Kick Brix Energy Chews
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If you keep up with Caffeine Guru reviews, it’s pretty obvious that the non-drink part of the caffeine market is rapidly expanding. Luckily for us, we’ve got our hand on one of the newest products on the market: Kick Brix. Kick Brix are caffeinated energy chews that promise “A monster kick without the bull.” After trying these things out, I have to agree. Kick Brix come individually wrapped and come in both 5-chew bags and economy sized tubs (good for the office or the kitchen counter). To best understand this product, think of large Starbursts packed with caffeine (is your mouth watering yet? 
)
At the moment, Kick Brix come in two flavors, “Citrus” and “Berry Blast”. The 5-chew bag comes with both flavors, so we can check out both of them today. When you pop of these chews in your mouth, you’ll notice that at first they’re a little hard. After a second or two though, they soften up and are no problem at all to chew. Another thing I noticed, which I found interesting, was the chews strong menthol taste. The addition of menthol really makes these things stand out and it gives a relaxing feeling as the menthol clears your sinuses and throat. The first flavor, Berry Blast, comes in the red wrapper and is the slightly darker of the first two, whereas the Citrus flavor comes in orange wrapper and is a little lighter. Both flavors have the added menthol and have a hint of a fruit in them. The Citrus one has a more orange-based taste, and the Berry Blast tastes like, well, berries. To be honest, it’s hard for me to put my finger on the exact flavor due to the menthol, but they both taste great and are quite enjoyable.
Kick Brix only have 25 calories per chew, are sugar free, and contain 300mcg (1500%) of Vitamin B12. Also, these each contain a 150mg blend of panax ginseng, taurine, and caffeine. For those of you wondering about the amount of caffeine, each chew packs a punch of 90mg of caffeine per chew.
If you want to try some Kick Brix for yourself, they are currently having a promotion and are giving away free samples at their website!
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GURU Juicy: Superfruit
GURU’s newest addition to their lineup of non-carbonated energy drinks is also an addition to the GURU Juicy lineup. Introducing GURU Juicy: Superfruit, a caffeinated concoction with a plethora of juices that comes with a USDA organic certification. Superfruit comes in a bright red can and a bubbly background, like some of the other GURU drinks. This drink is also 100% natural, and, like all of the other drinks from GURU Beverages, contains no high fructose corn syrup or any other unnatural ingredients.
Superfruit lives up to its name with a really fruit smell. After opening the can, you’ll realize that this drink smells exactly like Hawaiian Punch (or Tahitian Treat, whichever your prefer) and has a light red, almost pinkish, color to it; it’s similar to the pinkish band on the top of the can. While this variety of Juicy doesn’t taste like Hawaiian Punch, it still tastes great with its medley of exotic fruits like yumberry, black currant, açai, and pomegranate. Having it be that this drink uses interesting fruits, it’s difficult to describe the flavor, as I can’t think of anything else that tastes similar to it.
As for the caffeine content, while Juicy has a different taste than the other GURUs, it’s energy blend is the exact same. If you’re too lazy to read my other posts on GURU drinks, I’ll restate the caffeine content here too for you. This drink contains 97mg of caffeine per 8.3fl oz. serving, so about 145mg per 12oz can. The proprietary blend is 1285mg per serving and consists of the standard guarana extract, panax ginseng, and ginkgo biloba mix, with an added Echinacea flower extract.
To summarize this drink, GURU Juicy: Superfruit delivers a nice boost of energy without carbonation of HFCS, and comes with an interesting, and delicious, flavor. You can find this drink in some health food stores, or you can buy it online (use PROMO CODE: Caffeine_GURU10% for 10% off).
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24:7 Cherry Berry
24:7 Energy is one of the many available energy drinks on the markets and one of the many flavors is Cherry Berry. You can find 24:7 exclusively at Walgreens for about 3/5$, which is a little steeper price than it’s worth. Either way, no matter how high the price, I feel an obligation to society to try any product I cross paths with. Now that I’ve ranted about prices and societal obligations, let’s get to the actual drink. 24:7 Cherry Berry comes in a can similar to the other varieties; the can has a Matrix-like print style on the lower half, and a large digital 24:7 on the top half. This drink doesn’t live up to it’s name, as if it did provide 24/7 energy I would stop reviewing other drinks and invest all of my assets in PriLabs Inc (the manufacturer). However, if you constantly drink this you will stay up 24/7. Well at least until you stop drinking it, or die of an overdose of caffeine, whatever comes first!
Appropriately, this drink has a red color, but it’s a little lacking in the flavor. While 24:7 Cherry Berry does down smoothly due to its low carbonation, the taste is sour and kind of tastes like cough syrup. It’s not as nasty as cough syrup, it’s just the same cherry flavor, although the sourness makes this just as enjoyable of Kid’s Tylenol Cough Syrup (which isn’t good at all). The drink seems more like diluted cherry syrup than a carbonated energy beverage because it tastes artificial and unhealthy. Part of me thinks this may be a bad can, and it expired before the expiration date or something, and I may try it again in the future to confirm whether or not it’s this bad. Neither the site, nor the can, list the caffeine content, although I’ve read elsewhere that each can contains 160mg of caffeine. I think this may keep me up 24/7 after all as I might have nightmares from this.
Redline Ultimate Energy and Power Rush
Today we have a double review. Redline Energy is a drink that comes in an 8oz bottle and a 2.5oz energy shot. Both of the bottles are berry flavored and come in a blue bottle with a screw on cap.
Starting with the energy shot, this variant of Redline comes in the 2.5oz bottle and contains 350mg of caffeine per bottle, which is quite a lot! The bottle suggests only 1/2, or 1/4 at a time, as to avoid over stimulation. Because I’m checking out two drinks today, I think I’ll follow their advice. The Redline Energy shot smells fruity and ‘exotic’ just as the bottle advertises. The taste is pretty good at first, but after a few seconds, it becomes extremely sour, as there’s no sugar in this. The bitterness will go straight for your cheeks and cause a soft of an involuntary puckering. While the taste leaves a bit to be desired, the kick is worth the flavor. Redline Power Rush! also contains 2083% of your daily B12 (per serving, so double that if you have the whole thing). The nice thing about the Power Rush! is that there’s no sugar so there’s no crash after the energy boost.
Moving on to the Redline Triple Berry Ultimate Energy Rush (that’s quite a mouthful). After I opened this, I realized it smells just like the Power Rush!, but smells sweeter. Lo and behold, this drink is a lot less bitter than the other power shot. While this one is sweeter, and less bitter, there is still a small hint of bitterness that will make you pucker just a little. Once again however, there is a trade off; the Triple Berry Redline contains only 250mg of caffeine per bottle, 100mg less than the power shot, even though the Triple berry is 3x the size. The kick of Redline Energy Rush is still good though, as 250mg is still a hefty amount of caffeine.
Both of these products are worth it, while I don’t like the bitterness them, there’s not much else that can be done with their low sugar content and high concentration of caffeine. Both are worth it though if you need a quick boost during the day.
