XL

I really don't have a good angle for this can, a good way to approach it so to say. I tried googling for "pure energy" but only came up with a bunch of training centre and the odd gas/oil company so that didn't do the trick.

I guess I could swing by the product home page and scope out the other products they offer only to find out that they've changed the packaging from the one own, prompting me to look for the new can, but I've done that as well so let's try and find something else.

One thing I haven't done is take a look at the stock info for XL Capital Ltd but I don't understand much of it - except that they seem to be on the rise. Buy?

A music video about "extra large" by a Turkish group has to be a first though.

And what would a comb through of the Internet be without some more or less coherent rambling?

As for the can and drink - nothing XL about it at all...

Missing updates

I just wanted to inform the few of you that read this blog that there's quite a lot going on in my life now that makes it harder for me to post on a regular basis.

I'll do my best to keep it up but as you've surely noticed by now I am slipping behind. This is not something I'm proud of as I believe in consistent updates once I've committed to a blog but I'm hoping that you'll bear with me for a bit longer.

Thanks.

Go

If you ask Google to define "go" you get a whole bunch of answers. Some well known and some less known. One or two are all but rubbish.

In Sweden "go" is slang/dialectal for "tasty". It's pronounced with a long "o" - as in "goo". The original word in Swedish is "god", also with a long "o" but still not the same way as "good".

So was it then? Tasty, I mean.

Well, it was, if I recall correctly, another Red Bull clone as far as taste goes and theres 320 mg caffeine per liter just as with almost all the rest of the energy drinks.

What I like the most about this can is the design. It's clean, simple and direct without becoming the Euroshopper can. It tells you up front that it's an energy drink that makes you go (presumably to the races).

This is another Starzinger brand of drinks (as are the Bomba cans) but I can't seem to find any links to more information about neither the company nor the drink.

I leave you with the lovely video for "Here it goes again" by "OK Go":

Steven Seagal's Lightning Bolt

I got this from my brothers friends when they got back from a trip to the States and I love it! Maybe not for all the right reasons though.

Steven Seagal has made one good movie, the rest is just different sorts of crap and I have to say that this energy drink perfectly symbolizes the majority of his movies; it tries too hard to be cool, it's full of obscure Asian references, it has a stupid and more or less meaningless name, it looks cool at the first glance but doesn't hold up to scrutiny and it's contents tastes funny, do very little good and leaves a weird taste in your mouth.

Just read the "quote" on the can from the man with the kung-fu can-can himself, Mr Seagal: "A natural energy drink packed with vitamins and exotic botanicals".

"Exotic botanicals?" I know what it means but come on, could you be any more pretentious?

As for these exotic botanicals the one thing that I guess that Seagal hopes will bring the masses to drink this gunk are the Goji Berries. As far as I can understand Goji Berries are indeed very nutritious but there are, as usual, ways to make a fool and his money part ways. I'm not saying that this drink doesn't have enough Goji Berries to enjoy the benefits but then again, the can doesn't specify how much "Goji Berry extract" there is either.

Next up on the list of exotic botanicals is a funky fungi, "Asian Cordyceps". Wikipedia has among other things this to say:

If a Cordyceps fungus attacks a host, the mycelium invades and eventually replaces the host tissue, while the elongated fruiting body (stroma) may be cylindrical, branched, or of complex shape.

Sounds nice.

The labeling on the can is a bit misleading though as I'm pretty sure the cordycep that's in this drink is the so called vegetable caterpillar and not just any old cordycep. This little feller is even more tasteful than the generic cordycep. The fungi infects a certain type of caterpillar and kills it under ground, close to the top soil. Then...

the dark brown to black fruiting body (or mushroom) emerges from the ground in spring or early summer, always growing out of the forehead of the caterpillar.

And I put this stuff in my mouth!

There's a load of other crap in this one as well but I can't go on any more as I'm starting to feel nauseous.

If the sister drink, the Cherry Charge, also contains the bastard offspring of a killer fungi and a hapless caterpillar then I'll pass on drinking that one. The can always has a place in my collection but the drink goes down the drain.

Gag!

Euroshopper energy drink

This might look like the blandest of bland as far as cans for energy drink go but I actually like it, although not for it's artistic merits.

