Redline Mandarin Orange and Peach Mango
Everyone who has ventured into the energy drink market in the last 2+ years has undoubtedly had a run-in with the original “super” energy drink. With its striking blue bottle, solid white cap, and aggressive red text this drink definitely garners attention everywhere it shows.
Have you guessed what it is yet? For those less clued in, I am describing the VPX manufactured Redline. But wait, why am I doing a review on a 2 year old drink? Well my fiends, Redline must have heard our solid appreciation for the flavors of Redline Princess. Today, they announce two new, fairly original flavors to their beloved product.
Princess came in three amazing flavors, Grape, Apple, and Exotic Fruit. All were top notch and enjoyed by many, undoubtedly shifting demand away from the Original Redline. So VPX responded with these, Redline Mandarin Orange, and Redline Peach Mango. Still in attractive blue and red bottles, the only visual cue of the difference is the small fruit graphics on the neck. Logically, the Mandarin has little slices of oranges and the mango has an appetizing bouquet of sliced peaches and mangos.
Cracking the caps, both drinks instantly appease the senses. The orange smells very much like Orange-aid, crisp, clean, and very sweet. Peach-Mango on the other hand, makes you want to melt. It smells exactly like a tropical smoothie and honestly I wish everything I owned smelled just like it. Surprisingly, it doesn’t smell as jarringly sweet as the orange and trust me, that’s a good thing.
Flavor wise both drinks shy away from the usual Redline bitterness and remain fairly sweet throughout the length of the beverage. This is most likely attributed to an increase in sugar content. Don’t stress about more sugar, Redline still remains 0 sugars, 0 calories, 0 fat, and 0 carb, although all of this is due to the use of Sucralean.
Exactly what Sucralean is, I have no clue. I scoured the internet for an hour trying to find out and there’s very few details about it. I eventually called VPX and I’m not even sure they knew what it was. The formal response they provided was “It’s basically a patented form of pure sucralose, which is similar to Aspartame”, When I brought up the fact that Splenda is actually closer to sucralose than Aspartame they changed their answer to “Yeah, well it’s more similar to Splenda than Aspartame and it’s non-nutritive”. So nobody really knows, it could maybe possibly be either splenda or aspartame or pure sucralose.
It seems everyone’s body has a different response to Redline. Some shake uncontrollably, shiver, twitch, feel ultra productive, or I’ve even heard of people who claim Redline makes them feel more lazy than usual. No-matter, there is a unanimous agreement that it speeds up heart rate. As far as I can tell, both new flavors have the same active ingredients as Redline RTD so you should already know what to expect.
The Redline world is one that sits right on the line of energy drink and legal steroid. Would I drink them everyday? Definitely not. Is the occasional Redline invigorating? Completely. But the question comes down to, when reaching for a Redline, would I pick Peach-Mango (My favorite of the two flavors) over Redline Princess? The answer is a resounding no. Princess has all the same bonuses as RTD and then some, unless you’re too embarrassed to carry a pink bottle, I’d stick to to that. If you are interested however, the new flavors should be out soon at your local GNC for around $2.
Overall Score (3/5)
Review by Josh (blog: Cubicalism & Coffee)
2 Comments
Aloha from Hawaii!
Hello? Is there anyone out there ?ing sucralose by any other name? Just tried Bang, a good product, but somehow did not realize it was flavored and sweetened thus. Am avoiding sucralose but it is snuck into sooooo many products.
From my understanding , sucralose is 3 parts chlorine to one part sugar; I have yet to hear anyone claim chlorine is good for us, and not harmful but the popularity and use of sucralose is huge and mostly unquestioned.
Should we be guinea pigs for this new kid-on-the-block , replacing aspartame?
Studies on it are very specious and unconvincing. Love to hear from others as to evidence or rationale of it’s safety by forum here or email to me.
Mahaloha/shalom/JET
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They probably confused “aspartame” and Ace-K, acesulfame potassium. Most drinks that use sucralose seem to be blending it with Ace-K these days.