I was recently told by someone outside of the Four Corners area that they have never heard or seen Go Fast. That was really surprising, as they are EVERYWHERE around the states I have visited, from gas stations to Auto dealerships to grocery stores. I was saddened by this – as Go fast is one of those brands that deserves to be popular, showing up next to Sobe and Amp on the cooler shelves. Although their drinks are not for everyone – I have found they are by and large a fantastic product that looks great – while having one of the more unique and tasty flavors around.

Go Fast has been around a long time – with only 2 drinks in their brand profile: a regular and diet flavor of their energy drink. It looks like they have started branching out – this time with a new flavor, dubbed Z17. It pours and looks like the original Go Fast drink, except in a bigger 16 ounce can, rather than their customary slim 12 ounce.
Taste:8
There is not much difference in flavor between Go Fast z17 and the original Go fast, and that is a very good thing. While so many energy drinks taste like soda, this one tastes like it is doing something to help your day. It reminds me of Grape Skin – only slightly sweeter. While I have no idea what their very distinctive taste is ( a mix of citrus, green tea and a health food store, it seems completely natural and healthy – like the difference between home squeezed orange juice and Sunny D) you can just taste the difference in the quality of ingredients in here.

Now, this is not an energy drink for everyone. Unlike Monster or Full Throttle, this one has a flavor that some will love, and others will despise. This drink is not bland and oversweet – an easily consumable drink by the masses. I think this has to do with the judicious use of sugars in here, plus their choice of using spring water as opposed to regular water – so it has a mineral quality that you do not normally taste in energy drinks.

Nutrition/Buzz:9
Like so many other drinks, they hide their caffeine contents in the annoying popular “energy blend”, which means they don’t tell you anything about the amounts of nutrients in here. What I can tell you is the 240 calorie can will get you moving, and keep you there for some time. I got a nice couple hours of very strong powerful energy – as well as a crazy Jet-Li going-after-the-bad-guy heat seeking mental alertness and focus. It was powerful enough that when I felt my mental acuity start to wane, I had to rush down to the store to have another ( albeit the diet one for my second helping – gotta keep my girlish figure)
In terms of nutrition, this has some good stuff in here too. Sweetened with honey and plain ol’ sugar, the main exciting ingredient in this is ribose, a sugar with no caloric value, but seems to not only give energy, but fights muscle fatigue, and definitely helps with the mental clarity – like a motherfrackin lazer…..
Packaging:7
I like the play off their original design – but in gold. Very clean and very nicely designed. All the fonts are very easy to read and everything is very clean and pro. The slogan on back is very nice, without pandering and goofy “XTREME” ness. But – this can does have a couple problems. First, they put their logo all over the place ( at least 4 times!) all of them seem haphazard, without a whole lot of forethought. Even with that, it is not really double facing – just covered in their logo. It also does not list the caffeine content, which I think is a mistake. Their lid is also just popped on, without the logo facing outward – so your friends see you drinking a nutrition label, as opposed to their cool front of the can design. While they took care of the big stuff, the details could still take some tweaking.

Website:4 gofastsports.com
You could tell that their site has undergone years of changes, and no one has really just stopped and cleaned up the long standing mess. Back in 2005, this site probably kicked ass, but now it is embarrassing. There are old macromedia tags in the code, and the inside pages of the site don’t match the main page – where the navigation is completely different. They have not even updated the site with their new product yet. While they have lots of cool stuff hidden in there – videos, galleries, 2 different shops to buy stuff and tons of info, it is completely disjointed and all over the place.

What I really liked was their complete redesign for the UK version – very clean and very fun. Hopefully it will be the future design for all things go fast.