Gatorade Lower Sugar Sports Drink Review

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Gatorade Lower Sugar Sports Drink Fruit Punch bottle

Is smashing a keyboard with my fingers a high-impact workout?

It sounds high-impact because when I hit my keys, it’s like I’m a Foley artist creating the footsteps of a centipede. Or I’m like Mozart doing Rondo alla Turca from Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K. 331 — but on a keyboard, typing silly wordplay, the word “delicious” way too much, and classical music references that might be incorrect.

Does a keyboard jockey like me need electrolytes to replace those lost from heavy typing? It’s questionable whether I lost any. But if I did, I can now get them from Gatorade in a lower sugar form — 75% less sugar than regular Gatorade, to be exact.

Gatorade Lower Sugar Sports Drink Fruit Punch has a lighter color than other Gatorade Fruit Punch varieties

Gatorade Lower Sugar currently comes in four flavors — Fruit Punch, Lemonade, Rain Berry, and Glacier Cherry, because of course, there’s always a Glacier flavor. I ended up with Fruit Punch. They have no artificial flavors, sweeteners, or colors. And don’t get them confused with Gatorade Zero, Gatorade G2, Gatorade Fit, or whatever other lower or zero sugar varieties the Gatorade scientists have dreamed up over the years. Gatorade Lower Sugar is a new product that uses the sweetener combination du jour — sugar and stevia — which you’ve also seen recently in the Pepsi Prebiotic Colas.

Also, what’s the deal with the super self-explanatory name? No Gatorade LS. No Gatorade 3. It’s like no one had a good idea, so they just went literal and called it a day.

For this review, I felt compelled to compare it with the original Gatorade and the zero-sugar version — partly for science, and partly because my fingers probably need hydration from writing this. So I did a blind taste test, and it turns out I preferred Gatorade Lower Sugar over Gatorade Zero and regular Gatorade.

Gatorade Lower Sugar Sports Drink Fruit Punch next to regular Gatorade Fruit Punch and Gatorade Zero Fruit Punch

The original Gatorade Fruit Punch has a slightly thicker texture than the others, but its fruit punch flavor didn’t punch as hard and was surprisingly less sweet than I expected. Gatorade Zero had a thinner texture, but its fruit punch flavor hit harder, with a nice sweetness from the sucralose and acesulfame potassium. There’s a hint of artificial sweetener aftertaste, but it’s one I don’t mind.

Gatorade Lower Sugar stood out as my favorite of the three. Across multiple blind taste tests, it consistently tasted the best, and it’s genuinely difficult to tell it was sweetened with sugar and stevia. Without the regular Gatorade on hand for comparison, I could easily be convinced this was the original. The only characteristic that fell short of the other two was its color, but that’s simply the absence of artificial dyes.

Speaking of sugar and stevia — that combination was the sweetener du jour several years ago, too. Remember Pepsi True and Coca-Cola Life? Decent tasting colas that didn’t last, possibly because the stevia was noticeable enough to give them a slight bitterness. It seems PepsiCo has since figured out how to balance the two sweeteners, because whatever they’re doing here works.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to work up a sweat typing out these nutrition facts.

Purchased Price: $2.39
Size: 28 fl oz bottle
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (28 fl oz) 50 calories, 0 grams of fat, 380 milligrams of sodium, 11 grams of carbohydrates, 11 grams of sugar (including 11 grams of added sugar), and 0 grams of protein.

Monster Voodoo Grape Energy Juice Review

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Monster Voodoo Grape Energy Juice can

Monster Voodoo Grape Energy Juice contains the following: white grape juice concentrate, apple juice concentrate, red grape juice concentrate, Concord grape juice concentrate, and plum juice concentrate. Despite that concentration of juice concentrates, the can says it consists of only six percent juice. However, I don’t need to concentrate much to notice its great grape flavor.

I’m not sure what the deal is with the whole “voodoo” theme, and I’m not going to concentrate at all on the relationship between grape and voodoo. I’ll let AI do that.

Okay, AI has told me that while voodoo and grape don’t have a direct relationship, the color purple and voodoo, um, doo. Purple is one of the three Mardi Gras colors — along with gold and green — and Mardi Gras has a deep relationship with New Orleans’ voodoo culture. Kevin Costner was in the movie JFK, which was set in New Orleans, and Kevin Bacon played a minor role in JFK. BOOM!

Oh, wait. We’re not playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. My bad.

