I like it that Starbucks makes products for those people who want to experience Starbucks coffee but are afraid to enter the clusterfuck in every Starbucks store. The long lines, the unusual size names, the Chatty Cathys on their phones while ordering, the douchebags sitting at tables with their laptops open like they’re doing work, the rookies who have no idea how to order, the assholes who sneer at the people who don’t know how to order, the overplayed easy listening music, the low sound of the cappuccino machine, the people who stick their pinky finger out while drinking, and the people who AHHH after every sip can be an overwhelming experience for some. The brand new Starbucks Doubleshot Energy + Coffee energy drinks are meant for those who aren’t willing to brave those elements.

Just like the members of the 1990s R&B groups Color Me Badd and All-4-One, the Starbucks Doubleshot Energy + Coffee energy drink comes in three flavors: coffee, mocha, and vanilla. All three were really delicious.

The coffee flavor is great for the hardcore coffee drinker, who enjoys just a little sugar with their black cup of joe because they still want to enjoy its bitterness, always seems to have a coffee mug in their hands, has stained teeth, exhales coffee breath, farts smell like coffee, and if given the option would probably take their coffee through an IV drip. The mocha flavor isn’t as bitter as the coffee flavor and has a hint of chocolate, which makes it perfect for the casual coffee drinker who likes their coffee sweet, but not too sweet, drinks coffee mostly on weekdays at work, will never make coffee at the office coffee maker, and is despised by the hardcore coffee drinker for not making coffee at the office coffee maker. The vanilla flavor is the sweetest of them all and is meant for pussies who can’t handle coffee, but want to look like they can.

I personally enjoyed the vanilla flavor the most and it was the easiest for me to drink, but pretty much all of them were easy to drink.

I’m not sure how much sweet caffeine the Starbucks Doubleshot Energy + Coffee Energy Drink has, but each 15-ounce can consists of Starbucks coffee, B-vitamins, guarana and ginseng, all of which gave me a good boost of energy to help me jump start my day of watching the Price Is Right, Googling ex-girlfriends, and masturbating to the Knicker Picker website (link NSFW).

These Starbucks coffee energy drinks directly compete with the Java Monster and Rockstar Roasted drinks, all of which are equally good. Although, just like the prostitutes Charlie Sheen likes to roll with, the Starbucks ones are a little more expensive than its competition, but then again, isn’t everything from Starbucks?

(Nutrition Facts - 1 can (varies with flavor) - 200-210 calories, 2.5 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams trans fat, 15 milligrams of cholesterol, 170-180 milligrams of sodium, 1010-1030 milligrams of potassium, 34-36 grams of carbohydrates, 25-26 grams of sugar, 12 grams of protein, 8% vitamin A, 50% vitamin C, 40% calcium, 2% iron, 20% vitamin D, 200% riboflavin, 200% niacin, 200% vitamin B6, 100% vitamin B12, 2000 milligrams of maltodextrin, 1800 milligrams of taurine, 450 milligrams of L-carnitine, 180 milligrams of inositol, 325 milligrams of panax ginseng, 90 milligrams of guarana, and

(Editor’s Note: The Energy Fiend also has a review on the new Starbucks Energy Drinks. Here’s a review from the Energy Guru. And another from Possessed by Caffeine. Oh, here’s a Screaming Energy review.)

Item: Starbucks Doubleshot Energy + Coffee Energy Drink (Mocha, Vanilla and Coffee)
Price: FREE (Retails for $2.59)
Purchased at: From nice PR people
Rating: 8 out of 10 (Vanilla)
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Coffee)
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Mocha)
Pros: Delicious. Good boost of energy. Different flavors for different palates. 12 grams of protein per can. Nice source of potassium. No excessive amounts of sugar. Knicker Picker website.
Cons: Retail price is higher than Monster & Rockstar coffee drinks. Douchebags. The clusterfuck at a busy Starbucks location.

