Tastes Nasty, But the upshot is it works!

Upshot bills itself as an energy shot - a small bottle with a mega dose of energy. There have been many of these on the market lately, as they are easy to produce, made on the cheap, and 2oz of the stuff can sell for over 2 bucks a pop. Normally, this steers me away from energy shots, as I feel I am getting more of a money's worth by diluting the same formula in 14 more ounces of carbonated water. I know it is all in my head, but the tiny bottles on the convenience store shelves always fill me with a sense of either 1. not getting enough to satisfy, or 2. it being this evil potent elixir that will perform Alice -Through-the Looking-Glass manifestations on me. Of course the top of the lid, telling you to "shake me , drink me" does not help.

Upshot was one of the ones that concerned me the most. Unlike 5 hour energy, with it's happy non-threatening commercials with middle aged white people feeling happy, upshot seemed all about power and energy, not concealing they have 200mg of caffeine, plus the addition of other energizing ingredients. I kept doing the math... if there are 80mg in an ounce of this stuff, a 12 oz can of the same potion would have 960mg. That means that a Slurpee sized cup of this would kill me! Of course, that is a lot of little bottles to empty out, and I might just pass out before I ever got to open the 20th bottle - but like holding an m-80 or hundred dollar bill - the thrill of causing a little mayhem fills me.

Nutrition: 8
Much of how much you feel a drink will hurt you or benefit you is related to the trust you put into the company producing the product - so let me tell you a story.
The founder of this company started in Odwalla, responsible for bringing in new business from a drink suffering from very flat sales. His idea was to create their drinks with vitamins to help consumers function better. After the drinks took off and Odwalla was releasing functional drinks, the founder left and started coming out with juices that were just the function, without the juices to fill them. He went to work with nutritionists and food scientists to create these little shots that use only juices and plant extracts to make the formula. So these little shots contain only things which are natural and use only healthy natural ingredients.

What I found is they also carry Theophiline - very small amount, which the founder said was one of three substances found in green tea. In large doses this substance can lead to some serious stuff for people on ery common drugs, such as Tagamet and birth control pills. In very large doses, it can cause nausea, diarrhea and even "dose dumping", which can be fatal in large enough quantities. While I am sure the amount in here is not harmful, I am not sure chugging 3 or 4 a day would be that good. The caffeine in here is also pretty powerful - 200mg in the small bottle! that is equal to 3.5 red bulls or 2 big cups of bad coffee.
There are 40 calories in here, which is a little surprising for such small 2.5 oz tube. We have some Caffeine the labs, caffeine from guarana, Caffeine from Green tea and then the interesting addition of kola nut (which has Theobromine, an alkaloid found in chocolate too. It does the same thing caffeine does in that it speeds up your heart and dilates blood vessels).
Needless to say, this drink gives you a serious kick. It WILL wake you up and keep you flying high for some time.

Taste:7
This is a shot drink, which means the taste is not supposed to really matter. You just pop this down your throat and be donw with it. And it is not that this tastes bad - it just does not taste good. This is not something you would take because you feel like drinking something which will leave your breath fresh or thirst quenched. It is no surprise that this tastes like sugared vinegar. It is like drinking South Park and being offended when they kill an Orca or feed a child his parents. If you are offended by energy shot's vomitous flavor, just drink a triple shot espresso. In terms of energy shots, this is better than a nos, less to drink than a zipfizz and more powerful than a 5 hour energy. For a shot, this is liveable.

Packaging: 7
While Upshot is a bit larger than most energy shots out there, it is not obvious in the convenience store aisle. The cap is a metal pop lid, which does the same job that the plastic seal on a 5 hour energy does. I enjoy the overall layout of the shot, and lists everything out nicely. The company name and info are very visible, as well as warnings. My only issue with the drink is the misspelling of Theophylline as Theopiline, which is the scariest of all the ingredients listed in the shot. This made is a little obnoxious to look up, and I am not sure what that means in terms of keeping the drink in FDA standards.

Website:7 upshotenergy.com
Upshot is made by California-based "Drinks That Work Inc." While not truly unique and revolutionary, this site is very lovely, using a beautiful design with a very smart layout. There is a whole lot of information here, broken out in submenus and one-off navigation. They manage to convey a ton specifically about their products and their founders. A big slip up is that it is not kept up to date. there are 2 links for upcoming events, both in the events page and a calendar of events, which look like they have not been looked at since October 2007. Inside, the code is VERY messy. They left in joomla code, cluttered up with inline CSS and javascript, and filled it full of comment s that dont mean or do anything. For a lean and mean site with such good looks, the fact that the code is so bulky and no one has touched it in months and months is a real shame.

http://www.bandddesigns.com/energy/arch/002999.php
http://www.screamingenergy.com/energy_drink_134.php
http://www.energydrinkreviews.com