Jolt Cola -- the evening study fuel of many a cramming student and the precursor to caffeine-packed energy drinks like Red Bull -- may soon be no more.
Jolt Co. Inc. filed for bankruptcy last year after racking up more than $5 million in debt to a Chicago can manufacturer. The company was optimistic about restructuring, but plans fell apart this week, putting the future of the double-caffeinated cola into jeopardy, a Jolt attorney told the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.
"The name will show up someplace else, but just that," William I. Kohn of Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff told the paper. "I don't see anybody buying the entire package."
Jolt founder Carl J. Rapp, who started the company in 1985, fought the restructuring of the company and blamed its current situation on an investment group that owns a large stake in the company, the paper reports.
Will you miss Jolt Cola? Spill it in the comments.
Sparks, the "caffeinated alcohol beverage with a blend of caffeine, taurine, guarana and ginseng extract," has been around since 2002 and has been owned by Miller since 2006, so it certainly isn't a new phenomenon. However, a number of questionable decisions recently have led to a massive backlash against the beverage and may well spell the end of alcohol/energy drink hybrids on the market.
General sentiment has been building that caffeinated alcohol beverages pose a risk to drinkers, especially for younger and underage drinkers who the beverages' detractors believe the products directly target. In fact, last summer, Anheuser-Busch received enough pressure that they eventually stopped making caffeinated-alcohol products. However, MillerCoors managed not only to slip by, but appears to have decided to do some flaunting.
First, the company announced they would be releasing Sparks Red this October, an addition to the Sparks product line that will have as much as 8% alcohol by volume -- a significant step up from the original Sparks' 6% ABV. Then there was backlash against what many considered to be a raunchy and unethical advertising campaign.
Well, they got publicity, but probably not what they were hoping for. As of yesterday, district attorneys from 25 states have called for the cancellation of the Sparks Red launch and, last week, the Center for Science in the Public Interest sued MillerCoors to stop selling Sparks all together. Public opinion seems to be shutting this industry down.
By now, you all know I have an odd fascination with energy drinks. Part of the reason is that my over-stressed, overworked and underslept body body need them -- I think I've had so much coffee in my life already that I've developed a tolerance to the effects of the caffeine in it. Part of the reason is that...nothing. I don't know why else I would want to drink a beverage that almost always tastes like over-sweetened Capri Sun with the bitter chemical aftertaste of say, nail polish remover.
Okay, so that's a little harsh.
It doesn't really taste like Capri Sun.
Now there is a new class of drinks that takes energy to the next level. These drinks claim not to be zero calories, but negative calories, because the chemical formulation actually causes you to, well, burn calories. Granted, energy drinks do the same, since technically, with all that increased "energy," you will run around like a chicken with her head cut off. If you recall, we posted about Enviga last year, which has the same marketing spiel - drink a can of Enviga, you potato del couch, and you will lose weight just sitting there eating Flamin' Hot Cheetos dipped in Blue Cheese Dressing! (I did not try this, but don't think I wouldn't). I tried Enviga. I didn't lose weight.
Celsius is a new energy drink in this category. I tried it. It was...interesting.
It isn't really fair to call this review a "taste test," because I have basically resigned to the fact that any energy drink, no matter who makes it, tastes horrible. Even Diet Coke, which could be considered an energy drink if you take into account the caffeine, is an energy drink, and the taste is starting to wear on me. A lot. That's what two to three cans of soda a day will do to you. It wears you down.
G Pure Energy comes from Norwegian Ole Sandberg, the maker of high end water, Voss. If you didnt' know that intellectually, you'd certainly be able to sense it from the bottle's design. The bottle, like Voss' bottle, is made of glass, and is topped with the signature large silver screw-on top. This bottle, however, has a curve, which could be interepreted and sexy and gorgeous, or maybe a little scary -- you know, like someone drank a little too much G Pure Energy and gripped the bottle too hard. (And that with the bottle's even being glass!)
Bolivian coca growers are urging the Coca-Cola Co. to eliminate the word "Coca" from the name of its popular soft drink because of the leaf's importance in that Andean nation's culture.
A commission representing the coca industry passed a resolution earlier this week urging the Atlanta-based soft-drink giant to strike "coca" from its name and asking the U.N. to decriminalize coca leaf. The resolution demands "international companies that include in their commercial name the name of coca (example: Coca Cola) refrain from using the name of the sacred leaf in their products." Bolivia's coca farmers have yet to weigh in on the controversial energy drink Cocaine.
For its part, Coca-Cola said that its trademark is protected by Bolivian law. The company also repeated past denials that the soda has ever used cocaine as an ingredient.
Last fall, we mentioned Enviga, the new energy drink from Coca Cola and Nestea. The drink isn't just a "diet drink," because it is low in calories, but it touts an ability to burn calories with ingredients like caffeine, calcium and most importantly, "naturally active plant micronutrients that allegedly increase the body's rate of calorie burning." Not low calorie. Not even zero calories. Negative calories!
