Hey everyone, Caffeine Man here, and today we're adding another healthier energy
drink to the series. For today's healthier energy drink, it's not your
typical energy drink. It's called Sparkling ICE plus Caffeine.
It's from the makers of Sparkling ICE, if you couldn't guess, and they decided
they're gonna be jumping into the caffeinated beverage market with this
beverage and I'm excited to try it out with you guys today. Coming right up!
INTRO: C *THUD* M *THUD*
*LIGHTNING STRIKE*
Hey again everybody! Thanks for joining me today. If it's your first time here, feel
free to hit the subscribe button. I post new videos every Tuesday night. And for
those of you who have been here before, you may not have noticed but I started
to add to the description box some time stamps for you guys. With 12 to 15 minute
long videos not everyone wants to hear me blab on and on about the company. They might
just want to get right to the taste test. And then, there are those of you that
care about the extra information, such as the nutritional facts, as well as the
taste test. So for those of you who are too lazy to watch the whole video, feel
free to check out my description box and go wherever you want to go.
I won't be offended! That's why I put them there for you guys. So in today's video I'm gonna
talk a little bit about the company, then I'll go over the ingredients that make
this drink a healthier energy drink, and then, in closing, I'll taste test all five
flavors that they have. The five flavors are blue raspberry, black raspberry,
triple citrus, strawberry citrus and orange passion fruit. Sparkling ICE is
owned by a company called Talking Rain beverage company. Talking Rain began in
1987 with two sparkling waters. In 1992, the company began production of Sparkling ICE.
Sparkling ICE was basically just flavored sparkling water.
Then, in 1997, the company decided to change over its sweetener to sucralose,
becoming the first U.S. beverage company to do so. Then, in 2014, Kevin Durant, a famous basketball player,
signed an endorsement deal with Sparkling ICE and then things really began to take off for the company and
they were recognized in Inc 5000. Additionally at that time, with the rise
of healthier drinks being on the market, this flavored sparkling water was now
being compared as a healthy alternative to drinking soda, and in October of 2018,
not too long ago, they released their Sparkling ICE plus Caffeine flavor line.
The original Sparkling ICE beverage line are made with zero sugar, combined with
sparkling water, real fruit flavor, vitamins and antioxidants, to offer a
lightly carbonated beverage. They have over 17 different flavors in their
regular line and now they just added five slightly differently flavors
to their line with the caffeine. Now, some of you might be saying, "Hey, you
mentioned real fruit. If there's real fruit flavor in there, isn't there some
sugar?" But Sparkling ICE only has 1% juice in their beverages,
therefore, it only contains trace amounts of sugar which, by FDA standards, is
insignificant. Luckily for all you guys, you don't need to worry about it because
these Sparkling ICE plus Caffeine, doesn't have any fruit juices, therefore
no sugar. They use sucralose instead. These drinks are also kosher and
gluten-free, but they're not vegan. The reason being there's a small amount
of lanolin in the vitamin blend and lanolin is a byproduct of sheered wool.
So, are these actually energy drinks? Well, the definition of energy can be quite
complex, and I'm no scientist! But there are those that say caffeine gives you
energy, therefore any kind of beverage with caffeine in it is an energy drink.
But there are also those that argue caffeine doesn't give you energy;
Caffeine helps produce energy, which is a very fine line really, therefore they say
that if energy drinks don't have all the other ingredients to help boost your
energy; if it just has caffeine, it's not an energy drink. But you know what I say to that?
I say, "What's my name? Is my name energy drink man?"
"No! It's Caffeine Man. These drinks have caffeine, so I'm going over them."
All the rest you can take your energy drink debate someplace else.
So what's the nutrition facts panel have to say about this? Let's take a look.
Zero calories, zero fat, zero sodium, zero carbs, zero sugar, zero protein... so far so good.
On to the vitamins. This has 10% of your daily value of vitamin A. It also
has 10% of vitamin D. It also has 10% of niacin. Then, when you take
a look at the B6, it also has 10% B6. But, when you look at the B12,
it also has 10% of vitamin B12. And, in keeping in line with all their other
numbers, the biotin and Panathenaic acid also have 10% each. So yes, this is
an energy drink because it has all those other energy drink properties in it.
But if you know anything about energy drinks, you'll know that all those numbers are
fairly low. But at least it'll shut up all those energy drink arguments,
"Oh it's just sparkling water with caffeine..." No, No, it's got all that other stuff in it, therefore
it's an energy drink! It might just be a little bit of the stuff, but it's still an energy drink.
As for the caffeine, let's get right into it. This 16-ounce can has 70 milligrams of
caffeine. 70??? Yeah, only 70. Now for those caffeine lovers like me, you might be a
little saddened by that, but you gotta take in consideration that there are a
lot of people out there that can't handle their caffeine like us. I mean,
there's a lot of people out there that are looking for healthier energy drinks
but they don't want to go too crazy, like some companies do, with 300 milligrams of
caffeine. That's a lot! BCAAs? CoQ10? Do they really need that if they're not
going to be working out? Or even if they are just gonna be doing a light workout, a lot
of people don't need all the extra stuff that's in here. There are other energy
drinks out there that have just a little bit of what you need. And sometimes more
isn't better. So, if you look at something that's lightly caffeinated, and has
vitamins in it, Sparkling ICE plus Caffeine might be for you. Because there
aren't definitely some people that are sensitive to caffeine. Some of
us can take 300 milligrams of caffeine and function fine with it. Most people
take 300 milligrams of caffeine and they get a good boost from it. And there are
also some people that if they had 300 milligrams of caffeine at noon, they
still wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Therefore, people that are sensitive to
caffeine, but still like to have a little bit of caffeine to keep them going, can
have this beverage. This beverage comes in at just slightly 4 milligrams per ounce
making it the lowest amount of caffeine out of all the energy drinks, for those
of you who consider it an energy drink. And with those numbers, it actually fits
in much closer to where soda averages for caffeine content.