Imagine having the power to make a difference and to change the world in some way. Some of you might be saying that one person can’t make a difference, but I’m here to tell you that one person can, but if you recruit more people, it’s a whole lot easier and if you’re sneaky enough, you might not need to do anything at all and make all those people you recruited do all the work. But if you don’t want to go through that trouble, you can make a difference by voting…for a sugary, carbonated, and caffeinated beverage.

Welcome to Dewmocracy.

Mountain Dew is letting the people decide the new Dew among three flavors: SuperNova, Revolution, and Voltage. Of course, this is slightly retarded since all three flavors are being produced and sold in stores, so technically they are ALL already new. Someone might say that Dewmocracy is about choosing the new permanent Dew flavor, and I would say to them that, it maybe permanent, but technically the winner won’t be new.

The Dewmocracy website, where you can vote for your favorite flavor, keeps track of the votes throughout the United States by state. The whole thing reminds me of all the CNN news coverage and graphics on Election Night, except without Wolf Blitzer’s beard to scare me. Just like American Idol, I’m sure more people will vote in this election than the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Some people might say that elections like these are teaching children the importance of voting. I say nay to those people, for I believe that the elections for Dewmocracy and American Idol teach the importance of voting…for things that don’t fucking matter.

I felt Revolution was the worst, SuperNova was the best, and Voltage was the nerd with the hairy chest. Looking at the Dewmocracy website, my vote for Mountain Dew SuperNova has helped it gain 3% of the vote in my state of Hawaii, which means I am supporting the Ralph Nader of Mountain Dew.

None of the Dewmocracy flavors were repulsive and each of them were sweeter than all the Care Bears holding hands while skipping across a rainbow and singing “Joy to the World.” I enjoyed SuperNova the most because of its unusual strawberry melon flavor, which gave it a nice fruity taste, almost girly-alcohol-drink-ish. It also tasted like a strawberry lemonade, which is weird since it doesn’t have any citrus flavor. Voltage’s raspberry-citrus flavor was good and I thought if Mountain Dew were to make another blue-colored Dew (Taco Bell exclusive Baja Blast was the first blue Dew), this flavor should be it. Finally, the wild berry flavor of Mountain Dew Revolution was decent, but personally wild berries aren’t my thing, because they’re too wild for me.

But my voice is just one and many of you probably disagree with me, so if you want to participate and get an unhealthy amount of high fructose corn syrup, try all three flavors, and vote at the Dewmocracy website.

(Nutrition Facts - 1 bottle - 290 calories, 0 grams of fat, 105 milligrams of sodium, 76 grams of carbs, 76 grams of sugar, 0 grams of protein, 91 milligrams of caffeine, and 10 grams of Dewmocracy.)

(Editor’s Note: The Consumer’s Corner also reviewed all three flavors.)

Item: Mountain Dew Dewmocracy Flavors (SuperNova, Revolution, and Voltage)
Price: $1.25 each (20 ounces)
Purchased at: 7-Eleven
Rating: 7 out of 10 (SuperNova)
Rating: 5 out of 10 (Revolution)
Rating: 6 out of 10 (Voltage)
Pros: SuperNova had a nice fruity flavor. Voltage flavor was good. 91 milligrams of sweet, sweet caffeine per bottle. Care Bears holding hands while skipping across a rainbow and singing “Joy to the World.” None of the flavors were repulsive. Democracy.
Cons: High fructose corn syrup. Wolf Blitzer’s beard. Having to drink three bottles of Mountain Dew for this review. Having to sign up to have the opportunity to vote for Dewmocracy.

OMG! Like energy drinks are soooo like 2007. Now it’s like totally about energy-everything-else because energy drink are like so everywhere. They’re in like grocery stores, convenience stores, online stores, membership warehouse stores, restaurant stores, super stores, and like bar stores. Like I would not be caught dead drinking a canned energy drink because like aluminum is for siding and covering leftovers.

Because I don’t like want to look like a total dorkzilla, I’ve been like drinking the Jamba Juice 3G Energizer smoothie to like totally get my energy. It’s got like this 3G Charger boost thingy, which is supposed to like give me 120 milligrams of caffeine.

