy: It tastes kind of like vomit, albeit in this case vomit with added sweetness. And apparently ginseng. And I'm curious as to whether all cans of this gear are flat, or whether I simply bought a dodgy one.

Exotic beverage: Naughty Girl Energy Drink

This energy drink contains caffeine, carnitine, not much else. The more interesting of those two ingredients, carnitine, is a quarternary ammonium compound (whatever the hell that is) synthesised from amino acids. It's found in red meat and nuts, and is synthesised during pregnancy to aid in growth. It's listed on the can as a fat burning magical chemical of awesomeness, but I can't fathom the diagrams on Wikipedia well enough to explain whether this works or not. (It's in a sugar-laden aphrodisiac beverage. Methinks it does not.)

It's violently flourescent red. It's not just red, it's RED. Proper red. It's mildly carbonated. I'd expected it'd be pink, but at least it's not urine-coloured as I kinda suspected it would be.

It smells like window cleaner. The blue kind. (Not the red kind.) It's somewhat scary. One is tempted to include an appendix to this article detailing how well "Naughty Girl" polishes glassware.

Once you stick it in your mouth, it's far from pleasant. It's basically a canful of the flavour that all energy drinks try to disguise, the reeking unpleasantness of vitamin-B. The can describes the flavour as "raspberry", but it's about as close to raspberry as a glass of aerated water saturated in b-vitamins.

The best feature of this beverage is its complete lack of an aftertaste, it's a shame there's no other good points, because inhaling air has the same effect.

On a whole, It's fairly disgusting. I couldn't manage a glass. It's unpalatable because there's no real taste to it, just the underwhelmingly vitamin-B like flavour of blurgh. There's no aftertaste to speak of, and it made my face twitch uncontrollably.

I suppose I should hesitantly address the other "property" of this drink: aphrodisia. I believe it's aimed at women. It didn't excite me any. This may be because I'm not a woman. Should I ever find a woman who's willing to drink vitamin-B and window cleaner, then tell me how her loins are feeling, I'll be sure to post the results.

Exotic beverage review: Red Devil Energy Drink

It's all Red Bull's fault. "Red" has apparently become a convenient catch-all buzzword for energy drinks. Between Red Eye, which is pleasant, and Red Bull, which is bile in a can, it's a shame the term cannot be safely used to distinguish the palatable from the impalatable.

Red Devil is alarmingly tomato coloured. It kinda looks like someone has bled into it. It's not a comforting colour. I had anticipated it'd look somewhat like Red Bull, based entirely on the contents being similar. I'm almost disappointed.

It smells exactly the same as every other energy drink that tries to disguise the patently disgusting flavour of b-group vitamins with some kind of uberberry fruit deluxe syrupy flavour. It smells very much like someone's vomited some berries and added Berocca.

At the risk of offering a cheap-arse description of the flavour that'll be of no help to anyone, it tastes virtually identical to Red Eye Gold. It's got a strong medicinal flavour, buried beneath an unpleasant taste of partially digested berries, all of which are swimming on top of the unpleasant vegetable flavour of b-group vitamins, which still manage to poke their hideous heads through the masking agents to make this a vaguely unpleasant beverage. As flavours go, this one isn't too bad. I was afraid it'd taste like Red Bull, but thankfully it does not.

The only noticable aftertaste is that of the berry-like puke flavour, which -- as an aftertaste, at least -- isn't totally unpleasant.

It's not entirely bad. For something with all the ingredients of Red Bull, a name that begins with "Red", and a colour that looks like someone's been punched in the kidneys and taken a nice long piss, it's decidedly palatable and probably earns itself a place on the short list of energy drinks that don't make your soul depressed.

Exotic beverage: Speed Chrome

I haven't opened this can yet. The name conjures some interesting possibilities, two of which are: It looks like chrome. This is unlikely, as I'm unaware of it having become legal to include actual metal in beverages. The other alternative is: It acts like chrome, meaning you can spray it into a rag and inhale it for happy fun time. I doubt both reasons, but bear in mind we are talking about an energy drink manufacturer who's modus operandi is "name it after something morally reprehensible".

It doesn't look like chrome. It looks like slightly greenish, carbonated wee.

When you open the can, there's an overwhelming stink of window cleaner. On sniffing the liquid itself, it smells like a relatively benign fruit drink. Whether or not it's actually benign, I'm as yet unsure.

