Cola Wars (General Soft Beverage Thread)

I honestly don’t get why American Energy drinks aren’t better. Most people I know say they don’t taste great, or at best, taste kinda like a regular soda. Meanwhile, we’re getting stuff like V(Sour apples) along with their other flavors(Like Tortured Orchard which is raspberry and Lemonade, or Forbidden Fruits, which is Peaches and Nectarines), or Mother, which also has a bunch of pretty good flavors.

American energy drinks are a lifestyle product. The average person doesn’t occasionally pick up an energy drink like they would a soda. Red Bull is for adults who think they’re swingers. Monster is for metalheads, gamers, and kids who want to be cool but aren’t hardcore enough to drink alcohol. Coffee is for ‘adults’.

I don’t see that. In the city, Redbull is everywhere, and people casually drink it like any other soda all the time.

And outside of New York, that also seems to be the case with a lot of my friends - though, admittedly, it might be a demographic thing.

That may be the case, but I don’t think that entirely explains why they just don’t taste that good. I’ve had a lot of US energy drinks, and approximately half to three quarters of them taste like you’re drinking caffeinated men’s shower gel. Forbidden fruits, on the other hand, I’d straight-up drink it as just a regular, non-caffine soda, it’s delicious. Why would you not want your lifestyle drink to taste delicious?

Redbull is delicious :wink:

But no, every other American “energy drink” tastes like concentrated regular soda. It’s garbage.

I think it’s alright. I don’t hate it, or even think it’s that bad, definitely wouldn’t turn down a free one, it’s just that it doesn’t really manage to crack the top ten of the energy drinks I’ve had, and if it can’t even crack the top ten, I can’t really call it great. I suppose technically you could put it in the top ten if you just went by brand rather than individual flavors, but not the top five.

They do keep releasing all these other Redbull flavors. Some of them are really bold and interesting. But they seem to come and go randomly, and I rarely encounter them in stores…

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Yeah, I don’t see them around much either. I have seen them, but rarely. And I don’t think we get anywhere near the same number of flavors - I’ve only really seen the cranberry, lime, and blueberry around. And Cola, back when that was still a thing.

I miss that one.

Me Too! Though honestly, I think I’m the only person I know locally that liked it at all, everyone else seemed rather put off by it, everyone else I know who liked it is either American or European.

shrug I found Monster Energy Ultra Zeros to fill the bill for “Morning Coffee Substitute” Grape flavoring can cover a multitude of sins.

Redbull is terrible, all of you are thought criminals for liking it.

In all seriousness the ubiquity of Redbull is down to marketing, first mover (in the sense that it was the first mainstream energy drink) and the bro/party market for redbull based drinks and shots “you can party harder longer man!”

My personal pref. is Monster Rehabs (specifically peach tea or lemonade flavor).

Frankly, I find energy drinks to be disgusting. They taste like Mountain Dew supercharged with extra caffeine.

As for how Red Bull got so big, there’s an interesting story behind it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v48tIsMuZE8

This may be local to me in Portland, OR, but very flavorful energy drinks have been exploding in popularity here lately. Brands, like Bang and Reign (a subsidiary of Monster and obvious ripoff of Bang), have popped up and became hits overnight whiles others, like Hiball, have been doing it for a while. I kind of assumed this was happening everywhere but seems it may be local here.

I like Red Bull for their aviation contributions. Outside of that you won’t catch me drinking it much. Not that it’s even bad, I just have no draw to it.

Meanwhile if I do have a hankering for an energy drink I’mma go straight up MONSTER brooooo.

I don’t like it, but, I don’t not like it. And I know it. So I just go back to it. It’s got an appeal in that it is so fucking obnoxiously intense, that you know you’re sippin’ some sweet venom and it better fucking wake you up cuz its got your tastebuds ripshit. There’s a bunch of other stuff I see now in stores. All the military bros seem to be about Bang and Reign, and the truckers I know have told me more stuff than I’ll ever care to remember about which stops have their favorite boutique potions, (which is to say someone once discussed it one time while we were hanging out getting high in the back of their cab while watching music videos, but it seemed like a big deal.)

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The Monster zero-cal and Rehab flavors are actually pretty good. There’s no sacrine taste with them, and they’re not as thick and syrupy as the “mainline” flavors.

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Yep, pre-rehab I was drinking the lowcal and nocal monsters. Both were wholly artificial tasting, but in a nostalgic Blue Hug drink beverage way.

I agree but what category would it fit in? I tried Googling it to find other similar sodas and that was the only category I could find anyone putting it in.

I’d really consider it an herbal soda since its main flavorant is a bitter herb root.

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Monster is so crazy gross sweet, especially original green.