Wired Diet Berry

I missed Wired energy dinks. Along with Kronik and Frappio, I used to knock these back years ago when energy drinks were first emerging as a category. Back in the earlier part of the decade, some very nice distributor brought a bunch of these into my state. I found a whole mess of Wired drinks, everything from sexual healing drinks to ones with serious caffeine overload. Then, one sad day, they all disappeared. And while my love of energy drinks switched to other cans, I have never forgotten the buzz and open-eyedness that I had walking into one of my college lectures I was giving, bouncing off the walls and scaring the student population. This is why I was so excited to find Wired drinks again - and with such a extensive amount of flavors there is bound to be an energy drink Wired makes for everyone on the planet.

Today my flavor is Diet Berry, supposedly with the same formula as the original Wired drink only berry flavored and sugar free. More than a great population of their drinks, this one seems much more geared to women - both in color and style. It still has some edge to it, with the can bursting in fire, but the colors of the can are in a very feminine pinkish lavender, and the "extreme" of many of their drinks seem to be way turned down. This fits with the flavor as well, as this is definitely less harsh, less caffeinated and lighter too.

Nutrition/Buzz:7
This 16 ounce diet energy drink contains 94 milligrams of caffeine, taurine and a host of B-Vitamins. This has always been one of the more interesting points of this brand. They have drinks which have tons fo taurine and caffeine, then there are the bulk of their drinks which don't. This drink is more caffeinated that your average soda, but neither is the amount in here going to send you up to the rafters. This drink did perk me up a little, but I did not get any explosive jolt of energy. There is no real surprises in here to help that boost along, like amino acids or enzymes - . 94mg is about as much as a cup of coffee, only with about half as much liquid. They did not oversugar this with their Ace-K Sucralose mix, and the lack of HFCS of cane sugar means no sugar induced crash. While not calorie free, this did pretty well figuring they only had 10 calories to play with.
Packaging:8
Tres Tres girly. I think it is that purplish hue which makes it seem that way. That and the scripty fancy schmancy writing too. I like the package overall, the use of flames and fire, shooting out of the text and out of the bottom of the can. THe layout is as nice as the color scheme. They have all the info from caffeine to their website on the can, and even double print it, so there won;t be the problem of lining up the logos in the cooler drink holders. While not stellar, this is nertainly lovely.

Taste:7
Sour at first, but then it mellowed as the drink went on. There was nothing very natural about this berry - but tasted pretty on par for a diet berry soda. I found it interesting how this brand compared to Boo Koo's berry drink and other non-natural energy drinks, as the chemical taste was strong, but somehow was completely what was expected. IT was highly carbonated and very light, pouring out of the can a lovely lavender/pink hue. While not at all comparable to a more natural berry drink, such as Steaz Berry, I would say this is on par with just about all the berry sodas you could find.


Website:8 www.wiredenergydrink .com
This is a great site - and like the drink provide a no-frills nearly perfect design. Fast layout, great pictures, and get you everything you need from the site in a hurry. I really like the use of huge fonts, and putting the main point of the website ( its about the drinks, dummy) front and center. The pictures of the cans and listings are big and beautiful - but the other categories are pretty superfuluous. I don't know why anyone at all would ever download Wired screensavers. I also found lots of macromedia code inside the page, as well as a TON of javascript built right into the page to slow it down. While I appreciate the design, the choice of categories and the html code leave something to be desired.


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