The taste: As many times as I’ve said that other energy drinks taste vaguely of pineapple, this one does too. But much more so. This time they’ve actually put fruit juice in, making up a whole 50% of the drink. The fruits are a blend of apple, passion fruit, pineapple and guava, and you can properly taste them. The taste only carries a hint of usual Monster, although you can tell quite quickly that the sugar content of the drink is still pretty high. Again Monster have made a drink with a taste that you wouldn’t usually expect from the energy drinks market.

Taste: 8/10
Value: 5/10
Experience: 8/10
Overall: 8/10

Being a major brand, it costs quite a lot, somewhere around £1.25 per can. Looks pretty nice, and with a caffeine content of 32mg/100ml, one of the highest I’ve seen yet, it’s pretty good value for a 500ml can, and a major brand, with the caffeine per price rate at 1.28mg for the penny.

What really makes monster different from the other drinks I’ve tried so far is that it seems to have a fairly unique flavour. There are hints of the mixed-fruit generic oversweet taste, but the actual main flavour is very hard to describe. To me it tastes sort of clinical, but that’s not really a fair way of describing it as it’s not actually bad, just very strange. I know some people who absolutely love it and swear by the taste, and others who hate it. Oh well, I guess this is just one drink you’ve got to make your own mind up about.

Taste: 7/10 for potential
Value: 5/10
Experience: 8/10
Overall: 7/10

The caffeine content is nice and high – 32mg/100ml – but taking into consideration the price, it comes out at 1.17mg per penny. Not a patch on the budget drinks, but just about double as much as Red Bull. It’s also 3p cheaper than Red Bull overall.

Anyway, the taste: very strange. It’s like pineapple mixed with some kind of industrial solvent. The taste is genuinely nasty, but at least the aftertaste doesn’t stay too long. It’s a bit of a let-down after the packaging and price led me to believe they might actually make it taste good. Oh well, that’s marketing for you.

Taste: 4/10
Value: 5/10
Experience: 8/10
Overall: 6/10

Surprisingly, the packaging is fairly colourful looking, with a colour distinction to help you tell the normal and sugar-free versions apart – the sugar-free variant is in the “lighter” shade of blue.

Starting with the regular, sugared version – the taste is fairly in line with every other budget can so far, a “mixed fruit” flavour with a sweet aftertaste, which is in this case bearable at least. Nothing special here.

Taste (regular): 6/10

After hurriedly chugging the rest of the regular to get a comparative taste of the sugar free version, I was surprised at the difference in taste. It actually tastes quite markedly worse, but I guess that’s to be expected, by the fact none of the other brands have a sugar-free or diet version I’ve seen yet. It’s sweeter then the regular, but not as sickly, it just tastes of horrible diluted pineapple and orange squash. There’s also a nasty aftertaste. But on the other hand, at least there won’t be a sugar comedown afterwards if you have a lot – unless you wash your mouth out with coke or something, which may seem tempting after tasting it.

Taste (sugar free): 3/10

Both variants have the same concentration and strength by price as emerge too – 30mg/100ml, 2.14mg/p.

Value: 7/10
Experience: 5/10
Overall (regular): 6/10
Overall (sugar-free): 4/10

Alright as a budget drink, but unless you’re on a major diet or unable to taste, stay the hell away from the sugar free version!

Red bull; the most recognised of the energy drinks, with omnipresent advertising space around racetracks, cinemas and their own sponsored air race. Judging by the reputation and the price tag I imagined that the taste would be at least original, but it surprised me to find it reminiscent of the horrible bargain drink equivalents, with only a slight removal of aftertaste. Seriously, just buy Emerge, it taste the same, and you pay £1.05 less per can. The caffeine by price is ridiculously poor, at only 0.57mg/p (calculated for the 250ml can, as they seem to be stocked the most). The can does nothing to justify the extra pound of price – the only reason you’d drink this was if it was the only thing available – which seems to be the case in many service stations and small shops across the UK, where Red Bull has long had a monopoly.

Taste: 6/10
Value: 1/10
Experience: 6/10
Overall: 3/10

Unlike the budget 35p drinks I’ve reviewed, it has an actually pleasant aftertaste, although the drink itself is the same syrupy, sugary, “mixed fruit” flavour. However, this comes at a price rise of 14p, without any increase in caffeine content (30mg/100ml). Thus you only get 1.53mg of caffeine for each of your 49 pence, the lowest caffeine to price ratio so far (although no doubt that will change). Still, if you can’t stand the aftertaste of the cheaper drinks or if you have nothing to wash it down with, Boost does a good job.

Taste: 7/10
Value: 4/10
Experience: 7/10
Overall: 6/10

So far, I was expecting another euroshopper style super-cheap can with super-nasty taste. But I was surprised – while it’s nothing particularly special, Emerge manages not to carry as much of the aftertaste which plagues the equally-price euroshopper drink – and is therefore instantly preferable when both are available.

Caffeine concentration of 30mg/100ml means that the mg per penny value is around 2.14mg/p – slightly below the euroshopper drink, but the better taste makes sure this is a contender.

Nothing special by itself, but if you have to choose between the low-priced drinks, Emerge wouldn’t be a bad choice.

Taste: 6/10
Value: 8/10
Experience: 6/10
Overall: 7/10

The caffeine content is average, 31mg/100ml, which calculated by cost results in a figure of 2.21mg/p of caffeine, a high ratio. Sadly the taste is offputting.

Euroshopper provide a nice cheap energy drink to wake you up but thanks to the appearance and horrible taste, it’s not the kind of product you’d want to drink for pleasure.

Taste: 2/10
Value: 8/10
Experience: 5/10
Overall: 4/10

So for the first review, this can of Red Devil:

Although I’d never heard of this stuff before, it’s apparently the #2 energy drink in Europe. It’s in a sturdy steel can, 440ml size, which is unusual as most energy drinks sold here are in 500ml tallboy cans or smaller 250ml cans.

The price is pretty good too; at 69p for 440ml, it’s at the cheaper end of the range, and with a caffeine concentration of 32mg/100ml, it clocks in at 2.04mg of caffeine for every penny.

The taste is fairly unique, it’s a sickly sweet mixture you might get by mixing Tizer and IRN-BRU. You can feel the sugar as the red liquid leaves the can. Luckily it’s without major aftertaste, although you are pretty much guaranteed a sugar comedown later.

All in all a fairly average energy drink but with a good price point if you want something cheap to keep you going.

Taste: 6/10
Value: 8/10
Experience: 6/10
Overall: 7/10