Red Joose not able to live up to its peers

Alcopops aint the same, alcopops aint to blame, fact they is getting sued out is such a shame.

So this is the next one, just you wait, Joose cranberry is about to meet that fate

With caffeine malt liquor sales on a rocket

the company on the courts docket

left and right they're getting beat down by the state.

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Caffeinated malt liquor is going down.  Some I dont miss at all( Tilt, Bud Extra) and some I will miss alot (sparks) and though we have not heard the war cry against United Brands, they are next in the firing line.  I gave them a quick call to their home base in California - and even though they could not comment on any litigation, they sounded worried.  They are the little guy - and don't have the money of MolsenCoors or Anheuser Busch - so hopefully the food police wont pick on them too soon..

 Back to the joose, this time I am trying the red cranberry variety. I tried thre tropical flavor and was very pleasantly surprised by its drinkability.   I then picked up their orange can, and also loved the originality and drinkability.  Led in by such tasty drinks, I thought that a cranberry one would be a shoe in for taste.
Boy was I wrong.....
This is not all United Brands fault.  Mixing tauine caffeine and malt liquor is a hard task, one I certainly don't envy. This alcopop is bad to the smell, strong and bitter to taste and leaves your mouth with a taste wishing you were so drunk you were past the point of tasting.  Unfortunately, the flavor of this drink slowed me down from the last offering by Joose - as it was like trying to slug down cough syrup.  I had no problems with teir other two flavors, but this one tastes  so bad that in the time it takes you to slug this down, you negate any feeling you would get from either the alcohol or the caffeine.  This stuff has some pretty powerful ingredients, it is just too bad this is their food tasters were out to lunch.

Buzz/Nutrition:7
They put lots of energy drink stuff in here, like B vitamins and taurine.  They also manage to put near 10% alcohol, which is very very awesome.  Problerm is when you have to slug this back and keep from vomiting for all the caffeine and alcohol to settle - and thats pretty dang hard.  If you can get it down quickly, you will get a nice buzz and a nice lift too.  The Taurine and other energy drink ingredients do their job admirably, leaving you alret and tipsy, or more depending on tolerance.  United brands did a good thing bringing these out to the masses, and created a great blend to perk up the grownups.

Taste:2
Truly, this one is awful drink to swallow. Another blogger summed it up this way:  

  cloying….like overripe raspberries, rolled in an unwashed sweatsock…soaked in a fetid swamp

and now while I did not find it nearly that bad, I would never say that this was good.  It is very strong and very malt-liquor-y.  It is also very sour and bitter.  Its like if you mix cranberry juice and a 40 of mickeys with a cheap Red Bull knock off.  Their food scientist really needs to stop smoking or whatever is killing his/her taste buds.  While tropical was amazing and the orange was drinkable, this flavor is a complete underinkable mess.

Packaging:8
The one thing joosed has right is the packaging - great size and look for an alcopop sold at a convenience store near you. If I were a 15-25 year old wearing my "thug4life" hoodie, riding my harley/el camino/ crotch rocket/tricked out cutlass, hanging out in the 7-11 parking lot, I would definitely feel the urge to hold one of these in my hand. I like this color the best - as red looks totally badazz and is definitely the shiniest one in the cooler.  If more people bought the blue one than the red, this drink would be a much better seller.  While not listing the caffeine content, they do provide you enough info on the drink , and it is big enough to stand out from the other offerings.  Maybe a few more warning labels on it would pacify those out to destroy alco-pops, although it might hurt the overall look and feel. 

Website: http://www.drinkjoose.com - 5
Boy, I was expecting something more than this going to the site. First, you get bombarded by bad rock, and lots of distressed type. Follow that by a woman wearing a fur hat and has only hair covering her breasts. Why? Dunno. It is the only place you will see her though. And then you have this wide array of links, like Joose, which has the cans grow from the bottom of the screen, or Events which has a silly promotional event 6 months ago. There is a super-small bit of info on the products screen and a very dull shopping cart. I think they should give a certain web developer I know a couple cases to develop for them a site they can be proud of. ;)