I think the name is Oroborus, the first letter is a bit confusing. Anyways, I went to 7-11 to see what new and exciting energy drinks they might carry. I saw the Inked Energy Drinks, beverages made for and sold by 7-11. I have had a couple of them when they first came out, but now there are some new flavours added to the line up. I picked up Oroborus and Druidic. It seems like there is an ongoing promotion and that 7-11 is trying to get customers to buy their brand of energy drinks rather than all the other popular ones like Monster, Full Throttle, AMP and Red Bull. The promotion yesterday was the same one as when the energy drinks first came out - buy one, get one free. The price is not bad either - $2.69 CAD. There are also some Inked Energy Shots at $2.69 per shot with the same promotion - buy one, get one free. You can also mix and match - one energy shot and one energy drink.
When I was wondering which flavours to pick, I noticed that 100%, absolutely all of the cans in the fridge, were dirty. There were bits of dirt/dust covering all of the tops of the cans. There was dirt around the mouth opening and all around the rim...of every single can. Does that mean no one buys these things, or are they just from an old stock? Once I got to work I had to use my trusty ThinkGeek caffeine mug to try this energy drink. Check out how dark the beverage is, dark purple, almost black. This is much darker than the Monster Mixxd or AMP Traction.
Inked Oroborus is said to taste like pomegranate and blueberry, but I think it tastes more like sour lies. OK, bad choice of words, but it really just tastes sour (probably from the artificial pomegranate taste or the citric acid) and a bit of blueberries and grape. The scent is definitely of blueberries, but the taste is more of pomegranate. The aftertaste is a mix of sour pomegranate and a hint of blueberries. The overall taste is a bit dull and I think it could be sharpened up a little through the use of more JUICE. Some companies put juice content, this one only lists "natural flavours" in the non-medicinal ingredients list.
The caffeine content is listed at 80 mg per 250 mL. Why isn't the content given on a per can basis? Why should I have to calculate this myself? Very, very inconvenient, but oh well. Once all the numbers and formulas were entered into Excel, the caffeine content came up to 151.36 mg per can, quite the average for a 473 mL can. The drink pepped me up a bit, but not as much as I was expecting it to.
So as I kept writing this and finishing up the Inked, I started tasting the citric acid more and more. It was becoming quite dominant in the aftertaste as well. That's not a bad thing, but it is not something you get from other energy drinks. Another thing I noticed was their blank website...at least blank at this time. The title of the main page is default - blank.
Scores:
Cost - $2.69 per can, but you really get 2 for the price of one, so $1.35 CAD (had to round it up)
Taste - 6.1/10...I did say it tasted sour and a bit dull on the flavour, but I didn't mind it
Energy - 7.1/10
Overall - 13.2/20...I decided to start including the taste and energy ratings. Other drinks that didn't taste too good were getting higher ratings because of their low cost.
Check out the other Inked products I have tried:
Although I'm sure that the dust on top of the cans was disgusting, I have to point out that the 2 I bought today were spotless, so it isn't universal.
ReplyDeleteAs for the drink itself, not bad, but not good. slavster did a great review, and I agree. Taste isn't horrible, but nothing to rave over. It's main selling point is the buy one, get one free deal.
If you aren't on a budget, then it's probably best to go with a different brand of NRG drink.