Category Archives: Mixers

Vacation in a bottle? It’s like the Holy Grail of beverages… but is it too good to be true?

Vacation in a Bottle — or ViB — is a non-alcoholic, lightly carbonated soft drink, sweetened with cane sugar (not corn syrup) and some sucralose, flavored with natural pomegranate and goji berry juices  (at least this first rendition, called “Chill-N,” is), and spiked with amino acids, vitamins, and other goodness designed to make it a healthy alternative to a Red Bull or other pick-me-up.

At just 60 calories in a 12-oz. can, it’s not too fattening, either.

While the smell is reminiscent of many any energy drink, the taste is much lighter, with faint berry notes (nothing I’d peg as specifically pomegranate) atop a moderately sweet core. The carbonation is very light, too, and overall it’s a very easy-to-drink (and arguably even relaxing) beverage. The only downside is a strongly chemical aftertaste, almost certainly a side-effect of the sucralose, which gives the whole affair a Tab-like finish. Kind of a bummer way to end your vacation in a bottle… but don’t all vacations end kind of badly anyway?

As a side note, the name begs the question… shouldn’t Vacation in a Bottle come in a bottle, not a can? [Update: The company says ViB will soon be available in bottles... which are pictured at right.]

B+ / $2.50 to $3.00 per 12-oz. can / drinkvib.com

Leave it to folks in my home town of Houston to buck the trend and introduce the opposite of what everyone else is doing: Drank’s tagline is “slow your roll” and it’s an anti-energy drink. Instead of caffeine, guarana, and taurine, it’s loaded with Valerian Root (10mg), Rose Hips (10mg), and melatonin (1mg), all designed to slow you down and make you sleepy.

I tried a can last night. I’m not sure if it was the stuff inside or the fact that it’d been a long day, but indeed my roll had been slowed. After finishing about half the can I was nodding off after 20 minutes. I woke up in the middle of the night at about 3am, but finally got back to sleep soon after. This morning I’m feeling pretty good, relaxed and energetic. Whether it’s legit or all psychosomatic I don’t know, but I’m keeping another can on standby just in case I need a legal, non-alcoholic downer.

I love the idea of Drank, but I’m unsure on the execution. The day-glo purple beverage tastes a lot like energy drinks (I’d hoped for something a little more sedated), but with more grape soda character (and maybe some flowers?). It is also loaded with 27 grams of sugar: That can’t help you sleep, can it?

The can is also enormous. While typical energy drinks come in 8 ounce cans, Drank is in a 16 ounce tall boy. Polishing off this entire can was a simple impossibility in my trudge toward bedtime.

Of course, this ain’t drankhacker… and I’m willing to accept I may not be in the target market for beverages targeted at gangsta culture. But hey, if it’s good enough for Three 6 Mafia, it’s probably good enough for all of us. Those guys have Oscars, after all.

B+ / $3 (16 oz. can) / drankbeverage.com

Noni fruit is big in Tahiti. If you buy the claims, it gives you energy, boosts the immune system, has tons of antioxidants, and burns calories when you drink the juice from it.

The problem is that Noni juice, on its own, is tough to stomach. I guess Tahitians love the stuff, but choking down more than an ounce at a time was pretty futile at Drinkhacker HQ. The brownish-red liquid has an extremely sour flavor and very strong smell which is rarely compared to anything living. You can mix it (in tiny quantities) with other juices, but that’s a lot of effort for questionable results.

Enter HIRO Thermo, a Noni-based energy drink in those familiar 250ml bullet cans. Thermo is filled with tons of stuff aside from Noni, including ginger, green tea, cacao, guarana, and prickly pear extract, plus calcium, vitamin C, and caffeine. It’s carbonated and sweetened with sucralose, but it’s not cloying. It’s one of the better energy drinks I’ve had. Maybe Noni juice and sucralose cancel out each other’s awful qualities… the result is tart and strong, but easily drinkable. Whether I’m actually burning calories while sitting here on the couch and drinking it, well, that remains a mystery. (It only has 10 calories anyway.)

HIRO exists in three other varieties (including Vitality, Energy, and Mobility, which is designed for those with joint trouble). I haven’t tried the others, but based on the strength of Thermo, I’d give ‘em a try if I stumbled across them… at least at less ridiculous prices ($3.62 a can!) than it costs if you buy direct from the company.

B+ / $87 for case of 24 250ml cans) / tahitiannoni.com