"energydrinks" news and stories

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.

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.

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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.

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.