Bars have it rough. To give their customers the energy they are desiring, They have 2 choices. Either sign themselves into a long and prohibitive contract with Red Bull - where they can not bring in any other flavors of energy drink - and then they have to deal with the massive stock of Red Bull cans since Red Bull does not come in Syrup. Most drinks for the bar come on the Bar Gun, which mixes the carbonation with the drink syrup. Anytime you go off the gun, the price for the drink goes up, and the customer grumbles that the Red Bull and Vodka in front of them costs 6 bucks.
Enter in BIB (Bag in Box) energy drinks. Most, like Roaring Lion, try to imitate Red Bull so no one knows the difference. But then the bar has to be careful - because if the customer orders a Red Bull, and you serve them a Banazi or Soo-Bei or BAM or a dozen other clones, Red Bull has been known to sue bars and even bartenders for defamation of their product. It is like ordering a Coke in a restaurant, and they only have Pepsi. Whether or not the server tells you the difference is up for grabs-and Red Bull is taking Bars to court to make sure people know the difference.
Enter into the picture Turbo Energy drink. This stuff is supplied to bars across the country who do not go the Red Bull route - and end up with a very unique product to boot! No one will have to worry about mistaking this for another RB clone, as their brand tastes very different and much tastier too.
I headed down to the Rack and Rye, a gastropub downtown that I heard carried Turbo. I ordered an energy drink (and a meatloaf slider plate) from the server, who came out and told me that this was a glass of Turbo, not Red Bull, and placed a dark brown - almost beer colored - icey cold energy drink in front of me.
On first drink, I could tell that this was no Red Bull. This was not nearly as tangy or medicinal, and It tasted less heavy and a bit more sweet. What was really nice was that the waitress kept coming back and filling my glass. Before I knew it, I was on my third refill of Turbo, and getting pretty dang full from it too. Turbo uses Cane Sugar, not the High Fructose Corn syrup most BiB drinks do, so the flavor profile is different - and you could tell they worked hard to come up with something unique, while still working well in Jagerbombs. I can not imagine any complaints from patron doing the switch to Turbo from Red Bull, as the flavor is just so smooth and yummy.
As for the buzz, they have the usual blend here, with absolutely no surprises. While they might have not copied the flavor or Red Bull, they have copied the nutritional content. In one serving there is 80mg of caffeine, 1 gram of taurine, some glucurolactone, inositol, and the ever present B Vitamin mix. I know why they went this direction, but it would have been nice if they took a change on this as well. Since teh customer is wanting to mix Caffeine and Alcohol, why not give them something more powerful to remember? I mean, at the club, advertising that your drink is better tasting AND more powerful would be a good thing - right?
So for now if you wanted to try some Turbo for yourselves, you are going to have to go out for a night on the town. Unlike Roaring Lion, they don't have this one is any sort of can for you to try. But for me that means more Meatloaf sliders - which is a very good thing.
Buzz:5 Taste:8
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Turbo Energy Drink
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Well....you said that the Turbo drink was brown? That means that it has started to spoil. It should have been a reddish yellow.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Roaring Lion, the Turbo guy and I used to be associated with Roaring Lion. We both left the company to start our own companies. RL uses the canned product to lure the bar owners into carrying their bag in a box product, this is called bait and switch. The canned product and the bib products do not share the same flavor profile.
The reason that we don't place massive amounts of caffeine in our products is two fold.
First-we don't want to over caffeinate our customers.
Second-we want you to be able to purchase more than one glass of our ED during your visit to our stocking bars.
Where are you located?
I received a somewhat threatening call from Sean Hackney, the President of Roaring Lion this morning. He suggested that I change my last post.
ReplyDeleteSo, here goes.
My statement about Roaring Lion using their canned product as a “Bait and Switch Tactic” to sell their bib product is somewhat incorrect. I can only make this statement because I have seen this happening in person. The bait and switch tactic is illegal and I shouldn't have used that wording. But this is what happened when I was in one of my accounts that RL was trying to get to switch from my bag in a box energy drink to theirs. When ever my people visit an account, they take in the bib syrup to sample. What you taste is what you get.
It doesn’t matter what canned product that you use, when it is compared to its bib counterpart, the taste profile is different. A can of Coke tastes different that a fountain Coke.
There you go Sean. Sorry buddy I didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers. Now you and your guys show me a little respect and stop trashing my American Rebel energy drink product.
On another note, how’s the knocking off my Cool Blue energy drink coming along? Why don’t you save yourself a lot of time, headaches and money and just private label my Cool Blue? Maybe you could call it Blue Lion. Cool Blue is the only bag in a box energy drink that retains its blue color throughout its one year shelf life. My scientist buddy and I developed the science and technology for the blue stable blue color. He patented the process. We only sell our tech to noncompeting companies.
Remember when I first formulated Cool Blue, you said that it would never work, you made a big deal out of me selling it and that caused an end to our business association and my Roaring Lion distributorship?
I still love you man. I do look up to you. Think about it, who has the balls to take on Red Bull like you have?
Please don't sue me. Tell Ed that I said hi!
AMERICAN REBEL TASTES TERRIBLE. We used to carry it at my bar and so many customers complained we switched -- we don't use Roaring Lion, Turbo, or any name like that, but man -- DONT BUY AMERICAN REBEL.
ReplyDelete