Monster Voodoo Grape Energy Juice purple color

Voodoo Grape’s enticing aroma and delicious flavor are pretty straightforward. If you’ve had a grape soda in your life, or voided a Sodastream’s warranty by using it to pump carbon dioxide into grape juice, you have a pretty good idea of what this smells, tastes, and feels like. It has a bold grape flavor that makes my mouth feel like it just got punched in the face by the Fruit of the Looms red grapes. Its carbonation isn’t as strong as a Grape Crush, but there are plenty of bubbles to tickle your tongue.

While it’s a great tasting grape beverage and it gets my heart pumping with 160 milligrams of caffeine, I can’t say I’d choose it over Monster Energy’s other grape-flavored energy drink, Ultra Violet, if I’m standing in front of store coolers concentrating on what beverage I’m going to pick up to wake my tired body. Ultra Violet also has a great grape flavor and the same caffeine amount, but with no sugar and only ten calories, which is a pretty easy tiebreaker when choosing between two great options.

Also, Milla Jovovich was in a movie called Ultraviolet. She was also in Dazed and Confused. In that movie, Matthew McConaughey played David Wooderson and debuted his real-life catchphrase, “alright, alright, alright.” McConaughey was also in the film A Time to Kill with — that’s right — KEVIN BACON! BOOM!

Purchased Price: $3.75
Size: 16 fl oz can
Purchased at: 7-Eleven
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 150 calories, 0 grams of fat, 190 milligrams of sodium, 39 grams of carbohydrates, 36 grams of sugar (includes 36 grams of added sugar), 0 grams of protein, and 160 milligrams of caffeine.

Alani Nu Lime Slush Energy Drink Review

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Alani Nu Lime Slush Energy Drink can

There have been several Alani Nu Slush flavors over the years — Pink Slush, Blue Slush, Cherry Slush, and now this new Lime Slush. Here’s how the company describes it:

Icy, citrusy, iconic — Lime Slush Energy is here to sweeten your spring break with all the adventure and none of the sugar! A river of bold lime and sunny lemon flavors, each can serves up B vitamins, 200mg of caffeine, and our signature slushie twist. One sip? And, bestie, you’re off the map and in the moment!

Um, cool, bestie.

Despite trying several Alani Nu Energy flavors over the past year, this is my first Slush variety. I’m not sure why it took me this long, but if Lime Slush is any indication of what I’ve been missing, I must seek out the other Slush flavors.

Alani Nu Lime Slush Energy Drink in glass

To be honest, Lime Slush reminds me of the Bang Lime Pop Drop I reviewed a few weeks ago — another lime creamsicle-style drink that caught me pleasantly off guard. But while the Bang leans into the creamy, candy-like sweetness, the Alani Nu version takes a slightly different approach with a more pronounced sour lime flavor and a little less creaminess. Both drinks smell and taste wonderful, but I can’t say I like the flavor of one over the other.

Whether it truly tastes like a lime slush is debatable — I’d call it more of a lime sorbet, with a creaminess that you wouldn’t expect from something billed as icy and citrusy. But that’s not a complaint. It’s just a more interesting drink than its name suggests.

At 200 milligrams of caffeine, zero sugar, and only 10 calories, it also delivers almost everything you want from an energy drink without any of the guilt — which, combined with how good it tastes, makes it very easy to recommend. Though, like all energy drinks in slim 12-ounce cans, I wish it came in a larger 16-ounce version.

Lime Slush is another winner from Alani Nu — and a reminder that I really need to work my way through the rest of the Slush lineup to find out if any of them could also be my bestie.

Purchased Price: $2.89
Size: 12 fl oz can
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 10 calories, 0 grams of fat, 190 milligrams of sodium, 1 gram of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, 0 grams of protein, and 200 milligrams of caffeine.

Red Bull Spring Edition Cherry Sakura Energy Drink Review

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Red Bull Spring Edition Cherry Sakura Energy Drink can

Spring has sprung.

I’m still staring at mountains of dirty snow everywhere I turn, but as far as I’m concerned, Red Bull is the official arbiter of the season. That’s right, forget the fat little terrified groundhog, because the only animal you should be getting your seasonal assurance from is the bull.

Every year in early March, my rites of spring involve being angry at the Mets’ hypothetical roster, re-exposing my blindingly white calves to the world, and tossing back a few of whatever flavor concoction Red Bull has waiting for me. It’s 2026, and this year it landed on Cherry Sakura, or Japanese Cherry Blossom.

The can says cherry AND sakura

In case you’re like me and are wondering if the flavor name is an “ATM machine-like” redundancy, no, this is Cherry AND Cherry Blossom. Flora and Fruit(a.)

