Pimp Juice was one of the first celebrity driven energy drinks on the market, and a great example of musicians selling themselves out to merchandise non-music related wares. Pimp Juice started as a mostly regional product, with distribution limited to the Midwest but increased when he hit the controversy.
This drink should be made from ground up pimps – especially the 70’s ones wearing high fluffy purple suits. Unfortunately, it is coined Pimp Juice because Nelly decided to redefine the word Pimp. No longer is a Pimp just a sleazy criminal, but a cool thing where all the ladies can not get enough. This juice is not the male form of “milkshake”, “the term PIMP has changed meaning over the years and doesn’t have the same connotation to youth…” the CEO of this energy drink company said, “I think it’s a word that has changed significance over the last 10 to 15 years.” Really what Nelly meant is that he does not care about the definition as long as he is making money hand over fist.
Unfortunately this drink will not make you score with the ladies, as there is not enough energy to keep you awake, and the calorie count is high enough to make you have that extra sexy pimpjuice pot belly.

Taste:8
Unlike the original Pimp Juice, the purple is very lightly carbonated. Very grape flavored. You could barely taste some other fruits, but the dominant flavor is a strong red extra sweetened grape juice. This really tastes nice, for a supersweet juicy syrup, almost sticky and thick enough to use as waffle syrup. This reminded me of Guavex nectars, only made by Smuckers. Using real juice is nice, and so it has a strong concord bite to it rather than a regular grape soda.

Nutrition/Buzz:7
Nelly does not skimp. This drink could have, as it is being promoted on the back of a big name. The drink can carry it’s own weight, having some pretty stellar ingredients. This has a proprietary blend of acai, pear, and pomegranate juices, as well as lots of grape extract.

To boost you, it starts off with the caffeine, a meager 81mg. But then they add a little guarana, a little Yerba mate, some green tea extract and then top it all off with some ribose. This should have had me humming along, but sadly left me feeling a little tired, not to mention I felt crashy after ingesting all those simple sugars. I was hoping for a long sustained energy buzz, and it unfortunately failed to materialize. I would have thought it was just me, but it seems to be the same for everyone I found who tried this. I was expecting a super badazz blast to knock me out of the streets and into the motel rooms – but since Nelly redefined the word, he must have also meant that pimps now drink healthy juice and go to bed early.

Packaging:9
Regardless of the drink or the controversy, the can itself is absolutely gorgeous. Regal even. The use of gold and purple for the color choices is absolutely lovely. The fonts that were used are fantastic – as well as the great printing job. If I still collected cans, I could definitely see carrying this one around. The PJ logo is all over the can, to help product placement in cooler shelves – and the extensive nutritional info was nice to see too. I would feel at home with this can just about anywhere I could carry off the obnoxious name.