There I was, facing a 6 year old’s birthday party at an Easter egg hunt at a indoor theme park. On four hours sleep. I needed my precious caffeine and I needed it bad. What I had on hand was a never-tried-before Socko energy drink by Bliss Beverage and a Ultra-Hip Design Shop in Arizona. The ingredients list did not give me hope, not listing the amount of caffeine I was about to get, while filling me with high fructose corn syrup. Well after a downed the can I found myself in a very long line very very droopy and hoping that any second now my stomach would digest through all the HFCS and get some artificial energy pumped in me enough to get me through this day.
Well about half an hour later…
I found myself bouncing around the funplex as much as all the kids I was looking after and sparkly there’s shiny over there lets go! and a bunny YAY a big bunny mascot and other mascots and weee!!!
SO thanks to Socko I was not only able to keep up with the kiddos, but I also managed to score a rank of private commander or something like that in laser tag. As I found myself singing and dancing in the middle of the miniputt course , swinging my daughter around as we hunted for multicolored eggs, and grooving to Kate Nash while hopping over water hazards and windmills, the Socko must have kicked in. And it kept delivering for 3+ hours, until the party ended and I dragged myself back to the minivan, grumped at the kids to buckle, and drowsily headed to the nearest convenience store for a much needed caffeinated refill.

Buzz/Nutrition:7
Since this drink has 160 mg. of caffeine, glurcuonolactone, inositol, taruine (2000 mg), damiana, guarana, yerba mate, horny goat weed, ginseng, Vitamin C, and B Vitamins, why did I only give it a 7? Well, for starters, does a drink both need sucralose and high fructose corn syrup? There is no point of adding a diet sugar to a drink full of HFCS, and In a drink full of HFCS, why bother with all those vitamins? The kick as really special – it kept me awake for over 3 hours, and I was REALLY awake – full of nervous bouncy lovely energy. But then after those few short hours my little trip ended, leaving me barely able to cope getting to somewhere else to counter my sloth. Because of the shortness of the kick, and the odd mixture of ingredients, I don’t think I could rate this higher.

Taste:7
There was a lot of competition going on in my mouth with Socko. It was CRAZY sweet, what with the sucralose and HFCS. The HFCS made it a big syrupy and sticky, like a soda. IT also had 2000 mg of taurine(!) so it was way tart and puckery. I tasted waterleon gummy sours, only the sucralose killed my aftertaqste, so the flavor did not linger and turn into something bad. While not at all unpleasant, it was not something I would pick up again and again.

Packaging:9
An eye popping and very stand out design makes this stand out on the shelves. According to their official website, they made the packaging to appeal to the mass audience without succumbing to the “extreme” trends set forth on the market. Bluemedia.com is responsible for the packaging – and did a really excellent package, from the design and press materials downloadable on the Socko site, to the design on all the Socko products, including Hulk energy and all the socko taste variety.