You see, I've always been a "form follows function" kind-of-guy and this can embodies that philosophy very well. Now, a can can have any sort of design and still be quite functional but we need to look past the actual "container" functionality of the can and look at it's use as a communications device instead.

There is no doubt about what this can contains. Heck, the word "energy" is even written twice (and perhaps once again in ultraviolet ink or something for, you know, vampires or ghosts).

It also bears the same typical color and layout as the rest of the Euroshopper products so you know it's cheap.

I can understand why there's a plethora of cans that copies Red Bull - both by name and by look - but there's also something refreshing about a can that takes a no-nonsense approach to it's marketing.

Compare this can with the Bullit can and tell me which one you'd pick if you quickly needed to grab a can of energy off the shelf.

I'd grab the Bullit can but I'm special that way.

Two for one, new link

I decided to add two posts today as I missed my previous one due to the holidays. The two Bomba! cans seemed like a logical choice.

I also added a new link to Energy Drink Ratings - a more traditional energy drink review site, with proper scores and all. So if you for some reason tire of my ramblings and like Joe Friday want just the facts you should pay them a visit.

Bomba! - Sugarfree

The well-behaved sister to the original Bomba! although I personally don't think the sugar is the culprit in these drinks. I'm not saying that you should ignore how much sugar you ingest but if your excess sugar intake comes from energy drinks then you probably have other issues to worry about.

As mentioned in my post about the bad-boy Bomba! this can looks a lot nicer, mostly because they replace the Mini with a star. The white background is also easier on the eye.

According to the can Bomba! is produced in Austria - as a lot of other drinks - by Starzinger but when googling for their site I got a Bomba! specific site instead. The Bomba! brand apparently became quite successful so my guess is that they decided to branch it off.

As you can see from their product assortment they're not kidding around with the "Bomb!" name either. Also notable is the fact that my two cans differ quite a bit from the design shown here. I have contacted Bomba! to see if my design is the older one (most likely).

If we compare the nutrient facts of these two drinks then there's really not much of a difference until we come to carbohydrates, of course, where the original Bomba! has 11.7g per 100g and the sugar free version 0g. As for actual energy, something you would think there should be a lot of in an energy drink, the original sports 215 Kjoule while the pristine one only has 21 Kjoule - ten times less!

My initial comments aside, this is quite a difference and illustrates quite nicely what a difference sugar will make when it comes to the amount of energy we digest. The drawback of energy from sugar is that it's "empty" and is gone very quickly after you ingest it.

Bomba!

Another can from Hungary and as far as my awesome skills with the Hungarian language tells me the name of the can is simply "Bomb!" which, if interpreted freely, could be a drawback. As in; "This energy drink will bomb so bad." I can also tell my friends that I managed to bring a bomb from Hungary to Sweden.

Anyhow, not-so-funny linguistic twists aside the can is quite nice although I prefer it's sugar free sibling as far as the looks go. This is still remarkably clean and the only thing spoiling the design is the Mini Cooper with "Nyerj" - "Win" - above it.

The Mini Cooper is one of the most popular cars in the world and has roots all the way back to 1959. Up until the year 2000 the Mini was manufactured by the British Motor Corporation. The brand Mini was bought by BMW in 2000 and are now producing a number of models, although not all are very great.

The Mini has been featured in a lot of movies as well with The Italian Job being my all time favourite (the original version, the remake sucked).

As for exploding Mini Coopers - this is the best I can offer.

Happy Holidays

My regular weekend post will be a bit delayed due to the holidays. I will have it up by tuesday the latest.

Happy Holidays!

A future collectors item?

I found out about a Super Mario energy drink just the other day and I'm itching to get hold of one. I'm not a Mario fan in any way but the can would be great to have.

Unfortunately the only place close by that sells it is in the UK and it will cost me approximately 100SEK/£7.44/$15/€10.4 to have it shipped to Sweden.

That's quite a lot for a can but I might just go for it, depedning on how much money I got left after christmas and new years eve. :)

Speed in

Another can I got in Hungary. This means that all of the information on the can is in Hungarian - which I actually knew a tiny bit of some odd 15 years ago but has since forgotten so I can only understand "Tutti-Frutti" and "Koffein".

The Speed in website is Hungarian-only as well but when I discovered the "Partynaptár" button I focused on the "Party" part and clicked away, filled with confidence that I'd be in for a good time. Unfortunately the Speed in party crawled to a halt in 2006. Bummer.

