Grab the bull by the horns
Scallen
So it is hard to beat the thrill of spotting an energy drink in a store that you have never seen before. It’s like spotting a rare animal in the wild, or discovering a gold mine, or even running into Lindsey Lohan at 2am last call in a bar( you know she is going to be hammered). The only thing even more thrilling is getting your hands on a drink from another country. That is no easy task. Shipping is expensive for drinks so if you don’t travel a lot you’re not going to come by many of these rare drinks. Scallen luckily hooked me up with one can of their drink to see what I thought.
Packaging: So it is your typical 8.4 oz can. From there on out it is awesome. I love the green and sliver design. It just works so well together. Then you have the logo which is this awesome bull skull design that I really love. If you did not know this is a very classic type of logo for energy drinks that go back to their early origins. The entire can is just clean and slick looking. I give it a grade of A Maybe everyone want get that but as an edjunkie it is a thing of beauty.
Slogan: “Change your Energy. Drink Scallen” is their slogan and I like it. It is simple and it uses the word energy in it. Grade B-
Taste: So this drink is from Austria which is pretty much the fatherland of carbonated energy drinks. The classic energy drink flavor might have started in Asia but it was Austria that added the carbonation that led to world domination. I pop the little top and get that classic energy drink scent. It is not overly strong scent wise. I pour some in a cup and it comes out a very light caramel color with just the tiniest amount of carbonation. I take a sip and I get mostly apple up front followed by some sweet white grape. There is none of the cotton candy or gumminess you find in a lot of “classic” energy drinks. It is light and refreshing and goes down super smooth with no bitterness or after taste. So when someone says lightly carbonated this is the gold standard. It’s there but just barely. If you like that classic taste you will love this drink. Grade A-
Kick/Ingredients: Being that this is a small energy drink I though it would work great for the evening. I wanted energy but I did not want to stay up real late. I slammed the can down pretty quickly and it took the typical 15 minutes to hit me. It was not a hard hit of energy but it was a smooth rise in energy and alertness. The level increased until it reached a tad above your average 8 oz energy buzz. There were no jitters and it got me through some errands and work I needed to get done. I got a good 3 to 4 hours with no real crash at the end. The kick in Scallen comes from 79 mg caffeine, 1000 mg Taurine, 25 mg Glucuronolactone, Inositol, and a fair dose of B vitamins. You get all that with 121 calories and 28 grams of carbs and sugars. It is sweetened with sugar, glucose, and fructose. Grade C+ for kick/ingredients
Web Presence: The site at scallen-energy.com is sparse but get the job done. It has some information in both English and German. It is a start but they need to flesh it out some with better ingredients info and maybe some news and images. There is contact info for several countries and a little ingredients info but not much. Grade C-
Recap:
Ok so I knew it was going to be a classic drink going in. I am so glad it turned out to be one that avoids a lot of the pitfalls of the Classic taste. It has the awesome(real) light carbonation that makes it go down so smooth. You can’t taste the energy ingredients, and it delivers an above average 8 oz energy drink buzz. If you are in a country where they sell this stuff( Germany, Taiwan, Iran) I suggest you grab a can of Scallen in place of your usual and let me know what you think of it.
