Loop

I can usually tell when a given energy drink is a 'budget drink,' and this seems to be the case with the Loop. Usually what tells me an energy drink is a budget drink are the colors on the can, the graphics, and the ingredients. A cheap energy drink will sometimes feature many colors that may or may not work together and some inexpensive and weaker ingredients. I see this with the Loop. This is an energy drink exclusive to Kmart, and it looks the part. The ingredients also look pretty sub-standard, as I see HFCS as a sweetener and very few energy ingredients. These kind of energy drinks are usually not the ones you seek out, nor the ones that Chan and I get too excited about reviewing, but sometimes they can actually be pretty good. An example of a pretty good and inexpensive line of drinks is Rip It. With great flavors like the Citrus X and Atomic Pom, Rip It is an energy drink company that is quality, yet manages to keep the price down. I'm hoping I find that this is also true with the Loop.

I was thinking Loop would be a Monster clone or just a plain bubble-gum energy drink, but I was a little bit surprised to taste that sort of vitaminy plain apple taste, a lot like a Red Bull. I forgot to smell before I tasted it and it was odd that it smelled like cinnamon and grape, just like a weak Monster. I don't know what to call this. I can't adequately describe it, not because it's weird, just because it doesn't have a very distinct flavor. I guess the best way I have to describe it is watered-down Monster, with the sweetener replaced with HFCS, and some sour Vitamin C. Actually, now I think it tastes a little bit like white grape. The color further confuses me, being a very colorful and saturated amber-chartruce, which doesn't go with anything I can think of. Well, maybe lemon-lime. After tasting it, this starts to taste like a little bit of also weak lemon-lime. I could spend days on end trying to find out what this drink tastes like, but I'm going to cut this short and say it tastes like white grape and sweet lemon-lime, but you probably won't have the same idea about it. If I didn't have to pin down a flavor, I'd call this plain sweet and sour.

On kick, Loop does about as well as I'd expect it to. The energy ingredients in here include taurine, D-glucuronolactone, caffeine, inositol, vitamin B3, B5, B6, and B12. None of the amounts are listed, and the commonly seen energy ingredients ginseng and guarana are absent, which tells me they might be left out because they're more expensive than the others. Per serving there are a whopping 31g of sugar, which means a massive 62 per can. That's more than I'm comfortable with and it saddens me to see so much sugar in there without it having any positive effect on the drink. I wish the makers of this drink could've managed to make this drink sweet but also low in sugar without artificial sweeteners. In terms of energy given, Loop gave me less than what a major energy drink would do, with seemingly no boost to start and then a tame and mild alertness that I probably could have gotten from a Coke. The side of the can mentions a 100% money back guarantee, but I bet it's just a marketing tool, meaning nothing. I probably couldn't get my money back for this sorry and weak energy drink.

Taste: 6.3 - Very bland but also sort of refreshing
Kick: 4.5 - Less than mediocre boost that just doesn't cut it
Overall: 5.5 - I would pass on this one

Reviewed by: Jeff