AMP: New Look, New Taste, Same Sub-Par Ingredients
Amp; it’s a term used often by eccentrics and extremists to describe their excited mood, and for good reason too. The phrase was coined as a common abbreviation for amphetamines, which well, get you amped, go figure huh. Regardless, a few years back Mountain Dew took a step in the right direction to appeal to their more die-hard consumers with a new product line with a similar name.
Well energy-fiends, it’s been 7 years since that venture began and starting this past January, AMP received not only a new image, but a wide range of updated flavors. Let’s see what kind of competition this new AMP family brings to the neighborhood.
New Flavors
The new cans in the lineup are a welcome change to the all too common green silver and black style of so many other energy drinks nowadays. The new colors (and corresponding flavors) include purple (grape), blue (mixed berry), orange (pretty obvious), and my personal favorite red as cherry.
The whole lineup might not win the hearts of the major Fiends but I’d be willing to bet that anyone could find at least one flavor that they enjoyed. I have never been a strong proponent of regular AMP but even as picky as I am I was still was able to find that the cherry, also known as AMP Overdrive, was surprisingly good as far as artificial cherry goes.
Marketing Ploy or “Miracle”?
Despite the abundance of flavors to choose from, the part of the review I was most interested in was how the new drinks would compare in effects to the regular flavor. Each flavor is marketed as having slightly different effects (some having L-Theanine for relaxation or D-Ribose for sustained energy).
Unfortunately there was only one flavor that stuck out in today’s “heavy hitting” drinks and it just so happened to also be the best tasting. If you’re paying attention you would already know that this was again the AMP Overdrive and I’m starting to welcome the abundance of new drinks on the market.
Buzz
In light of the fact that I felt very little effects from the regular AMP flavors, my description is only relevant for AMP Overdrive. Although not shockingly harder hitting than any mainstream drink such as Monster, it did have enough kick for me to notice, but I had to really look.
Being used to large amounts of caffeine might be a reason for this but in actuality the ingredients just don’t build it up to be that strong. 160 mg of caffeine per can is roughly equivalent to a Starbucks Double Shot. Now I don’t know about you, but Double Shots have stopped working on me as a viable means for energy and AMP is starting to seem more and more average.
If you can imagine the market consisting of Soda (Mountain Dew) and Energy Drinks (SPIKE) the entire AMP lineup falls disappointingly dead center. A few of the other (rather pointless) ingredients include, 34mg of Ginseng, 248mg of Guarana, and negligible amount of B vitamins. These ingredients aren’t pointless because of what they are able to do, but because the amounts just aren’t great enough to provide any sort of reaction. Pepsi Co. would’ve done better just naming this Mountain Dew 2.0 without adding the chemicals that reclassify it as a supplement rather than a beverage (by the FDA’s definition).
The Modest Middle Man
So it was a tough call, can a mediocre drink that gave me 1 enjoyable flavor out of 6 be considered any more than mediocre?
Can a glorified soda be touted as legitimate competition to the big energy dogs? I tried, but everything painted this drink, in any flavor, as averagely mediocre. Maybe people new to the energy market might get a kick out of this or people who have suckled on the Mountain Dew teat for years but AMP just didn’t get me amped, and that’s the hard truth. If you do happen to fall in one of those two categories, most of the flavors can be found in your local 7-11 for $2-3 dollars per can.
Overall Score (3/5)
Review by Josh (blog: Cubicalism & Coffee)
8 Comments
O and Josh I have to give you Kudos on this review. Go job!
AMP Overdrive is the exact same drink that was in the Halo 3 Limited Edition Mountain Dew Game Fuel.
Out of them all, the grape traction is my favorite. Second to the original of course, which I absolutely love for taste.
Amp is definitely not my favorite, but my girlfriend (who still doesn’t approve of my 2 cans a day energy drink habit) is hooked on blue Amp. She’s new enough to caffeine that she’s absolutely wired off of one can. My review? Good flavor, poor buzz.
honestly i’m far beyond the “regular” energy drinks like monster and amp giving me any kind of reaction at all. i feel no buzz and all that, so it comes down to the flavor when i’m not drinking SPIKE.
i like the original AMP and Overdrive. the others i’m not too fond of. when it comes to taste though, i like the sobe adrenaline rush more than any of them.
“(some having L-Theanine for relaxation”
cause i know that’s what i drink energy drinks for..to relax. who decided that was a good idea?
overdrive is definitely not the same as game fuel, game fuel was cherry with citrus and other stuff, it’s closer to code red (which is the best mountain dew anyways)
I think Amp is one of the better tasting energy drinks; simply because it tastes similar to Mountain Dew. I just wish it had more energy qualities to it, might as well buy the Mountain Dew MDX. One that that Amp has that no other drink out that has is Dale Earnhardt Jr. Amp will sell well as long as they sponsor him.
I tried the AMP slurpee. It’s good. I still want to try the real thing.
Wow it seems overwhelming that Amp just does not live up to the hype. The ingredients say it should but read around and they seem to not be up to par. Blogs and review sites seem to be mostly in agreement that Amp is sub par. The ingredients list looks up to speed but I am beginning to wonder if all the stuff is actually in there. The relaunch is supposed to rehydrate but has nothing to actually accomplish this with? Lets not even go into there Dale JR love which is over the top. I think they should of hired me as a consultant or some other blogger. Whoever is giving them advice is apparently a moron.