Oooh baby you want me?
NERD 0 calorie
Ok so the other day a friend of mine grabbed a couple of Nerd energy drink on his way to work. He was not paying close attention. Once he got to work he realized one of them was 0 calorie! Well he did not want 0 calorie so he was kind enough to give it to me. I was familiar with NERD but this 0 calorie was new.
Packaging: NERD has a very distinctive package. I always notice when a store has it in the cooler. It’s not super flashy or anything but for some reason it always sticks out like a sore thumb. That is a good thing by the way. It is a nice slim black and blue 12 oz can with a cool Brain graphic that is really nice I think. I like the blue circles and the fonts as well. Only thing they need to fix if to highlight the fact that this is a 0 calorie version. Sure it is black and blue and the regular is black and green but the 0 calorie badge is really small and might be missed by someone not familiar with the color coding of energy drinks. Grade B+ for packaging
Slogan: “Focus Your Energy” is there on the label. That my friends is how you make a slogan. This is an energy drink that is brain enhancing and this slogan nails that point. Grade A
Taste: I have had the original Nerd quite a while back but don’t remember the flavor. I pop the top and pour some in a cup. It has a scent like sweet tarts and comes out a cloudy bright green with heavy carbonation. Taking a sip it comes across as very tart and limey but then it is actually much more complex. Best I could come up with is a combo of lime, sweet tarts, and mountain dew. It is very tart and sour at the finish. There is no real aftertaste and the sweetener used is Stevia so it avoids the artificial after taste that many 0 calorie drinks have. I’ll give it a grade of B- for taste. It is just a bit too limey and sour for my taste but I think many who enjoy lime will like it.
Kick/Ingredients: Since I am not a big lime fan I drank it down pretty quickly. In the usual 15 minutes or so I had a better than expected boost. I had plenty of good non jittery energy and my mood was very good. I actually did feel more focused than I had before drinking it. My energy and mood both lasted a good 4 hours and there was no crash. I believe the focus part of this drink really works. Writing this review was much quicker than normal because of this I think. It really allowed me to concentrate and have clear thoughts. So what is in this stuff you ask? 120 mg Caffeine, 1500 mg Taurine, 37 mg Ginseng, 37mg Guarana, 37 mg Inositol, 900 mg Glucuronolactone, and plenty of B vitamins in the 100% range. Then you have your “focus, concentration, and memory formula” which consist of Ginko Biloba, Vinpocetine, Huperzine A, and DMAE. You get all this with 0 calories, 0 sugar, and 0 carbs. Grade B for kick/ingredients
Web Presence: There is really not a website only a blog at nerdenergyblog.com. The blog is up to date but really supplies very little information about ingredients and the drinks. There is a store. They also have a Facebook and twitter links there. I think they need to kick it up a notch and make a real site with more ingredients info that is easy find. Grade D+ for web presence
Recap:
I have to say they have a pretty good and unique product here. Nice packaging, ok taste(if you like lime), better than average kick, and some damn good brain enhancing ingredients. They need to work on having a real website and maybe highlight better the 0 calorie aspect of this drink on the can. I can say I understand why this drink is such a big hit with the college crowd. Give it a try and let me know if you think especially about the mood and brain aspects.