It's...............interesting. It's slightly fruity. The other sensation it carries is quite similar to the "HOLY CRAP IS IT MILK OR IS IT SODA" effect the choc-orange Fanta Spider demonstrated. It's like there's a haze of awkward gaseous matter surrounding the real flavour, which, like most energy drinks, consists mostly of strong, sweet fruit flavours attempting to mask the overwhelming presence of Vitamin Berocca.

The flavour dissipates pretty quickly, leaving you with the horrid tang of vitamin B and the weird sensation of the "flavour haze" described above, which doesn't seem to go away, no matter how much other fluid you consume afterward.

It's not pleasant, but that's okay. Few of these drinks actually are. As they go, this one's pretty middle-of-the-road. It's got gross bits, it's got good bits. At least it's not liquid metal.

Update: I just took a huge swig, thinking "it's not that bad! You just typed out an essay saying so!", but...it is. It's horrid. It tastes like really nasty fruit drink with some methylated spirits in it, and possibly some pee. Blurgh.

Blue Ox - Exotic Beverage Review

These are a handful of energy drinks I found in Albury, on the New South Wales/Victorian border. They're kinda nice, in that they're very obviously a knock off of Red Bull in that they've borrowed the "Coloured Bovine" approach to naming drinks.

They also have the spectacular consumption warning of “Consume no more than 5 cans a day.” Yes. Five. Five. FIVE. That's terrifying on so many levels.

Also, the can art is a label. It's not printed directly onto the aluminium. Such is the price you pay for a spectacular range of flavours, I guess.

I reviewed these rather speedily on location, and I took notes to allow me to finish the reviews properly after the fact. I've included scans of my original notes for your edification, should you like that kind of thing. If you don't, that's cool too. I'm easy about things like that.

First up, the blue one. It's the "original" flavour, which means not a jot to me, as I'm not familiar with whatever originality Blue Ox has going for it. It's quite unpleasant. It shares the same characteristic of slightly aged plastic as Go Fast, which ain't saying much. Make it go away. Please.

Blue Ox Orange: It's orange. Kind of. It's verging on brown, with kind of a luminescent yellow tinge to it. If it was seeping out of a wall at say, Chernobyl, you wouldn't think it was out of place. It looks like something's been oxidising inside of it.

It smells like really strong orange cordial with vitamin C tablets dissolved in it. En masse.

There's a type of cold medicine called "Actifed". This tastes very much like it. If it were seeped in rotting celery for several months. This drink could possibly be a cure for the common cold. Or a carrier for cholera.

Blue Ox Cherry: It's called "Black Cherry". It's dark and vaguely resembles cherry. So far, so good.

It actually smells like cherry. Which would be a good sign, if cherry didn't smell like medicine.

It's......crunchy. Hard to describe. There's an odd powdery texture to it that clings to your teeth afterwards. That said, it's by far the best of the three Blue Ox flavours I've been privy to. Which isn't saying much.

If you have a choice of Blue Ox (rather than, say, Blue Ox Russian Roulette), pick this one. And hold your nose.

The Blue Ox collection isn't the worst thing, all things considered, that I've ever stuck in my mouth. It's certainly not the best, though. All three flavours suffer from bizarre powderiness, overpowering vitamin-B flavours, and peculiar textures.

Since this review was written in 2005, I have since come across Blue Ox in another form, a similarly coloured set of drinks labelled "BLOX" (you can see the cans in this article), with little cube men on the front rather than the characteristic blue cow. I'm not sure if this is a result of Red Bull going "Hang on..blue ox? Red bull? HOW COINCIDENTAL", or the marketing team at Blue Ox simply branching out into more geometric demographics. Who knows. I never drank the BLOX drinks, largely under the assumption that they'd taste like crap, too.

Exotic beverage review: Red Eye Platinum

Note, circa 2013: This review from 2005 is interesting, as Red Eye Platinum is my current favourite among energy drinks. It's almost exclusively available at supermarkets only, warm from the "lifestyle drinks" shelves. I have occasionally found it in truck stops and convenience stores, but it's strangely rare for a drink that's got non-exclusive supermarket distribution. Now, back to 2005:

It looks pretty much the same as all the other "mild" types of Red Eye. This particular bottle was slightly warmer than the optimal drinking temperature, resulting in the usual spray of tiny bubbles manifesting themselves as massive bubbles instead.

It smells strongly chemical, even to the extent of reminding me of a cleaning product. Like most Red Eye variations, there's a strong scent of sweetness, but it's hard to put a finger (or nostril) on what the actual smell is.

