That was nice and concise.

They put about as much effort into the drink inside as they did the design of the can itself.

Weaker than Red Bull. Tastes like Windex. Why bother?

'Subtle' doesn't even begin to describe the packaging. 'Eyeball-rupturingly garish', however, is right on the money.

A while ago, while working for my previous employer, a man called Alex tried to persuade me not to buy a can of Rockstar and warned me that it tasted deeply vile.  Naturally, this very act caused me to hand over my money and promptly pour the entire can down my throat, resulting in my making a face the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the last time Sid James got his rocks off and then vowing never to drink it ever again.

So today, while wandering around Tesco, I noticed that the makers of Rockstar have realised that their product tastes rather similar to carbonated tramp piss – and, to try to mitigate this minor issue, they’ve stuck a bunch of orange juice in there to mask the horror.

Well, the good news is that it works.  Rockstar Juiced is probably one of the best-tasting canned energy drinks that I’ve ever had – it’s pretty much exactly the same as drinking half a litre of Fanta with light tropical overtones – apple, mango and passion fruit, to be specific.  They’re natural flavours, too, which is helpful.

There’s no disappointment to the caffeine content, either, with the same concentration as Red Bull but in a larger volume can.

Same caffeine content as Red Bull, but twice the volume of a normal-sized Red Bull can.

Ginseng is a good addition – it’s a stimulant on its own, but its activity when combined with caffeine tends to be greater than the sum of its parts.  And it’s also nice to see that we have an energy drink which actually contains the energy (in sugar form) that the caffeine/ginseng/taurine will aid in releasing.

It’s doing quite well, up to now.  Ingredients are good, taste is good, and the can design means that it essentially doubles as a traffic cone.

It’s a shame, then, that it’s crap.

The first thing that this stuff did was mess my stomach up.  Half an hour after drinking this, my body decided that my insides were getting a bit restless and fancied an outing on the porcelain flumes instead.

And as for alertness, a complete lack of it.  I’m now an hour down the line and nothing’s happened whatsoever.  Which is bizarre, considering the amount of caffeine in this thing, but I’m calling it how I see it, and how I see it is mildly drowsily.

Which is a shame, because it tastes really good.