It sounded way too good to be true -- could someone just sit around on the couch all day drinking Enviga and lose 10 pounds? To be quite honest, I am not as concerned about the true ability for Enviga to burn calories, but relying more and more on energy drinks these days to get through a mountain of work, I was curious about how the "energy" part of the drink and its taste stacked up to my current favorite, Tab Energy. Would Enviga unseat the incumbent? I bought a case of the drinks the other day because they were on sale.
After an insane multi-week phase last month when I could not force myself to sleep for more than three hours a night, I am trying my hardest to rely on natural sources of energy. I have turned away as much as I can from things like energy drinks in favor of plain old water, pure personal adrenaline, and natural sugar energy from fruit. (I haven't given up coffee. What am I? Crazy?)
A new beverage from Steaz just might make me break because though it is marketed as an "energy drink," all of the energy sources are natural -- green tea, yerba mate, acai, and guarana. I realize that many of the ingredients in products like Red Bull and Monster could also be counted as "natural," but have you seen a glass of red bull in a darkened room? There is nothing natural about the fact that it literally glows.
Steaz Energy comes from the makers of Guayaki and Sambazon, so not only does their drink provides energy, but the natural and organic ingredients are sourced from sustainable, local producers. The Ceylon tea ingredient is Fair Trade Certified. An energy drink with a conscience!
I was just reading some beverage trade magazines and was amazed at the numbers in the energy drinks category. I hadn't realized they were that big, and so many people were chugging them down in the morning to wake up, in the afternoon to keep focused, and at night to stay awake or mixed with spirits for a buzz bomb. I started asking friends if they used them and several said yes, and in a big way. A few said they drink 2, 3, 4, or even more in one day. I was flabbergasted, I guess because I am so sensitive to caffeine that even the lower levels of the very tasty Inkos White Tea Energy made my hair stand straight up and I ran around in circles for hours.
The energy drink figures looked at the calender year from Oct 2005 to Oct 2006 (excluding Wal-Mart Sales) and of course the top seller is Red Bull with around $262 million, out of about $600 million in sales for the top ten. Red Bull is so far ahead of the rest in sales that the next seven combined barely add up to the same amount. The rest of the list in order by approximate dollar amount of sales are: Monster $81 million, Rockstar $67 Million, Full Throttle $40 million, Sobe No Fear $32 million, Amp $23 million, Sobe Adrenaline Rush $19 million, Tab Energy $11 million, Monster XXL $5 million, and private labels at $5 million.
For his science experiment this year, a middle school student from Boca Raton, Florida decided that he would test the effects of energy drinks on blood sugar. He came up with the idea because the drinks are hugely popular with his friends who feel that the drinks give them a "boost" and was already familiar with blood sugar and testing it because his cousin is a diabetic. Lucas Peel's hypothesis was that the drinks with the greatest amount of sugar and caffeine would produce the greatest increase in blood sugar, giving the drinker a burst of energy.
Over the course of about a week, Lucas drank Red Bull, Rock Star, Amp and water, testing his blood sugar levels twice after each of the three times he tried each drink. He found that, contrary to his original theory, it was "the energy drinks with the least sugar [that] increased blood sugar level." Red Bull boosted blood sugar more than any of the other drinks.
Lucas says that he avoids energy drinks and hopes that his project will help some of his fellow students to realize that they are not a good replacement for a real breakfast.
This isn't the first time that a middle-school student has conducted a science project that attracts a far-ranging interest. Earlier this year, for example, a student in Tampa, FL tested samples of water from the toilets at fast food restaurants and compared it to the ice from the soda machines, only to discover that there were more bacteria in the soda machine than the toilet.
I met the folks at Inko's White Tea, the "healthy ice tea" for the first time two years ago at a food event and tried their tasty, mild, and sophisticated products. Since then I have run into them several times at events and shows, always with a new flavor to try. It's a bummer I haven't seen their products yet in any of my local stores, since I enjoyed them so much. Now they are breaking into the energy drink market with Inko's White Tea Energy. It's made with white tea, ginger, lemon, and other natural flavors and is the only "tea caffeine" based energy drink on the market. It doesn't have the super high caffeine levels of some of the other energy drinks and gives long lasting and sustained, jitter free energy. Studies show that white tea has many positive effects on health so this may be the first, actually healthy, energy drink on the market.
Man, I can't believe I let a whole decade of ambivalence separate me from what is now proving to be both my savior and my downfall, the nitrous fuel for the racecar that is myself... red bull. They're small, they're expensive, but if I drink more than two of them in the same afternoon, I'll be up for the next 24 hours.
A careful examination of the labels will show you that Red Bull and most of its contemporaries, such as Monster and Rock Star, operate on the same ingredients: Taurine, b complex vitamins, caffeine. But unlike, say, Rock Star, Red Bull packs a little miracle worker called Glucuronolactone, this is the stuff that should be in the tap water instead of flouride, if ya ask me. It's supposed to give you a feeling of well-being. Brother, you had me at hello.