It's sweet, and slightly fruity. Again, I can't define the actual fruit, but there's a definite fruitiness to it. Possibly peach or apricot, but without the furriness usually associated therewith. It should be noted that this stuff tastes quite vile when it's warm, quite akin to lawn clippings.

Very little aftertaste. It has the same chemical-like residue that Red Eye Extreme displayed, but otherwise it's not totally unpleasant. It should be kept cold, however, as the taste it assumes when it warms up is quite sickening. At least it only tastes this way when it's warm, though. Most energy drinks taste like shredded lawn from the get-go.

Exotic beverage review: Red Eye Power

Red Eye has a fairly good reputation for energy drinks, as far as I'm concerned. All of their drinks are, more or less, entirely drinkable, and Red Eye Power follows suit. It does, unfortunately, suffer from the familiar problem of being absolutely identical to virtually every drink that comes in a 250ml can, with only a scant few exceptions (V, Jugular, Hype, for example).

It smells of sickly-sweet bile, vitamin-B and evil. So, not to put too fine a point on it, it smells like every single other energy drink on the planet. I swear there's a gigantic factory in the jungle somewhere that churns out Red Bull in blank silver cans and farms it off to any company willing to put their catchy title on it.

It doesn't have the weird, immediate "OH DEAR GOD IT'S VOMIT WITH SOAP IN IT" flavour and sensation of Red Bull. It does, however, have the weird chemical flavour. I've never been able to adequately describe the flavour. It's almost like drinking soap, but not as unpleasant. Man, it's hard to come up with a new and exciting description for the SAME FLAVOUR every time. I'd say this one would be, after some consideration, probably 30% on the better side of Red Bull, my benchmark.

The aftertaste is slightly oily, and quite floral. Or (everyone get ready for it).. exactly the same as all the other drinks. The differences between these drinks (if they're even different at all) are so subtle I don't believe it'd be possible to accurately gauge them unless one was to sample them all in sequence. And hell if I'm gonna do that, my stomach lining is questionable enough as it is without adding vast litrage of caffeine and Christ-knows-what into the equation.

Well, it's an energy drink. There's nothing at all wrong with it. It tastes plenty good. However, it doesn't win any originality points, because it's clearly another out-churning of the standard recipe. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Exotic beverage review: Wild NRG

There are so many things wrong with this drink. For a start, it's the only "energy drink" I've yet encountered that comes in a plastic bottle. Secondly, despite being "100% Australian owned, made in Australia with Australian and imported ingredients", the tagline for the drink still uses the Americanis(z?)ed spelling of "Energize" and not "Energise" as the Queen's English would have us former convicts use. And we haven't even considered the taste, yet.

If beer were beige, it'd look like this stuff. Like most energy drinks, it holds its carbonation for about a nanosecond, then goes totally flat.

It smells......interesting. It smells like a bizarre bastardisation of Red Bull and cheap chocolate. The flaky, powdery kind of chocolate. Bad chocolate.

Holy crap, it's tart. Really tart. It hits you like the biggest tart thing that could ever be hurled at you. Oddly the chocolate sensed nasally recurrs to freak out your taste buds, only briefly before the whole affair is engorged in some kind of super-powered fruity tsunami. Also, there's some weird flavour going on on top of all of this that I cannot describe as anything other than the taste of pastry. I'm as afraid as you are. Probably more, as this crap is now inside me.

It settles down fairly nicely to leave you with only the flavour of SUPERFRUIT(tm), which continues to swill around your now-dry mouth, stimulating your saliva glands into dry reaching and ineffectually swelling your cheeks up.

This is another energy drink that falls into the category of "not that bad". That said, it's not fucking great, either, and I don't think I'll be drinking this whole bottle just to prove it.

Exotic beverage review: Red Eye Plus

Yellow, much like its label.

It's astonishingly yellow. Not to put to fine a point on it, it looks like pee. It's got the traditional Red Eye trait of instantly losing all carbonation as soon as the bottle is opened, also.

It smells quite refreshing, actually. There's a vague aroma I can only describe as "dairy", and a hint of vitamin B.

It's not unpleasant. If it were possible to have managed to get energy drinks right, I'd have to say Red Eye are the ones who've succeeded at it. You can taste the unmaskable vitamin B, which shares a flavour with rotten celery, and the dairy smell somehow manifests itself in a taste which is actually kind of chocolate-like.

There's a noticable aftertaste of vitamin B, although it's more of a chemical flavour than the aforementioned tang of rotten celery.

