Jolt Wild Grape

Jolt is a unique energy drink company. They were one of the first to dream up the idea of highly-caffeinated soda and make it mainstream with their slogan, "All the sugar, twice the caffeine." Well, some odd years later, we have Jolt, now in a handful of flavors in addition to cola, with the unique 24oz "battery" cans, featuring the special resealable caps. Well, here's another pristine example of Jolt's innovation with the revolutionary resealable 16oz cans nobody's done before. What exactly does a resealable can mean for energy junkies? Well, it means the choice of saving your 16oz-er for later, for those who can't restraint themselves or those who don't care for a whole can. What it also means is a special treat for the ears while opening the can; you achieve that wonderful POP Jolts are notorious for. It's a win-win situation until you think about the price; I think I payed a bit too much for this (in excess of 3 dollars), but I knew I had to have it. I trust, however, that as this grows in popularity, the price will begin to drop.

I resurrected Spawn of Uamenti just for this very special occasion and I opened the lid hoping for the pop, but unfortunately there was no pop and more of a hiss and rush of air. I took a long whiff and the smell was your characteristic deep purple grape flavor, kind of like cough syrup, but more natural and with some great zing. The smell is delicious, but a little bit flat compared to the Nos Grape, in my mind. However, I find that it is quite a bit more robust. When I take a sip, I'm hoping for the same thing, but I find there's less robustness to it and it tastes a bit flat still. To describe it in greater detail, the beginning of the sip is just sweet enough and then some mild but coarse carbonation comes in and gives the drink some nice texture, which I like. What's good is that the carbonation isn't foamy and doesn't linger for long. Then, as with many drinks, the grape flavor comes in halfway through and gets stronger until oddly, it just disappears. Chan has remarked upon this, the situation where a drink suddenly loses nearly all its flavor at the end of each sip. This is a bad thing if you're trying to drink slowly, since you lose the flavor and crave more soon after every sip. I think what Jolt was trying to encourage was a rapid intake, and now that I think about it, it's quite a genius idea, to make the flavor disappear after every sip. As I've explained, you'll crave the drink more after every sip, which does two things. For one, it makes you take more frequent sips so that you're likely to run out sooner and buy more, but what may be less obvious is that this means a greater percieved kick. Because you'll be drinking faster, this means the energy ingredients are taken in faster and you have a greater boost. I'm confident Jolt knew what they were doing when they designed this and all of their drinks and I find it brilliant. Already, by the end of this paragraph, I'm completely finished with the can. What I've observed is that this is a more mild, subtle grape flavor in comparison to grape soda and the Nos Grape, a drink I quite enjoyed for it strength. This Jolt seems to be lacking strength but is still good in general. Average soda drinkers shouldn't be disappointed while, someone like me, who is used to a quality drink like Monster might find this lacking. I'm optimistic about the kick, however.

Well, after about 8 hours, I have a mixed opinon about the drink. For a short period of about two or three hours, Jolt does provide a sizeable jolt, as you would expect. But what troubled me was, about 8 hours later, long after the slow, steady kick following the caffeine boost, my energy levels plummeted, leaving me tired and apathetic. I wasn't at all expecting a crash so severe from a Jolt, but I suppose the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Anyway, for ingredients, Jolt has: Carbonated Water, HFCS, Taurine, Citric Acid, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Caffeine, Sodium Benzoate, Red #40, Guarana Seed Extract, Panax Ginseng Root Extract, Blue #1, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Niacin, Calcium Pantothenate, Thiamine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin.

The drink also has 210 Calories total and 26g of sugar per serving, 52g per can.

