All In grape


Energy drinks are usually associated with extreme endurance and performace outlets… things that usually involve threats of pain, mutilation and blood – or at least the virtual renditions of those acts. I have seen energy drinks tied to motocross, skydiving, racing, ritual sacrifice and even golf, but never believed it could translate to the most extreme and physically challenging sport of them all, World Championship Poker.
All that sitting around in bad poses and staring blearily at your opponents are not what I would call a fearsome sport, but then again I am not Johnny Chan, one of the worlds most popular poker players and major sponsor for this drink. In honor of that reference, this can of “all in energy drink” has a bunch of Chinese writing on the front. Still, with 50 million people playing poker in North America and at least 10 million of those players are serious enough to play 5 or more hours every week, trying to get them to shill out some of their chips for a soda does not seem like much of a bluff.
Taste:7
While grape is not one of the first choices for energy drink flavors, it is certainly not uncommon. You can find a grapey energy drink from NOS to Pimpjuice. This one is pretty tasty though, although very medicinal and fake. Don’t be looking for grape juice – expect more of a Kool Aid Grape punch – complete with the tartness and chemical aftertaste. They do leave out the HFCS and sweeten this with sucralose and Ace K, so there is no heavy syrupiness. The flavor starts out very strong and sugary, but is carbonated enough to keep it nice all the way through the small er 8oz can.

Nutrition/buzz:8
This has all the things you would expect to find in an energy drink , plus a few more niceties to improve concentration and mental alertness. You can find your taurine, inositol, American & Asian ginseng in here, plus the less common additions of astragalus, and schisandra. There is about 83mg of caffeine in here, so about average with Red Bull or the thousand other energy drinks out there. There is no crash from this drink too, so you dont have to worry about flagging during that long and important tournament. The astragalus and schisandra do a little more to boost my concentration – and gave me about 1 1/2 – 2 hours of energy before looking for the next caffeine fix.

Packaging:8
Not a bad can, but there are some issues I have with it. They printed the drink, or stamped the lid, in a haphazard direction, so it is too easy to cover the logo while drinking. Part of the fun of this drink is to show it off, which is hard to do while drinking it. With a little twist of the lid, the “All In ” logo could be front and center to everyone else’s attention at all times. I like the logo on the ront, even if I don’t understand it. The poker chip makes sense, and looks cool surrounded by grape flames, but their big Chinese symbol on the front is a mystery. The font choices are unusual and one of the few times a serif font works on a drink can – and the switch to a more readable sans serif font for the copy is a wise choice. Unfortunately, the copy sucks – and looks like energy drink filler to fit a design more than printing anything of any importance. The only other misstep is that they don’t list the caffeine on the can – which is obnoxious. Overall, a very nicely designed can – but with a few small tweaks they could have come up Aces.

Website:9 www.allinenergy.com
I really liked this site – even if it is VERY processor heavy. It is another all flash site, but handles it well, going for a well designed web interface, rather than using flash as an excuse for a splash intro and worthless animations. They put a ton of information on the drink, the poker stars, and about anything you would want in a site into a very eye pleasing and intuitive interface. I wish it was not such a heavy movie, but with all this info packed in here it would be hard not to have it a bit bloated.

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