Again, it's not unpleasant. It's not great, all energy drinks that make a big deal out of including vitamin B either suffer from a deplorable taste of rotten celery or from being overly fruity to try to mask the horrid vitamin. This one's kind of a half-way house between the two flavours.

Exotic beverage review: Recharge by Sprite

It's, um, turquoise. I was not expecting turquoise. I've had this stuff before, and all I can recall is that it tasted pretty horrible, so seeing it outside the can was something of a surprise. Recharge by Sprite bottles are coated, head-to-toe, in opaque labels, so even the glass containers provide no hint as to the blue-ness hiding inside. It remains carbonated for a great length of time, also.

Also worth noting is that the Recharge by Sprite cans are exorbitantly lengthy, containing an extra inch of aquamarine goodness. I postulate that a further inch is required to provide the same amount of fluid as in a regular shaped can.

It does not have a strong odour. It vaguely stinks of medicine and vitamins, which is odd as it does not seem to contain the usual myriad vitamins these drinks boast.

It tastes quite medicinal. There's a good portion of earthy vitamin flavours hiding behind it, and there's a zing of something slightly anaesthetic, possibly mint.

The anaesthetic taste/sensation continues, leaving an aftertaste of nothing but medication. I have a suspicion someone switched the vats of genuine Recharge by Sprite with Listerine while the Coca Cola folk weren't looking, because quite frankly, it tastes like mouthwash.

It's blue, tastes like mouthwash and remains fizzy for great lengths of time. Other than that, it's pretty morbid stuff.

Exotic beverage review: Red Bull

It should be noted before going into depth about this particular beverage that it's pasteurised. This is the process they put milk through in order to remove the bits of random cow bacteria that they figure won't be compatible with bits of random human bacteria it's likely to encounter. There's much more to it. But that's still enough to make me wonder what the sweet Christ is in Red Bull (or moreso is no longer in Red Bull) that required a massive dairy-based process to remove.

It looks like beer, albeit a bit browner. It fizzes tremendously upon being opened, and forms a brief head atop the beverage.

It smells like Combantrin worming medication. So, rest assured that while Red Bull may not give you wings, per-se, it'll quite likely rid you of worms. Seriously, though, this stuff smells vaguely toxic.

It tastes like vomit. Chefelf described it as bile, which is much of a muchness when it comes to internal fluids ejected orally. But yes. It's sickening. It tastes like a heavily carbonated combination of worming medicine and vomit. The reason this stuff initiates a gag reflex in me is, I fear, not due to its taste, but due to my body going "Hey, I know this flavour, it goes outward, not in!"

The illusion of consuming spew continues in the aftertaste, which cannot be described more efficiently than "it tastes like you just blew chunks". And possibly attempted to wash your mouth out with worming medicine to remove the taste of expelled bile.

It tastes like puke. With bubbles. And for some reason, I bought a four-pack of it.

Exotic beverage review: Red Eye Gold

My general opinion is that the Red Eye energy drink company tends to make the best energy drinks on the market. This review proves the exception to the rule, as Red Eye Gold is hideously unpleasant. Read on.

It looks like cola. It's a little bit yellower and much less carbonated. Again, as in all Red Eye drinks, the carbonation vanishes once the cap is removed.

It smells vile. It smells like the aroma you get inside an Asian candy store, but where all the candy has spoiled. And mixed together. And it has a strong stink of medicine.

It's ghastly. First sensation is a strong taste of berries, which continues in the aftertaste. On top of the berries are about fourteen layers of shit, including what tastes like I assume bathroom disinfectant would taste like, a strong dusty sensation and the usual vitamin B sensation, which is somewhat odd as this drink contains less vitamin B than the others, according to the label.. It made me cough, also. I was unable to take large sips, as the strength and horridness is quite overpowering. There's an odd medicinal sensation that goes straight up your nose when you drink it.

Strong chemical aftertase. The odd medicinal scent/flavour that goes up your nose remains for an extraordinary length of time. Flavour of rotten celery from the B vitamins also remains. Oddly the initial flavour of the drink is completely gone within seconds.

It tastes like apple and blackcurrant juice with a quart of Dettol in it, sprinkled with rotten celery. It's fucking unpleasant.

Exotic beverage review: Red Eye Extreme

It looks like cheap champagne. It's tinged slightly yellow, which is actually surprising as in traditional energy drink style it comes housed in a green glass bottle to mask its true appearance.

The beverage is "lightly carbonated", which manifests itself as several squillion tiny bubbles clinging to the inside of the glass, as shown in the next photograph. It should be noted that the stuff loses its carbonation at a rate of knots, and leaving it in the glass for any more than a few minutes renders it flat as a tack.