So let's jump right into this taste test. First to start off with, the black raspberry.
Wow! That's actually pretty good. As many of you may know if you watch my
previous videos, I'm not a fan of sparkling water and I'm not really a fan
of sparkling beverages, but there have been several that have surprised me. This
one is one of the ones that is surprising me! I can't taste any sparkling water
flavor! But I can definitely taste the black raspberry. Now, it's not an overly
powerful black raspberry flavor, but it's got a decent amount of black raspberry
flavor and the sweetness is just enough with the sucralose. If I didn't know that
this was sparkling water, I probably wouldn't guess that it was sparkling
water. I would think it's more like a diet soda, so great job competing with
the sodas for diet soda. This is a great healthy energy drink, that doesn't taste
healthy. I like things that are healthy, that don't taste healthy, if that makes sense.
You guys know what I mean by healthy taste right? All right.
Next up we got the blue raspberry.
Wow! That is actually pretty good too.
It's definitely different than the black raspberry. It's a bit sweeter than the
black raspberry and it's got a taste of blueberry to it too, which I'm guessing
is why they call it blue raspberry. I wasn't expecting the blueberry and I
like blueberry, so that's a bonus for me. Like I said, a little bit sweeter than
the black raspberry but it's not overly sweet. It's definitely not like Bang or
Reign for the sweetness, but it's got a good sweetness to it and it definitely
tastes like a blue raspberry. I'm so glad I decided to do this review. I randomly
saw them at the store and said, "Oh, Sparkling ICE. My wife likes those drinks."
I had tried them once and thought they were pretty good. I actually thought it
was diet soda and she said, no it's flavored sparkling water.
So, at the convenience store, I said "Oh look, caffeinated Sparkling ICE. Let me try and
pick it up." I'm glad I did! These are good!
Next, onto the strawberry citrus.
I like strawberry, not a huge fan of citrus, so let's see how it goes.
Hmmmm, it's interesting. It's not bad. It's pretty good. I was expecting it to be hit with a
strong sweet strawberry flavor, based on the blue raspberry, but it's not too
sweet and the strawberries kind of light. As for the citrus flavor, it's got a hint
of orange in there. It's also got a hint of lime in there, and I think the
strawberry, the orange, and the lime are all around the same amount, so one's not
overpowering the other, which is really interesting because you get a hint of
strawberry, a hint of orange, a hint of lime, and nothing's really overpowering
the other and when you don't have anything overpowering the other, you
don't end up having an aftertaste of any one of those flavors. They all blend
together really well. It's still not my top choice, I'm going with blue raspberry
first and then this one probably ties for second with black raspberry, but
still got two more to go. Let's try those out. Next up, let's try the triple citrus.
So, how is the triple citrus different than the strawberry citrus? If you look
at the pictures on the can, the strawberry citrus has a picture of
strawberry, orange and lime. The triple citrus has a picture of an orange, a lime
and maybe a lemon? The color is very close to the orange though but I'm
guessing it's a lemon. But let's stop guessing and try it out.
Oh yeah! That's definitely lemon. This is your classic lemon-lime soda with a hint
of orange to it. I would say it's similar to like a Diet Sprite, but as we all know,
soda is bad for you, so it's not. But the flavor is similar to a Diet Sprite and
this is super healthy, so pick this up over Sprite any day! It's really good!
Caffeine Mans having a happy day! Or it could be because I'm drinking five energy drinks!
Last on the list, orange passion fruit. Do I talk faster at the end of my videos?
I feel like by the time I get to the last two, it goes pretty fast. I'll try and slow it down a little bit.
I don't want the videos be too long so let's keep going!
All right, orange passionfruit.
The orange is the strongest out of all the citrus ones that I've had and the passionfruit is a
bit light, but it's still there. Personally I'd like it to be just a
touch sweeter, but that's just my preference. It's still lightly sweetened
and the strong orange flavor is a little bit too acidic for me, which is why I
usually like the sweetness, to cut into that bite a little bit. As for passion fruit,
I'm not a huge fan of passion fruit but it's still light, so it's not bad. I
definitely say try it for yourself if you like orange passion fruit because
from the other four, this tastes like it's pretty good even though I personally
don't like passion fruit that much. It's still a good flavor and based on the
other four flavors this is probably a really good orange passion fruit.
So, overall I'm impressed with all five of those. These have the perfect amount of
sweetness in it. If you're looking for some of that is similar to a soda beverage
but diet, without all the negativity of soda, you can try these out. They're
really good. You can kind of tell their diet because there's a sparkling
beverage with sucralose, but out of the healthy energy drinks that I reviewed so
far, between Aspire, Celsius, Yerba Mate, and now Sparkling ICE,
I'm a fan of the Sparkling ICE flavor the most. I'm not a
fan of the lack of caffeine, but I like the flavors! And sometimes, I freely admit
this, I don't want to have a 300 milligram beverage! Sometimes, in the
morning, while I'm driving to work, I need that little bit of pick-me-up to get me
to work. So why not have a 70 milligram caffeine drink to start your morning?
It's almost the same amount as a cup of coffee. And there you have it! Another
healthy energy drink in the books. Feel free to leave me a comment down below.
I love comments, by most of you. Some are you, you know who you are.
And feel free to subscribe if you haven't. I post new videos every Tuesday night I hope to see
you there. Until next time have a great day...
...or night.