Young Energy Drink
A Fair & Honest Energy Drink Review
Young Energy Drink Retail Package Description
Steve Young's energy drink offering comes in a red can, around the rim it reads, "An invigorating mix of elite herbs and vitamins". Front and center is a big black and white 1-bit low resolution image of Steve Young with his helmet half off. The text on the front reads, "Young Energy Drink" in some sort of Andy Warhol configuration. Under the Steve Young photo, "No Caffeine, Reduces Stress, Natural Energy", followed by Steve Young's autograph. On the back, "Powered by ADX7" (the same stuff that made the 2005 energy drink debacles Jugular and YET (Your Energy Tonic) taste like granite powder, ginger and flower pedals). Then a paragraph, "Young energy with ADX7 is a great tasting drink that provides healthy energy. It reduces your stress, so your energy levels go way up. It's pure natural energy without the sugar and caffeine crash – Steve Young Super Bowl MVP".
Caffeine Addict's Young Energy Drink Review
So, today I opened the vaults on a drink so vial that I bought it in 2005, and it's getting reviewed today. Too frequently now, people actually formulate and taste test drinks before putting them on the market. 2005-2007 was the golden age of putting something in a can, calling it an energy drink and thinking it would be the next Red Bull or Monster. Like the California goldrush, everyone thought they would get something out there, no matter how ill-contrived, and it would be the next multi-billion dollar product. This is similar to 2007-2008 market for Wii games, and current market for Facebook games. While these products (Jugular, YET, N-Motion and Steven Seagal Energy Drink) provided hours of amusement for me and my fellow reviewers, they were store shelf poison. As a result, most products are more refined than mixing gray water with grass clipping and vick's vapor rub. Occasionally a gem like Full Throttle Mother will come on the scene, but if you blink you might miss it, as I think this product went from initial production to $0.25 at Dollar Tree in a matter of weeks.
So, what makes Steve Young Energy Drink one of the worst energy drink ideas of all time?
- Savory smell of the treated wood department of a home improvement store
- All the savory flavor of a handful of aroma-therapy potpourri
- Dry throat feeling and roof of mouth tingling like you drank paint thinner
- Herbal flavors that gelcaps usually protect you from
Steve Young Drink isn't so offensive out of the gate as Steven Seagal canned poison, but it builds over time, and about half way through the can, I'm disgusted by it.
I speculate that Ole (mentioned in the Stig's review) is a rebranding of this drink. This drink flavor, which most American's would describe as tasting like "gritty potato" tastes like tamarindo, (which, I'd not recognize, were it not for
Potencia Bebida de Energia, which strangely grew on me after an entire case, and I started to feel was palatable). Unfortunately, Young Energy, even with my now culturally-diverse palate still tasted like Pine Sol and lawn mower scrapings.
To top things off, this is caffeine free, so it's about as much an "energy drink" as a glass of non-clustered water. The packaging attempts to use some "woman logic" to argue that stress is somehow sapping my body of energy, and that eliminating that "negative energy" with Steve Young Energy, some yoga classes and listening to Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten" repeatedly will unlock my true potential. While I've tried two of these three, and found "Unwritten" to be the more affective, I'll stick with caffeinated drinks, and just let my stress simmer quietly until it explodes in violent rage.
Unlike the Stig, I went for both the Steve Young Energy Drink 4-pack and Stallone 3-pack. While I regret both decisions, at least with one of the products I get the satisfaction of expelling it and flushing it down the toilet.
Energy Junkie's Young Energy Drink Review
So, I was curious about the voodoo that is Young Energy Drink. A search for information on "clustered water", which sounds appetizingly like "clabbered milk", turned up the following chunk of hodgepodge from some patent filed by a Lee Lorenzen (probably the mastermind behind a "Steve Young Energy Drink").
A method for preparing microclustered water comprising boiling water to produce steam includes passing the steam across a magnetic field, exposing the steam to light having a wavelength of between 610 nm and 1 mm, condensing the steam at a temperature greater than 0.degree. C., adding at least one stabilizer comprising a metasilicate salt to the condensed steam, adding yeast cells or an antiviral pharmaceutical agent at a concentration of 1% or less to the condensed steam, exposing the condensed steam to a pressure greater than one atmosphere, and depressurizing the condensed steam. The method is useful in the preparation of medicaments, catalysts, agricultural products and other products.
I went on with my research and found a very "late-90's looking" website that described the clustered water movement as follows.
The hokum appears to be based on the simplistic notion that the molecular pattern of a substance (aloe vera, vitamin E, DNA and perhaps eye of newt or pixie-dust of whatever kind) can be "imprinted" into water which thereby acquires and retains a "memory" that is somehow able to confer the healing benefits of that substance onto the drinker. This is similar to the pseudoscientific concept of homeopathic remedies, except in the latter the imprinting substances are supposed to be those that produce symptoms of the malady to be corrected. (That's the nice thing about pseudoscience: you can bend it to support any interpretation you wish!)
I looked into ADX7, but couldn't find a whole lot of information aside from the gibberish already provided on the can. Ole energy was about the only drink still waving that ADX7 flag that appears to even have a live website (including adx7). What you might find interesting is that Steve Young in his old number 8 49ers uniform is pictured on the Ole website, along with scores of pictures of hot women and futbol fields that have been photoshopped to appear to support/be supported by Ole in one way or another. Their site says pretty much the same "natural energy, destress, blah, blah, blah" as the can. I have no idea why they thought decreasing stress was a legitimate argument for how to release energy potential.
I think this was purchased in a 4-pack at Walmart for $8. In retrospect, I wish I'd bought that three pack of Stallone movies instead.