It smells like...those powdery candy bananas everyone used to eat as a child. The ones that are made from the same substance as musk sticks, but taste of banana instead. It also has a mild aroma of some undefined chemical, although it's an energy drink, so this is to be expected. Removing the cap from the bottle produces a fairly large rush of carbonation to the surface of the drink, probably during which the majority of the carbon dioxide escapes, thus beginning the end of the bubbles as mentioned above.

It actually tastes like candy bananas. It's quite pleasant, and not overpowering with any of the usual energy drink flavours (i.e. vegetables, medicine, wee). It loses its flavour quite speedily as the product loses its chill, however, so it's best to either drink it in its entirety while it's still as cold as possible, or refrigerate it and ration it into speedily consumed glasses. A lot of effort, perhaps, but a pleasant tasting energy drink is a rarity at best.

The aftertaste is quite mild. It's basically just a residue of whatever produced the slight chemical odour that was present in the sniffing stage, and it fades quite quickly. The only unpleasance is a slight sugary coating it leaves on the lips and teeth.

Without a doubt the most pleasant energy drink available. Tastes basically like an odd-flavoured soft drink. As for its energy inducing powers, I've not felt anything out of the ordinary. Although having sampled it, I don't feel I need to retch. Perhaps that is out of the ordinary after all.

Exotic beverage: Go Fast

"Not recommended for children; and pregnant or lactating women or caffeine sensitive persons." Warning that's noticably absent is the one stating "Do not drink if your tastes buds work, because you may wish they did not".

"Maximum recommended intake: 1 can per day." Good luck with that. A teaspoon of this stuff should do the trick. You'll have all the energy in the world, and you'll be putting it to good use getting yourself the hell away from the can.

It's slightly darker than beer, and not very fizzy. It's also kind of thick, I think. It seems thick, anyway.

It smells like that horrid mix of really cheap, slightly melted candy you always wind up with just after Christmas. A combination of all the sweets no one ever chooses first, the ones that wind up rotting away at the bottom of the Christmas stocking, eventually finding their own way out of their wrappings and mating with other sweeties to produce horrific, Godzilla-like sweetie creatures. This drink smells like a Godzilla-sweetie.

OH SWEET JESUS CHRIST

It's horrible.

I mean, just.. It's indescribable.

However, I'm going to give it a shot.

The only flavour other than "GENGKnrwjlgbuigYFYTneCRYHJ!#798" that I can discern is that medicinal flavour that kind of tastes like plastic smells when it's been left in the sun until it's gone brittle and powdery. The rest of the drink (and I use the word "drink" with some hesitance) tastes entirely of rotting lawn clippings.

I propose a recipe:

2kg rotting lawn clippings 1L home brand cough medicine 500mL motor oil Sprinkling of powdered, aged plastic Carbonated water to taste

Yum!

This stuff is rancid.

The only good thing I can find about this shit is that the flavour leaves you pretty quickly. Possibly because it's speedily replaced by the flavour of your stomach contents.

Exotic beverage review: Live Wire

This review is a bit awkward. Actually, it's a lot awkward. I've dug up the text of the review from a file on my hard drive. Unfortunately, I can't find any pictures to go with it apart from the crappy camera phone paparazzi shot you see to the right. I'm sorry. On the up side, it's a clone of Red Bull, so the review was bound to be boring anyway.

It's stock-standard energy drink yellow. Perhaps a little more saturated. It's remarkably carbonated, though. Most energy drinks don't retain their carbonation very long, once the can is opened.

It smells pretty much exactly like Red Bull, and it tastes like a super-tart version of Red Bull. It's Red Bull with the flavour of (more) noxious chemicals. It's quite potent, but not entirely unpleasant.

It's quite fragrant, but leaves your mouth feeling exceptionally oily. It's not exactly nice.

Overall, it's an incredibly overpowering version of Red Bull. All things considered, it's not bad. It certainly tastes as though it's giving you energy. If any energy drink is going to give you uncontrollable tremors and destroy your internal organs, it'll probably be this one.

Worst energy drink ever: Jugular

Clearly this is the most alarming blend of ingredients yet encountered. I'm particularly alarmed by the "rare earth blend" of minerals, which makes me suspect the drink contains some kind of powderised powerful magnets, and the totally bizarre "clustered water technology". The can suggests shaking gently prior to opening, which leads me to believe it's probably got some kind of horrible sediment on the bottom that will require some mixing in. Here are some of the awesome ingredients in this crap:

Eleuthorococcus Senticosus root and leaf: This is the botanical name for what we know as Siberian Ginseng, which, according to Wikipedia, cannot be called "Siberian Ginseng" in the US because it isn't the correct genus to be considered a kind of ginseng. Or something.