The "Letöltés" button contains a couple of not too shabby desktops (although some are less well done).

And that's about it for the Speed in website.

As for the can - not very impressive. Colors aren't all that bad but the design is messy and confusing. I like how they point out that the drink is 100% legal but no matter how hard I looked I didn't find any illegal drinks in Hungary so I'm not sure if that informaiton will sell more or less cans compared with other brands.

V-power

This is one of many cans that I got from a somewhat recent business trip to Budapest, Hungary. The main reason I selected it at this moment is because I blogged about the V can in my previous post.

There was a number of interesting energy drinks in Hungary and most of them were quite affordable. This particular one costs roughly $0.90 USD/€0.70/6 SEK and, if the illustration is to be believed, screws with your head so much that you'll trip over your own feet.

Seriously though (I promise), I find it interesting that they credit L-Carnitine with what I assume isn't so much falling over as a spring in your step. My limited research shows that the main job for L-Carnitine is to convert fat into ketones (which then is harvested and turned into paint).

There was some indication that L-Carnitine gives kids more energy so I guess that Gramex, the makers of V-Power, wasn't talking completely out of their ass as many other energy drink makers tend to do.

The actual design is quite boring though. Not awful or laughable, just boring.

When I planned this post (in my mind) I associated "V-Power" with "vertical power" and my big idea was to compare vertical (upward) power in various objects; rockets, kangaroos, snakes, elevators and so on.

This proved to be very daunting so I'll just provide the two formulas I've found - one for rocket thrust and one for muscle forces in kangaroo mice (page 10/200, figure 5) - and leave it as an exercise for you, the reader, to calculate how big a kangaroo mice has to be in order to catch a rocket leaving earth.

Post your answers, complete with calculations, in the comments.

V

For my comeback I thought I'd start out gently with a can I found at the Swedish airport Landvetter; V.

I've been tinkering with the setup for photographing the cans and although I'm not 100% pleased the new shots are still a lot better than the old ones. The slow pace of this process is one of several reasons to why I've been absent, by the way.

So, what about the can? Well, it originates from New Zealand and Australia where it was introduced in the late nineties, like so many other energy drinks. According to the marketing text on the can it "turned the energy drink market up side down". This begs the question; since this was introduced "down under" - is it a good thing to turn the market "up side down"?

It contains the regular ingredients of caffeine and guarana but has no taurine. Add three essential vitamins - B3, B5 and B6 - and you have a complete meal.

Now, the letter V is at least to me not symbolic with an inverted energy drink or even V for Vendetta but with the TV-series V. I was eleven or twelve years old when it aired here in Sweden and I loved it!

It had action, drama, suspense and even a bit of horror thrown in. I still remember running into my younger brothers room when I saw Diana eat a whole hamster (or some other sort of rodent) for the first time. From that moment on I never watched it alone again.

I watched it again some ten years ago and it wasn't as good as I remembered it (shock!) although it was a fun trip down the dwindling and obstructed path that I call memory lane.

The can is quite nice, despite being somewhat messy. I credit this to the sensible use of shades of green. I'm not sure why they used such an "80's video game" font for the V but it works so I'm not really complaining.

Burn, design 1

This can I got in Prague, 2004. It's a Coca-Cola brand and I find the design quite nice.

There's a new design out now here in Sweden which is why I decided to post this particular can. I still haven't made up my mind if the new design - which differs quite a bit - is better than the old one.

This version of Burn contains 205 Kj per 100mg, this gives us 512.5 Kj per can. According to this site (in Swedish) you burn roughly 500 Kj by working out at 100% of your capacity (like running) for 10 minutes if you're a 25 year old girl - 7.3 minutes if you're a man of the same age.

If you on the other hand just sit around watching TV you need 90 minutes to burn the same amount of energy if you're a girl at the age of 25. A man needs 72 minutes.

So, I guess it's a good thing you get the energy you need to burn off the calories you get by drinking the stuff in the first place...

Red Power

Here's a can that does what a lot of brands before it does; include "Red" in the name in order to leech off of Red Bulls presence. At least it doesn't try to copy the name more or less straight off like some other brands did (more on those in another update).

One thing that puzzles me is that all the text on the can is in Spanish and Portuguese (if I read it correctly) but it's manufactured by a German company and it was bought in Sweden. How's that for international? And sloppy logistics for that matter.