The boost thingy has like stuff you’d find in energy drinks, like green tea, guarananana and like ginseng, but it doesn’t come in some lamers can. Like the only things that like should be in a can are like canned food going to the food bank and like Oscar the Grouch. There’s like also an Energy boost thingy with lots of Vitamins B6 and B12. With all those vitamins it’s like they totally threw in some Flintstones vitamins.

Along with the 3G Charger and Energy boost thingies, the Jamba Juice 3G Energizer contains raspberries, strawberries, lemonade, passionfruit-mango juice, lime sherbet, and orange sherbet. When I read it had passionfruit, I like asked the Jamba Juice person if it was one of those like a-fro-dee-zee-ack thingies. The Jamba Juice blender jockey like looked at me like I was stupid or something. OMG! Whatever! Total hater!

Anyhoo, I like wanted to totally like this, because the color was cute and it was kind of yummers, but OMG, there were like seeds like everywhere and I was like totally not having any fun. Seeds were like crunchy and like getting stuck between my teeth. OMG! Hello, it’s like supposed to be a smoothie and go down smooth, not a smoothie sometimes and go down not so smooth. It was like a total bummers.

I was like trying to enjoy its strong lemonade-y taste, but like the seeds like totally got in the way. At first, I was deciding whether or not I was going to like spit them out, but it’s like totally lamers to spit, so I like swallowed all those seeds. I like totally hope a strawberry tree doesn’t like grow in me. That would be like totally gross.

OMG, while I was drinking the Jamba Juice 3G Energizer, I felt like I was that Duracell Bunny that like keeps going and going. While I was walking around the mall with it, it like gave me the energy to climb the stairs instead of climbing the escalator and like when I was pulling clothes to try on, the store worker came up to me and asked me if she could like take the clothes I had in my hands and put them in a dressing room, but because of the energy from the smoothie, I totally told her that I’d hold on to them.

OMG! I’m totally like Wonder Woman now.

(Nutrition Facts - 24-ounces - 470 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, 1 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 30 milligrams of sodium, 430 milligrams of potassium, 110 grams of carbohydrates, 93 grams of sugar, 6 grams of dietary fiber, 3 grams of protein. 90% Vitamin C, 30% calcium, 4 fruit servings, 1 big sugar rush, and like 1 big sugar low.)

Item: Jamba Juice 3G Energizer
Price: $4.69 (24-ounces)
Purchased at: Jamba Juice
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Good. Really sweet. Lemonade is the dominant flavor. Nice boost of energy. 120 milligrams of sweet, sweet caffeine.
Cons: Too many damn seeds. Not too smooth for a smoothie. Too many damn likes in this review. Lots of sugar. Being a dorkzilla. The insane abundance of energy drinks.

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Summer is a time for hot temperatures, trips to Disneyland, tight short shorts, armpit sweat stains, and of course, summer blockbuster movies, and just like you can expect Dane Cook to use the word “bro” in everything he will ever appear in, you can expect each summer blockbuster to have a product tie-in. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has the Snickers Adventure Bar, Iron Man has the AMP Energy Freeze Slurpee, the new Harold & Kumar movie has skull bongs, and Get Smart has the Sierra Mist Undercover Orange.

For those of you who did not watch Nick at Nite in the early 1990s and/or watch television in the 1960s because your parents were afraid of the radiation coming out of the “picture radio,” Get Smart was a James Bond parody that followed the adventures of Maxwell Smart, an agent of CONTROL, a secret U.S. government agency. His task was to thwart KAOS, an evil organization with the same penchant for the caps lock key as CONTROL.

The Sierra Mist Undercover Orange is a 7-Up/Sprite wannabe lemon-lime soda with a splash of mandarin orange flavor. If your inner botanist believes a mandarin orange is a tangerine, then it does have a mandarin orange flavor. Personally, my inner botanist has had its fair share of canned Asian mandarin oranges in heavy syrup over the years to raise my fruit intake, so I have a pretty good idea of what mandarin oranges taste like and I have to say that I don’t think a mandarin orange is a tangerine. Therefore, I believe this soda tastes more like a tangerine.

