Slimquick Energy Berry Lemonade Review

I know what you are thinking - "I will never buy an energy shot designed for women." Well, me neither, but for the sake of experimentation I took the plunge. I have actually considered buying Slimquick energy more than once before but either I couldn't find it or I couldn't justify the need to buy 2 shots. Yes, that's right, Slimquick comes in a box with 2 energy shots. I have never seen the little bottles sold separately. You know what that means for the consumer - we have to cough up $6 rather than the standard $3 for an energy shot. Call it my lucky day, not likely, but I saw this on sale for $3. Yes, the 2-pack was on sale for $3 at Winners. There was a display with a lot of cheap supplements, protein shakes, bars, etc. They were even selling 4-packs of Redline for only $8.99.

Two things surprised me about this Slimquick package when I opened it. The first one was that the bottle that can be seen through the cutout is glued to the box so it doesn't move and hide the label. Pretty clever I thought.


The second is the amount of information the company has managed to cram both on bottle label and on the box label. How did they do this? The back of the box unfolds revealing the ingredients and the nutritional info. Same thing with the bottle label - you can peel one of the corners back to reveal similar information. Enough about the packaged, lets drink one them.

The bottles are unique, they are slim, tall and pearl white. Oh damn, the smell. I was not happy when I unscrewed the top. The smell hit me fast and hit me bad. This smells like cough syrup with some lemon hints. Usually when I say that an energy drink or a shot smells and tastes like cough syrup, I mean that it carries those hints, but this...its main aroma is of cough syrup. At least the color doesn't look watered down, it is ruby red. Surprisingly this shot does not taste like cough syrup very much. It tastes almost as what it says it tastes like - berries with hints of lemons. The taste is very sour at first, but soon the artificial sweetener overpowers everything and you are left running to the nearest water fountain to get rid of the sweet taste. If you wait for a minute or two, the sweet taste will disappear and something strange will happen. You will taste chocolate and coffee...at least that's what I was tasting after each sip. Not bad tasting, but there are definitely better tasting energy shots out there.

Let's discuss the energy boost here. There is no clear indication of exactly how much caffeine each of these energy shots contains, but one can speculate. Caffeine is listed as an ingredient under the "Slimquick energy 6 WAYS Complex" section. The problem is that a number is given for the entire energy blend and not for the individual components. The energy blend is 1915 mg. If you continue reading the back of the pack, you will discover that each of the containers contains as much caffeine as 2 cups of coffee...vague, really vague. What kind of cups? American or Canadian? What does that mean? That means that each of the shots contains anywhere between 292 mg of caffeine to 304 mg. Wow...if that is true, then this is the most potent energy shot I have ever consumed.

It is not true, at least I don't think it is true. I usually feel the initial effects of energy shots and drinks within 15 to 20 minutes. After another 10 to 15 minutes I feel the caffeine rush. What I experienced with Slimquick was not what I was expecting. I felt the effects after 20 minutes but they were very conservative. I experienced neither jitters nor a rush of energy. I was calm and focused. The last time I had 300 mg of caffeine at once I was climbing walls within minutes and could barely sit on my chair. Did Slimquick discover a secret ingredient that makes your body use the 300 mgs of caffeine conservatively and to give you just what you need? I doubt it. I just don't think that this energy shot really contains an amount of caffeine equal to two cups of coffee. And it is not like I am so addicted to caffeine that 2 cups of coffee don't affect me. I was on a caffeine fast during the holidays, which lowered my tolerance.

Forty minutes after consuming the shot and still no caffeine rush. I was still somewhat calm and focused though. Around the 50th minute I was starting to feel the effects of caffeine, but there were still no jitters and there was none of the typical caffeine rush experience. I was no longer focused or calm. This doesn't work very fast to be honest, but at least provides calmness and focus a bit longer than other energy shots that promise that. I was finally feeling well energized around the 1 hour mark. The feeling was similar to what you would get from other energy shot and drinks but without the jitters. That lasted for about an hour and a half and then I was back to feeling normal.

Scores:
Cost - $3 CAD for a 2-pack from Winners
Taste - 5.8/10
Energy - 6.7/10

Overall - 12.5/20...tastes OK, works OK, but don't fall for the 2-cups of coffee per shot thing