Taste: 8.4 - A quality grape you can expect from Jolt, however, a bit flat
Kick: 6 - A respectable caffeine kick, but with a ghastly crash
Overall: 7.8 - Rather drink one casually

Reviewed by: Jeff

Archer Farms Wild Berry

Ah, just as I thought I was finished reviewing Archer Farms drinks, Target's line of energy drinks, in other words, I find a whole new row of perhaps 5 or 6 new Archer Farms. These are just a bit different than that of the original three, being in a 12 ounce can, new blends, and just a tad more expensive. Now, I do recall getting 16 ounce Archer Farms for about 89 cents per can, but the mark-up on these 12 ounce cans substantial, being $1.79 per can. I can be pretty sure these are more expensive because, what really isn't expensive right now? Oh well, if the price is around reasonable, I'm likely to pick it up and review it, so that's what I did with this one, and a few others. I wanted to review Wild Berry first because Wild Berry is such a mysterious flavor, as if it's tough to actually make a good one. From past experiences with Wild Berry, I've found them to taste all different, and some being gummy, others not. Wild Berry really is a vague term to name an energy drink; wild berry could basically mean any or all berries out there, for which there are many types. When berry comes to one's head, usually they think of raspberries, blueberries, cherries, etc., when really those are a form of modified berries, which the fruit is formed from other parts of the flower. A true berry is a type of fleshy fruit in which the entire ovary wall ripens into an edible pericarp, which include the tomato, grape, lychee, loquat, lucuma, plantain, avocado, persimmon, eggplant, guava, uchuva (ground cherry), and chili pepper. Hm, wild berry, well I think I get what Archer Farms means.

Opening up the can, I find a wild berry scent that's a bit plain and could be described as hard cherry, blueberry, raspberry, and a bit of blackberry. When it pours out of the can I see a shocking and questionable key lime/lime green color, which I see is more common nowadays, being that wild berry is a mixture of colors. Well, unlike what my nose picked up, I taste it and I'm decently surprised to find a berry flavor that Archer Farms did a darn good job on. It can be described as a very sweet blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, light notes of cherry, and just a bit of boysenberry, but with a certain brightness, as in, all the flavors are brought out and all attack the taste buds. Seeing this and basing on previous experiences, I'm nearly positive it does not contain high fructose corn syrup, and as I check, I'm right, it's sugar or sucrose. Tasting more of it, I grin as I find an aftertaste that's mostly burnt berry, as if it did have high fructose corn syrup. As if the aftertaste wasn't enough, it's extremely gummy, which leaves me wondering what triggers this gumminess: the sweetener, or the flavor? For the most part, Wild Berry energy drinks tend to be pretty gummy, and sucrose doesn't tend to bring gumminess, so I'm going to leave it at wild berry to blame. On a lighter note, the gumminess is mild and nicely done. Topping it off, I'll conclude the upfront taste was a tasty, irresistible mixture of modified berries until the burnt aftertaste comes in and sort of ruins most of the prominent flavors.

As for ingredients, Archer Farms really doesn't differ, between, say, a Monster. Looking at the nutrition and ingredients, it seems to copy everything about a Monster, calories, main ingredients, and energy ingredients. Here's the ingredients list, to start off: water (carbonated), sugar (sucrose), ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), citric acid, sodium benzoate,potassium sorbate, ginseng, caffeine, niacin, natural flavors, guarana, calcium phosphate, taurine, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin, Sucralose, cyanocobalamin, and caramel color. Once again, seeing sucrose is always cool in an energy drink. Vitamin C, ginseng, caffeine, guarana are all good as well, especially as high as it is on the list. Of course, it wouldn't be a new energy drink if it didn't have Sucralose in it, but I guess it's okay if it doesn't make too much of a difference in the taste. Per 12 ounce can, you get an average 150 calories and a low 36g of sugar. I always like seeing a low sweetened energy drink with the perfect amount if sweetness. Energy ingredients are undisclosed, but that's all right, perhaps it's average if it gave me a nice boost. It lasted about a good 2 hours with mostly energy, not really focus. So, concluding the review, I'll say I was impressed and kicked off the start of a new line of Archer Farms drinks real well.

Taste: 8.4 - Nice, smooth wild berry flavor with a tasy zing and a snap to finish it off
Kick: 7 - Not bad for a 12 ounce can, also suggesting the energy ingredients are average
Overall: 8 - I can't wait to crack open a few more of these new drinks and review them...

Reviewed by: Chan