Ed Hardy Orange

Being disappointed about the lack of good drinks out on the market and being reviewed, I wonder if I'll ever find any more perfect energy drinks. I hesitated buying the Ed Hardy Orange at a local BevMo, but I ended up getting it anyways with little confidence. I have found previous Ed Hardy energy drinks to be pretty lame on flavor as well as extremely gummy, being sweetened with only sucrose. To me, if an energy drink is only sweetened with sucrose, and is still extremely gummy, something must wrong with the drink, either a hidden sweetener or something along those lines. An exception with mediocre energy drink is the flavor variation, which in this case, is orange. Orange, it seems, is usually the best when it comes down to energy drinks and all their flavors, so perhaps Ed Hardy Orange will be the best out of all of them. It's can design seems to be particularly neat, being a dangerous looking tiger head snarling with its mouth wide open. The color differentiation is amazing on the tiger, being red, yellow,black, and white, blending in well. The background is just a plain orange with a white font used for various words and phrases.

Opening up the can, Ed Hardy Orange smells most like Talon, but with much less power and an odd sharp taste to back it up. I have to say, I wasn't expecting the color Ed Hardy gave, and to me, it looks most like urine. It just has that dark yellow and cloudy color, plus the carbonation. Honestly, I am the most disappointed with this Orange flavored drink tasting a lot like artificial orange with lemon-lime notes in the background. It has a sense of tonic in the background, resulting in a bitter aftertaste, and to me, tastes a lot like vomit. It reminds me of an orange version of a Max Velocity, only because of the weak flavor and the vomit-like sharpness. Drinking more, I find it tastes vitaminy, just like the FRS Orange and the those Flintstones Vitamins. Ed Hardy really carbonates their energy drinks, almost like a soda, but without the phosphoric acid. After having trouble drinking half the can, I find that dryness in the back of my throat, sort of like the kind you get after drinking cranberry juice, I guess you can consider that gumminess. Overall, Ed Hardy had a weird flavor to it, almost indescribable. It tasted at least decent until the flavor really sunk in and delivered the artificial, vitaminy, sharp orange flavor with the dry aftertaste.

Ed Hardy's ingredients are fairly simple yet they differ from some other energy drinks. They go as following: carbonated water, sucrose, citric acid, taurine, natural and artificial flavors, caramel color, ascorbic acid, caffeine, glucuronolactone, sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, niacin, inositol, Vitamin B, and riboflavin. I'm glad to see an energy drink classic, sucrose, but just sucrose by itself doesn't produce enough sweetness, which was what happened in this drink. I'd say a pro to Ed Hardy is really that there's not one trace of Sucralose in this entire can, making it more enjoyable. A handful of energy drinks lack needed energy ingredients to help produce actual energy, like guarana and ginseng, this beverage lacks it. Per can, you get a minimal 220 calories and only 56g of sugar, just a tad bit more than a Monster, but definitely not as good. For a light drink like this, I'm surprised to see even that much sugar and that high of an amount of calories. All I see in terms of energy ingredients is taurine, which is an average 2000mg. Hm, no caffeine amounts are noted, interesting. All in all, Ed Hardy was lame, but addicting, for it got a bit tastier towards the end of the can, but yet not nearly as good as a Monster. I feel Ed Hardy is a complete let down in the energy drink community.

Taste: 6.7 - In general, a lame vitaminy orange flavor, but improves towards the end
Kick: 7 - The kick isn't nearly as great as an average energy drink, due to the lack of guarana and ginseng
Overall: 6.8 - Don't let the fierce tiger on the can lure you into grabbing a can of these...

Reviewed by: Chan