180 Red with Goji is another great drink from those people who bring Budweiser to the world. Just like Bud, this drink provides nothing special, except the promise of younger looking healthier bodies from consuming the first corporate goji berry energy drink. the drink itself is not terrible – which is saying something for being made from Goji juice – which is almost as bad as combucha tea ( the worst thing in the whole entire world). The biggest problem with this drink is the lackluster can – which is now getting a big makeover this year. Hopefully with a new look more people will be tempted by Bud’s non alcoholic cousin. Now if only they found a way to make Bud more drinkable….

Packaging:3
Like all of these earlier 180 drinks, the printing is done with one color, so the design is pretty lame. They did use the 2 color press to get a solid strip of yellow around their logo, but the entire rest of the can, from the design to the ingredients still use that one dark red. Not a good move.
This has an effect of making the can look cheaply designed, which does not go a whole way to selling these in the cooler. Anhueser-Busch is supposed to be coming out with a new updated design for these 180 cans, and not a moment too soon. This can had no caffeine listing, little in the way of slogan or info, and is generally one left gathering dust in liquor store coolers.
Nutrition:8
I do like much of what they have going on in here – the addition of lots of Vitamin C to the usual B Vitamin blend for the nutrition portion of the drink. That’s it – no inositol, amino acids, taurine – or any of the other things energy drinks usually contain. But the vitamin C is a good compliment to what is otherwise a pretty standard drink. It is sweetened with sugar and uses both Goji berry juice and acerola juice. Not that this is really healthy or anything. You still get 300 empty calories for what amounts to antioxidant hype and a couple vitamins. but without the preservatives or chemicals, it is leaning more in the right direction.

As for buzz, the guarana provides some boost, but nothing amazing or mind-blowing. No listings anywhere as to how much caffeine is in here, but my finely tuned blood – caffeine level puts me at mildly buzzed – so my guess is around 180-200 mg per 16ounce can.

Taste:6
Not bad, but not fantastic either. Goji berry is one of those flavors that is pretty bad on its own. If you don’t believe me, get a bag of goji berries and try them on your own. They are like little raisin shaped prunes, only wit a sort of nasty sourness and not enough sweetness to even make prune lovers enjoy them. I mean, if Goji berries were actually tasty – don’t you think they would be sold more places? say, next to the Kumquats or star fruits. Sure, they are a bit rare, being imported from Tibet, but you can find them in small baggies at your health food store. Good thing they are in small baggies too – much less waste when you toss them in the bin. The reason any people eat this is because they are supposedly healthy, so the health food crowd force them down their gullet and ignore how ass-flavored they really are.
180 goji tries to mask this with the addition of Acerola and cherry to the mix – with some success. At least the other juice in here makes this taste more like cherries than rotten produce. this drink drinkable. There have been a whole lot worse I have had with Goji ( Steven Segal’s lightning bolt comes to mind) – so if you are into