Cheap speed!

Test drives of five stimulating drinks

by Alex Shapiro

photos by Joel Veak

Maybe speed kills, but acceleration is clearly good business, at least in the beverage world. In recent years good old coffee has been joined by a host of rivals -- stimulation drinks packed with such things as guarana, yohimbe, ginseng, and taurine. I'm generally pretty averse to stimulants, but over the course of five days at work I took five drinks for a test drive. Most of these are widely available at convenience stores.

Coffee, Green Mountain (free, at work). The is the original eye-opener and the standard by which all other stimulants are judged. About 10 minutes after finishing the cup I notice that my vision is a bit sharper and that I'm speaking at a rate more rapid than my norm. Forty-five minutes later I start to feel achy and possibly dehydrated. Overall, though, I was able to get more done in those 45 minutes than in the other three hours before lunch.

Red Bull, ($2.04 for 8.3 fluid ounces). Red Bull is a lightly carbonated, bright urine-colored drink popular in Europe. It tastes a lot like a syrupy fluoride rinse. It's also the closest thing to crystal meth I've known since I drank from the wrong punch bowl at a party my friends threw in college. Seconds after my first few gulps, a queasy, edgy feeling takes over my body, and I begin to wonder if the nearest bathroom is available. Whether this is the taurine that Red Bull credits for its power, or any of the other stimulants listed in the ingredients, I wouldn't presume to know, but even 45 minutes later I'm still so hypervitalized that work is out of the question. The overnight waitress at the South Street Diner tells me she drinks Red Bull instead of coffee. I believe her. At 90 minutes I can tell the ride is over, and I feel slightly less energized than before it started.

SoBe Energy ($1.49 for 20 ounces). Forget the guarana, yohimbe, and arginine; the mini-buzz I get from this orange/lemon Tang-like concoction is all about high-fructose corn syrup. It comes and goes in seconds. On the plus side, the drink is refreshing and left me with no lingering side effects.

Vital4U Liquid Energy (79 cents for 0.5 ounces). The contents squeeze out of the "pak" and down my throat in one shot; it looks, tastes, and smells like chewing-tobacco spit; and it affects me in much the same way as every other ginseng drink I've ever tried, which is to say not at all. At least, if the nutrition facts are accurate, I've taken in 56 percent of my daily value of vitamin B2.

Super Nectars Guarana Buzz ($1.79 for 15 ounces). It seems weird to have a caffeinated fruit drink, but the guarana fruit makes a popular energizer drink in Brazil. This cranberry lemonade (made by Nantucket Nectars) also incorporates ginseng and other herbs that sting my tongue just a little, and I'm buzzing after 10 minutes. After 20 I'm humming something that's not even a song, biting my nails, and feeling speedy. At 30 minutes I've gently returned to earth.