The energy drink market is changing before our very eyes. While high amounts of sugar still reign supreme with sales figures, the zero sugar market is making gains, focusing on health conscious people looking for a boost that’s more to their liking. Facebook and Instagram and wall to wall….balls to the wall with energy drinks and supplements to meet this need, but one that caught my eye is RAZE. They’re just so…fucking “on” about it all. Sure there’s plenty of muscle bros and hot chicks in bikinis (what we come to expect with this sort of thing), but there’s an attempt at culture here that made me pull the trigger. All Raze drinks are “Zero Sugar” and promise no crash along with hydration and a “Re(FRESH)” feeling for the drinker. So we figured what the hell, let’s give it a try. We ordered all their current flavors and even a few of their other products too. For part one, we’ll review their fruit flavored drinks and have a go at the energy drink company attempt at a sleep aid (for real, a sleep aid). Come on guys, crank up the music, yeah let’s Fucking RAZE.
First things first, the designs of these cans look amazing. All their cool-guy BS aside, I genuinely love the color and presentation of the can. It’s a good mix of fun and pop, but I’d still be OK walking around town holding the can. Most of their flavors have wild-ass names like “Typhoon” or “Voodoo” but three of them came with regular fruit names, so I decided to go with those first. The good news about these is how little there is to say about them. The Strawberry Colada, Mango Guava, and Grape Bubblegum all tasted the way you’d expect them to, and for containing zero sugar, I wasn’t making horrible faces from any fake flavorings. The energy buzz was pretty good without the shakes, which is actually an incredible feat as they contain an eye twitching 300mg of caffeine in each can (consider classic Monster Energy has 160 per 16 oz). I’m sure if some Raze social media bro is reading this (ha), they’ll say it’s all about the flavors and natural blah blah blah instead of sugar, but whatever. Raze tastes good, and I wasn’t shaking like a junkie during my workday. Mission accomplished.
https://twitter.com/tehbendotcom/status/1234501026578882565?s=21Now most folks are encouraged to use this stuff for workouts and poolside modelling, but your old buddy Matt has a slightly different approach. On Sunday I had a pretty full day around the house and drank the Mango in the afternoon when I needed a boost. No, litter box cleaning and laundry won’t make the Raze Instagram page but fuck it, the mango helped me get through it. Monday was an early morning, an important morning in fact. Wendy’s was starting their breakfast menu at 6:30 am and I had to get up an hour earlier than usual to make it for the grand opening. This was a noble cause, clearly, so I needed to bed down properly on Sunday night. Thankfully our friends at Repp Sports (the company that makes RAZE) also had a solution for this. Let get into HYPER SLEEP.
The Hyper Sleep powders are marketed for a controlled crash. With the buzzwords and font choices it’s clearly going after the Unisom style sleep aid market…if Unisom was to trash your DMs with Bitcoin advice and unhealthy workout plans, so to speak. They won’t outright say it, but this product is designed as a crash aid to energy drink abuse. I drank my 300mgs of caffeine too late in the day so dammit, I needed this downer. I was somewhat afraid of the side effects, but if Homer Simpson can handle it, so can I.
The directions call for the powder to be mixed with 8-10 oz of water. Simple enough, and the “Sour Gummy Worm” flavored packet was added to a bottle of Deer Park. I really underestimated something here, I didn’t think about the taste. Holy shit, this is the worst tasting thing in the history of the universe. The proper description for this concoction could only be described with a slew of inappropriate adjectives, but it’s got to be said: the taste of Hyper Sleep is “shit ass fuck ass shit fuck ass ass shit.” Who am I to say what’s actually in this mix, but it makes me wish for death in such a way that my body shuts down due to natural attrition. By hook or by crook I was getting knocked out here, so honestly it’s effective. I had a brief pet emergency that nearly ruined my chill out time, but it didn’t seem to affect the sleep that soon took me away. To its credit, once morning came, I had NO problem waking up. With most sleep aids I feel drugged in the morning, requiring a crowbar to pry me out of bed. Maybe it was the promise of a Breakfast Baconator, but I had a good start to my morning with no groggy affects after a solid 7 hours of sleep. I’d sooner lick an elephant’s big peanutty ass in regards to taste, but for those horrible emergency moments, I’ll drink the poison and catch some must needed ZZZs.
RAZE UP, RAZE OUT Y’ALL!
Check back soon for part two of the Raze experience where we talk a lot more about drinks and a lot less about which animals Matt would give a tongue bath to for a good night’s rest. Follow this sick bastard on Twitter.
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