I enjoyed their last foray into Japanese flavors with “Fuji Apple,” and was reasonably satisfied with last year’s Spring Edition, also a fruit/flower hybrid, “Grapefruit Blossom,” so we were off to a good start. Still, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect.

After drinking two cans, I’m still pretty stumped on the flavor profile, but I can tell ya, it’s a winner. This is a very confusing flavor, and the internet seems to agree.

Red Bull Spring Edition Cherry Sakura Energy Drink carbonation in a glass with it's purple red color

Upon first sip, I immediately started lying to myself. Did I taste cherry? I think. It just wasn’t the typical sweet cherry you’d expect. Did I taste something mildly floral? I think. I’d say it’s more “leafy” than “flowery.”

Well, there ya go, it’s Cherry and flowers, they didn’t lie… but wait…

Was it cherry? I just kept tasting slightly sour, unripened fruits. I couldn’t distinguish which fruits. Despite reading the can and trying to convince myself it was cherry, I just refused to commit to that. Was it dragon fruit or something? I liked it a lot, I just didn’t know why.

Then it hit me – does this taste like Strawberry Banana, or am I insane? I might be insane. I’m not alone though. I’ll get to that in a bit.

I couldn’t shake it; I tasted what I would call Red Bull’s attempt at a Strawberry Banana Smoothie. It’s not super flavorful in either fruit’s direction, but something about it just tastes like a lite, unripe version of those two fruits in energy drink form. Like if you mixed 75% Sugar Free Red Bull with 25% Strawberry Banana juice.

Red Bull Spring Edition Cherry Sakura Energy Drink in a glass next to its can

Yeah. Cherry Sakura = Strawberry Banana Smoothie. “You’re insane.” So, after a little Googling I saw opinions on the flavor vary from what it’s actually supposed to be to… banana. There were a lot of people saying they tasted banana, which I’m sure sounds bananas.

Maybe this could be the Yanny/Laurel of a new generation. Perhaps my fellow blue/black dress observers are phantom bananas, while the white/gold psychos are something entirely different?

Either way, no matter what flavors you pinpoint, I think most will agree this is a strong addition to the Red Bull lineup. This might be one of my most puzzling reviews, but all I can really tell you is that I kinda loved “Cherry Sakura” by the end.

Purchased Price: $2.50
Size: 8.4 Fl. Oz.
Purchased at: Quick Chek
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 10 calories, 0 grams of fat, 140 milligrams of sodium, 2 grams of total carbohydrates, 0 grams of total sugars, 0 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Bang Lime Pop Drop Energy Drink

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Bang Lime Pop Drop Energy Drink can

When Bang’s Lime Pop Drop was dropped off at my door by UPS, I expected it to be a heavily caffeinated lemon-lime-flavored energy drink that would be reminiscent of such sodas as Sprite, 7Up, Starry, Mist Twst, or Sierra Mist.

Because I live under a rock apparently made of new Monster Energy, breakfast cereal, and ice cream releases, I hadn’t even heard of this drink before it ended up on my Welcome mat. But after tasting the sample Bang sent me, I quickly found it didn’t taste at all like those lemon-lime sodas. Instead, the energy drink had a way better flavor.

Much like other Bang Energy Drinks, a can of Lime Pop Drop has 300 milligrams of caffeine, has zero sugar, and zero calories. Plus, it has the usual “performance supplements,” like Ultra COQ10 and essential aminos.

Bang Lime Pop Drop Energy Drink in a glass

After cracking open the can, an alluring lime mixed with cotton candy aroma rose from it, hitting my nostrils as if I walked into a Bath & Body Works. As I took my first sip, I instantly wondered, “Wait. Is this the lime version of Bang’s Any Means Orange?” That drink, which came out last year, was an orange-creamsicle-flavored delight, and this Lime Pop Drop tastes like a lime-creamsicle-flavored cousin. It was such a pleasant and delicious surprise that I had to physically restrain myself from chugging the entire can in one go. I don’t know how my body would respond to consuming 300 milligrams of caffeine within a few moments.

I also got strong key lime pie vibes, but imagine that key lime pie was drowning under several extra-generous dollops of whipped cream. But there’s also a candy-like aspect to the lime that makes the citrus flavor sing. It definitely won’t be confused with any lemon-lime soda.

I enjoyed Lime Pop Drop every bit as much as Any Means Orange, which I gave a very high score, and I hope Bang keeps it around and never drops it.

DISCLOSURE: I received a free product sample from Bang. Doing so did not influence my review.

Purchased Price: FREE
Size: 16 fl oz can
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 0 calories, 0 grams of fat, 40 milligrams of sodium, 2 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, 0 grams of protein, and 300 milligrams of caffeine.

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