Clean and Sober energy drink

Clean and Sober is an energy drink put out by The Hypnotic Chronic company - the ones behind a very trippy hemp infused energy drink called Wake and Bake.  Their aforementioned drink does not actually contain any weed in it, but just hemp oil - enough to give it a distinct Ganja flavor with none of the high. Clean and Sober  is  more confusing, as it is a Hemp-esque product that does not have any hemp oil in it  or any trippy pot themes jokes or references - really just a basic energy drink.   The Clean and Sober moniker more confusing, as I am not sure what I am supposed to be clean and sober from.   My first thought is that this is a drink for Straight Edgers, like 3-in-1 Trinity energy drink only without the godliness, but that is not the case.   My second thought was it would be a rehab drink to help you get over your imbibing the night before, but there is no real nutrients to help you recover like a Rehab drink.  Am I supposed to be more clean and sober after drinking this?  Does it celebrate that I am not into drugs or alcohol?  Does it help me to clean up my act?  Not really.  There is nothing to help with hangovers or party nights or anything I would want to be clean and sober from.  The only addiction I have is to caffeine, and Clean and Sober is as caffeinated as any other drink.  SO what exactly is the point?

I am sure this drink is a funny inside joke to the people who make THC but I don't get the punchline.

Packaging:3
Things go from odd to downright bad with their packaging job.  It is a wrapped can - so instead of a printing job it just has a layer of easy-to-peel-off plastic with the label, which gives this a very cheap feel.  It just does not look like they took this very seriously.  Along with that, the font style and even the brand itself does not lend itself to professionalism.  There are no callouts for the energy readings, but a really big one for using Organic Sugar, which I am not sure anyone who drink this really cares about.  There is a bizarre 12 paragraph written on the side that reads:

12 Steps to getting your (sic) Clean and Sober:
1. You admit you are powerless over hemp - that your life has become (slightly) unmanageable
2. You believe that The Hypnotic Chronic's Clean and Sober will restore you to sanity
3. You have decided to turn your taste buds to the care of Clean and Sober
4. That you have made a true search at the local stores and the internet for THC inventory
5. That you admit to THC the exact nature of your hemp fueled wrongs

and it gets stranger from there - 12 full steps that make no sense whatsoever.   these steps are some crazy almost stream-of-consciuos stuff that does nothing to help me understand what they are trying to convey, except maybe that they are trying to make  a joke about being clean and sober when they made this package.  The only thing that I can think of is that this whole drink including all the text was carried out while being extremely high.  But like most great ideas created when baked, once you come back to the real world those ideas just don't make sense.

Taste:4
I was hoping maybe the flavor would pull all this together - that it would taste like something that would be so delicious or unique or "clean" that I would get in on the joke - but it just did not happen.  For one thing, the flavor settled in the can - so if you leave this lying around you will be hit with a mouthful of unsweet bitterness that is most unpleasant.  If you give the can a light toss you will find it tastes much better.

After making that discovery, I liked the flavor more, but I am not that keen on the grapefruity flavor.  It's not bad - it tastes like if you poured a whole lot of granulated sugar on your grapefruit slice and ate it - but it also tastes very syrupy and thick.  It certainly does not taste clean or fresh.  I would have given this a 5, but my experiences of drinking a number of these can before learning that the flavor settles made me like it quite a lot less.

Buzz:5
Pretty standard stuff to be found in this pretty standard drink.  It is nie that they are using Organic sugar in here, but that is balanced out by also adding Potassium Sorbate and Sodium Benzoate.  It is hard to feel Clean and Healthy when you are downing 112 calories in 8 small ounces with preservatives and artificial flavors.

The buzz in here is not bad for 80 mg.  There is all the other energy drink cohorts, like inositol and glucurolactone, plus the big does of vitamin b and taurine. There is  a very little buzz in here, about as much as a small cup of coffee.

Overall, I just don't get it.  It is a non novelty product put out by a novelty drink company - Like Cocaine energy coming out with a non-caffeinated boringly named drink - I just understand what the impetus is to make or buy it.  TCH made an amusingly named and overall decent energy drink with Wake and Bake.  In my opinion, they should have stopped right there, and never bothered with this inside joke of a product.