Aralia Manshurica: It's Russian, and it protects mice from radiation. I shit you not.

Rhaponticum Carthanoides: Animal research has apparently discovered it prevents tumours and enhances brain power. It also contains a lot of syllables.

Rhodiola Rosea: Another Russian ingredient, this one supposedly enhances memory, enhances the immune system, and is used in treating depression, nervous palpitations, erectile dysfunction and infertility in women. Also used for fatigue and insomnia (simultaneously?) as well as altitude sickness.

Schisandra: Despite sounding like an antagonist from an Anne Rice novel, this stuff is also known as Wu Wei Zi berries, and is allegedly a solution to all manner of medical conditions, including Parkinson's disease, depression, adult ADHD and asthma (when mixed with licorice). I quote a wonderful line from the previously linked document, as I'm unable to paraphrase it in a more amusing fashion: "Traditionally, this herb is used to astringe a leaky jing gate (urinary incontinence, leucorrhea, diarrhea, and spermatorrhea) and to reduce excessive sweating." Leaky. Jing. Gate. Wow.

Clustered Water Technology: The official website for Clustered Water Technology(R) appears to have gone the way of the dodo since this review was written, which is unfortunate, as it contained approximately no information whatsoever on what the hell Clustered Water Technology(R) is. This website (which may or may not still exist, but certainly doesn't want to load) contains some more information, and lots more animated .gifs and background images, which exist solely to make the internet awesome. In short, clustered water is a form of hydrogenated water with molecules that group together and become able to traverse between cell walls, decreasing dehydration. Apparently the water is treated with electromagnetic energy and becomes clustered water. I think they created a similar substance in the depths of Chernobyl.

It's pinkish, greyish red. And it's as flat as a tack; it fizzed ferociously when opened, possibly due to the gentle shaking the can insisted upon, then it settled to a totally still red beverage. It's also not transparent, it's vaguely -- and disturbingly -- milky. You cannot see through a glass of Jugular.

It smells absolutely vile. I can draw a comparison with cherry-flavoured medication, but it's not accurate enough. It smells like horribly, horribly bad cherry-flavoured candy, with a hint of aniseed and ridiculous quantities of vitamin-B.

Strangely, it's not as offensive as I would have thought. That's not to say it's pleasant, however. It tastes like cherry-flavoured candy that's been boiled into a liquid and left to ferment in the company of vitamin-B. It's actually quite sweet, but it becomes quickly apparent that the sweetness is a result of artificial sweetening, as it speedily takes on the soapy aftertaste of phenylalanine (or something similar, as said chemical is not listed in the product's ingredients). It becomes slightly more carbonated upon reaching your mouth, so perhaps it's not entirely flat as I'd originally thought. It's n enigma wrapped up in a mystery wrapped up in a can of ghastly, ghastly liquid.

I'm unsure of what taste to expect from "clustered water", as I can taste neither clusters, nor water. This would actually taste alright if it had sugar in it, I think. It suffers from artificial sweetening, and it feels wrong to drink once you've read the ingredients. I'm not able to finish a can of this.

Absolutely no flavour remains after you've sipped, but it does reek horribly of artificial sweetener, leaving you to feel like you've just sucked on a bar of soap for a while.

Totally dubious ingredients. Totally horrendous can artwork. Reasonably unpleasant taste. Overall, it's not unpleasant, but the texture is horrific, and I find it difficult to enjoy a drink that contains sweepings from the underbrush of a rainforest and whatever the hell this clustered water codswallop may be. I believe it's witchcraft, and you're not changing my mind any time soon.

Exotic beverage review: Red Eye Classic

It's similar in colour to V. Dark yellow, lightly carbonated. As in all Red Eye drinks, once the bottle is opened, the carbonation lasts about a nanosecond.

It smells fresh, but decidedly medicinal. It's kinda fruity, but there's a strong smell of vitamin B, which is rarely a good sign.

It's quite pleasant. There's surprisingly little taste of vitamin B, and the fruitiness is strong but not completely overpowering. It tastes a bit like V, really.

After a moment, the vitamin B makes an appearance. A strong herbal aftertaste, but altogether not too unpleasant.

Strong, fruity, and actually not too bad.