Mad Dog Energy Chews

You remember that scene in the old Willy Wonka movie where Violet drops a piece of gum in her mouth - and things got ugly, or at least very blueberry? After the warning from Willy that it was not perfected yet, she popped it in her mouth, and stated tasting a three course meal - whereupon she blueberried herself and needed to get juiced. I ended up with the same reaction after trying both flavors of Mad Dog energy Chews, a promising treat that had me running for the nearest liquid to kill the horribly wrong taste in my mouth.

It seems Mad Dog is not around anymore, as their phone does not work, their website is gone, and they even there bizarre energy shots are a rare find now. And no wonder why, if this is what they thought it was a good idea to unleash upon the caffeinated masses.

Packaging:3
When you think of a company called Mad dog, you expect a dog, right? Red Bull has a red bull on it. Mad Croc - big red crocodile on the front. Roaring lion - a roaring lion... You get it. But Mad dog has both nothing angry, or canine on it anywhere. Instead, it has an old school lettered M, all shiny and gold. Why a gold M? Beyond that, they have the name of the flavor in very generic Impact font and "energy chews" in some horrible techno font downloaded from the internet. Oh - I almost forgot the MASSIVE blue, yellow or brown cube - that I would think is the chew, in front of a big shiny starburst. Turns out, this is just a big cube, because after unpeeling from the sticky foil wrapping, the chew is not blue or yellow, but more of a light to dark brown (and lacks the big starburst too). The back lists that there is 100mg of caffeine in each little chew - and you should limit yourself to eating only 6 a day. heh - no problem there.

Buzz:8
Now, if you can handle it, there is quite a lot of cool nutrients and energy ingredients in here. besides the 100mg of caffeine per chew, there is a bunch of vitamin B complex, Taurine, inositol, glucuronolactone, and panax ginseng in here. This was comparable to a nice energy drink's dose - only it hits you faster and harder because it gets absorbed through the mouth, rather than having to be digested first. It is quite a nice buzz of jittery energy, enough to make you twitchy for hours.

Taste:1
Of course, you have to manage to eat it first, which is no small task. I tried all three flavors I was sent by kingofcaffeine.com, both a Mint Chocolate, Blueberry Bomegranate and Tropical Blend. Like Violet's gum, they started out innocently enough. The mint tasted like a bad peppermint patty - like a York candy that did not quite reach cool and minty. But by the time swallowed, it tasted like, as my friend put it, someone drew with a sharpie on the roof of your mouth. And this one was the best of the flavors too.
The tropical flavor was like skittles a the start, and degraded into the flavor of Rotting pineapples and Everclear. The worst was the blueberry, because it started out tasting like a fantastic blueberry bran muffin. After you swallowed, your mouth was flavored like barbecued sidewalk chalk. GGGGGLLLLLAAARRGGGGHHHH!!!