The company still has the brand (as a motor oil of all the wierd things you can cross over to) with the energy drink that once was Red Power now re branded to TECHNO. Other brands of energy drinks they have is Swiss Power and Free Hemp that, according to the can, does indeed contain hemp.

It's going to be interesting to bring that one into Sweden. Speaking of the motherland, all you swedes should take a look at their Swedish section of the site. Could use a proof reader. A Swedish proof reader preferably.

Lack of updates

I'm sorry for the drought in updates as of lately. I might not have a lot of readers but consistent updates are a must for any site that wants to be taken seriously, no matter the number of visitors.

There are numerous reasons for the delays in updates but they should be resolved as from now on.

Flying horse

Here's another blast from the past when you obviously could put just anything on a can and call it a design.

After a little research (one search in Google) I stumbled upon another design. It'd be nice to have this one but it will cost me over 15€ (140 Skr or $17) to ship it from Germany so I'll have to pass right now.

Flying horse is, besides an energy drink, also a mythological creature, a carriage company, a software piracy group (which stole their name from this drink) as well as a whole bunch of buildings.

Mississippi

This is one of the first energy drinks I bought. I can't recall when I bought it but the "best before" date is late -98 so I'd guess I bought it sometime during 1998.

The design is one of the better ones I've seen although the only explanation I can find for a Spanish energy drink to be called Mississippi is to make it seem exotic (to the Spaniards that is).

I have yet to find a web site for the manufacturer of this drink, Global Drinks SL, but it seems as if they have discontinued this particular brand.

By the way, did you know that Mississippi is an old Indian name? It means "great river" or "gathering of water" and is attributed to the Ojibwe tribe of Native Americans (Chippewa). ¹

The Mississippi river is prone to flooding and sever flooding has occurred 1927, 1937, 1965, 1973, 1982, and 1993. The 1993 flooding was the most severe recorded in American history. ¹

The longest river in Spain is the Tajo river and runs for 1,007 km (626 miles). There's said to be over 18,000 rivers in Spain and Spain actually owned the lower part of Mississippi from 1769 to 1783. <sup>1

1</sup> Answers.com

X-RAY energy drink, blue

I actually don't have a photo of this can (yet) as the only one I could find at the store was quite badly damaged. Still, it looks the same as the black X-RAY, only blue (hopefully you figured that out for yourself). It even tastes the same.

In my post about the black X-RAY I said I wouldn't bother with picking their stupid slogan "X-RAY your drink for the taste of strong power" apart.

Well, I lied.

I sent off an e-mail to The Swedish Radiation Protection Authority, SSI inquiring about the effects of x-raying your drink. The reply I got was twofold.

If you mix the drink with a radioactive source - like heavy water used in cooling nuclear plants - the drink will become radioactive and, depending on the strength of the radiation in the source, lethal.

Not a good idea, but then I'm not interpreting the slogan that way (although it very well could be interpreted that way). I read as if they want you to actually x-ray your drink.

That is, in a way, a better idea but not very useful. You see, when you x-ray your drink with a extremely powerful source of radiation three things happen:

1. You kill all the germs in the drink, sterilizing it.


2. You raise the temperature with 1 degree Celsius (at the most).


3. The water turns into hydrogen, oxygen and hydrogen peroxide. As soon as the radiation source is removed the water returns to normal.

In other words, the most you get out of x-raying your drink is that it becomes sterile a short while after the treatment.

Well, better it than you I suppose which most likely could be the case if you drink radioactive water.

Die Blaue Sau

As you can see from the image this design is one of the most out there I have - not only does it feature a flying pig but a blue one to boot.

For my non-German reading readers the name means "The Blue Sow", but I guess that's kinda obvious (apart from the "sow" part - at least I can't spot any telltale signs of gender).

The manufacturer, InDrinks, still has this brand as well as the Blox brand of drinks. The Blox drinks are also available in 500 ml cans which means that the 500 ml Frank's Energizer has more company than I previously thought.

After a short and rudimentary search on Google I discovered a very in-depth paper on pig skin color. I'm not going to pretend that I understood all of it (especially since I stopped reading after two paragraphs) but what's important here is that there are no blue pigs in real life. And now you know too.

There are, however, purple polar bears.