Jolt Cola has “all the sugar, twice the caffeine.” But if you did not already know that then you probably were not a teen in the 80’s when Jolt was launched on the world in 1986. The drink became a certified Fad, becoming popular around the computer nerd crowd.
Yet nostalgia for Jolt runs deep in the under-35 set, as Kevin Gass and Laurence Molloy discovered. The founders of Jolt Gum surveyed 1,000 young consumers in 2000, they found that 80% still knew the Jolt slogan by heart. “That was, like, the light-bulb flash over our heads,” said Mr. Gass. “At that point, we came up with putting Jolt in a gum.”
They formed GumRunners, LLC a privately held company founded in 2002 and based in Jersey City, NJ. They spent almost two years So after 2 years, 43 batches and 4 TONS of chewing gum, one very minty house and an even mintier apartment and 26 road and air trips developing Jolt® Caffeine-Energy Gum before it was good enough to launch. They licensed the name of Jolt from the maker of Jolt Cola (Wet Planet Beverages in Rochester, New York).
They also attracted lawyers, suing them for infringement on a 2002 Wrigley patent, involving a caffeinated gum that was never brought to market. (Wrigley once sold another caffeinated gum called Stay Alert, but it’s no longer on the market.)
Taste:7
The gum comes in both Spearmint and Icy Mint flavors -and the flavor lasts a good 5 or 6 minutes, much longer than I can usually stand to chew gum for ( I admit it, I am a swallower). for the time in my mouth it is a nice minty sweet flavor, not harsh or sour at all. Mauricio Bobadilla did a fine job making a bitter flavor like caffeine come out sweet and refreshing.
Buzz/Nutrition: 2
The amount of caffeine listed on the package seems to be pretty vague, so on further insight I looked it up on energyfiend.com’s site. I came across this very interesting tidbit of info:
Caffeine amounts obtained from a laboratory test differ from amount advertised on label – http://www.vroomfoods.com/pdf/caffcomps/Jolt_Gum_COA.pdf . The Jolt website does not list explicit amounts but implies that two gum pieces is equivalent to a cup of coffee – http://www.joltgum.com/info_gum.html energyfiend.com lists this as having only 12.7mg of caffeine per piece, which means you would have to eat 6 pieces to even equal a single espresso shot. Jolt lies? I am so ashamed – like a childhood hero now gone to seed.
There is an ingredient though that does stimulate the nervous system and could potentially mess with serotonin levels (lowering serotonin which in some people in the following order causes euphoria, paranoia, and in some depression). Food scientist Mauricio Bobadilla used Dextrose AND sugar AND sucralose AND corn syrup AND ace-k AND Aspartame to sweeten up the mix. What happened to all the sugar? I guess since it does not say all the sugar but not just sugar it is not an outright lie. The Gum also contains Gum Base, Corn Starch, Caffeine, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Glycerin, Resinous Glaze, Ginseng, Guarana, Tapioca Dextrin, Colors (includes Yellow 5, Blue 1, Titanium Dioxide), Menthol, Carnauba Wax, and BHT.
Website:8 www.joltgum.com
Amusing and full of information, I really like the way the site is put together. There is some proken links as they are still trying to sell old cans of the cola, even when that cant be found anywhere and their page to it is 404. I also with they would update it a little, their datestamp on the bottom still lists 2002.
Jolt’s lies about caffeine