Signature energy drinks are now standard entry fare into the hip hop world. Nelly has it, Lil Jon has one, Russel Simmons has DefCon3, Master P has one – and I am just waiting SnoopJuice – tasting like a mix of Gin and B.C Hydroponic. This used to be by Ice T, but I guess he saw enough signs that this drink was dead in the water and dropped it. Not that this drink is Bad – it is just not good enough to make any difference. It seems like this drink company has tried everything all the other energy drinks do – from sponsoring XTREME events, like drag racing and motorcross, trying to find celebrities to shill the product and using the same energy drink ingredients as everyone else. In a world of hundreds and hundreds of energy drinks – there is just no room for another 8oz wannabe.
The big differentiator in this drink is Coenzyme Q10. Coenzyme Q is a cool thing – even if we don’t really know what it does yet. It is used to help migranes, blood pressure, and maybe a dozen other serious ailments. Coenzyme Q is naturally produced by the human body – but extra doses seem to do help you if taken in large enough doses. Of course the dose in here is much much much smaller than anything that would actually help you. most times you get coenzyme Q10 as a supplement, you get from 100-400mg – this drink has 5mg. Good idea to try to separate yourself from the pack – but you actually have to mean it – not this half hearted attempt.
Decent, but nothing to write home about. It tastes very fake – maybe berry or tropical – definitely not icey or even tea flavored. This is a candy drink that tastes OK. Not write-home-about good, not even buy-a-bunch-to-keep around good. I think this can be another flavor that could best be described as the flavor blue. Still, for a drink that tries to make a difference for itself by taste – this one is not bad. Not great – but like a tart candy.
Nutrition:5
Like most energy drinks, this has exactly what you would expect to find in an 8oz can. 80mg of caffeine – like Red Bull or Monster. There is some Vitamin B Complex in here, and 1000mg of Taurine. Inositol could be found as well as some preservatives. I do like that they used sucrose instead of high fructose corn syrup – higher in calories but overall better for you than loading up on hfcs. They also make a big deal over not using guarana – instead opting for the cheaper lab made chemical one. Not sure why you would advertise you don’t use a natural source of caffeine over a chemical one. Even with the Q10, this still is no better or worse than any other energy drink clone.
Packaging:8
Everything is done right with this package – except for the size. This drink would work soo much better if they had this in a 12 or even 16oz can, giving the drinker a better reason to fork out money for it. The fonts are nice, and easy to read. The overall layout works, as well as the big standout blue. The cap is positioned right to show off the can, which has the logo double printed so it wont be messed up in convenience store shelves. I like it that they listed out how much of all their ingredients are – unlike so many others. Overall, this can is a great example of what could be done in the 8oz drink size – without being revolutionary.
Website:3 http://www.liquidiceny.com
This won an award for web design? According to their little plaque on the http://www.liquidiceny.com site, they won a 2008 award for web design. They were given this in march of 2008 from the The American Association of Webmasters. Well, after looking at the liquidiceny.com site, I wonder about the ethics of the AAWM. Well, it looks like all you need to get “awarded” by them is 20 bucks, 10 pages of unbroken pages and no visible error messages. They even list that over half of their applicants win an award – and with dozens of awards to award at 20 bucks a pop – getting into the awards business looks like good business. As for the site itself – there is much that sucks. First, they have tons of commented out code leftover from the design house not knowing how to publish a movie correctly out of flash. Sure, the html is only 6 k, but it really could be 2. Also their flash is very buggy. There is no way to navigate on their “energy side” and much of their site is either used from http://www.caughtinthewebb.com’ stemplates that most of their sites use – plus free flash movies grabbed from flashkit. Their ingredients list does not work at all, and there is a duplication of the night side/energy side, only with crappier graphics. It looks like the designers got a good idea for how the site should work, but then gave up when the site was 85% there. Or it was built right once, but then over the years it was filled with enough crap to make it unusable. The history did not touch Ice T, the FAQ did not actually tell you much about the drink – and the photo gallery of beach babes licking the energy can is just plain silly. Either way – I would give this site props for effort, but lost it all on the carry-through.