Either way, the orange flavor in this soda isn’t like Sunkist or any of the generic brand orange sodas out there. I kind of prefer the flavor of the Sierra Mist Undercover Orange because it tastes a little more natural than most orange sodas because it’s less sweet and more sour, thanks to the Sierra Mist lemon and lime flavor.

The Sierra Mist Undercover Orange isn’t bad for a carbonated citrus beverage and summer blockbuster tie-in. It’s a limited edition beverage so once it’s gone, it’s gone…unless it’s really popular, then it will come back in the future, most likely with another movie tie-in. For now, it makes a great soda to wash away the taste of the trailer for the movie Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

(Nutrition Facts - 1 bottle - 240 calories, 0 grams of fat, 55 milligrams of sodium, 65 grams of carbohydrates, 65 grams of sugar, 0 grams of protein, 0 grams of caffeine, and 0 grams of box office gold.)

(Editor’s Note: Here’s are a couple more reviews from Bev Review and Review Busters)

Item: Sierra Mist Undercover Orange
Price: $1.25 (20 ounces)
Purchased at: 7-Eleven
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: It’s clear. Tastes like a tangerine (according to my inner botanist). Low sodium. Has a more natural taste than most orange sodas. Iron Man. Nick at Nite.
Cons: No fucking caffeine. High fructose corn syrup. A lot of sugar per bottle. Armpit sweat stains. Spelling the word “night” as “nite.” The despair you’ll feel after watching the trailer for Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

Americans love a lot of things: pornography, violence, and worshipping false idols. But most of all we love food. Not just good, classic food, but superfluous and extravagant treats that go far beyond the realm of reasonable. We’re the country that balked at Britain’s attempt at a deep fried Mars bar and invented deep fried pizza. It’s only fitting that one of our classic desserts consists of taking a giant scoop of vanilla ice cream and dumping it into a carbonated beverage that somehow contains more sugar than actual sugar.

Yes, the ice cream float has always had a mysterious hold over the imaginations of everyone who’s ever eaten at a diner. Whether it’s the furious bubbling of the concoction or the smooth consistency of ice cream mixed with your favorite soda, it’s hard to resist what basically boils down to an ice cream sauce that you drink. The people at the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group (sounds like an awesome law firm) have taken this idea and released “floats” in Sunkist and A&W root beer flavors, selling them at the premium price of $4.99 for a box of four bottles.

I chose the Sunkist version because I have a Keenan and Kel-like affinity towards orange soda which has been the source of much ridicule in the past. It’s made with real skim milk, making it a low-fat option for those craving an ice cream float. The sugar content, however, is still disturbing. I’m writing this right now as I’m slipping in and out of a diabetic coma because this stuff has 63 grams of sugar in an 11.5 ounce bottle, which is nearly twice as much as regular soda. How they managed to do this is head-explodingly troubling.

The float is absolutely awful when it’s lukewarm, which is to be expected, but is pleasant and refreshing when well-chilled. It tastes very similar to a lot of orange cream sodas that are already on the market, except it is a bit milkier. Also of note is that it has no carbonation at all, which I found odd because a little bit would have made it more interesting on the palate.

You won’t feel great about yourself while you’re drinking this because you can taste every single gram of sugar in each sip. There’s a lot of advertising these days about guilt-free snacks, but this isn’t one of them. At the end of the day, this stuff is way too sweet to be drunk on a regular basis. Of course, I thought the same thing about Lindsay Lohan as well and it didn’t stop her from being a big success. We’ll have to wait and see with the Sunkist Float.

(Nutritional Facts - 1 bottle - 260 calories, 15 calories from fat, 1.5 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 5 mg of cholesterol, 20mg sodium, 64 grams of carbs, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 63 grams of sugar, 1 gram of protein, and 4% Calcium)

Item: Sunkist Float
Price: $4.99 (box of 4)
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Tastes pretty good when it’s ultra-chilled. Low on fat while still having a milky flavor. Ice cream sauce that you drink. Deep fried pizza.
Cons: Extremely sweet and horrible for you. No carbonation. A little pricey for what you’re getting.