Right in time for that thanksgiving armchair nap, Ocean Spray comes to the rescue with a cranberry juice guaranteed to keep you bouncing and perky no matter how much Turkey you stuff down your gullet. Cranergy Energy juice is the latest New Big Thing, pushing the health benefits in their cranberries ratherthan the significant dose of caffeine contained within. Some might think mixing your holiday craving for cranberry with a serious dose of caffeine to be a little strange, but there have been wierder ideas by big juice companies in years past. Motts tried and failed with their caffeinated juice, Clamato Energia, a clam and tomato based energy drink a couple years back.

Does Cranergy fight off the sleepiness from the L-tryptophan filled turkey? Well, it turns out that tryptophan does not actually make you sleepy unless you take it on an empty stomach with no protein present. Not to mention, the levels found in a turkey dinner are way too low to do anything to you. More likely is all that other food and beer pulling the blood away from your brain to help your digestive tract is the culprit. Not to mention you get the sugar rush and crash after ingesting all those sweet rich foods. Maybe instead of cracking open a PBR you could go for a Sparks, or a Cranergy and Vodka. IF you are looking for a real pick me up, try mixing a favorite caffeinated alcohol with it for a great mixed drink.

Nutrition:9
Even though they don’t not tell you anywhere on labeling, this 12 oz bottle has a serious dose of caffeine. While containing the usual energy drink ingredients of B and C vitamins, they also have over 100mg of caffeine from green tea extract. Better than that after meal dessert coffee, 12 ounces of this will give you the same boost, plus high amounts of antioxidants (from the cranberry juice and green tea extracts) and only 50ish calories. Looking at the rest of the ingredients, this is made sweet by using grape juice as a base, then sweetened even more by sucralose. The other 23 percent juice comes from Cranberry Juice and Raspberry Juice. So keep this one away from the little ones, as this juice is really an energy drink in disguise.

Taste:7
This drink tasted like watered down cranberry juice. The bitterness and juiciness I expect cranberry juice to taste like was not there, and instead my mouth tasted chemical-ness from the sucralose and a little sour from the pectin. What I did not taste is the pucker from the cranberry, which is not surprising , looking at the ingredients. I did enjoy this drink for what it was ( a cranberry flavored functional water) , as long as you don’t pick this up expecting a glass of juice. This is more like a light candy cranberry flavor, only leaving no aftertaste. If drank as you would a vitamin energy drink or Sobe water, this is just about on par.

Packaging:3
This packaging is particularly annoying – as they really should put a warning or at least some information as to the caffeine content on the drink inside. No one would ever expect that this would have any caffeine in it, and you need to even call the number listed for help to get caffeine content. Not even on the website is there any mention of caffeine. Seeing how many kids drink juice, I think not putting a caffeine disclosure on something like this is reprehensible. As for the rest of the bottle, it is exactly what you would expect from a juice bottle. It is pretty enough – going for the natural homey look of wood on a relaxed pastel background. While I don’t begrudge them this marketing scheme, hiding the caffeine in here by just listing “green tea” is obnoxious.