Ex Pure Energy Drink

Kombucha is an ancient probiotic food culture containing organic acids and enzymes, which are supposed to promote overall well being. Kombucha is supposedly high in amino acids and vitamins, which also allow the human body to utilize energy from food. It has been used since 221 B.C. to promote health and well being, recognized around the world to aid in digestion and detoxification. Kombucha is basically a tea made from a colony of yeast and bacteria. You can find it in Whole Foods, Vitamin Cottage, and other natural health stores, as well as in the hands of A list celebs, like Lindsay Lohan, Kirsten Dunst and Madonna.

Kombucha is also so nasty, vile and overall disgusting that even drinks which are just stocked near Kombucha drinks seem to taste worse just by association. I know people who swear by this stuff - and after one drink of Unpasteurized Kombucha I was swearing as well. For those who have nzever heard of the stuff addicts call "the Booch," this is basically fermented crap health nuts can get drunk on and pretend they are healthy. They are being pulled off the shelves left and right for having alcoholic content, to which I say good riddance. I would rather suck down that warm sour Goga Ball yogurt than try Kombucha again.

So you can imagine my apprehension to try Ex Drinks with Kombucha as an ingredient. Nevertheless, Ex Drinks was nice enough to send along to me a sample. These come in slim eight ounce cans, designed a little strangely, with a very busy screamy face on it. I actually like the overall layout - looking like a mix between paint splatters and stenciled art. While definitely going after the XTREME marketing angle, I think there is a whole lot of good design concept going on here. They even list the caffeine content, which is nice. The only issue I have is that they really should have found a way to double face the can, so it will work better in store shelves ( but that's prettyhard for a slim 8 oz can).

I slammed a can in about two seconds. It was not a flavor that I could pinpoint - and not a flavor I really enjoyed either. But since I am not a big fan of "The Booch," I gave some cans to some friends who are. This is where tastes really diverged. The few co-workers who I gave cans to samples either thought it was "kinda gross", or "really good - not like an energy drink at all". While I would not say this depends on whether or not you like the taste of fermented yeast, it seems that more likely than not. If you like Kombucha you might like this drink a lot. My wife Adored the flavor, and hoarded the rest of the samples for herself. Where I found it to be bitter, too tangy and not nearly sweet enough, she thought it was the perfect amount of natural sweetness and no harsh medicinal aftertaste at all. She even chose this instead of coffee for one morning - something nearly impossible to do. My best friend and I, however, felt that instead of finding this delicious, it tasted like something left dying in the sun for too long.

You could tell they worked hard to try to promote natural ingredients as much as possible in this, like raw beet sugar, instead of processed sugar or High Frutose Corn Syrup. In terms of energy, this has your normal caffeine ingredients of 80mg caffeine, Asiatic Ginseng, Vitamin B,and makes me happy with lots of Vitamin C. The big draw, of course, is the Kombucha, which there are dozens of studies showing it helps clean out and detoxify your body, and the same amount of studies showing how NOTHING detoxifies the body except your liver. Regardless it is a nice enough energy drink, although I wish it came in a larger size - so I did not have to drink two of them to feel a punch of energy. Like many eight ounce cans, the 80mg of caffeine just is not enough to Jump start my morning. Two cans did provide a great kick, comparable to a Monster or Rock Star with about 3 hours of sustained alertness.


Packaging:8 Buzz:7 - Because of the diversity of the degree of likes and dislikes, this flavor would either rate a 3 or an 8, depending.