Pounding that six-pack of Diet Coke do nothing but bloat you? Does it feel like someone replaced your usual brew with decaf? You could try any number of energy drinks out there, but those don't seem to do much except make your stomach turn over. You need more! More caffeine! More energy! More attitude!
More of a drug-like effect?
Apparently, the latest energy drink to hit the fast and furious market already filled with the likes of Monster, Red Bull, and Rockstar boasts the ultimate high -- one that feels like a cocaine high. Cocaine Energy Drink doesn't contain any cocaine, but with 280 mg of caffeine, it promises the "highest energy content of ANY energy drink on the market today! 350 percent greater than The Bull!"
As you would expect, drug experts, nutritionists, and parents are alarmed. However, James Kirby, the inventor of the drink, says that it does not glamorize nor promote drugs. He said, "Maybe this can help by making parents and kids not afraid to talk about drugs."
Uh, excuse me, Mr. Kirby? He must have been on something when he said something as stupid as that.
At first, it used to be easy to pick an energy drink alternative because there was only one: Red Bull. But in the last few years, the market has exploded, and befittingly so, since people of all ages are gulping them down in shots to stay energized. It's hard to keep those predominantly tall, narrow cans plastered with exclamation points straight, so Maxine Kaplan, a college student with a caffeine addiction, taste tests five popular drinks on the market now: Arizona Green Tea Energy,Monster,Red Bull,Rock Star, and Tab Energy. She judged how they tasted, and let others test the energy. Tab seems to have come out the overall winner.
If you get a burst of energy from drinking one of the many energy drinks out there on the market like
Red Bull or Monster, you don't know how
much caffeine you're putting into your body. While the caffeine content of sodas like Coke and Pepsi are regulated by
the FDA and are required to list levels on their packaging, energy drinks are not. Researchers ask just how much caffeine is
really in one of these drinks.
They looked at various energy drinks, regular sodas, as well as popular coffee drinks. All the sodas came
in from 18 mg to 48 mg per 12-ounce serving,well below the FDA limit of 65 mg for a 12-ounce
serving.
However, energy drinks averaged higher at 33 mg to nearly 77 mg per serving. SoBe
No Fear had 141 mg for a 16-ounce serving, more than twice the FDA limit on a single serving!
What does this mean? Just be mindful of your energy drink consumption.
Last month, right around Valentine's Day, I posted about Turn On, a new soft drink that
claims to, um, put a little lead in your pencil, as it were. Mainly, I posted about it because I thought the
advertising copy on their site was hilarious. Now there's another one called XCITE, which, according to its makers, will "intensify your pleasure
and," get this "let you stay sexy longer." They suggest mixing the berry flavored soda with everything
from Jager to vodka and milk. Along with the usual laundry list of ginseng, taurine, caffeine and others, XCITE's main
selling point is schizandra, an Asian berry
from the magnolia family. Interestingly enough, they're also cross-promoting it with Sex Vodka. Go figure.
Sparks
Bolivian coca growers are urging the Coca-Cola Co. to eliminate the word "Coca" from the name of its popular soft drink because of the leaf's importance in that Andean nation's culture.
Last fall, 
After an insane multi-week phase last month when I could not force myself to sleep for more than three hours a night, I am trying my hardest to rely on natural sources of energy. I have turned away as much as I can from 
I was just reading some beverage trade magazines and was amazed at the numbers in the energy drinks category. I hadn't realized they were that big, and so many people were chugging them down in the morning to wake up, in the afternoon to keep focused, and at night to stay awake or mixed with spirits for a buzz bomb. I started asking friends if they used them and several said yes, and in a big way. A few said they drink 2, 3, 4, or even more in one day. I was flabbergasted, I guess because I am so sensitive to caffeine that even the lower levels of the very tasty 
For his science experiment this year, a middle school student from Boca Raton, Florida decided that he would test 
I met the folks at Inko's White Tea, the "healthy ice tea" for the first time two years ago at a food event and tried their tasty, mild, and sophisticated products. Since then I have run into them several times at events and shows, always with a new flavor to try. It's a bummer I haven't seen their products yet in any of my local stores, since I enjoyed them so much. Now they are breaking into the energy drink market with Inko's White Tea Energy. It's made with white tea, ginger, lemon, and other natural flavors and is the only "tea caffeine" based energy drink on the market. It doesn't have the super high caffeine levels of some of the other energy drinks and gives long lasting and sustained, jitter free energy. Studies show that white tea has many positive effects on health so this may be the first, actually healthy, energy drink on the market.
Man, I can't believe I let a whole decade of ambivalence separate me from what is now proving to be both my savior and my downfall, the nitrous fuel for the racecar that is myself... red bull. They're small, they're expensive, but if I drink more than two of them in the same afternoon, I'll be up for the next 24 hours.
Pounding that six-pack of Diet Coke do nothing but bloat you? Does it feel like someone replaced your usual brew with decaf? You could 
At first, it used to be easy to pick an energy drink alternative because there was only one: 
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