Man, it has been a while since I had an energy shot. According to my trusty list of blog posts, it was in February when I had a NoDoz. In October when I was across the border loading up on groceries around the Canadian Thanksgiving, I came across a few new energy shots I purchased to review. I wanted to start off with Street King and this new (to me) extra strength energy shot. By the way, the "extra strength" is definitely not a gimmick and I will elaborate on this further down.
Taste
I am a sucker for sour drinks and foods and I love strawberry lemonades, so I didn't even have to think twice about getting a shot of this.
So is it really that sour? Yup...weeeelll, sort of. The initial sip introduces a blend of chemical/plastic notes to the tongue, but as you start to swallow, you get the expected lemony sourness. The second sip has almost no plasticy taste and more of the actual flavor. I strongly recommend taking a small first sip if you wish to actually taste the shot. If you are looking for that energy, then do it in a gulp or two. Also, if you let enough time elapse between sips, be ready to taste the plastic again.
Once the plastic flavor is out of the way, I struggled a bit to find the strawberries. The lemonade part is there and it is dominant. The strawberries for me were more in the aftertaste and they were very light. If you weren't actively seeking them, you might not even know they were there. This shout should be called just lemonade.
So...like many energy shots, there are some bitter notes from the caffeine (because there is just so much of it!!!) that manifest themselves near the finish but disappear relatively quickly in the aftertaste.
Overall, I thought the shot was easy to drink, but there are some plastic and light bitter notes that may not be appealing to some. The sourness definitely helps hide the chemical mix and doesn't taste too bad either (the lemonade part I mean).
Energy
Sooo, extra strength is 280 mg of caffeine. 280 mg!!!!!! Just for comparison, the last energy shot I had had only 115 mg of caffeine. A 5 hour energy? Only 200 mg. This Street King is like a 5 hour energy shot followed by a Red Bull...not that you should try something like this, but I am just trying to paint a picture here.
With 280 mg of caffeine, the kick is obviously fantastic, but the delivery is what is impressive. The initial wave comes in within minutes and the road to full caffeine absorption is almost entirely free to jitters. Yeah! I think only at one point I felt a little jittery, but that did not last long. Even with the full 280 mg of caffeine coursing through my veins, I was able to remain at my desk and focus on what I was doing. I feel like the energy can be put to a good use both for desk work requiring concentration and work requiring physical energy.
The kick lasted for well over 5 hours and there was no crash at the end. The effects were just slowly starting to wear off.
If you can overlook the plastic taste, this is definitely one damn good energy shot.
Scores:
Cost - $2.99 from WalMart
Taste - 6/10
Energy - 9/10
Overall - 15/20...sour, some plastic, but damn the kick is great
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