Alcoholic energy drinks a double shot of yuck
Sleep is for wussies. In fact, so is sobriety.
If you believe that, you should have come along for my drinking journey of Bull Blasters, Cherry Bombs, Budweiser B-to-the-E and “energetic” malt liquors with label descriptors akin to “amped,” “charged” and “dude, I’m like totally wiggin’ out, man.”
I’m referring to alcoholic energy drinks.
These cocktails were inspired by Red Bull, the carbonated beverage created for people willing to sacrifice good taste in order to stay up all night with the chipper twittering tweak one might get from 20 cups of coffee.
After Red Bull stormed the market, some nameless bartending genius came up with the idea to mix it with alcohol: mostly vodka or syrupy, licorice-flavored Jagermeister.
Apparently it’s not enough to dull someone’s ability to form coherent thoughts – it’s better to have those same jumble-minded drinkers wagging their loose tongues at a million miles per minute.
Shortly following the Bull-cocktails explosion, energy malt liquors such as Sparks and Liquid Charge started appearing in grocery stores. Budweiser also released an energy beer, called B-to-the-E, in late 2004.
All contain taurine and caffeine, the same wing-sprouting base ingredients as Red Bull, but some also include ginseng and guarana to hype you up.
Makes one wonder what happened to the days of sipping a drink to unwind.
Anyway, since no self-respecting cocktail connoisseur would choke down one of these concoctions without first losing a bet, I decided to take one for the team and scope out the adrenaliquor craze.
After weeks of sleepless nights, it’s time to report my findings.
Mixed feelings
Any bar-frequenter knows the Bull Blaster by reputation if not by flavor.
This Jagermeister and Red Bull concoction is famous for keeping revelers rough and rowdy far past closing time.
The Bull Blaster usually is served in a cocktail glass – but don’t let this fool you. I made the mistake of sipping it at first, but this baby is mixed to be pounded.
Why? It tastes like green cough syrup and has only a slightly thinner consistency. In other words, it’s nasty.
After being underwhelmed by the Blaster, I moved on to something called the Cherry Bomb (Red Bull and cherry vodka).
While the Vodka lightened the thickness, the Bomb still tasted like that cherry cough syrup mom lovingly spoon-fed us during childhood sicknesses.
Which is great, if that’s your thing.
Those two drinks did me in as far as mixed energy drinks go; an ulcer is the last thing a growing boy needs. Plus, I was holding out for something better.
Do the can-can
Believe it or not, the canned malt liquor and beer-based energy drinks surpassed the cocktails in flavor and feeling. They were sweet without being offensive and didn’t leave me feeling like a wino on uppers. And most grocery stores carry them for around $1.50 per can.
Here’s the breakdown:
Budweiser B-to-the-E (“Beer with something extra”):
Alcohol by volume (ABV): 6.6%
Ingredients: Beer, caffeine, ginseng and guarana extract, natural flavor
Color: The window-pane yellow of light beer
Impressions: B-to-the-E tasted like Budweiser with a twist; it’s the average macro-brew, but leaves a strong dose of sweet chemical- saturation on the tongue. A drinking buddy said it was like Bud with a little Red Bull in it.
Liquid Charge (“The most cutting-edge flavored malt beverage”)
ABV: 6.9%
Ingredients: Taurine, guarana, caffeine, ginseng extract
Color: Light amber
Impressions: One of my drinking comrades said this tasted as if it had “too much taurine in it.”
Though none of us knows what taurine tastes like, his statement may be true. This drink had too much of something in it.
It was overly sweet and the only purely drain-dumpable drink of the bunch.
Sparks (“Premium malt beverage”; regular and light versions):
ABV: 6%
Ingredients: Caffeine-citric acid blend, taurine, guarana-siberian ginseng blend, natural flavor unit, certified color, FD&C Yellow No. 5
Color: Dark orange-yellow, like beer mixed with Orange Crush
Impressions: Sparks smelled like a melted Otter Pop and kind of tasted like one, too. Better yet, it tasted like a graveyard soda-pop mixture with a heavy emphasis on orange. And believe it or not, it’s the best of the bunch.
As a bonus, the light version tasted almost exactly like the sugar-filled one, with roughly 181 calories per 16 ounce can to the regular’s 350 (according to calorieking.com).
A full can made me feel excited, talkative, jittery and surprisingly honest. People who tend to be classified as motor-mouths after a couple of drinks will want to stay away from this one. Heck, they should stay away from this genre of drink altogether.
After drinking Sparks, I couldn’t force my brain to sleep, though my body really wanted to. But hey, that’s what alcoholic energy drinks are all about.